The growl was familiar, and the message was empowering: “Your generation has far more power than you may realize,” Harrison Ford told Arizona State University’s Class of 2026 on Monday night.

“And if you harness that power, if you find your leadership, your issues, your voice, the world will not be able to ignore you,” the legendary actor and conservationist told the crowd at Mountain America Stadium.

Ford spoke to a full audience at an Undergraduate Commencement that recognized ASU’s largest graduating class ever, with more than 14,000 undergraduates students earning more than 15,000 degrees. 

Earlier in the day, more than 8,000 graduate and law students celebrated at Graduate Commencement, held at Desert Financial Arena. 

Of the total class, more than 8,000 were ASU Online students. This includes more than 1,100 graduates who attended ASU as part of the Starbucks College Achievement Plan, in which eligible partners receive 100% upfront tuition coverage. Those grads hail from 49 of the 50 states.

During Undergraduate Commencement, Ford exhorted the graduates to protect the planet.

“Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature to survive,” he said. “A healthy, natural world provides free services to mankind that we cannot provide for ourselves.”

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Known for his rugged charm and dry humor, Ford has created some of the most enduring characters in film history, including Han Solo in the “Star Wars” movies. His career has spanned more than six decades and included the hit movies “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Witness,” “Patriot Games,” “Blade Runner,” “The Fugitive” and “Presumed Innocent.” Most recently, he starred in the TV Western “1923” and the comedy drama “Shrinking.”

Before his speech, Ford received an honorary Doctor of Arts and Humane Letters in recognition of his global cultural influence through film, his work for planetary health and his service through humanitarian aviation.

He started his speech by telling the graduates that by the time he was a junior in college, his grades were sliding. So, looking for an easy A, he took a drama course.

“My classmates were people I had previously discounted as geeks and misfits. But I soon realized I was a geek and misfit,” he said. “I had found my fit. These were my people.”

He began performing in plays and moved to California. But acting jobs weren’t enough to support his family, so he worked as a carpenter.

“This went on for about 15 years, during which I did a lot of carpentry and only four or five acting jobs, but they were more ambitious, good projects. And then it all added up, and I got ‘Star Wars,’” he said to screams from the crowd.

“The load lightened. I had freedom, opportunity. But something was still missing.

“Passion and purpose are not the same thing. Passion brings you joy. Purpose brings you meaning.

“Passion gets you out of bed in the morning, but purpose allows you to sleep at night. And I hadn’t found purpose higher than my job yet.”

In the late 1980s, he was living in Wyoming, where he met the founders of the newly created Conservation International.

“I didn’t want to be a poster boy for the cause. I wanted to be part of the work,” he said. 

He joined the Conservation International Board of Directors in 1991 and has played an instrumental role in shaping the organization’s mission to protect nature for people. He said despite new science and new policies, nature is still being lost. 

“We need cultural change. We need to extend social justice. We need to respect and elevate Indigenous people that are being marginalized,” he said.

He urged the graduates to find their places.

“Build something that didn’t exist yesterday. Stand up for someone who can’t stand up for themselves. Bring together people who weren’t talking before,” Ford said.

“That’s leadership. That’s what moves the needle. … This is your time. Own it.”

Also receiving an honorary degree Monday night was businessman and philanthropist Howard Graham Buffett, chairman and CEO of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, a private charitable foundation investing in global food security, conflict mitigation and efforts to counter human trafficking. He received a Doctor of Humane Letters in recognition of his humanitarian, agricultural development and conservation work around the world.

Buffett had several pieces of advice for the graduates.

“When you get out of bed every morning and think about what to do that day, would you be proud if your neighbors and friends and family read about what you did in the newspaper?

“… And when you go to bed at night, think about something you did that made life better for somebody besides yourself.”

He told the graduates to never be afraid to change their minds.

“It’s OK to want something different when you learn about something new,” said Buffett, whose foundation has partnered with the ASU Foundation for a New American University on many projects, including several with the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Earlier in the ceremony, ASU President Michael Crow told the graduates that he had a short history lesson for them: “Only 250 years ago this summer, imperfect people got together and wrote the Declaration of Independence. This is the preamble: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

“We fight every day — every day — for that to be the case. That these rights are immutable, indivisible, cannot be changed, cannot be taken away,” Crow said.

“Each of you come from every type of family, every background, every family income, everything that you can imagine.

“You’re going to make this thing work. You’re going to make this country better.

“We’re just getting started.”