CHESS commencement speaker Foster Duckworth reflects on making your mark at UNC Charlotte

Foster Duckworth was the student speaker for the UNC Charlotte commencement ceremony on Friday, May 8, at 3 p.m., for the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences and the William States Lee College of Engineering.

Duckworth was a double CHESS major, earning a bachelor of arts in history and Japanese. After graduation Duckworth will continue his studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

The opportunity to speak at commencement was one Duckworth couldn’t pass up. His speech was an ode to the little moments every graduating Niner holds close to their hearts. 

“We have all been a part of a community that has believed in us since the day we received our acceptance letters, and that will continue to believe in us long after we have left this campus,” said Duckworth.

Duckworth spoke about how making your mark at Charlotte is not reserved for a specific kind of person or action, but is found in all the moments in the journey that matter to each student. He explained those moments are memories that graduates will carry with them, and they can be big, like having your name on a plaque or being a part of a sports team, or small, like still being friends with the people you met in your general education class by chance, breaking your glasses in half and repairing them with your roommates’ nail glue, or being chased on campus at 2 a.m. by a goose.

“It doesn’t really matter if you weren’t in a club or didn’t win an award, you have left marks here that mean something to you,” Duckworth said. “You know what you did, and you should be proud of what you did.”

Duckworth grew up in Raleigh, N.C. and has long been fascinated by the past. As a kid he would beg his family to go to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and his dad would take him nearly every weekend in elementary school. When he arrived at UNC Charlotte, his curiosity about the natural world continued.

“My favorite place on campus is the pond behind SoVi,” Duckworth said. “There’s a blue heron that migrates there every summer like clockwork. That’s something I’ll never forget about Charlotte.”

Duckworth’s interest in Japanese history is rooted in his family. His mom’s family moved from the East Coast to Tokyo during her childhood, and he has always been fascinated by their stories of what it was like living there as Americans in the 1980s. Within the History Honors program, Duckworth examined overlooked topics including Japan’s colonial activity in Hokkaido and the Ainu indigenous community.

His pursuit of underexamined topics extended to his work with the Atkins Library Special Collections & University Archives where he got hands-on experience with digital archives, community history and oral narratives. He catalogued materials about black student activism on campus, the impacts of urban renewal on the city and Charlotte’s LGBTQ+ history.

History and archives is often regarded as solitary work, but Duckworth’s experience in Charlotte’s history department has been the opposite. Collaboration with faculty and fellow students across disciplines created a community feel that allowed Duckworth to grow as a person as well as a researcher. 

Duckworth was awarded the Jane Laurent Prize by the department of history in Spring 2024 and the 2025 Dean’s Prize for his honors capstone thesis.

“I’m kind of used to being the only one who does what I do,” Duckworth said. “The history department made me more confident about sharing what I research and also reaching out to other people.”