Emmanuel College Holds 85th Commencement Ceremony
May 12, 2007
More than 540 degrees were awarded to graduates on Saturday, May 12th when members of the Emmanuel College community came together to celebrate the achievements of the Class of 2007 during the College's 85th Commencement ceremony.
Emmanuel College President Sister Janet Eisner, SND welcomed family, friends and distinguished guests to the Boston campus, congratulating the graduates from the Graduate and Professional Program and the full-time liberal arts and science programs on their numerous accomplishments.
"You, Class of 2007, have made this a vibrant campus with your engagement in theatre, student government, speakers bureau, college search committees, and many of the 625 events hosted on campus this year alone," she said. "Your service to and compassion for the local and global community has been remarkable… I want to thank you for your many contributions to Emmanuel with your talent and your amazing commitment."
Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek magazine, provided the event's keynote address. He was also one of three recipients of honorary degrees.
As the editor of Newsweek, Meacham supervises the magazine's coverage of politics, international affairs, and breaking news, and has written cover stories on politics, religion, race, guns in America, and the death of Ronald Reagan. Under his leadership, Newsweek has twice (2001, 2003) won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence - the industry's highest honor. An accomplished author, Meacham's American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation, released in April of 2006, as well as Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship (2003), were New York Times bestsellers.
During his address, Meacham, who received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the College, reminded the graduates that the values cultivated at Emmanuel were ones they would carry with them throughout the rest of their lives.
"Emmanuel has taught you that life is best lived and is most worth living when men and women of goodwill live together, as a song has said, in unity," he said. "Every time you go to Mass, or save a tree, or feed the hungry, or clothe the poor, or swallow your pride, you do so because of the families that raised you, the school that formed you, the friends who sustain you, and the people who taught you how to think and write, and paint, and live in charity with one another."
The other recipients of honorary degrees were Dr. Jim O'Connell, the President and Street Physician of Boston Health Care for Homeless, and Sister Sylvia Thibodeaux, SSF, New Orleans community leader and former Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Holy Family. Dr. O'Connell and Sister Sylvia were awarded honorary Doctors of Humane Letters.
Nationally recognized as one of the pre-eminent experts on homelessness and health care and highly regarded for his decades of service to Boston's homeless, Dr. O'Connell is the founder of the Barbara McInnis House, a 90-bed medical respite program for homeless men and women. Over the years, his work with the facility has received national acclaim, with the program having been emulated by many cities across the nation.
Furthermore, O'Connell's book Healthcare of Homeless Persons serves as a guide for Emmanuel's nursing students in their clinical work around the city. Professor Joan Riley, Chair of the Nursing Department, praised O'Connell as someone who "lives the challenge posed to all Emmanuel graduates, to act, to lead, and to give generously to others."
During his speech, Dr. O'Connell took the opportunity to applaud many of the graduates for their unwavering service to the Boston community during their time at Emmanuel.
"What you may not know is that your presence in our community…has really given us inspiration," he said. "I wanted to say thank you for that because I think the ideals that emanate here at Emmanuel are exactly the ideals that we need to embrace in society."
Sister Sylvia Thibodeaux, SSF, recognized in New Orleans and beyond for leading the Sisters of the Holy Family through a time of profound crisis following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, completed two terms as Congregational Leader of the Sisters of the Holy Family in August of 2006. During her career, Sister Sylvia taught in Boston and for 18 years served in Nigeria establishing a diocesan order of sisters in the Archdiocese of Benin City. She is a founding member of the Black Sisters' Conference of the United States and is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (Cara) at Georgetown University.
Described by Senior Associate of Academic Advising Carolyn Caveny as a "trail-blazing educator," Sister Sylvia was quick to offer back her appreciation to the College community for the immediate support they provided to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"In a special way, Emmanuel College students were the first respondents to Hurricane Katrina," she said. "They reached out to our Congregation in a very special way, and I am so happy to be able to say thank you in the name of our community."
Student representatives Linda Picard and Karis Yusavitz, members of the Graduate and Professional Program and the Liberal Arts and Sciences Program, respectively, were selected to speak on behalf of the graduating class. Each offered some words of advice to their fellow graduates.
"In being here today, we all show that we have what it takes to make a commitment to education and learning, regardless of what else is happening in our lives," said Picard. "Life should be about continuous learning. Always thinking about what's next. As the great Mahatma Gandhi once said, 'Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever'"… Celebrate your accomplishments today. But tomorrow, it's time to start thinking about what's next."
"Emmanuel, as an institution, has fostered an environment founded on the words of St. Julie: 'To have hearts as wide as the world,'" said Yusavitz. "We are called to ask the questions that no one else is asking. To think critically about the injustices in our global society… Our Emmanuel education has taught us the importance of community and has modeled for us ways in which we have questioned and developed our values… Now, as we join the one percent of the population as college educated women and men, we take on the responsibility. We, as Emmanuel graduates, are held accountable for the rest of our lives to live the questions, to live our questions for this world."