Address by CSSW's 2025 Commencement Speaker

At this year’s graduation, CSSW was excited to welcome back Dr. Desmond Patton as the 2025 Class Day Speaker. Dr. Patton has current appointments at the University of Pennsylvania School of Policy & Practice and The Annenberg School for Communication. He is a former senior associate dean and professor of social work and sociology at CSSW.

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Good morning, graduates, families, friends, faculty, and community.

Thank you, Dean Begg, for the invitation to speak today and for your leadership during this defining moment. I’m honored to return to a place that shaped so much of who I am.

Let me be real: I wrestled with whether to give this speech. In a time of deep institutional conflict—when universities across the country, including this one, are being called to account—the weight of this moment is undeniable.

Now, I have to admit something. The Brown School got the incomparable Jenifer Lewis—a legendary actress known for her humor, fire, and honesty. And you got me.

But I promise—I may not have Jennifer’s Hollywood shine, but I’m excellent at... incorporating citations. APA-style citations.

For the families wondering, APA formatting is a strict academic style. It's what had your graduate student up at 2 a.m., triple-checking commas.

And yes, I know half of you used ChatGPT this year. Just remember: APA still won’t format itself.

We are living through one of the most challenging times in the history of higher education. Columbia has been at the center of that reckoning.

Some months ago. Faculty across the U.S. signed a petition calling for a boycott, accusing the university of abandoning its values. I understand that petition. I agree—Columbia must be pushed. It must be challenged.

Columbia must be the values it claims: truth, justice, and care in practice, not just on paper.

So yes—I wrestled. What does it mean to speak here today?

I told a friend I was giving this speech. They said, “You’re brave.” I said, “I’m a social worker—this is what we do. We walk in, not away. We stand with community. We stand with truth.”

Because when it gets hard, we don’t walk away—we walk in. We walk into discomfort. We walk into complexity. We walk into the work of repairing what’s been broken—and reimagining what’s possible. That’s what social workers do. That’s what I’m walking into—and what I hope you’ll continue walking toward, too.

Columbia shaped me.

This faculty pushed me to ask hard questions—and stay true to who I am.

I built lifelong friendships—shout out to my squad—and learned how to have difficult conversations while staying grounded in care.

The students I thought I was teaching? They taught me. How to listen. How to care deeply. How to reimagine what social work.

And I couldn’t walk away from that. Because what I’ve learned—through my students, my colleagues, and this community—is that we’re not just resisting harm, we’re building toward healing. Toward possibility. And the students I’ve worked with? They’re helping me see that future more clearly every day.

But I also realized: I needed a tool. Not to replace the work—but to sustain it. That tool was joy.

Joy became something I needed.

I spent my career here studying pain, trauma and violence on social media platforms. I couldn’t keep studying this concepts, those emotions, without understanding that joy was possible, and in many instances, already present countless social media posts me and my lab poured over for years. 

So I shifted—not away, but outward.

I taught a class on joy. I co-developed a platform with youth in New York and Philly to bring joy to social media. And I began posting publicly about my own joy journey—not to instruct, but to reflect.

It wasn’t when I felt joyful that it mattered most—it was when I didn’t. When I posted anyway.

And something changed. People reached out—not about violence, not even about my glasses—though I appreciate that. They asked about joy.

We started building conversations that connected us. That made the world smaller. That helped us see each other again.

That’s what joy can do.

Joy is not soft. Joy is not simple. Joy is not something we stumble into.
Joy is something we plan. Joy is something we practice. Joy is something we protect.

In my class, Journey to Joy, we define joy this way:
Joy is an enduring state of being that emerges from pain and trauma, and becomes a guide—for decision-making, for building relationships, for imagining what’s possible.

Joy is not the opposite of grief—it grows beside it.
Joy is opposition. Joy is resistance. Joy is clarity.
Joy is what makes the revolution sustainable.

Joy teaches us when to pause.
Joy reminds us to feel gratitude.

Gratitude for the people in this room.
Gratitude for the communities that raised and supported you.
Gratitude for the ones you’ll fight for next.

Let’s clap for them.

Let me ask you something: What is your joy plan?

Here are my core principles for building one:

1. Intention with honesty—Be honest about what brings you joy, big or small, and schedule it like it matters.
2. Vulnerability with community—Share your joy, especially when it’s hard. Joy deepens when co-created.
3. Protection through boundaries—Set boundaries that guide how you work, when you rest, and who you walk with.

How will you protect your joy?
How will you nurture it?
How will you share it?

Let’s take 5 seconds to honor what you’ve survived to make it to this moment.

James Baldwin said:

“I don’t believe you do the right thing because you think it’s the right thing. I think you may be forced to do it because it will be the expedient thing.”

Graduates, the world may not always act from principle. But you—you move with purpose.

You are social workers. You are joy builders. You are coalition creators.
You are the ones who hold the line when the rest of the world forgets where it was drawn.

When the system tells you to shrink—stand taller.

Class of 2025: Get into good trouble. Get into joyful trouble. Get into necessary trouble.

And never forget:
Your joy is not a luxury. It’s your tool for building a new world.

Now, look around. Take in the faces, the energy, the community in this space. This may be the last time you're all together—but this is not the end. It’s a milestone, not a finish line.

You’ve built something meaningful. You can carry it forward. Let these relationships evolve, deepen, and grow.

Your family, your friends, your neighbors—they’re part of this moment too. Celebrate not just what you’ve accomplished, but the people who helped you get here.

Earlier, I mentioned my own squad. We met right here—at Columbia. What’s kept us strong isn’t just where we started, but the intentional practices we’ve committed to. Practices where joy anchors us—how we show up, how we support each other, how we build and rebuild community.

You already have that. Let it grow. Let this be the beginning of a bigger, bolder, ever-growing community—one that starts here and carries forward wherever life takes you.

Congratulations.