HWS News
4 September 2025 • Alums Convocation 2025: "Put yourself out there. Make yourself heard."
Convocation called students to collaborate, question and lead with purpose, while recognizing Walt Disney Imagineer Richard “Toby” Pugh ’67 with the Hobart Medal of Excellence.
Welcoming the HWS community for the start of the 2025-26 academic year, Convocation speakers urged students to use their voice, ask questions, challenge assumptions and consider success as more than just achievement.
In the faculty address, Assistant Professor of Media and Society Jiangtao Harry Gu ’13 underscored these points when he asked students to resist the temptation to blend in.
He challenged students for the first week of the semester to speak up at least once in class, whether to ask a question or state a disagreement. “This is what we do as professors,” he said. “We ask questions. We challenge assumptions. We invite you to think critically, to disagree but with reason, and most of all, to speak up.”
Class is about more than learning and growing, students were told. It’s about leading and giving back as well.
That approach is exemplified by the life and career of noted Architect and Walt Disney Imagineer Richard “Toby” Pugh ’67.
In awarding Pugh the Hobart Medal of Excellence, President Mark D. Gearan said Pugh represents what it means to lead a consequential life. Through his 20 years designing and directing facility standards at Disney resorts around the world, Pugh made it his purpose to implement inclusive design. He ensured that all visitors, including those with limited mobility, vision, hearing or cognitive abilities, feel the full Disney experience and the deep sense of belonging they all deserve.
“In honoring Mr. Pugh with the Medal of Excellence, I think we all get to see, through the biography before you what a life of consequence can look like. A decorated Air Force Veteran, a globally recognized architect and a fierce advocate for accessibility, Mr. Pugh used his talents not just to build structures, not just to design, but to literally open doors for others,” Gearan said. “His work, his commitment, is a powerful reminder that our lives, all of our lives, no matter what the profession or discipline, give meaning not just for what we achieve but how we include and uplift.”
The Hobart Medal of Excellence is awarded to graduates who bring honor to HWS through outstanding accomplishments in business, their professions or community service. Pugh, said Executive Director of Alumni and Alumnae Relations Melanie N. Sage ’95, P’25, P’27 in introducing him, embodies excellence in all three.
In his acceptance speech, Pugh described the lessons along the unplanned detours of his career. Some chance encounters led to meaningful and lasting change, such as work he did at a Hong Kong Disneyland hotel, where he insisted on better accessibility standards, such as wider corridors and doorways. That stance was noticed by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects, which tapped Pugh to help them update building codes to improve accessibility across the design industry there.
Learning to think critically and communicate effectively were skills, he said, HWS and the U.S. Military taught him in equal measure.
Architecture, he explained, is only partly about setting goals, solving problems and imagining design. “I had to be able to speak, write, draw and sometimes model information to people with many different skills and backgrounds: Government officials, project owners, bankers, other design professionals and ultimately to the hard-working people pouring concrete and swinging hammers all day long.” He urged students to be filled with the joy of learning and a willingness to collaborate.
Convocation 2025
The Convocation ceremony began with welcoming remarks from Senior Associate Dean Kelly Payne, followed by an invocation from Chaplain and Dean for Spiritual Engagement Rev. Nita Byrd. Payne urged students to use curiosity to fuel demanding work, which she described as necessary. “True learning that leads to intellectual growth happens by facing challenges and some struggle – inside and outside the classroom.”
In her remarks, Byrd referred to the Web of Learning, interwoven in and outside the classroom by the HWS community’s multiplicity of gifts. “Each and every one of you constitutes an important and necessary strand in this Web of Learning,” she said.
HWS Student Government President Emily Gorczynski ’26 stressed the importance of relationships and excitement about academics in her speech. Gorczynski shared her perspective as a first-year student and the fear she felt, remembering how she threatened to take an Uber home before the end of Orientation. “If you had asked me three years ago if I would be speaking in front of you all, I never would have believed you.”
Following an introduction by Provost and Dean of Faculty Sarah Kirk, Gu recalled his first year on campus, balancing excitement with the fear of standing out. He warned against the “spiral of silence,” where students suppress their views to blend in.
“Silence doesn’t solve conflict—it deepens it,” he said. “You are not here to fit in. You are here because you stand out. Put yourself out there. Make yourself heard!”
Top: Richard “Toby” Pugh ’67 delivers his acceptance speech after receiving the Hobart Medal of Excellence during Convocation on Stern Lawn.
