June 2, 2025: Harvard Graduation — A Love Story

Monday Morning Magic from Inkandescent® PR + Publishing Co. — Today, I am indulging in a mommy moment. My son Dylan graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design last week with a Master’s Degree in Architecture. I am still awash in the pomp and circumstance of his grand accomplishment.

As do many parents who sit in the audience at their child’s graduation ceremony, I found myself thinking about the first time I held that baby. I vividly remember how hard his birth was (getting an 8.5 pound infant out of my small-framed body was a feat; we both almost died). Then we heard that big bold first-breath cry, and I looked up at his Dad. We both wept, knowing Dylan was here, with us, and was ok. As the nurse put him in my arms, his newborn wail turned to the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. As he grew, his kindness toward others became his superpower. I remember how proud I felt when he found besties in preschool and protected those buds with his favorite Spiderman suit, how he helped his 2nd-grade classmate learn to do her homework, how his 4th-grade teacher, Ms. Bardenhagen, showed him what it meant to love to learn.

Anna and Dylan Gibbs, Clifton VA 2002

The day that lives in my heart is the summer afternoon we walked together on the beach in Bethany, DE. Dylan was 7. I asked him what he’d like to be when he grew up. Earlier that day, I had mentioned that I’d love to live at the beach someday and have a house near the sand where we could bring our friends and family to relax and connect. Dylan said, “I want to build you that house.” With a deep breath filled with all the love in my body, I responded, “So that could mean you’ll become an architect.” He and I walked for miles planning out the path he’d take to get there: Get really good grades, embrace Dad’s award-winning gift to draw, master math. And we envisioned the schools he’d attend to accomplish that goal — UVA (because before he turned 1, his Dad and I bought into the Virginia prepaid college program. So long as we lived in VA and he went to school in the state, it wouldn’t cost any more than the $16K we invested.) And then, I suggested, he’d attend Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), one of the best in the country.

That’s exactly what Dylan did.

Anna and Dylan Gibbs, Harvard Graduation, May 29, 2025

Harvard University, May 29, 2025: After making our way through graduation security and entering the tent where the ceremony was held, I chose to stand on the wall in the very back with the GSD student ushers. I knew I’d sob.  When his Dad and I heard his name called: Dylan Zane Glenwood Gibbs, it wasn’t just our pride that made us cry. It was the gift of watching this kind, gentle, powerful man walk across that stage. All those years of love and guidance, knowing Dylan could and would accomplish anything he set his mind to, watching as he found his footing, overwhelmed us with gratitude. Now, that symbol of his remarkably hard work and dedication — that diploma — was in his hands.

It’s more than that. Anyone who knows Dylan knows the quiet force that he is. Especially his big sister Anna, an accomplished photographer and videographer, who flew to Boston to assist with Dyl’s master’s thesis — a bear of a project about how society can, and must, humanize data centers. This 50-foot presentation took more than a year to envision, with the biggest push to create it coming in the final 8 weeks before it was due, on his 26th birthday.

Dozens of the Harvard students that Dylan helped as a teaching assistant, many of them international, many of them from China, stayed up with him for nights on end to help. Anna took photos and videos to chronicle this memorable experience. She watched as this crew of brilliant kids came to Dylan’s aid, just as he had for them in the years he spent as a teaching assistant as an undergrad at the University of Virgina, and then as a grad student at Harvard. Anna said that level of collaboration, cooperation, loyalty, and support taught her something, not just about the leadership and profound kindness that drew this group to her brother — but about how the world works best when we work together. Anna is a very special and wise cookie. Like Dylan, she will help to make the world a better place for generations to come. My prayer is that these young, brilliant souls around the world work together to accomplish that mission in peace. With kindness. With elegance. With grace.

Dylan Gibbs, masters thesis presentation, May 15, 2025

And then there’s the Harvard component. I am not ignorant as to the reason why some people in the world hate those of us who are educated. We are dangerous to them. We think for ourselves, and we see through the manipulation of those keen on maintaining control. I am a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication (1986). That experience helped me to know that my son had the intellectual prowess to go to an Ivy League school. I knew how to assist Dylan in his journey. He did all the heavy lifting. But like my parents did before me, I know that showing our kids the way to success is often how success works. Doctors birth doctors. Lawyers create lawyers. Scientists make scientists. Artists teach creativity. Entrepreneurs show their kids how business and self-employment needs to be navigated. And when you are given these privileges, you pass it on.

Weijia and Alex Yuen, founders, Collective Operations, San Francisco

Harvard is a level up. The day Dylan got accepted, he was living with me in New Mexico during the pandemic. To make the most of our time, we were working on a project that I’ve long held in my heart: To create retreat centers around the world where women can come together to feel safe, build and rebuild their lives and dearms, create, and share their love.

He designed it during his senior year at UVA, bringing in two of his brilliant professors, Alex and Weijia Yuen. While we were on one of our weekly Friday meetings, Dylan jumped off to take a call. He came back to report he’d been accepted at Harvard. He also got into the architecture programs at Princeton, Yale, and Rice, but asked me what I thought about where he’d go. With tears of pride rolling down my face, I said: Harvard! Alex and Weijia nodded. They had also just accepted teaching positions there, and so the team went off to Boston. The retreat center project remains a dream; but these educated architects have accomplished amazing things in the years since. That’s what truly matters — to me.

Harvard Defies Trump, The Harvard Crimson

As for the future of education: I believe we all need to decide what it means to be smart. For me, and many people that I grew up with, education is a critical component. I am Jewish, and for centuries of pogroms, we have learned to embrace the reality that the knowledge you hold in your head, body, mind, spirit, and heart is often the only thing you take with have. That is how Jews have survived — and thrived.

In 2025, that conversation is so messy that it’s almost impossible to make sense of. And, it’s one of the reasons I hold learning dear. Before I had Anna and Dylan, I studied in the educational leadership master’s program at The George Washington University (1992). That education led me to work as the communications director for the City of Fairfax Schools in Northern VA for a decade (2001-2011). It was an honor and a privilege to work for K-12 leaders while I was raising my kids. After my kids went to college, I studied for another degree in positive psychology at Claremont Graduate University in southern CA (2020). When in doubt, I go back to school. Why? Because the opportunity to learn something new is a privilege and a gift. I hope it’s the same for you.

Dylan at work: Then (at his dad’s desk, 2001) and Now (working at his desk at Harvard’s GSD, 2025)

So what’s next? Caps off to Harvard for standing its ground, and supporting our son. When he was a toddler, my husband and I knew would Dylan make an impact in this world. This oldest institution is fighting not just for its future, but for his future — and the future of higher education in this country. I am a small voice in a vast world. My tiny but powerful PR firm and publishing company is filled with light and love, but it is just that — small. Yet, it is also mighty. As are we all. All it takes to make us stronger is one profound child. One walk on the beach. One big idea. One giant dream. And all of us working together in small and big ways — a Kibbutz, a village, a community. This is what democracy looks like: We the people. This is our power. This is how we change the world. One graduation, one miracle at a time.

Until next Monday: I send love, blessings, and wishes that our children thrive, and their dreams — no matter what they are — become their reality. Power to the people, right on! — Hope Katz Gibbs, founder and president, Inkandescent® Inc. Inkandescent.us

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