This Saturday, Wabash seniors will celebrate the end of one chapter and the beginning of another as they receive their diplomas and proudly walk under the Senior Arch during the 187th Commencement ceremony.
Trustees, faculty, staff, students, and their families will fill Little Giant Stadium, where President Scott Feller rang in the Class of 2025 just four years ago. Now, they return—sitting shoulder to shoulder rather than six feet apart—marking the first class to be both rung in and rung out on Frank Navarro Field.
“Focus on building lifelong relationships with roommates, fraternity brothers, and teammates,” Feller said at the Ringing In ceremony in August 2021. “Make your Wabash journey enriching, engaging, and intellectually challenging in life-changing ways.”
Now on the other side of their Wabash College experience, President Feller will hand diplomas to 186 men in the Class of 2025.
In keeping with long-standing Wabash tradition, two graduating seniors will be the featured speakers at the event. The Class of 2025 Commencement speakers will be Luis Rivera III and Logan Weilbaker.
Rivera is a psychology major and gender studies and Black studies double-minor from Raleigh, North Carolina. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sphinx Club, Sons of Wabash, the Malcolm X Institute of Black Studies, and La Alianza. He served as president of Psi Chi, Lambda Chi Alpha, and ’shOUT, was a senior fellow for Wabash Democracy and Public Discourse, and the lead speech tutor for the rhetoric department.
Logan Weilbaker is a theater and classics double-major from Scottsburg, Indiana, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sons of Wabash. He has been on and near the stage for 13 years—directing five plays, designing sound, running lights, assisting with wardrobe, working the theater box office, and traveling to Prague to participate in a puppet-carving workshop. He was a member of the Glee Club, a tutor in the writing center, and an award-winning writer and editor for The Bachelor. After Wabash, he will return to the Czech Republic for a year to teach English as part of the Fulbright program.
During Commencement, the College will award two honorary doctor of humane letters degrees to Robert P. Chamness ’75 and Kevin G. Clifford ’77.
Chamness was a standout political science student and member of Delta Tau Delta. After Wabash, he received a law degree from Indiana University and began building a distinguished career in banking and financial services law, authoring 30 books for the American Bankers Association and assisting on the landmark Supreme Court decision allowing banks in one state to offer credit in any state. After 15 years in legal practice, he held executive roles at Concentrex and Digimarc, leading major IPOs, acquisitions, and global expansions while advancing digital security technologies. A devoted alumnus, Chamness has served as a Wabash class agent for 25 years and celebrates his 50th reunion this June.
Clifford, a Chicago native and political science major, played football at Wabash and served as president of the Independent Men’s Association before joining the coaching staff of the 1977 Stagg Bowl team. He worked his way up the corporate ladder to become chairman and CEO of American Funds, the world’s largest active fund manager. A dedicated Wabash trustee for decades, Clifford led transformative initiatives in student recruitment, chaired the presidential search for Gregory Hess, and played a key role in major capital projects, including Little Giant Stadium. His enduring leadership, generosity, and devotion have profoundly shaped the College’s success.
Commencement day will open with a Baccalaureate sermon delivered by Reverend Zach Hoover ’01, Executive Director of LA Voice, at Pioneer Chapel.
In addition to the Baccalaureate and Commencement ceremonies, 28 students will be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest honorary society.
The seniors inducted this year are Richard Ballentine, Nicholas Bastian, Benjamin Casica-Patton, Connor Craig, Andrew Dever, Luka Di Filippo, Aidan Geleott, Justin Gineris, Elijah Greene, Ethan Johns, Quinn Manford, Robert Manuzzi, Thomas Oppman, Gabriel Pirtle, Preston Reynolds, Luis Rivera III, Justin Santiago, Caden Short, Jacob Weber, and Logan Weilbaker. Inductees from the junior class are Precious Ainabor, Augusto Ghidini, Tri An Le, Justin Lewis, Arman Luthra, Braden Potters, Augustin Sanchez, and John Schnerre.
To close, President Feller will ring out the Class of 2025, using the hand bell that once belonged to Wabash’s first educator, Caleb Mills— the same bell that welcomed them to campus.
Commencement Speakers Podcast
Wabash On My Mind podcast host Richard Paige sat down with Luis and Logan, the 2025 commencement speakers, ahead of the ceremony to discuss preparing for and the responsibility of speaking for their class, their Wabash experiences, and lessons learned in these last four years. Click on the play button below to listen.