Clouds gave way to sunny skies on Bellarmine Lawn yesterday for Fairfield Universitys 60th Commencement Ceremonies. For the second time, the University held two ceremonies. The undergraduates had a morning ceremony and graduates enjoyed a warm afternoon ceremony. In all, there were 927 undergraduate students and 320 graduate students who received diplomas today.
The valedictory address was given by Chris Staysniak of Ridgefield, CT: We have become the beneficiaries of an education that has helped us discover our passions, maximize our talents and abilities and at this juncture challenges us to take all we have learned and all we have become, in the words of Saint Ignatius, to set the world aflame We stand here as well-equipped as any to take on the world before us. Chris' twin brother Geoffery graduated summa cum laude yesterday.
Staysniak joined Frank Romano of Briarcliff Manor, New York and Briana Woods-Conklin as recipients of the Bellarmine Medal and as the John and Veronica Gleason Award for the highest academic average. Sarah Gatti of Peabody, MA, was honored with the Saint Ignatius Loyola Medal for outstanding University service.
Dr. Katherine Lapp, 78, executive vice president of Harvard University and Fairfield U. alum was the speaker at the undergraduate student ceremony. She was also the recipient of an honorary Doctor of Laws degree,
In her address, Lapp said, the world you are inheriting is not without challenge, but in that challenge lies endless opportunities and a call to action. She detailed recent life-changing events from the past ten years that the class of 2010 has witnessed, including the horrors of 9/11, the unfolding of two wars, the ever-increasing threat of climate change, the disaster of seeing a major American city literally disappear under water and the worlds economy take its greatest plunge since the Great Depression. Yet, she noted, in spite of all of that, you have maintained your optimism. She urged the graduates to see this as your time to change the trajectory of this nation, this world.
Speaking at the graduate student ceremony was another Fairfield alumnus Dr. James Abbruzzese, 74, a leader in the field of pancreatic cancer research and treatment.
Abbruzzese spoke of how his own interest in cancer research was first sparked at Fairfield during a 1973 lecture by the late Dr. Donald Ross, a biology professor at Fairfield. I can remember being quite excited to learn what I felt was one of the great secrets of biology and medicine, said Abbruzzese, referring to then theories regarding the viral origins of cancer.
Despite the significant breakthroughs on the horizon, Abbruzzese noted to graduates that he has devoted much of his life to a disease that has so far eluded the development of methods for prevention, early diagnosis or effective therapy. Through this work I have learned that there is value in setting your sights on trying to accomplish something in your life that is hard: to challenge yourself to make even the smallest difference in a difficult problem, he urged.
In the morning, the University also conferred honorary Doctor of Laws degrees on Dr. Mayra Luz Pérez Díaz, the first woman to be named president of the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in Managua, Nicaragua; art historian Emily Rafferty, the first woman to be named president of New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Rev. Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., professor of New Testament at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry.
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