By Jessica Lien

During each College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) Commencement ceremony, graduates hear an address from a peer who will reflect on their shared experience as Hawkeyes, while also looking toward the future. 

This year, cinematic arts major, Isa Holtze, from Olympia, WA, will speak about the power of names, identity, and the significance of recognizing one’s own achievements. Holtze is celebrating four years of meaningful creative work, professional development, and personal growth at the University of Iowa—experiences she will reflect on when she addresses her fellow graduates at Commencement.

Defining moments  

When Holtze first considered moving to Iowa from the West Coast, she worried about leaving behind the vibrant arts communities she found living in Colorado, California, and Washington. She wasn't sure what to expect from a new region and creative community. What she found was an arts scene that provided a professional and collaborative community: “There are so many opportunities for students to be involved with music, film, and visual arts, even beyond their connection with the University of Iowa." 

As a cinematic arts student, Holtze discovered production work pushed her to understand every role on set and to build relationships based on trust, collaboration, and respect. In small production classes (often capped around 15 students), she found space to take creative risks, ask for help, and invite others into her creative process.

Those connections also opened doors. Holtze credits graduate students and faculty mentors who helped bring her onto professional sets and collaborative projects, experiences she describes as both surprising and energizing. 

A defining experience was directing a film that brought together many of the friends she’d made over three years—complete with auditions, choreography and dancers, costume design, lighting, and the full “all-hands” intensity of production. Today, she sees that film as a kind of time capsule: a finished piece, yes, but also a record of all she’s learned and the people and process that made it possible.

Holtze describes her Iowa experience in three words: supportive, fulfilling, and transformative. She says the lessons she’s carrying forward are just as defining as the work she’s created here. Reflecting on some hard-won lessons, she emphasizes the importance of trusting your intuition and holding tight to your own worth. That clarity, she says, has helped her name and celebrate what she’s earned and claim who she has become during her time at Iowa. 

A message about names, identity, and self-worth 

Holtze’s Commencement address centers on the power of names and what it means to claim your identity with confidence. 

Her full first name is Isabella, though she has gone by “Isa” for most of her life. Considering how names shift in families, friendships, workplaces, and everyday introductions, she became fascinated by how a name can carry identity, memory, and self-worth. 

Isa hopes fellow graduates will take a moment to be “a little self-centered” in the best way—recognizing their accomplishments, honoring what they overcame, and letting the ceremony be a personal milestone. She sees the moment one’s name is read onstage as a rare and significant kind of acknowledgement—a culmination of the University of Iowa experience, and a threshold into what comes next.  

It's a fitting conclusion to four years that surprised, challenged, and ultimately transformed her, and a message worth hearing as graduates prepare to walk across that stage and into a new chapter. 

Commencement Live Broadcast 

Access the Commencement broadcast here.