Acting Chancellor J. Michael Haynie wasn’t supposed to be the one standing at the podium in the JMA Wireless Dome on Sunday, May 10. And he said so.

Haynie opened Syracuse University’s Class of 2026 Commencement with a solemn moment, noting that his tenure as the University’s 13th chancellor and president was officially set to begin the following day. The man who had earned the right to preside over this ceremony was not there to do it.

“It is Chancellor Kent Syverud who should be here today,” Haynie said. “He earned this moment.”

Chancellor Syverud, who led the University for 12 years, recently disclosed his brain cancer diagnosis and is currently undergoing treatment in Michigan. Haynie asked those assembled to join him in wishing the outgoing Chancellor well. He acknowledged Dr. Ruth Chen, Chancellor Syverud’s wife, who traveled to Syracuse to accept an honorary degree.

In celebrating the graduates, Haynie acknowledged their families and loved ones and the University’s faculty and staff who supported the students through their Syracuse journeys.

“While the achievements we celebrate here today are those of our graduates, those achievements were made possible because of you. Thank you,” Haynie said.

“To every person who played a role in getting these graduates to this moment, whether you coached them, counseled them or simply loved them, thank you for being here,” Haynie said. “This day belongs to you as well.”

A Class That Persisted and Showed Up

Haynie then turned his attention to the graduates.

“You are taking your place in a world that many describe as uncertain and divided and sometimes even unkind,” he said. “And they’re not wrong. But here’s what those people don’t fully appreciate: you’ve been here before.”

The Class of 2026 had their high school years deeply affected by a global pandemic that canceled their proms, upended their routines and rewrote the world they thought they were growing up into. They arrived at Syracuse amid political polarization, economic volatility and international conflict.

And yet, Haynie said, they did not collapse. They adapted and persisted.

“When things got hard, you didn’t retreat, you recalibrated, you found a way. You carry something no generation before you has quite mastered and that is a fierce authenticity and uncompromising demand for honesty, for inclusion and the rare willingness not to just call things out for what they are, but to roll up your sleeves and play a role in fixing them,” Haynie said.

The Class of 2026 is uniquely built for the moment they’re entering. While industries debate artificial intelligence and digital transformation, he said, these graduates are already fluent. They set the curve rather than chasing it.

Haynie encouraged them not to coast on that advantage. “Wherever you go next—a workplace, a graduate program, a studio, a community, a stage that the world has not even built yet—make it better than you found it. Don’t lower the bar. Raise it.”

Haynie told the graduates that when someone tells them they can’t, they won’t or they never will, remind them where they came from. Remind them what house built them.

He asked the crowd what color that house is painted. And the response, of course, “Orange!”