Colgate’s 205th commencement was held May 17, 2026. The keynote address was delivered by Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music at Apple.
Colgate’s 204th commencement was held May 18, 2025. The keynote address was delivered by Julianne Smith, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
Colgate’s 203rd commencement was held May 19, 2024. The keynote address was delivered by Bill Browder, founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, and author of Red Notice.
Colgate’s 202nd commencement was held May 21, 2023. The keynote address was delivered by jazz trumpet legend Wynton Marsalis, the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, director of the Jazz Studies Program at the Juilliard School, and president of the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.
Colgate’s 201st commencement was held May 22, 2022. The keynote address was delivered by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times critic at large, and co-host of the podcast Still Processing, Wesley Morris.
Colgate’s 200th commencement was held May 9, 2021. The keynote address was delivered by Ambassador Samantha Power.
Following an academic year interrupted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, commencement for the Class of 2020 was unprecedented in Colgate history.
President Brian Casey conferred the degrees of the graduating Class of 2020 in a virtual ceremony featuring the names and submitted photos of the graduates.
Colgate’s 198th commencement was held May 19, 2019. The keynote address was delivered by U.S Representative Antonio Delgado ’99.
Colgate’s 197th commencement was held May 20, 2018. The keynote address was delivered by Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Colgate’s 197th commencement was held May 21, 2017. The keynote address was delivered by Claudia Rankine, nationally renowned poet and recipient of the 2016 MacArthur “Genius” Grant.
Colgate’s 195th commencement was held May 15, 2016. The keynote address was delivered by Robert D. Manfred Jr. P’16, the commissioner of Major League Baseball.
Colgate’s 194th commencement was held May 17, 2015. The keynote address was delivered by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American studies and the chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University.
