Schools
WCSU Students to Address Fellow Graduates at Commencement
This is the first year in recent history that the graduating classes will be addressed by a member of their own.
Pictured: Photo 1 Nicole Mair and Photo 2 Dr. Monica Sousa
DANBURY, CONN. — The Western Connecticut State University Class of 2016 will be addressed by two fellow graduates at this year’s commencement exercises: Nicole Mair will address the undergraduate class while Dr. Monica Sousa will be the keynote speaker for the graduate class.
Sousa, an assistant professor of nursing at WCSU, will receive her Ed.D. in Educational Leadership in Nursing at Sunday’s commencement. Mair will receive a bachelor’s degree in Economics. Sousa has taught at WCSU for the past six years and worked in the healthcare industry for more than a decade. She earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Nursing from WCSU. She was the first candidate to defend her dissertation in the university’s first cohort of the doctoral program.
Mair, who is graduating with her twin sister, Colleen Mair, played rugby while at Western and was a competitor with the WCSU Roger Sherman Debate Society. At WCSU, Mair excelled in academics while in the Kathwari Honors Program, volunteered enthusiastically and took advantage of many other opportunities. She said that WCSU showed her “that hard work does pay off in the end.”
This is the first year in recent history that the graduating classes will be addressed by a member of their own.
Commencement will be held Sunday, May 22, 2016, at the Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard, 600 Main St., Bridgeport.
