URI graduates 3,500
KINGSTON – Spirits were high as more than 3,500 University of Rhode Island undergraduates prepared to receive their diplomas at Sunday’s commencement ceremony. It took the thousands of graduating students more than thirty minutes to walk across the quadrangle to find their seats, celebrating along the way.
After 2017 graduate Gina Maria Tonna finished singing the national anthem, Reverend David Helfer took the stage to deliver a speech on the power of faith.
“All I can tell you is this: have faith. URI creates thinkers, you who know how to work individually and collaboratively. You who tackle topics and hard subjects with open hearts and open minds,” Helfer said. “You have faith in your convictions, as was evidenced months ago by the university’s demand and your support for DACA students.”
URI President David Dooley said the undergrads on Sunday reflected the “diversity of our nation and our world.”
“Watching our students march today, and yesterday at the graduate ceremony and at some college commencement ceremonies, I cannot help by notice the striking diversity represented by our graduates,” Dooley said.
“Increasingly, our students, indeed the entire University of Rhode Island, reflect the marvelous diversity of our nation and our world. Together we make up a community, a community that comes together today to celebrate our mutual achievements and to share our joy with one another,” he continued.
Several RI officials were also at the ceremony, including Congressman David Cicilline and Gov. Gina Raimondo.
Raimondo told the graduates that their generation was changing the country for the better, and urged them to keep “stepping up and speaking out.”
“[I]f you look around in this country at the change your generation is making because they’re stepping up and speaking out and refusing to be silent in the face of injustice and problems, then you’ll see we need you and we’re counting on you,” Raimondo said.
“Your generation is the one that’s going to make a difference,” she added.
The student speaker, Ellis Iacono, told the story of his first experience at the university.
During his first year at URI, Iacono dropped out within six weeks. However, this “failure” to finish his first semester led him to the realization that going nowhere for a while was just what he needed to pick himself up and succeed.
“Our society shuffles us through the ranks of education and profession as though we are all sitting on a conveyor belt. Many of us pursue different studies and vocations. Many of us will go on to achieve very distinct, personal goals. But what is universal to all of us is the sense that we must always be working toward something. We must always be trying to accomplish,” Iacono said.
“Some of you sitting here today are not moving forward to something concrete,” he continued. “Some of you may be worried that you have nowhere to go. To that I say: forge on. Go nowhere for a time, because I assure you, first hand, having nowhere to go is much more stimulating, more inspiring than it sounds.”
Several alumni also received honorary degrees on Sunday. Dharam V. Ablashi received an honorary doctorate of science; Akihiro Nikkaku received a doctorate in business; Anne Mimi Sammis received a doctorate in fine arts; and Jim Taricani received a doctorate in humane letters.