More than 150 people gathered at Allen House the night before Commencement to recognize student award-winners, honorary degree recipients and the distinguished alumni award winner. This first-ever event raised scholarship money, and also gave the University community a chance to hear and talk to the award recipients.
Chancellor Marty Meehan said quality of this year’s honorary degree recipients was a factor in planning the event.
“Because this group is so impressive, we thought it would be great to give them the opportunity to come with us the night before and talk about their experience and wisdom with our students and faculty,” said Meehan.
The Commencement speaker, U.S. Sen. John Kerry, congratulated the 10 students who were honored at the event for their excellence in academic achievement and public service.
“We live in a world today, for better or worse, that is rampant with the kind of cynicism that finds it very easy to marginalize the kind of excellence that is being celebrated tonight,” said Kerry.
“You are on the way to being citizens. We need more citizens. We need more people who can contribute to an honest public dialogue and to a real resolution on tough issues we face,” he said. “We need to restore America’s pride in excellence, in being willing to stride for being elite in every sense of the word.”
Students honored for community service were: Heloisa Cunha, Melissa Doin, Stephen Holstrom, Amanda Jenkins, Rebecca Naddrie and Katelyn Watt. The Athletic Scholarship Award recipient was Celia Merullo. The Chancellor’s Medal for Academic Achievement, given to the student with the highest GPA in each college, went to: co-valedictorian Barbara Warren, Humanities and Social Sciences; Michelle Polys, Fine Arts; Robert Mello, Sciences; Hadi Sutrisno, Engineering; Katherine Wolfgang, Management; and co-valedictorian Amanda Jenkins, School of Health and Environment.
UMass President Jack Wilson talked of the significance of the Commencement ceremony the following morning, and also the purpose of awarding honorary degrees.
“Tomorrow is the most important day in a university’s life. It reminds us why we all do what we do,” said Wilson. The honorary degree recipients “define for the students what the students can be going on from graduation. It defines for the students that you can pick a lot of paths in life and you can make a huge difference. Here [tonight] are a few examples of people who have made a spectacular difference in this world.”
Four of the five people receiving the Honorary Doctor of Human Letters spoke during the event. The fifth, Mary Jo Leahey ’37, founder of the Mary Jo Leahey High School Summer Band Camp at the University, was traveling from Florida and was honored in abstentia.
Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks, talked of the effect of globalization and technology on the way business works today.
"In a lot of ways entrepreneurship, and the ability to lead, and the ability to do new things, have really been democratized. In that democratized world, what becomes the biggest asset is that hunger to do things,” he said.
The fact that many UMass Lowell students are the first in their families to graduate from college “shows a tremendous amount of hunger. More and more I think that it is hunger that will be a contributing factor whether people will be able to do anything. I see a lot of opportunity for students graduating from UMass Lowell and I hope every one of you will lead a change in that this world economy needs,” he said.
Charlayne Hunter-Gualt, an award-winning journalist with 40 years of experience at CNN, National Public Radio and PBS, said her friend Bill Cosby told her, “What do you say when your real life exceeds your wildest dreams? The answer is, keep it to yourself.”
“I hope that my passion is like your passion and it will help you to achieve your dreams. So that one day, when you are standing here, when you tell the Bill Cosby joke, you can follow by saying, my real life has exceeded my wildest dreams,” said Hunter-Gualt.
Gerald Martone ’79, director of humanitarian affairs at the International Rescue Committee, said his UMass Lowell education played an important role in his life.
“I am quite proud, and, in fact, quite humbled,” to be here, said Martone. “I loved my time at the University. It was really a life-changing event for me and it truly prepared me for the life ahead emotionally, intellectually, professionally. It was the single most influential experience of my life.”
E.O. Wilson, university research professor emeritus and honorary curator in entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, spoke of the threat to the environment and the role students must play in addressing this threat.
“We must settle down before we completely wreck the planet,” said Wilson. “I believe that every class, like the one graduating now, should be congratulated and urged and challenged to become the next great generation to help us become better aware of these great changes taking place all around us from our own actions.”
Tom O’Connor, chairman, president and CEO of DCP Midstream, LLP, one of the nation’s largest natural gas gatherers and processors, received the distinguished alumni award.
“This is a great honor for me. But at the end of the day, I could hardly fail with all the help that I had along the way,” said O’Connor. “That is something perhaps we should all ask ourselves every day. What have we done to help the next generation, to help people realize their goals and dreams? That is really what this university is all about. While you recognize me, the honor really belongs to the University, and it belongs to the people that make up this institution.”
For more photos from the event, visit UML's photo gallery.
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