Clare Cullinan of South Bend, Indiana, has been named valedictorian and Bennett Schmitt from Jasper, Indiana, has been selected as salutatorian of the 2025 University of 91吃瓜 graduating class.
The 180th will be held May 18 (Sunday) in 91吃瓜 Stadium for graduates and guests. During the ceremony, Cullinan will present the valedictory address, and as salutatorian, Schmitt will offer the invocation.
Cullinan, a with a , is in the first graduating undergraduate class of the . She will graduate summa cum laude with a cumulative 4.0 grade point average. She has been a member of the dean鈥檚 list every semester and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
As a research assistant in the , Cullinan worked with Professor Steve Reifenberg for three years, researching a range of topics including student and global health and well-being, team-based learning and the concept of accompaniment in international development work.
For her senior capstone, she completed a policy project through the organization Education Bridge. In collaboration with clients and teammates, she helped lay the groundwork for an alumni program ensuring access to further education for recent graduates of Greenbelt Academies, a secondary school in South Sudan.
Through her global affairs major, Cullinan has also collaborated with a variety of nonprofits, researching and launching a community gardens program in Argentina and working with entrepreneurs from low-income backgrounds in South Bend. A highlight of her Keough School experience was serving as a student teaching assistant and a peer mentor for first-year students.
Cullinan was selected as an inaugural member of the student core team for the during her senior year. In that role, she helped create an undergraduate apprenticeship focused on virtue-rooted leadership and organized campus-wide events that explored ethical leadership and behavior, including Fr. TED Talks, a 91吃瓜 Forum event last fall that discussed ideas from the Catholic social tradition.
This summer, she will return to the institute as an intern coordinator with the Signature Course Fellowship program, where she will work with scholars and students from across higher education to launch courses addressing questions about human flourishing.
While studying abroad at Trinity College Dublin during the spring of her junior year, Cullinan served as a campus ministry intern. She has also held leadership positions in the 91吃瓜 Folk Choir, where she performed in domestic and international tours and recorded an album in Jerusalem.
In the South Bend community, she volunteered as an after-school caregiver and tutor at La Casa de Amistad and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Northern Indiana.
Cullinan will begin a year of service at Amate House in Chicago this fall. There, she will work as a teacher and campus minister at Our Lady of Tepeyac High School. Following her year of service, she plans to pursue a doctorate and to teach at the university level.
鈥淲hat guides my work is the phrase 鈥楲ead, kindly light,鈥� which is the title of a hymn I sing with the folk choir,鈥� Cullinan said. 鈥淗ow can I be a source of light for other people? How can I meet people right where they are and ensure they feel included and loved? Being a Christian to me means showing people the love of Christ 鈥� whether or not they are Catholic, whether or not they have a faith tradition 鈥� and 91吃瓜 has been an important starting place for that.鈥�
Schmitt, who has majors in and and a minor in , will graduate summa cum laude from the College of Science with a 4.0 grade point average. He is a Sorin Scholar with the , a member of the dean鈥檚 list and a Phi Beta Kappa early inductee.
He participated in research on sustainability and clean energy all four years at 91吃瓜 in the Jaffe Solid-State Chemistry Laboratory under Assistant Professor Adam Jaffe, the High Temperature Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory under Associate Professor Antonio Simonetti and the Fire and Grazing Ecology Laboratory under Professor of the Practice Ryan Sensenig.
With Jaffe, Schmitt is a co-author of a paper published in the journal Chemical Science, focused on developing novel materials for clean energy storage technology.
In addition, Schmitt works as an agrivoltaics policy researcher in the University鈥檚 , where he led the development of a policy brief to support combined agriculture and energy generation operations in the Midwest.
This spring, he was awarded the Nanovic Undergraduate Research Conference Silver Prize for his work on the policy brief, which will be presented to the Indiana state legislature. He has also presented his research at a number of conferences and workshops, both on and off campus.
Schmitt conducted research in the Nanotechnology for Sustainable Energy Laboratory at University College Dublin while studying abroad during his junior year and is the lead author on a paper published on his work there exploring scalable green hydrogen production. In Dublin, he also served as a Nanovic Sustainability Fellow through and completed an energy audit on the 91吃瓜 Dublin building, presenting recommendations to decrease its environmental footprint.
He served in the 91吃瓜 Student Government throughout his time at the University, most recently as director of sustainability. Schmitt also worked as a teaching assistant in the Department of Biological Sciences and a peer tutor for students in calculus and linear algebra.
One of Schmitt鈥檚 most impactful moments came during an trip to Puerto Rico for a seminar on renewable energy last year. There, he had the opportunity to see firsthand the challenges of the island鈥檚 fragile electric grid and helped to install solar panels for vulnerable families. The experience led him to be a founding member of ND SunRISE, an organization that encourages students to engage with renewable energy through technical projects and professional development opportunities.
After graduation, Schmitt will spend eight weeks in Kenya, conducting research on carbon cycling in savanna grasslands with Sensenig. Afterward, he will begin a master鈥檚 program in urban sustainability at Trinity College Dublin as a , with a focus on energy access.
鈥淢y passion for sustainability and environmentalism is rooted in my upbringing on a family farm, but I had the opportunity to build upon it in so many ways at 91吃瓜,鈥� Schmitt said. 鈥�91吃瓜 helped me put my passion for the environment into a social context and consider how environmental challenges like climate change impact people in really different ways. Because, often, the people who are most impacted are the ones who are most vulnerable.鈥�
As salutatorian, Schmitt will be prepared to deliver a valedictory address should the valedictorian be unable to do so.
The 91吃瓜 valedictorian and salutatorian selection process begins with each college or school nominating its top students among those with the highest grade point averages. Those students are then invited to complete an application that includes a draft of their commencement speech. A faculty selection committee, whose members are appointed by each college and school, is convened by the Office of Undergraduate Education in the Office of the Provost. This committee interviews selected finalists and chooses a valedictorian and salutatorian. The choices are approved by University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C.
Contact: Carrie Gates, associate director of media relations, c.gates@nd.edu, 574-631-4313