Alexander Nemerov will deliver the university’s 2025 Baccalaureate address

Stanford Professor Alexander Nemerov, a scholar of American culture known for his portrayal of art as a source of truth about the human experience, will deliver the university’s 2025 Baccalaureate address.

Nemerov will speak at the celebration for graduates, family members, and other guests on Saturday morning, June 14, at Frost Amphitheater on campus. The university’s 134th Commencement ceremonies will follow on Sunday, June 15.

Nemerov received a BA in art history and English from the University of Vermont and PhD in the history of art from Yale University. He began his teaching career at Stanford in 1992 and in 2001 moved to Yale, where he served as chair of the Department of History of Art from 2009 to 2012. He returned to Stanford in 2012 as the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities and chaired the Department of Art and Art History from 2015 to 2021.

“As a scholar and teacher, Alexander Nemerov has used art as a lens for understanding our past and our place in the world,” said Tiffany Steinwert, the university’s dean for religious and spiritual life at Stanford. “As our Baccalaureate speaker, he will inspire our graduates to envision their futures at life’s crossroads, far beyond Stanford, where they can carry forward a shared sense of ethics, compassion, and responsibility and make a meaningful difference in their communities and beyond.”

Baccalaureate is a student-led celebration with readings, prayers, and music reflecting the wide range of religious traditions in the Stanford community. The Office for Religious & Spiritual Life is conducting a student speaker contest to select a member of the Class of 2025 who will address their classmates during the service. Submissions of up to 600 words are due Sunday, April 27.

“In his lectures and writings, Dr. Alexander Nemerov compellingly explores how our relationship with the past can inform and inspire the future. His insights remind us that the past is not just to be studied but to be lived with, providing guidance and inspiration for tomorrow,” said 2025 Senior Class Presidents Jason Chen Lin, Danny Mottesi, Shreya Ramachandran, and Blaine Wells in a joint statement. “As we gather to celebrate our graduates’ achievements and transitions, Dr. Nemerov’s reflections on history as a vibrant, living dialogue make him an exemplary speaker for this year’s Baccalaureate. We are excited to welcome such a beloved professor to share his visionary perspectives with our graduating class.”

The Stanford Daily in a 2017 profile called Nemerov “one of Stanford’s most beloved, confounding, and discussed professors” with “a semi-mythic register for his idiosyncratic lectures,” writing: “He is said not to teach art, but to preach it; he does not deliver lectures, but sermons.”

He has delivered the Andrew Wyeth Lecture and the Andrew W. Mellon Lectures at the National Gallery of Art, where he was the first scholar to give the Mellon Lectures with a focus on American art. The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s, published in 2023, is the most recent of his 11 books.

“I am honored to have been chosen to give this year’s Baccalaureate address,” Nemerov said. “I have learned so much from my students at Stanford, and I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect with them on such a meaningful occasion.”

Stanford’s Baccalaureate celebration will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 14, in Frost Amphitheater. The following day, Olympian Katie Ledecky, ’20, will deliver the Commencement address in Stanford Stadium. Additional details are available on the Commencement Weekend website.