Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu Delivers Commencement Keynote Address
On Monday, May 22, Boston University Academy hosted its 29th commencement exercise at BU’s Tsai Performance Center. The BUA Class of 2023 crossed the stage to receive their diplomas from Head of School Chris Kolovos and Associate Head of School Rosemary White. Giselle Wu ’23 and Margaret Chu ’23 recited the Classics orations in Latin and Greek, respectively. Sally Jamrog ’23 and Condredge Currie ’23 delivered the student addresses. Following the ceremony, graduates and their families celebrated with a reception under the tent on BU Beach.
Tiffany Chu, Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, delivered this year’s Commencement keynote address. Ms. Chu, a first generation Taiwanese American, comes from a background in design, urban planning, and entrepreneurship. Prior to joining the Mayor’s office, she was the CEO & Co-founder of Remix, a collaborative software platform for transportation planning used by 500+ cities around the world. Remix was named a Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Bloomberg for furthering sustainability and equity in the field, and was acquired by Via in one of the largest software acquisitions of 2021.
Ms. Chu was appointed as a Commissioner of the San Francisco Department of the Environment and served on San Francisco’s Congestion Pricing Policy Advisory Committee. Previously, Ms. Chu served at Code for America, Y Combinator, Zipcar, and Continuum. She’s been named in Forbes’ 30 Under 30, LinkedIn’s Next Wave of Leaders Under 35, and featured at SXSW, Helsinki Design Week, the New York Times Cities for Tomorrow Conference, and more. She holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) School of Architecture and Planning.
In her remarks, Ms. Chu described her non-linear education and career path as a series of “lily pads floating on the surface of a pond,” her journey from lily pad to lily pad propelled by her love of cities, her inherent curiosity, and a keen desire to explore:
“Looking back, I could easily spin it all to sound like I showed up to my high school graduation with a 5-, 10-, even 15-year plan in hand. Like: ‘In five years I’ll graduate from college and launch a career. In ten years, I’ll start a company. In 15 years, I’ll work for a Mayor.’ And on and on. But honestly, thatʼs not how it worked for me… And, a little secret? Thatʼs not how it works for most of us.
Over the past 17 years: I changed careers about four times; I selected classes solely based on which ones included fun-sounding field trips; and, at college graduation, when all of my friends had full-time jobs lined up, I didn’t have one. And I didn’t really know what I was going to do.”
After college, Ms. Chu embarked on a decade of exploration spanning several continents and jobs on both coasts before landing back in Boston in her current role as Chief of Staff to Michelle Wu, the first-ever woman and person of color to be elected Mayor of the City of Boston. In her remarks, Ms. Chu encouraged the members of the BUA Class of 2023 to similarly “tear down the walls and make the entire city your classroom”:
“I mentioned earlier that itʼs important to spend time outside the classroom, especially when you have an environment as rich as Boston to draw from. In my current role, Iʼm learning so much about how a city works: how a conversation or decision translates to the real world; whether that’s youth engagement or housing affordability, constituent services or police reform. Seeing it happen, the operations staff, the public servants working to bring us closer—step by step—to a world thatʼs a little bit better than it was yesterday. The City is home to all of it.
And Iʼm sure you’ve noticed that we could always—always!—be doing more. We could be planting more trees, supporting more art, creating more opportunities for communities to come together—itʼs why Iʼm so excited about BUAʼs place-based approach to our city.
Having a ‘curriculum without walls,’ whether that’s through mentoring middle school students in innovation, self-reflective ways; or through your senior thesis projects, tracking the correlation between race, wealth, and green space, or exploring how art is critical to fighting climate change. Or through your community service work, helping to connect lifelong Bostonians to the magic of food, play, or conserving our green spaces. You’ve already scoped out so much of whatʼs around you. So wherever you go from here, donʼt put so much pressure on yourselves!”
Ms. Chu closed her remarks by offering the graduates a few pieces of advice:
“Eat breakfast (you will be happier). Wear sunscreen. Take weird classes! Even if youʼre pre-med or pre-law or pre-professional…take weird classes especially if you are those things. Develop hobbies. Learn a new language. Take Spanish! (I wish I had.) Do pottery! Go ice fishing! Salsa dance! You donʼt need to do what everyone else is doing. Social convention doesn’t bind you. Just because you think everyone is taking a certain class, or getting some specific internship, or wanting to go into management consulting—forge your own path. Youʼll be more interesting that way. Engage with people you would never meet otherwise. Some of the people sitting around you—yes, youʼll be friends forever!—But also make new friends. Proactively reach out to people who are different from you. Lastly—be curious, but not necessarily in a directed way. Go down rabbit holes. Take detours! Find your next unexpected lily pad.
Because, I promise you, this is just the beginning.”
It was our privilege and honor to host Tiffany Chu as this year’s Commencement keynote speakers, and we are grateful for the warmth, candor, and wisdom she shared with our graduates and assembled guests. The full video of BUA’s 29th Commencement ceremony, including Ms. Chu’s remarks, is available here. The complete photo gallery from Commencement 2023 is available here.
The members of the BUA Class of 2023 will attend the following institutions next fall:
Barnard College
Bentley University
Boston College
Boston University (11)
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
University of California – Berkeley
University of California – San Diego
Carnegie Mellon University (2)
University of Chicago
Cornell University (2)
Dartmouth College
Harvard University (2)
Haverford College
University of Maryland – College Park
University of Massachusetts – Amherst
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2)
McGill University
New York University (2)
Northeastern University (4)
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Oregon State University
University of Pennsylvania
Smith College
The George Washington University
Tufts University (2)
Williams College
Yale University (3)