Commencement celebrates ‘new normal’ for PNW graduates
Every commencement, Purdue Northwest Chancellor Thomas Keon asks the graduates’ families to “be respectful” and not yell when their loved ones’ names are announced and every commencement, few listen.
There was no way that Mary Martin, of Batavia, Illinois, was going to keep quiet when her mom, Deborah Martin, walked across the dais to receive her bachelors of nursing Sunday afternoon at the school’s Hammond, Indiana, campus.
After continuing to work through the pandemic, tending to her family and heading back to school, yelling “That’s my mom!” from deep in the audience was the least she could do to celebrate.
“I would say I’m astounded, but she’s always raised us to work hard,” Martin, who’ll receive her degree in education next year, said of her mom’s accomplishment. “She fills me with so much inspiration.”
A total 976 students — including 856 undergrads and 120 graduate students — celebrated with their families in Sunday’s commencement exercise, during which the school debuted its new alma mater song and rang its recently dedicated, student-designed bell. Alfredo Sori, a 1989 engineering graduate who delivered the commencement keynote, recalled the appreciation he held for his mom being his biggest cheerleader when he set off for college.
“My mom knew it was so important for me to have the campus feel, so she did her research and found a place for me that took four or five blocks to walk,” Sori said. “She said, ‘That’s all I can do, son,’ and it was that determination (that got me where I am).”
Sori imparted with three of the top characteristics that he believes makes someone successful in life: integrity, respect and courage. Integrity, he said, is the most fragile because it takes years to establish, but mere seconds to lose, but people who have it always attempt to do the right thing.
“Their actions are consistent and they’re fully transparent,” Sori said. “They bring problems to light (so everyone can work toward the solution together).”
Respect, them, goes hand in hand with integrity, he said, because even though it to can be lost with one act of unethical behavior, everyone deserves respect.
As far as courage, Sori needed look no further than his own dad, who brought himself and his family to a country in which he didn’t know the language from Cuba for a better life. In three years, Sori’s father had learned English and promoted to a supervisory position at St. Margaret Hospital in Hammond.
“I’m reminded of a quote (from Lao Tzu): ‘Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your
habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny,’ ” he said.
Student Government President Oriana White implored the graduates to drink in every moment of Sunday, because it would be one of the last times they’ll ever have all their support systems in one place.
“I know you’re feeling like you’re starting a whole new book,
so whether you’re waiting for that great job to call you back or starting a gap year before something new, I hope you look back on your time here with pride and overwhelming joy,” White said.
Jazmin Gonzalez, of Chicago, received her bachelors in organic chemistry and plans to get into environmental research and eventually go for her doctorate. For her,
college was a lesson in adaptation.
“First, I had to learn to be a college student, then college got flipped on its head, and we had to learn how to be a college student online, only to turn around and come back to find the new normal of being back on campus,” she said.