Schools
Quinnipiac U Confers Degrees During Eight Ceremonies
Quinnipiac University confers more than 3,000 degrees during eight ceremonies over three days
HAMDEN, CT - Quinnipiac University conferred more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate degrees during eight ceremonies held outdoors on the Mount Carmel Campus between May 8-10.
Businessman Carlton Highsmith told the Class of 2021 to build, nurture and maintain inclusive relationships Monday at the undergraduate Commencement for the School of Business and the School of Engineering.
“I urge you to embrace diversity in all of its magnificent and wonderful forms — across race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and thought,” said Highsmith, vice chairman of the Board of Trustees at Quinnipiac. “You will discover, as I have learned, that the proximity of our differences reveals our common humanity.”
The words hung in the air long after Highsmith folded up his speech and stepped away from a lectern. They mattered and they inspired.
In all, 440 degree candidates from the School of Business and 90 degree candidates from the School of Engineering, along with their guests, attended the ceremony on the Mount Carmel Campus Quad.
President Judy Olian saw the rows of promise and perspective sitting in front of her.
“As I look out on the Quad today, I see future engineers, cybersecurity experts, software developers, logisticians, analysts, strategists, financiers, entrepreneurs and inventors, managers and leaders who will facilitate these positive developments,” Olian said.
“You will help bring these advances to market; invent, make and build creations that improve the quality of life for a wide cross section of society; offer broad access to these advances; and challenge the entrenched social order that is unequal,” she added.
Olamide Gbotosho, the senior class president, and Michael Giannone, an industrial engineering student, each delivered a Response of the Class of 2021.
“All the successes, failures and changes we have experienced have allowed us to grow and develop the poise to take those challenges on,” Gbotosho said. “Your failures and your adaptability to change has brought you here today.”
“They have shaped and formed you into the person that is sitting here in that cap and gown,” she added. “Remember, it’s OK to fail and it’s OK for change to happen. What matters is that we learn from those failures and embrace those changes.”
The future is somewhat less clear, but more promising for the Class of 2021.
“It’s filled with uncertainty, which as engineers, we find incredibly difficult to deal with because we don’t like uncertainty, we like concrete answers,” Giannone said. “But the future is also filled with hope. Hope that we can leave the world a little better than how we found it.”
Later Monday, the university conferred an additional 368 graduate degrees at a separate ceremony.
The university presented 2,125 undergraduate and graduate degrees during six commencement ceremonies held over the weekend.
A total of 950 degrees were conferred on Sunday. Ansonia’s Superintendent of Schools addressed the School of Education during the first ceremony on Sunday. Cheyney Ryan, a global scholar of human rights, non-violence and conflict resolution, spoke to students from the College of Arts and Sciences during the day’s second ceremony. Matt Murray, editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, capped off the day with an address to the School of Communications.
Quinnipiac presented an additional 1,175 degrees during three ceremonies on Saturday. Sonja LaBarbera, president and chief executive officer of Gaylord Specialty Healthcare and Beth Beckman, chief nursing executive, Yale New Haven Health System, addressed the graduates.
Commencement will conclude for the Class of 2021 on Tuesday with ceremonies for the School of Medicine and School of Law.
Quinnipiac will hold commencement ceremonies for the Class of 2020 on Saturday, May 15.