VIDEO: Fall graduates celebrate success and those who helped them achieve it
Scholars collected diplomas and made memories in two ceremonies at the Colorado Convention Center.
With friends and family cheering them on, more than 1,000 students collected diplomas Dec. 12 during Metropolitan State University of Denver’s fall 2025 Commencement ceremonies.
In celebrating the accomplishments of the undergraduate and graduate scholars, MSU Denver President Janine Davidson, Ph.D., noted that more than half of them were students of color, and 56% were part of the first generation in their families to earn college degrees.
The youngest graduate is 19; the oldest 67. And 60 are, like Davidson, military veterans.
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Davidson also celebrated the graduates’ families, friends and “those who encouraged you to go to college, who pushed you to keep going during the hard parts, who showed up today because they wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She reminded graduates and guests that MSU Denver grew from a foundation of openness, teamwork, diversity of ideas and passion.
“It is the diversity of thought, of background, of stories… that makes you special, and it has prepared you for the modern workforce… a workforce that needs Changemakers like all of you!” Davidson said.
In two ceremonies at the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver, graduates also heard from keynote speakers, both MSU Denver alumni. Morning speaker Chuck Moss is an executive at information technology firm Wolters Kluwer. Afternoon ceremony speaker Janet Damon is Colorado’s 2025 Colorado Teacher of the Year.
