‘We Are Radically Resilient’: SUA Awards Degrees to Class of 2025
“You all are the hope for humanity, who desire peace,” said ʮ̳µַ of America President Edward Feasel, addressing the graduates at the start of their commencement ceremony on May 23. Friends and family from across the world joined students, faculty, staff, board members, and keynote speaker Orlando Bloom in the Soka Performing Arts Center to honor the 21st undergraduate class and the 10th graduate class as they received their degrees from SUA.
The Class of 2025 comprises six graduate students and 121 undergraduates from 18 U.S. states and 25 countries across six continents. Nineteen percent of the undergraduate class have committed to graduate programs this fall in fields including law, nursing, education, international development, journalism, design, molecular medicine, economics, public health, urban planning, psychology, and language and translation. Many graduates have already received job offers in education, sustainability, technology, athletics, business, finance, or arts and media.
“I want to express my deepest appreciation to all of you for all that you have done for SUA,” President Feasel said during his opening remarks. “You have helped advance the spirit and culture of global citizenship on our campus during the critical time following the global pandemic.”
Although the past four years have brought challenges, the Class of 2025 managed their studies while grappling with global conflicts, human rights crises, and climate disasters. Ayu Nakazaki ’25, who addressed her classmates later in the ceremony, offered her take on how they persevered.
“Soka students — though sometimes disheartened — are radically resilient,” Nakazaki said. “We’ve seen that great change comes from steady, daily action.”
‘Your Inner Life Matters Profoundly’: Orlando Bloom Delivers Inspiring Keynote Speech
Actor and humanitarian Orlando Bloom shared his own story of resilience in his address. At the age of 19 during his second year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he fell three floors in a near-fatal accident that broke his back.
“Thus began a long and painful journey that made me look at certain patterns in my life,” Bloom said. Difficult months of recovery followed, pushing him to reflect on what he found truly meaningful and the kind of life he wanted to build moving forward.
“I now consider this potentially disastrous, life-changing incident as a great reminder to live with gratitude and a sense of purpose,” he said, “to lead with my best foot forward each day, and to reflect rather than rush through life.”
He also imparted the lessons he has learned from his practice of Buddhism, his work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and the everyday experiences he described, with a chuckle, as life’s “continual and sometimes relentless opportunities for growth.”
First among these pieces of advice was to develop a robust philosophy, supported by education, to guide your choices. He explained that self-reflection and gratitude are the foundation on which to build a life of contribution.
“Everything starts with you,” he said. “Your inner life matters profoundly.”
He also urged graduates to “live collaboratively and remain in the service of others,” even when it is easier to make a more selfish choice. “I would encourage all of you,” he said, “whenever the opportunity arises to be of service to a community, to jump at the chance without hesitation.”
He warmly congratulated the graduates for their achievement and encouraged them to strive for their best in all future endeavors. “This lifetime is yours alone,” said Bloom, “to discover, to shape, and to reveal all of which you are capable.”
‘Translating Our Awareness Into Action’: The Class of 2025 Speaks
Four student speakers — one graduate student and three undergraduates — addressed their peers throughout the ceremony, telling their stories and expressing their appreciation for the support they received from family, classmates, faculty, and staff. Felipe Ken Iti Iwahashi da Silva M.A. ’25 spoke with deep pride of the small graduate school cohort, who affectionately call themselves the Big Hero Six. He credited the education they received at SUA, particularly the small class sizes and emphasis on dialogue, with giving them the theoretical foundation and practical experience to make a significant impact as educators.
“My total conviction is that being a student at SUA was the most self-transforming process I have had in my whole life,” said Iwahashi da Silva, who is from São Paulo, Brazil. “At SUA, I truly felt valued by each one of the professors, and I could authentically be 100% myself.” Based on this experience, he said, he dreams of one day helping establish a ʮ̳µַ of Brazil — an idea that was met with rousing applause.
Marina Inoue ’25, who was raised in a Russian and Japanese household in Vladivostok, Russia, described how growing up in two different cultures often left her struggling to find a sense of belonging. But as an undergraduate at SUA, she said, “the environment opened me up to an opportunity to discover who I was outside of what my nationalities and societies were telling me.”
The friendships she built became crucial when the war between Russia and Ukraine made it too challenging for her to return to Russia and see her family. “All of you became my family, and this campus, my home,” she said.
Nakazaki spoke next, describing how a liberal arts education at SUA developed her and her classmates’ critical thinking, creativity, and empathy. Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, she stressed that SUA’s international diversity allowed differences to become “deep learning opportunities, not reasons for division.”
Both inside and outside the classroom, she said, “every aspect of SUA has nurtured our ability to navigate complexity, recognize our interconnectedness, and value each other’s contributions.” She encouraged her classmates to carry these lessons — and their radical resilience — with them as they lead lives that inspire hope in those around them.
“Now, more than ever,” said Jordan Bravo ’25 of Victorville, California, “resilience is what we will need most as we walk off this stage — not just as graduates, but as global citizens.”
A first-generation college student, Bravo is “a proud Chicano and even prouder son of immigrant parents.” He stressed that global citizenship is about “translating our awareness into action” and addressing the many pressing issues and injustices that face our world today. Soka graduates are not only uniquely prepared to do this important work, he said, but have already started to do so during their time at SUA.
“I’ve seen it in our classrooms, in our dialogues, and in the passion behind our class projects and capstone topics,” he said. “I saw it in the way we organized to honor our dear friend Lucas, who passed away, making it possible for his family to come from Brazil to the United States to celebrate his life here in this very room. We are all part of something greater than ourselves.”
Toward the end of the ceremony, Soka Student Union President Julia Miyagawa Braga ’25 received the Founder’s Award, which honors a graduating undergraduate student who exemplifies the university’s ideals through service and academic achievement. In her remarks, Miyagawa Braga said everything she achieved at SUA was done in collaboration with others, thanking members of the Soka Student Union Executive Council, her fellow student orientation leaders, her coworkers in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and all her peers in the Class of 2025.
The ceremony concluded with a moving performance of “The Light of Hope,” a song written by university founder Daisaku Ikeda and Wayne Green, by the SUA Student Choir and Orchestra. As graduates filed out of the Performing Arts Center, their joyful faces reflected the strength and determination Bravo had captured in the stirring conclusion to his address.
“Let us carry everything we’ve learned during our time here and lead with the values that brought us to this moment,” he said. “So when the world asks who we are, may we answer boldly: We are the Class of 2025. We are the stories no one expected and the hope no one can deny. We are not broken by struggle — we are built by it.
“And we are ready.”