Henry Winkler came back to Emerson College on Saturday, May 9, to address the Class of 2026 at the school’s 146th Commencement at the Wang Theatre. The actor and alumnus told graduates that they had something powerful to offer and urged them to find it, hold onto it and share it.
“You are powerful. And in you is a great gift. Your job is to figure out what your gift is. Because this world needs every single one of you,” Winkler said, adding, “Your job is to find that gift and give it to the world. It doesn’t matter what it is. We need it!”
The speech fit a full-circle moment for a performer whose name is already woven into Emerson’s history. Winkler graduated from the college in 1967, later received an honorary degree in 1978 and returned to deliver the keynote address to the graduating Class of 1995. On Saturday, he stood before about 1,000 undergraduate students and roughly 500 graduate students who received degrees in ceremonies that ran Friday and Saturday at the Wang Theatre.
Winkler said he began acting in commercials after graduating in 1967, even as his parents were unsettled by the choice. “I embarrassed [my parents] but I had a dream and I never let that dream out of my mind,” he said. The line landed with a particular weight from a man who went on to win multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Awards, appear in more than 100 television series and specials, and become a familiar face to generations of viewers as The Fonz in “Happy Days” and later Gene Cousineau in “Barry.”
He also used the moment to push the graduates toward a life built on persistence and perspective. “I live by two words: tenacity and gratitude,” he said. “Tenacity will get you where you want to go. Gratitude will make you enjoy the journey no matter how bumpy.” He added, “You can live a life. You can accomplish. You can accumulate a lot of stuff… But you cannot live a rich life if you don’t have empathy.”
The ceremony carried added institutional meaning as well. Emerson President Jay Bernhardt announced that the Performing Arts department in the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies will name its first Emerson Stage production each season as The Henry Winkler Premier Production. Bernhardt said the theater setting reflected Emerson’s belief that creative expression is “a powerful force that helps shape a more vibrant, humane, and hopeful world,” and told graduates they leave with “the ability to shape the future.”
The tribute places Winkler not just as a guest speaker, but as a recurring part of Emerson’s public identity. This year’s Commencement also marked a return to the Wang Theatre after the college had held the event for years at Agganis Arena, underscoring the effort to make the ceremony feel more intimate and tied to the school’s artistic roots. That makes the new stage designation more than symbolic: Emerson is turning a celebrated alumnus into a permanent marker of its performing arts ambitions.
Winkler, meanwhile, is still adding to a career that has spanned television, books and stage work. His memoir, “Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond,” spent 11 weeks on bestseller list, and he and Lin Oliver are set to publish “Detective Duck” in November, his 41st children’s book. For the students who heard him at graduation, the message was plain: talent matters, but persistence and gratitude are what make a life hold together.
