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DePauw graduates 360 in Class of 2023
In a beautiful morning ceremony on East College lawn, DePauw University celebrated the graduation of the Class of 2023, adding 360 new members to its alumni community.
Ross Gay, an award-winning poet, essayist and professor at Indiana University, delivered the keynote address, encouraging DPU graduates to be “curious about all this care.”
“Of voicing out, of celebrating and hollering and sharing all this care,” Gay continued. “I’m pretty sure it makes even more care. It inclines us to participate in this care by adding our care to the bottomless, the unfillable and yet somehow always full reservoir of care. Another name for which might be hope.”
Concluding his commencement address, Gay said, “Maybe we make hope when we notice and study and celebrate and share all of this care we’re in the midst of. And maybe hope is especially made when we join it.”
J.D. O’Keane from Lake Bluff, Ill., the recipient of the Walker Cup for his significant contributions to DePauw over four years, delivered warm greetings to his fellow graduates.
“Our time at DePauw is a gift for which we should all be grateful,” O’Keane said. “What we received here and what we will have forever is an undeniable, rock-solid foundation. Life can be challenging, unpredictable and ever-changing, but we can take solace in the fact that our futures are built on the best.”
O’Keane is a double major in economics and political science and a management fellow. He is a four-year student athlete as a member of the football team, a member of the Indiana Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, and served as the current student body president. O’Keane will go to work for BMO within its commercial analyst development program.
The university awarded three honorary degrees:
-- Jordan Margaret Casteel, an artist who confronts traditional notions of gender and race in portraiture, was awarded an honorary doctor of arts.
-- Ross Gay, an award-winning poet and professor who believes joy should be taken more seriously, was awarded an honorary doctor of letters.
-- Andrew Williams, the first director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, was awarded honorary doctor of public service degree.