Elizabeth Wetzel ’26 spoke to fellow graduates on Saturday, May 9, 2026, as the student speaker for the 10 a.m. ceremony.
In 2026, as we prepare to leave this institution, students of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College and the school itself are entering a period where our pasts and present must reconcile and plan for an unknown future. As young graduates discerning how our work here will manifest in the world, we reflect the stature of SMWC during this period of transition. We both must now discern what the path forward looks like, using the values that have been instilled in our histories as scaffolding upon which to build our futures. But the future remains uncertain, and the road that winds through it is long.
Novelist and poet Jack Keoruac wrote that “None of us knows what we’ll find at the end of the road.”
We know not who we meet on this road, or where it leads us. We know not how long it will be, what we will see, or what stops we will encounter. But for those of us seated here today, we do know that along the greater journey, our roads have led us here.
A road of our own, at the Woods we experience our “Avenue Moment”: a simple descriptor of the ‘welcome home’ that meets us in grand and simple ways every time we enter campus.
Over our years, and for many years before us, The Avenue has been the final road on our journey to the Woods. Each person at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College has walked their own path, a path not necessarily parallel to anyone else’s but one that intersected here and now. Drawn to the same place at the same time, the Class of 2026 is undoubtedly distinct in the history of SMWC. How different we all were in our private concerns, evaluations, and wishes, and yet retaining these independences, we stop and share this moment together. I am so grateful to be here with you today.
We’ve come from near and far, but whatever road we have traveled until this point, our graduation today means that we have shared Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College together. We have partaken in our traditions, we have experienced the changes, and we have witnessed the growth… and though we have spent the last four years at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods College; we are not the versions of ourselves that stepped onto campus in 2022. We journey through places, but also through versions of ourselves.
In any circumstance, we find ourselves between past and future all the time. What was, how that came to be, what is, and what may come to be.
This is especially true at such a historic college such as Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. How do we acknowledge where we have come from while honoring where we wish to go?
If there is any answer at all, it might begin with the words of the artist Baldessari who said, “One of the fundamental concepts about art: [is] you choose one thing over another.”
As an artist, what is interesting about our work is not just what we put in, but what we choose to leave out. To play the long game, we all leave something behind. What we choose to leave behind is often influenced by where we’re going and how we plan on getting there, a point that our class finds itself at today.
But when we reach an end point such as the one we are at now, it is not that this moment is a severance of time. Rather, it is a continuation of the story that is written here and in our lives every day. There is not one history, but many, and we sustain our history by becoming a part of it. We become like chapters in a book that together tells the larger, more complete history of the Woods.
Too often we send ourselves adrift by cutting our ties to the past, thinking it will make us free. While there are always things that we lose along our way, we cannot lose what is truly important. Honoring our core values is important. Social justice, Sustainability and Equality are important. Art is important, Music is important, and having Faith is important. Our history is important. But most of all – love is important. Loving where you have come from, and what has shaped you. Loving your people and loving them well. Love is truly how we honor our past, and it is the guide to moving forward.
Because time is fast, and space is slow. The years we have spent here are a minute in the span of the college’s history. And yet they have been everything to us.
Because we have shared the values, dreams and legacy of SMWC, we are now a part of it. We cannot be independent of this space and time, we are both literally, and today as we sit here physically, rooted to it.
The Class of 2026 has made Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College our home. We have studied in our chosen fields under professors and faculty that chose to guide us and nurture our dreams daily. We have sought belonging outside of the classrooms, finding it in student organizations, teams and groups. We have also found friends that felt more like family, and if they were really excellent friends, people began to assume you were. We were student athletes managing dual schedules, some better than others. We have learned the Ring Song and bear a Ring that signifies that we claim this woodland campus with pride. Some of us really racked up the parking tickets, but always for a good cause!
Yes, we made mistakes, but the hope is that we learned something from them. We have felt divine providence insist on our destiny and urging us forward on the days when result felt out of reach. And to think, we did all of this while never being more than 500 feet from a nun.
Through all of these experiences, what unifies us is that today we go forth into the world as graduates of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.
Our Commencement is not only a ceremony that celebrates one moment but is really a celebration of culmination of our time spent in this place, our efforts to succeed here, and all the intersections with the lives of others during that time.
I wish for us, the Class of 2026 to sustain ourselves with faith in greater purpose, as this moment is but a introduction of a life to come. I wish for each of us to move into the next stage with a passion that sustains our dreams and a drive that empowers us to bring those dreams to fruition. I wish for us to be earnest and strong, and but tender enough to experience the beauty in everything we encounter on our journey. I wish for us to be humanly hopeful, especially now as we near an unknown future.
Most of all, I wish for the Class of 2026 to be good, for no one can be great without being truly good.
If there is any advice I could share, it is to pause. Look up. Look out the window. Let the views remind you why you began this journey in the first place.
There are many things coming that are all unexpected, out of control, and wonderful, but we will never know until we go forth and experience them.
Commencement celebrates our efforts that came before this moment and who we are now, but also our departure from this place in pursuit of what lies ahead. This moment may be the end of everything that has happened in the story so far, but it is the beginning of everything that is coming.
The Woods has been our place. The time is now. We now belong to the collective of those who know these Woods. But we have promises, and miles to go. And there is nowhere to go but everywhere.
Elizabeth “Izzy” Wetzel is from Avon/Carmel, Indiana. She was a Saint Mother Theodore Guerin Scholar. Wetzel triple majored in Pre-Art Therapy, Psychology and Art. During her time at SMWC, Wetzel served on the Saint Mother Theodore Guerin Scholar Leadership Council, was the director of marketing for Service 31, a student organization, was a member of the SMWC Chorale, Dance Team and served as an orientation team leader. Wetzel was honored to receive the “Outstanding Senior in Psychology” and “Outstanding Research in Psychology” awards last spring for the research she conducted and presented at multiple academic conferences. She also presented her artwork in three exhibitions in the SMWC Art Gallery during her time at The Woods. In the Fall of 2026, Wetzel plans to begin graduate school to earn her master’s in Art Therapy. She said about being chosen as the Commencement speaker, “Speaking at Commencement gifts me the opportunity to acknowledge and honor the history that we hail from as students of The Woods as we celebrate the beginning of our futures beyond it. I am honored
and excited to share our 2026 Commencement with the community I found at SMWC.”
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