Undergraduate Speaker: Novia Jichu Liu

Notes on History

Good afternoon everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. I must admit, when I received this honor to speak on behalf of our graduating class, I found myself rather intimidated. After all, how could I craft an address worthy of a department that has defined my undergraduate career? So, like any good student of history who feels dreadfully unprepared, I went back to my notes. Not my notes on history’s greatest orations, or even my notes on the practice of history. No, to attempt a speech for this class, I turned to my notes on the class itself.

Now, before I terrify my peers too much, please let me explain. In my four years at Stanford, I have jotted down notes on 194 History discussions. In our sections and colloquia, at our progress reports and presentations, I’ve done my best to keep track of the conversation. What’s left is a series of discrete tabs, each dedicated to its own session and each documenting what was said.

Much like our historical sources, these records are far from complete. While engaged with your ideas, I’ve missed attributions, skipped points, and abandoned sentences midway. More subtly, each page bares the imprint of my perspective. But these notes on History—on History’s Class of 2025—do exist, and they stand as a tribute to your mark on this department.

On January 10, 2024, Eliza noted how the United States military had categorized more and more people as unqualified for belligerent privileges during the Philippine-American War. On May 8, 2025, Draper asked how he should open his thesis presentation on Saint Vincent, a Caribbean island unfamiliar to so many. On October 22, 2024, Lexi reported reading 75 pages of edited correspondence—a testament to her remarkable diligence. She also noted her discovery of love letters written in abolitionist rhetoric—a testament to the curiosities of antebellum America.

Yet, when I began taking these notes, it was not to inspire a commencement speech. History, as we know, ought not to be read backwards. Instead, these records were my best attempt to preserve my learning within this outstanding community.

You see, I became attached to history very early on my Stanford journey. Though I came in thinking I would belong to a social science major that shall not be named, I quickly changed course. It was, as they say, love at first lecture. As I sat in History 150A, “Colonial and Revolutionary America,” I discovered a world of seismic developments and spectacular documents that took my breath away. I wanted to explore the American Founding, and the discipline of history provided an ideal path forward.

But I couldn’t study the American Founding alone. History, of course, is not conducted in a vacuum. To better understand the past, I felt I couldn’t miss a word of what was said about it here, in this department, in the present. I scarcely need to mention that our faculty boasts some of the world’s best historical minds, so detailed lecture notes were non-negotiable. But I was also struck by my peers, budding students of history who pushed me to rethink my own assumptions.

Four years later, we have ample evidence of their merit. Anna Wang, Ellie, Daniel, and Theo have enriched countless discussions. Our inaugural capstone presentations featured incredible works ranging from Inés’s website on Spain’s Valley of the Fallen to Jacqueline’s podcast on the 1968 occupation of Wilmington, Delaware. And this summary does not even begin to cover the other creative projects created by William, Bruce, and Nina, by April, Moisés, Oscar, and Zoe. What’s more, our honors theses span thousands of years of history and myriad subjects. Marguerite analyses Pope Gregory VII’s medieval correspondence while Arynn explores the first Black Greek letter organizations. Evan’s study on opium begins with the Mexican American War while Lily’s investigation of Israel education takes us up to 1977. Evidently, I did not know of their scholarship then, but I knew I was among extraordinary thinkers. This department’s brilliance urged me to preserve everything I could.

So began my freshman year, and so began my notes on History. Yet, while my love for this discipline was unmistakable, my skills were unmistakably lacking. I entered History 150A with almost no sense of how to be an effective historian. Allow me to present a few lines from my first paper outline, which my then TA, Courtney MacPhee, read with staggering patience. Dear Courtney, “do I write in present or past tense?” “Is this introduction too long?” Or, my personal favorite, “how does one cite the Declaration of Independence in [the] Chicago [Manual of Style]?” And the inexperience did not end there. While reading, I couldn’t decide what to—or rather, what not to—write down, so I amassed a graveyard of ballpoint pens needlessly sacrificed to my lack of discernment. While flagging texts, I marked so many sentences that I could never find a quote. Case and point, this monstrosity [show annotated book from freshman year].

Without the guidance of amazing graduate students like Courtney, like Jennifer Depew, like Jordan Virtue, I would not be able to do history. As I enter a PhD program of my own next year, I aim to pass on their kindness. To their teachings, I’ve added lessons from this graduating class. Zelig’s painstaking research is a model for excellence, and I still yearn to write like Samiya. I make no exaggeration when I say her prose reads like poetry.

Preservation, though, was not my only purpose. I wrote these notes to reference during class as well. Amid our discussions, I wanted to be able to highlight my classmates’ contributions. This fall, for instance, I typed up the following: “Arjun makes a good point: [historians] need to bring things together, [as they] can’t just use objects” in the absence of context. Though we might wish that an artifact presented a complete picture, we cannot rely exclusively on extrapolation.

Noting these remarks assisted me in recognizing their impact. If we can help it, student perspectives ought not to go unnoticed, and great history ought not to go uncelebrated.

It’s been my pleasure to be a part of a department that shares this approach. The members of Stanford History go above and beyond to support its students. When I was a freshman, three sophomores, Baird Johnson, Eric Areklett, and Parker Amoroso, took me under their wing. They welcomed me to their weekly dinners, and even after graduating, they cheered me through my thesis.

This year, I had the honor of serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Herodotus, History’s undergraduate journal. Thanks to the department’s backing, we get to publish the best papers from our peers year after year, like John’s essay on the role of Whig newspapers in shaping Edmund Burke’s legacy.

As a Peer Advisor, I’ve gotten to work with so many wonderful individuals dedicated to our community. These include my fellow graduating Peer Advisors, Anna Moller and Jessica, but also amazing staff members like Colin Hamill and Kai Dowding. This year alone, Kai has fielded over 120 emails from me with topics ranging from oral presentations to trivia night. Simply put, our graduating class would not be graduating without her.

This astonishing degree of support extends to our faculty. Time after time, Professor Anne Twitty has encouraged me to hang in there, sending the perfect words of encouragement at the perfect moment. When I took “Political Thought in Early Modern Britain,” Professor David Como brought organic fig bars every week because our class time intersected with dinner. Professor Kathryn Olivarius hosts study sessions in her office and calls each student my dear. And of course, I can never go a day without thanking Professor Jonathan Gienapp. As my major advisor, he has never ceased to believe in me, even as I’ve delivered email after discourse after tangent despairing of my lack of competence. When I think of the kind of scholar I hope to become, Professor Gienapp always comes to mind.

Class of 2025, my notes on History helped me to preserve your comments and celebrate your astute observations. But, at their core, those 194 records reflect my approach to the past. My family, to whom I owe the utmost gratitude, taught me to try to understand others on their own terms. This department, in turn, taught me that this same standard applies to historical figures.

In doing history, we seek to understand people not as caricatures of our fears or mirrors of ourselves, but rather as their own thinkers and actors. To enrich our knowledge of the past, we hear, or rather read, what another human has to communicate, and we take careful notes. We are a humanities subject through and through, as we analyze and recognize humanity. Compassion, not hatred or adulation, is our fundamental principle, guiding us towards a clearer vision of eras gone by.

Regardless of whether history becomes our profession, we maintain a responsibility to give our fellow human beings the time of day—to hear them out instead of imposing our preconceived notions. Whether our next interaction is with a coworker or an eighteenth-century author, I believe we will uphold that responsibility, as I’ve watched us do so for years. So, congratulations, Class of 2025. You have my deepest thanks, not just for studying history, but for seeking to understand the past. May you carry that same compassion into the future, one that remains yours to create.