The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Commencement absence felt ‘at our core’
HAMDEN — Sacred Heart Academy was founded in the Roman Catholic tradition by the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1946, a tradition it continued to celebrate at its commencement ceremony Saturday. For many of the school’s graduates in the last two decades, the school’s newfound tradition of biological sciences has been transformative as well.
Chemical engineer Tara Cocchiarella Barreira, a Sacred Heart alumna who has worked in the biopharmaceutical field for more than 10 years, delivered a commencement address to the largest class in the school’s history — 133 graduates — but she acknowledged that one person’s absence was felt “at our core.”
Sister Mary Jane Paolella, an alumna and faculty member who is credited with bringing curriculum on gene sequencing to the school about 20 years ago, died in March.
Paolella was “a catalyst” for many Sacred Heart Academy graduates to enter the biomedical field, Cocchiarella Barreira said. She said she now enjoys deploying the fact that she learned how to sequence DNA before she learned how to drive a car in company.
When Cocchiarella Barreira graduated in 2002, she said the idea of altering DNA to eradicate genetic disorders was merely an idea they had discussed as a possibility in Paolella’s class. Now, it is a healthy field with some successes already.
“The ideas you have today will be the progress of tomorrow,” Cocchiarella Barreira said.
The school’s interest in scientific progress could also be observed in graduates’ future plans. The top four students from the Class of 2018 all state their desire to continue studying science — from veterinary science to biomedical engineering — in some fashion.
Cocchiarella Barreira also encouraged the graduates to participate in current events. The women’s movement of today is the biggest since the 1920s, she argued. During the women’s suffrage movement under first-wave feminism, the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, giving women the right to vote, although barriers remained for many nonwhite women.
Today’s movement combats sexism in the workplace and institutionalized sexism in our culture, she said.
Valedictorian Eunji Lee of Trumbull tried to quantify her time at Sacred Heart Academy. She estimated that 22.2 percent of the graduates’ lives had been spent as Sacred Heart Academy students; 0.08 percent of their lives was spent sitting in calculus, she said.
Percentages are “reassuring, in a way,” she said. “They can quantify the unquantifiable and give you a justification in making a decision for which there’s no right answer.”
On Saturday, as the graduating class stares down the reality of starting over in a new school environment in a few months, Lee said she is different than she was four years ago: she’s not afraid anymore.
“It took courage to make it this far, and it takes courage to start all over again next year as tiny freshmen,” she said. “But we’re doing it anyway, aren’t we? And that speaks volumes.”
Salutatorian Amy Ziobron of Watertown spoke about what it meant for students to “make the most” of their time at Sacred Heart Academy. It could be reaching maximum value, she said, or creating the best outcome of a bad situation.
“When we mourned the loss of Sister Mary Jane, we didn’t stop making her proud as the determined, hard-working and curious women of science she taught us to be,” she said. “Create lasting relationships with the people around you and don’t forget to enjoy your experiences as much as possible as we make the most of all that lies ahead.”