“The great swells and sweeps of human history must be sensed if we are to chart a safe passage in the future,” Homer Babbidge, the beloved eighth president of UConn, once wrote.

For the Class of 2022, those currents haven’t merely been sensed, they’ve been felt.

Think of the world as it is today compared to how it was when most of the members of this class first arrived at UConn, in August 2018. Who could have possibly imagined, on that balmy weekend, that in the near future we’d look back on 2018 with the wistfulness usually reserved for contemplating a lost golden age?

Iron sharpens iron, as the old saying goes, and the graduates of 2022 have demonstrated their ability to navigate any change, no matter how vertigo-inducing it may seem. In the newly-launched website dedicated to this year’s graduates, you will meet Huskies who are veterans, Huskies who are activists, Huskies who are researchers, Huskies who are the first in their family to attend college, and Huskies who are carrying on a proud family tradition of earning a UConn degree.

Reading their stories – the familiar memories of initially feeling intimidated by the huge University community before finding a niche; the enthusiasm for work accomplished and plans made; the private jokes and lifelong bonds – gives us a sense of what it means to be a Husky in 2022.

Although many things have changed since that day in 1883 when six young Connecticut residents received the first degrees awarded in the institution’s history, the sense that all UConn’s riches can be contained within the experiences of each student has remained.

This week, thousands of people – from Connecticut, from New England, from the nation, from the world – will join those six original graduates, all the subsequent generations of Huskies: doctors, teachers, public servants, WNBA All-Stars, astronauts, inventors, comedians, folk singers, puppeteers, pharmacists, nurses, civil rights lawyers, journalists – anything and everything that can be done with a first-class education, a will to succeed, and a moral foundation rooted in a diverse, dynamic community.

So, congratulations to the Class of 2022, and remember: as of now, you may no longer be students, but you’ll always be Huskies Forever.