The following speech was delivered by Kelsey Coney, president of the Kroc Graduate Student Association, at the 2025 Kroc School Award Ceremony. Read more about the celebration here.
Hi, my name is Kelsey Coney, and I have had the honor of being the Kroc Graduate Student Association President. I feel like most speeches these days begin with “we are living in unprecedented times,” And while yes, there’s certainly a lot unfolding in our world, there’s also an abundance of continuity—both beautiful and challenging.
Through the many unique classes at Kroc, I’ve come to realize it’s less about the times themselves and more about how we choose to move through them. We’ve each been gifted with an incredible education, one grounded in professors who are deeply committed to our collective learning and who hold a true intention for each of us to grow and expand in our thinking.
One of the most consistent things I’ve experienced during my time here, just as common as the phrase “unprecedented times,” is a strong sense of collectiveness.
I’ve witnessed students show up in so many meaningful ways: starting new educational groups to share their passions, hosting movie nights, leading deep discussions, or creating casual gatherings that simply invite us to come as we are. The kindness and support that flow through these hallways—and live in our classrooms—are real. And that kind of space doesn’t just happen. It takes all of us choosing to show up, to care, and to build something better together.
Kelsey Coney delivering her speech at the 2025 Kroc School Award Ceremony
And that isn’t easy. We’re graduating from a Peace and Justice school in a moment where our systems—educational, governmental, economic—are breaking down under the weight of their own inequities. Genocides are unfolding with international complicity. Economic inequality is deepening while billionaires build bunkers. People are burned out, priced out, locked out, and still showing up. The people with power aren't fixing it. In many cases, they’re making it worse. And so, the weight of that change—impossibly heavy and entirely necessary—falls on us.
We’re stepping into a world that looks drastically different from the one we imagined when we started this program. The task ahead of us—to create change, to work for peace and justice in a world that feels like it’s spiraling—is monumental. It’s overwhelming. Some of us have lost job offers. Some of us are navigating new borders, broken policies, and shifting rules. The paths we planned have disappeared in the blink of an eye. And that reality is frustrating, scary, and deeply unfair.
And yet—we are still here. Adapting. Reimagining. Moving forward.
What I’ve witnessed here is an extraordinary ability to pivot, adapt, and carry on and to embrace our individual agency. We may not be walking into our dream jobs, but we sure can decide how we show up in those jobs. The micro-decisions we make every day—how we speak, how we listen, how we lead—those do lead to change. It is not what we do as much as how we do it. And as we depart from the Kroc School, I feel confident that each of us will adventure into the unknown will deep knowledge, critical thinking, zest, and a bit of magic.
Speaking of magic, I want to share something I’ve told a few of you before, but it feels worth repeating.
Growing up my younger sister had an enthusiastic love of all things magic. Every year at St. Patty’s Day the anticipation of the magical world was at an all-time high. As the older sister, I was “too old” to believe in the magic myself, yet I found great joy in being a magic creator.
The house would explode in tiny notes from fairies and leprechauns, green footprints, and a ridiculous amount of glitter. And as the holiday would fade the undiscovered glitter remained. Middle of summer, explosion of glitter in the sock drawer, new peanut butter jar, explosion of glitter under the lid. It was endless and was quite amazing that one day out of the year could supply 365 days with sparkle.
In our own way, I think we’ve done the same here. We’ve worked, learned, and grown together. And through that, we’ve refilled our own glitter supplies.
And now each one of us will go out into the world and as we do, we will sprinkle our magic everywhere we go. And maybe, one day, when you’re just going about your life, you’ll look down and spot a glimmer of glitter from your own journey—or maybe from a classmate’s—and you’ll be reminded of what we built here. Each one of us has magic to share with the world – I can’t wait to run into your magic while I am out exploring.
