HANOVER — The sun broke through the clouds as Golden Globe Award-winning actress Sandra Oh approached the podium to deliver the commencement address at Dartmouth on Sunday.

“I never attended university myself, only played characters who have, so thank you for helping fulfill my parents’ dream of actually getting a degree,” Oh said, referring to the honorary Doctor of Arts the college awarded her.

Oh was one of seven who received an honorary degree from Dartmouth on Sunday morning. The college awarded a total of about 2,200 degrees, including 1,230 undergraduate degrees to students hailing from 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam and 48 countries.

Oh played the role of Dr. Cristina Yang for a decade on “Grey’s Anatomy,” a television show created and produced by Shonda Rhimes, a Dartmouth alumna and a member of the Board of Trustees.

Oh described the impostor syndrome she experienced when Rhimes asked her to be the college’s commencement speaker this year. “What could I possibly say to you young graduates that could meet this moment we find ourselves in?” Oh said.

“…What if I say the wrong thing?” Oh said. “What if I were to talk about diversity, equity?”

As the crowd of 10,000 gathered on the Green cheered at Oh’s crack at the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the Canadian native forged on.

“Could I get deported?” she said, “See, that should be a bad joke, and it is, but it’s not.”

Using her time spent playing Cristina Yang as an example of a strenuous period in her life, Oh emphasized the importance of leaning into discomfort and meeting that discomfort with kindness.

“A lot of us are scared and angry about what’s going on in the world, and in times like this, kindness might seem naive or pointless,” Oh said. “But when I say kindness, I’m not talking about being nice. I’m talking about being able to hold your own heartbreak so we can go on living, go on resisting, go on building, go on healing. So we can meet cruelty again and again and not lose our humanity.”

Toward the end of her roughly 17-minute address, Oh broke her serious tone.

“Actually, you know what?” she said mid-sentence. “There is this one thing I’ve done my whole life that I’d really love to share with you all.

“When the world gets hard or when it’s good, especially when it’s good like today… always make the time to dance it out,” Oh said as the song “Titanium” by David Guetta and Sia started playing and many in the crowd burst into dance.

There were elements of the resistance Oh described visible during Sunday’s commencement.

As degrees were being conferred, a group of about two dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators began walking in a single-file line around the perimeter of the green.

Dressed in all black, the demonstrators rang bells, operated large puppets and carried signs reading: “Divest from war,” “Break the siege” and “Invest in aid.”

Although the demonstrators declined to identify themselves or speak with a reporter, they handed out flyers stating they support the demands of six students who began hunger striking on June 3.

The demands are for the Board of Trustees to approve a divestment proposal for Dartmouth to cut ties with aerospace and defense companies that manufacture supplies used by Israel in the conflict in Gaza and for the college to lift the suspension of student activists Jordan Narrol, a member of the class of 2025, and Roan Wade.

The demonstrators continued their procession while Sian Leah Beilock, Dartmouth’s president, gave a short address.

“Other organizations may exist to make money or serve political causes or espouse certain points of view,” Beilock said. “We exist to educate, to teach you how to think, not what to think.”

Beilock referenced an April article in the publication The Atlantic titled “The Worst Job in America” that described the scrutiny Ivy League college presidents currently face.

“As some question our mission and the very idea of higher education and others, sometimes within higher education itself, forcefully argue that we have nothing to change or improve on, the best way to advocate for what you have experienced here and push our institutions to continue to improve is to put these skills rooted in your values to use every single day,” Beilock said. “Embrace different perspectives and opinions, but always come back to your values.”

During their remarks, Emma Tsosie and Sydney Hoose, co-presidents of Native Americans at Dartmouth, told the story of Dartmouth’s history.

“We gather here today on the unceded and ancestral homelands of the Abenaki people to celebrate with a college that was originally founded for the education of Native youth,” Tsosie said.

In 1769, Dartmouth was founded for the purpose of educating Indigenous tribes in North America. However, over the next 200 years, only 19 Native students graduated from the college.

John Kemeny, Dartmouth’s president from 1970 to 1981, “reignited the original mission of the college after Indigenous students and faculty advocated for this important change,” Hoose said.

Since then, over a thousand Native American students have graduated from Dartmouth.

“The initial aim of the college was to christianize and civilize the Indian population,” Hoose said. “However, the very things that were meant to be stripped from Indigenous people, our cultural identities, only made us stronger and this place better.”

While leaving the stage, Tsosie held up a sign reading “No One is ‘Illegal’ on Stolen Land” on one side and “Free Palestine” on the other.

Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.

Graduates from theUpper Valley

Phoebe Anne Altman, Lyme; William Bender, Lyme; Hannah Waverly Chipman, Norwich; James Donald Eiler, Hanover; William Alexander Ermarth, Etna; Prescott John Herzog, Claremont; Matthew Joseph Jachim-Gallagher, Newport; Oliver Clemens Morgan, Etna; Helah Sandra Snelling, Hanover; Emma Y Supattapone, Hanover; Steven Patrick Townley, Quechee; Charles John Wheelan, Hanover; and Madeline Kathleen Wolfe, Grantham.

CORRECTION: John Kemeny served as Dartmouth’s president from 1970 to 1 981. A previous version of this story included an incorrect spelling of Kemeny’s name.