The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Class of 2020 graduates in virtual ceremony
MIDDLETOWN — Middlesex Community College conducted the 53rd annual commencement ceremony via the Zoom platform June 4.
In total, 364 students earned 406 associate degrees and certificates, with several students receiving multiple diplomas, according to a press release.
Among the class of 2020 are 18 military veterans, 20 foreign/international students and two incarcerated graduates from Cheshire Correctional Institute who will receive degrees during a later ceremony.
The oldest graduate is 66, and the youngest 15. One graduate began classes at Middlesex in 1987, and attended the college and off during the next 33 years before completing the necessary requirements to graduate this year, the release added. The class also includes two pairs of siblings (a brother and sister and two sisters), as well as a mother and daughter.
Jacob Murphy, who grew up without a standard formal education, said he was understandably nervous when he first considered attending college. Murphy, an engineering science major from Berlin, gave the student address, according to the college.
“When I considered my MxCC experience, I’m reminded of what it takes to facilitate student self-actualization. It takes a dedicated team of faculty and staff members and students alike — all working toward the same goal,” Murphy told the students.
“I have faith you will take the skills you have learned here, in conjunction the innate competence and willpower to get you to this point, and use them to usher us through these strange times,” he said.
Middlesex Dean of Academic and Students Affairs Sharale Mathis introduced class valedictorian, Abigail Brooke Ingalls, a veterinary technology major from Ledyard. She has worked at a veterinary clinic in Mystic and taught piano while in school. Her volunteer work includes building cat shelters and feeding stations, the release said.
Ingalls, a member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, was selected to be on the All-Connecticut Academic Team and is Connecticut’s only recipient of the New Century Workforce Pathway Scholarship.
MxCC Chief Executive Officer Steven Minkler presided over the online recognition ceremony. “Tonight we gather as one. We are a united community that believes in this college, believes in our mission to put students in the center of everything we do, and believes in each and every member of the class of 2020,” he said in his remarks.
Minkler reminded the audience about the spring semester’s “shadow of events that cannot be ignored,” from the coronavirus pandemic that shut down the campus in midMarch to the tragedy in Minnesota that brought the nation’s systemic racism to the forefront.
“I need to speak up and act on what I believe. I need to speak up and act on behalf of my college. Enough is enough. If one of us can’t breathe, none of us can,” he told those on Zoom.
Among the college’s many other initiatives, Minkler announced the formation of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council to address racial disparities in enrollment patterns, student success metrics and graduation rates. The council will also look for strategies to address cultural competence in employees and improve efforts to diversify faculty and staff on campus.
Mark Ojakian, Connecticut State Colleges and Universities president, reminded the graduates they adapted quickly to a completely new way of learning and put in the hard work necessary to complete their degrees.
Gov. Ned Lamont also offered his congratulations from Hartford, saying this is a graduation “you will never forget.”
Jennifer Reilly of Old Saybrook, also a veterinary technology major, and Ingalls earned the Award for Academic Excellence. It is given to graduating students who have achieved a cumulative grade point average of 4.00 in an associate degree program and who have completed 50 percent of their requirements at Middlesex.
Graduates Ingalls and Reilly also received the Pritchett-Taylor Award presented by Dean of Administration Kimberly Hogan. These scholarships are awarded to the graduates with the highest cumulative GPA who have earned at least 30 credits at MxCC, and have attended full-time for at least two semesters.
Several students in the college’s distinguished honors program received degrees and plan to transfer to four-year institutions. They are Joshua Budney of Meriden (University of Hartford), Aillis Frost of East Hampton (University of Connecticut), Jake Hesseltine of Durham (Central Connecticut State University), Ayal Rosen (Wallingford) and Jessenia Sterling of Southington (University of Saint Joseph), according to MxCC.
John Guillamon of Deep River, president of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society chapter at MxCC, earned the Etherington Scholarship from Wesleyan University.
The college hopes to conduct an in-person commencement at a later date.