“This is the moment to find your voice, assemble your circle, choose your collaborators … and bring light into dreams where grown folk have lost the keys to imagination. Do not ask the university for a degree – demand an education. Do not ask these systems for a seat, bring your own chair and rebuild the table.”
—Stephen Brackett (speaking at the CSU Fort Collins 2026 convocation). Brackett is a CSU alumnus, emcee of the band Flobots, Colorado Music Ambassador, and co-founder of Youth on Record, a non-profit organization that connects underserved youth with local, professional artists to achieve their academic and artistic goals.
The Class of 2030 has arrived on college and university campuses across Colorado, bringing with them the fears, hopes, and dreams that every class of entering students brings – as well as a set of questions and challenges that seem unique to their time in history and in life. There is deep uncertainty about how AI will reshape the job market, a shift in federal funding priorities that has impacted student aid and academic research, and anger at the burgeoning problems older generations have left unresolved, from war to climate change to income inequality. Indeed, it seems a general air of angst and division hangs over our society, causing many to worry about the future and causing many young people to distrust existing structures and wonder if there might not be a better way to do things.History does tend to repeat itself. Fifty-seven years ago, the class of 1974 arrived on college campuses. They were coming off of 1968 and 1969, two of the most tumultuous years of a tumultuous era. Cities burned. Marchers were beaten. Law and order seemed challenged. War and inequality were themes of that day as well. My oldest brother had gone off to college the year before. My mother cried nearly inconsolably, worried about his safety. [Editor’s Note: Time moves fast – and perspective with it. Not even a decade later, I turned from setting down my last box from the bed of my dad’s pickup in front of my dorm. I don’t recall any crying. Just taillights and a hint of what sounded like laughter in the wind. But to be fair, the greatest risk to my safety was the 18-year-old version of me. Hmmm. I digress.]
Southern Colorado State College (now CSU Pueblo) was the site of many protests that were a part of the Chicano movement, connecting with a farm worker march from Pueblo to the State Capitol, and entering a free speech debate involving the student newspaper (The Arrow). The Old Main building burned down at CSU in 1970, and a stick of dynamite exploded in the SCSC Student Center late one evening. A general air of angst and division hung over society, causing many to worry about the future and causing many young people to distrust existing structures and wonder if there might not be a better way to do things.
At CSU in Fort Collins, there is a bridge – built from the bricks of Old Main – that commemorates the students who faced off on both sides of the Vietnam War debate in the 1960s. The bridge, built in the 1990s, was a project that was envisioned and championed by alumni from the 1960s and ‘70s. They saw it as a testament to the right we have to opinions that sometimes span deep divisions – and the power of education and communication to bridge those divisions over time. That symbolism is powerful.
I’ve always loved that the Vietnam Memorial Bridge sits near the center of campus, visually reminding us daily that the right to explore and express sometimes controversial ideas is central to the process of learning and discovery (ask Galileo).
The analogy I’m drawing between today’s concerns and those of the late 1960s is imperfect – as are all analogies. We all hope that the violence that characterized the disagreements of that day isn’t repeated today. Still, history shows us that the concerns of the day will find a voice, because they need to be expressed. And one thing is certain as the class of 2030 begins their higher education journey: they will find their voice. Whether it’s student journalists exercising their First Amendment rights, students marching in protest or solidarity, or student government leaders taking their issues to the State Capitol, the voices of students remain a powerful force. And they are voices that deserve to be listened to. Today’s students will have to solve problems we left for them – work we left undone. Yes, we’ve left them some amazing tools with which to attack those problems, but we’ve added handsomely to the menu of challenges they have to deal with. So hearing their concerns seems, literally, the least we can do.
And so, in the coming months, our students will experiment with finding their voices – and it’s plural because we’re a pluralistic society. The class of 2030 will have opinions as diverse as those of the class of 1974. And as they find those voices, we should acknowledge that the public and alumni reaction to what they have to say isn’t always going to be positive.
It can be difficult to focus on free speech when hundreds of angry people are blowing up your email. It can be difficult to keep speaking when anger surrounds you. It can be easy for passionate voices to devolve into reactive shouting, quick labeling, and entrenchment in our own preconceived notions. But continuing to speak, continuing to listen, and actually thinking about what was said and what’s behind the words – that’s what will rebuild the next table.
I say all this because this fall is also an election season, and college campuses around the country will be hearing from energized, passionate students about a wide range of issues and candidates. Not all these conversations will be comfortable or easy. Universities will be accused of fostering unpopular ideas, and of suppressing speech, and of tolerating environments that someone else wishes were different. And knowing that’s coming makes it important for us to underscore the three core principles on which the open exchange of ideas – the coin of the realm in any academic community – rests: think, listen, and speak – with civility and respect. The conversations that come from those three principles – conducted in that manner – are part of what it means to be a university, today and throughout the history of American higher education.
Please join me in welcoming the Colorado State University System’s Classes of 2030! May their conversations be good ones!
– tony
Tony Frank, Chancellor
CSU System
This message was included in Chancellor Frank’s September 2026 newsletter. Subscribe to the Chancellor’s monthly letter.