2023 Commencement

I am overjoyed to celebrate this momentous day with you. I know that you and your loved ones have looked forward to this day for a long time. Yours is a very special class to me because we began our GW Law journeys together. We arrived at GW under the most extraordinary circumstances. We weathered a global pandemic, a cyber-attack, and political polarization to emerge to this day triumphantly. You inspired us all with your hard work, dedication, and resilience.

As a group, you are academically gifted, passionate, articulate, and service oriented. It has been my great privilege to serve as your Dean. You are leaving here as professionals with the power to protect the principles of justice, equality, liberty, and freedom, and we look to you to help build a better world for us all. Now it’s time for you to craft your own pathway to practice—the options are limitless. The world’s most pressing challenges require the problem-solving skills with which your study of the law has equipped you. I charge you, by paraphrasing John Wesley, to use those skills to do all the good in the world that you can, at all the times that you can, to all the people that you can, for as long as ever you can.

Today, you join GW Law’s worldwide alumni community of 33,000 graduates, with whom you now share a transformative experience. You will find among the GW Law alumni network a vast number of preeminent leaders in all sectors of the economy and society—across the United States and around the globe. I encourage you to take advantage of this unique and powerful gift of belonging and make your fellow alumni a part of your journey for the rest of your professional lives.

Please keep in touch and come back and visit us often. We cannot wait to see your future achievements. Congratulations again on reaching this significant milestone and my very best wishes to each of you for good health, great happiness, and many successes.

Sincerely,

Dayna Bowen Matthew
Dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law