Congratulations to Lakehead University's Graduates and Special Honourees

Convocation is a special time where our university community comes together to celebrate and share the accomplishments of our exceptional Lakehead University graduates along with distinguished honourees. This spring, our 59th Convocation Ceremonies will be hosted in person. Please click through the links below for more information.

Thunder Bay Ceremonies Orillia Ceremony

Congratulations to you, our graduating class of 2024!

Together with family and friends, we celebrate this milestone of your lives as you enjoy the result of your perseverance and achievement.

The significance of this moment cannot be overstated.

Even before Lakehead University first welcomed you as students, you were each a promising individual with passion and possibility. Some of you came here to nurture a passion and see where it possibly took you. Others may have been seeking something to be passionate about, yet it didn’t change the fact you were full of possibility.

All your choices and everything you have learned to get to this Convocation has helped shape what you do going forward, where you go tomorrow, and who you are and will be. I hope your time with Lakehead has helped you expand and appreciate the passions and possibilities that have always been a part of you.

I join our faculty and staff when I say we couldn’t be prouder of what you have accomplished, and we very much look forward to seeing where your passions and your possibilities take you.

Dr. Gillian Siddall, President and Vice-Chancellor
Lakehead University

Read More About President Siddall's Regalia

Bountiful Greetings Class of 2024,

Congratulations, and deep moral support, on the occasion of your convocation. As Chancellor, I am in awe of the families (chosen or birth), friendship groups, and members of the Lakehead family, it has taken to surround you marching to this day. Greetings to them.

I am in awe of YOU. None of that support is of any use unless each of you has the long attention span that it takes to complete what you started. Congratulations. Now pause and bask in the moment. Take the time to breathe in and thank those who need to be thanked. And thank yourselves.

On the day I am writing these words, I was a guest in two Lakehead Education classes who gave me tremendous hope and cause me to issue a caution. The students presented fabulous, informative, empowering lesson plans for Black History Month.

The caution: You are stepping into a world where there are wars and rumours of wars. I can see from the classes that you have been learning the techniques of peace making and cross-cultural communication. You are stepping into a world that, during your Lakehead years, began to think that equity, diversity, and inclusion were values the world needed to embrace. I warned the students: now there are whispers that perhaps diversity is the cause of troubles.

You are stepping into a world that, during your Lakehead years, began to see the value and the possibility of Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous nations. Now that value and possibility are being questioned.

But you have a long attention span class of 2024. You are playing the long game. You have allies, and you know the value of peace, equity, inclusion, and reconciliation. You are ready. Pause, thank those who need thanking, and go forth, with bountiful congratulations and moral support from me.

Rita Shelton Deverell, CM, EdD
Chancellor