While some educational institutions have taken a light-hearted approach to commencement addresses this year, selecting speakers ranging from Kermit the Frog for the University of Maryland’s “Kermencement” this week to The White Lotus actress Jennifer Coolidge at Emerson College on Mother’s Day, Johns Hopkins University is keeping it serious.
Its speaker on Thursday will be educator and entrepreneur Salman “Sal” Amin Khan, founder of an online academy that has had more than 180 million users in 190 countries over the past two decades.
Hailed as a visionary, Khan has been exploring ways to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help students through personalized learning. He’s the author of Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing).
“We’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen,” he said in a 2023 TED talk.
Khan’s selection is consistent with past decisions by Hopkins’ leaders who have invited commencement speakers to talk about front-burner topics and issues relevant to its graduates.
In 2021, Hopkins tapped Class of 1964 graduate and longtime benefactor Michael Bloomberg to be the speaker, his third time doing so, and he talked about efforts by American businesses to recover from the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, Hopkins made headlines by choosing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and he spoke virtually from his country about its war with Russia.
Hopkins has taken a less serious route on occasion, using Gomez Addams and Thing from The Addams Family to open its virtual Commencement Ceremony in 2020 (with Hopkins professor John Astin reprising his role as Gomez), and calling on legendary singer and honorary degree recipient Stevie Wonder to serenade graduates last year. But Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian was Hopkins’ main speaker in 2020, and former Utah Senator Mitt Romney gave the protester-interrupted keynote address in 2024.
‘Cowardly’ choice
The University of Maryland’s ceremony was originally scheduled for May 21 but has been moved to May 22, due to forecasts for heavy rain. The choice of Kermit the Frog has drawn international attention to the school due to its novelty, but it has also drawn criticism. One student, Rohin Mishra, called it a “cowardly” choice and asked for “something real” in an opinion piece for the campus newspaper, The Diamondback.
“Kermit is a fun but safe choice for a speaker in a time that demands anything but,” wrote Mishra, a graduate applied political analytics major. “A fictional character won’t go off-script, nor will they have to deal with any real-world issues.”
There’s a “special emptiness and vacuousness in the words of a character like this in the current political climate,” he continued. “Our fellow Terps on campus have had their visas revoked, then reinstated. We are losing professional opportunities to a federal hiring freeze – opportunities that were supposed to jumpstart careers in an especially brutal job market…The class of 2025 deserves better than Kermit.”
Timely topic
Artificial intelligence is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human intelligence processes, including learning, comprehension, problem-solving, decision-making, creativity and autonomy. It involves enabling computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as driving a car, and encompasses a wide range of technologies.
Khan’s appearance is timely because Hopkins is building a center for AI activity, called the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) Institute, to compete with initiatives at Harvard and other universities. It’s the latest major capital project planned for Hopkins’ Homewood campus, along with a new student center, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute and a $130 million renovation of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library.
The DSAI Institute will consist of two connected buildings at the intersection of Wyman Park Drive and Remington Avenue, containing more than 476,000 square feet of space. It’s a cornerstone of the university’s Ten for One strategic plan and will be a global hub for data science and artificial intelligence research.
According to Hopkins, the DSAI Institute will bring together experts in artificial intelligence, data science and translation, machine learning, applied mathematics, computer engineering and computer science. It’s expected to fuel discoveries in a variety of fields, from neuroscience and precision medicine to climate resilience and sustainability, the social sciences and humanities. Some sitework has begun, and Hopkins is aiming for completion by the end of summer 2029.
Khan Academy
According to Hopkins’ in-house news source, The Hub, Khan is a former hedge fund analyst, with degrees from Harvard and MIT, who leads anonprofit educational organization called Khan Academy.
Khan started by remotely tutoring his cousin Nadia in 2004, assisted other family members, and then began recording videos of his lessons and posting them on YouTube in 2008. He left his hedge fund job in 2009 to spend full time on his online academy.
Khan’s 2024 book explores how AI can transform learning by freeing teachers from routine tasks so they have more time for hands-on learning, and it offers a roadmap for navigating the AI-driven era of education. According to The Hub, “his classes for parents and teachers have helped countless students,” including members of Hopkins’ Class of 2025.
“The innovative approach to education that Sal Khan brought to life more than 20 years ago has reimagined the learning experience for students worldwide,” Hopkins President Ron Daniels told The Hub. “Our institution’s first president Daniel Coit Gilman in 1876 articulated our mission as bringing knowledge to the world. In embodying that mission, Khan offers a stirring example to our graduates who grew up using Khan’s technologies and now seek to make their own lasting and meaningful impact.”
Four honorary degrees
About 1,450 undergraduates; 60 graduate students and 130 doctoral students will receive degrees during the university-wide ceremony on May 22, which is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at Homewood Field. Certain Hopkins divisions, including the JHU School of Medicine, have convocation events at other times. In all, about 11,360 students will graduate from Hopkins in 2025, according to The Hub.
Khan will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at Hopkins’ 149th Commencement ceremony on Thursday. He’s one of four people who will receive honorary degrees from Hopkins at the event.
The others are: Frances “Toni” Murphy Draper, CEO and publisher of The AFRO American Newpapers chain, including its Baltimore flagship, The Baltimore Afro-American; Johns Hopkins University board chair Louis “Lou” Forster, and Hopkins astrophysicist and data scientist Alexander “Alex” Sandor Szalay, Hopkins’ Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
“This year’s honorary degree recipients have all had transformational impacts – on how we learn, on the city of Baltimore, on our understanding of the universe, and on the trajectory of the university itself,” The Hub quoted Daniels as saying.
“We are delighted to bestow Johns Hopkins’ highest honor on these four people who share our fundamental interest in cultivating a capacity for learning, on our campuses, in Baltimore and around the world.”
Due to anticipated heavy rain and winds, Hopkins has canceled the Senior Toast originally scheduled for Wednesday evening on the Homewood campus. Instead, Hopkins officials are inviting graduates and their friends and family members to gather on Keyser Quad, rain or shine, for cake and lemonade right after the May 22 Commencement ceremony.
