The 2025 Wilson College Commencement speaker, adventurer and academic Tori Murden McClure, earned her nickname “Princess Dark Cloud” after her two remarkable attempts to row 3,000 miles solo across the Atlantic Ocean, encountering hurricanes on both occasions. Unfortunately, for the 2025 graduating class, this year’s Commencement exercises held the weekend of May 4 were moved indoors because of rain for which McClure humorously took the blame.
Standing on the stage in Laird Hall, McClure acknowledged the Wilson Odds and Evens rivalry by wearing the red and black of the Odds (technically Harvard Crimson from her alma mater, which she referred to as an “odd” shade of red). She began her address by highlighting the significance of Commencement for the graduating Phoenix—whom she referred to as both young fledgling undergraduates and tough, older birds of the graduate program. Quoting Dr. Seuss, she remarked, “You have to be odd to be number one,” and encouraged all graduates to embrace their individuality and embark on their own unique ODDyssey.
Through personal anecdotes on navigating life’s challenges—from skiing to the South Pole to rowing across the Atlantic Ocean—McClure reminded the graduates that their education would take them to unexpected places. Her own odyssey included a second attempt to row across the Atlantic Ocean and this time she successfully weathered the storm. Her perseverance and resilience were inspired by boxer and humanitarian Muhammed Ali, who said, “You don’t want to go through life as the woman who almost rowed across the ocean.”
She addressed three typically taboo subjects—sex, politics, and religion—as she urged the graduates to be brave, fall in love, and value who they have in their lives over material possessions. Advocating for a more compassionate and interconnected humanity, she said, “Our world cries out for educated voices. It does not take an education to see pain. It takes an education to do something about it, and many of you at Wilson College are studying things that will help you to go out and reduce the pain in the world.”
While no one can guess what adventures the Class of 2025 will take based on what they learned at Wilson, McClure expressed high confidence in their future. She said, “When you leave Wilson College, you will go out. You will teach, heal, feed, and build. You will inform, advocate, comfort, and guide. You will criticize, organize, contribute, and in a thousand other ways serve people and causes. When this commencement ends, I hope your service to the world will begin anew. Go out and make Wilson College proud.”
