GSD Shows Support For International Students at Class Day Celebration

Graduates at the Harvard Graduate School of Design showed their support for their international peers at last Wednesday’s Class Day ceremony as the Trump administration ramps up attacks on Harvard’s international population.

The previous week, the Trump administration attempted to revoke Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visa Program certification, a move that would deny the University the ability to enroll any international students. University President Alan M. Garber ’76 announced a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security less than 24 hours after the federal directive was announced.

Following the lawsuit, Harvard filed for and won a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of the DHS directive. HGSD’s class day ceremony comes just a day before a judge was slated to decide whether or not to grant a preliminary injunction, further extending the block. At the hearing, during Harvard’s Commencement ceremony, the judge instead opted to extend the TRO and push back a decision on the preliminary injunction.

During the CLass Day ceremony, Faculty of Design Dean Sarah M. Whiting asked attendees to give Ivana Hrga-Griggs, the Harvard International Office’s advisor for the GSD, a standing ovation in recognition of her work supporting international students.

“I know how much Ivana cares about every single one of our international students,” Whiting said.

Wednesday’s class day events included speeches from faculty and alumni, as well as a keynote address from designer and activist Malkit Shoshan. Though no speaker directly commented on recent Trump administration actions against Harvard, all made passing reference to the challenges of the past academic year.

Shoshan, who has worked around the globe on human rights and urban planning issues, said the past months have destabilized the world that graduates will be entering.

“We stand on ground that feels unsteady, shaken by the changing climate, by growing disparities, by global crisis of democracy and by the ongoing attack on academic freedom,” she said. “Yet it is precisely in these moments of instability that we can discover the greatest opportunities for transformation and hope.”

Shoshan encouraged new Graduate School of Design graduates to step forward into their lives and use their craft conscientiously to create hope, despite the uncertainty of the worlds around them.

“I wonder if our work — whether through architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, or all of the school additional engagement strategies with our complex world — can we transform despair into hope?” she said.

Alongside the speeches, the school’s department chairs presented graduate awards for academic excellence and creative theses and awarded travelling fellowships to certain distinguished students.

A. Issam Azzam, a Landscape Architecture student, was specifically celebrated throughout the event. Azzam accepted numerous awards from his department, including being recognized as the Landscape Architecture Foundation Olmsted Scholar for 2025, the highest honor for a student in the field in North America.

Azzam is the third student from GSD to win the Olmsted recognition in ten years.

“We anticipate great things that he carries for in a world that surely needs his brand of genteel and fervent activism,” Department chair Gary R. Hilderbrand said.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.