2025 Honorary Degree Recipient & Commencement Speaker
Erik Weihenmayer
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
College of Education
Erik Weihenmayer is a world-renowned adventurer and author of the best-selling memoir "Touch the Top of the World". He is best known for becoming the first blind person to summit Mount Everest and is the only blind climber to ascend the Seven Summits – the highest peaks on each continent. He has also climbed frozen waterfalls in Nepal and Canada, volcanoes in Ecuador and Chile, and long, difficult rock routes in his home in Colorado's Rocky Mountains and the towering cliffs of the Italian Dolomites. And in 2014, he kayaked the entire 277 miles of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. By challenging preconceptions about what it means to be blind, Weihenmayer has inspired people around the world. He is the co-founder of the nonprofit organization No Barriers, which offers transformative programs to help people with disabilities live a "no barriers life." The organization serves 10,000 people annually, living by its motto: "What's within you is stronger than what's in your way."
