UH Hilo names volleyball senior Imani Lee spring commencement speaker

UH Hilo put volleyball senior Imani Lee on the main stage at Edith Kanakaole Stadium, choosing the Psychology major and Vulcan captain-in-waiting to speak for a graduating class of about 557 students. The selection gave the Hilo campus a visible example of what it is trying to project right now: a public university on Hawaii Island that treats student-athletes not just as competitors, but as campus leaders.

Lee, a four-year member of the UH Hilo volleyball program from Hacienda Heights, California, was set to represent classmates across the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Natural Resource Management, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business and Economics, the College of Natural and Health Sciences, the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy and Ka Haka Ula O Keelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language. She is finishing a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Political Science and a pre-law subject certificate, a combination that reflects the range of paths UH Hilo tries to build into a small-campus education.

Her campus record extends well beyond the court. UH Hilo athletics lists Lee as the 2025-26 Hawaii Hilo Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president, and her roster profile includes the 2024-25 AVCA Team Academic Award and the 2024-25 Academic All-PacWest Team. She also studied abroad in Rio de Janeiro, adding an international dimension to a profile already marked by leadership and academic success. Athletics lists her career goals as private investigator or movie director, and says she was born in September 2004 and graduated from Glen A. Wilson High School in California.

The university’s choice also fits a recent pattern. UH Hilo’s 2024 spring commencement featured former men’s soccer student-athlete David Mayser as student speaker, when 522 students petitioned for degrees and certificates. Two years in a row, then, the university has placed a student-athlete at the center of one of its biggest public ceremonies, a quiet but clear statement about the kind of leadership UH Hilo wants to showcase.

Michele Ebersole, professor of education at UH Hilo, delivered the keynote address. The university says Ebersole earned her Ph.D. in Language, Reading, and Culture from the University of Arizona and has spent more than two decades preparing future teachers and strengthening educator development across Hawaii Island. With Ebersole at the podium and Lee speaking for the graduates, UH Hilo framed commencement as more than a ceremony. It became a snapshot of the institution’s identity, where athletics, scholarship and service converge in front of the Big Island community.