The Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University celebrated its 20th graduating class on June 12 and 13. Families and friends joined Dornsife faculty and staff in celebrating the 168 graduates from the school’s bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs. This year, the first student graduated from the school’s new BS+MPH accelerated program.

Keynote speaker Imam Khalid Latif, chaplain for NYPD and executive director of for the Islamic Center at New York University, gave a remarkable address, urging graduates to “go forward and be the reason that people have hope in this world.”

He recounted stories where injustices have been met with either complacency or action, and encouraged people to use their ability to serve whenever called. “What allows for the perpetration of hate and bigotry in this world – the systematic and structural mechanisms that seek to just oppress through inequitous means – are not those individuals who go out and perpetrate, but so many more of us who have the ability to do something about it but we simply sit back and do nothing,” said Mr. Latif.

Watch keynote address by Imam Khalid Latif

View Drexel Dornsife ceremony photos: https://dornsifesph.smugmug.com/Academics/DSPH-Commencement-2017/n-M8Wc39/