Commencement 2025: Celebrating South’s Newest Alumni
Posted on May 9, 2025
For Commencement photos, visit the University of South Alabama's Instagram and Facebook pages.
The University of South Alabama recognized 2,139 degree candidates today at two Commencement ceremonies at USA’s Mitchell Center. The speaker was John M. Tyson Jr. ’74, former Mobile County district attorney and state school board member. In an emotional address, Tyson stressed the importance of love in all aspects of life.
On his longtime bond with South:
“I knew the founders of this University. They were dreamers and doers. They absolutely knew how limited the opportunities for higher education were in Mobile and southwestern Alabama. They knew we needed a university to anchor our region. Our founding president, Fred Whiddon, took the time to explain to me that ‘the transfer of values from one generation to the next is not an accidental event.’ Our founders imagined a place of higher learning on this campus that would serve everyone.”
To the Class of 2025:
“My task today is to help celebrate you and thank everyone who got us here. I am also here to issue a challenge: It’s your turn, Class of 2025. It’s your time to step up and take your place as the leaders, dreamers and doers of today and tomorrow. It’s your time to shape the future.”
On challenges graduates will face and overcome:
“You are about to step into a complicated world that changes so fast that it feels like chaos rules the day, that no one is really in control, that little is certain. ... Catastrophe is not hard to find. Here's the good news: You can win the race against catastrophe because you have invested in yourself and your future at this University. ‘They’ can never take away your education.”
Lessons learned at South …
“What I learned at this University is how to take a problem apart, to look at multiple perspectives, and to imagine the possibilities for a different outcome. This University is where I learned how to ask questions and where I learned to listen. Maybe I should say that again: This is where I learned to listen, my friends.”
… helped on the job.
“I remember being faced with the unthinkable when a young mother and her mother murdered a newborn baby. ... What in God’s name do you do? Prosecute? We did. Twenty-five-year prison terms for both of them? We delivered. But, too late for the baby. Could we do something to stop the next baby murder?
“… We decided to provide a safe and secret solution that managed the emergency of the birth. We hoped it would save lives. We created the Secret Safe Place for Newborns program, allowing mothers to surrender their newborns to hospital emergency rooms without fear of prosecution for abandonment of the child, no questions asked.
“... As of this past weekend, the National Safe Haven Alliance reports 5,001 babies, and their mothers, have been rescued since 1999 in the United States alone.”
On the love of his life:
“This campus is where I met the love of my life, Beth. She took my breath away in 1973, and she still does to this day. … 50 years of marriage is no accident. You see, the sustained focus and effort to build a marriage that lasts a lifetime is fueled by a deep love for one another.”
On the legacy and endurance of love:
“Love transcends the laws of our universe. Love is the only thing you can take from this world into the next. Love does not work unless you give it away. Love has no limits. Graduates, go forward from this place with love in your heart, put love to work in your lives and careers, and follow the legacy of love left to us by our founders and everyone who has worked at this University. Be bold! Be brave! Be ambitious!”
