Quinnipiac University Confers 3,141 Undergraduate and Graduate Degrees

HAMDEN– Quinnipiac University conferred 3,141 undergraduate and graduate degrees during six commencement ceremonies held May 12-14.

In an address that was both inspirational and insightful, Dr. Rocco Orlando, chief academic officer at Hartford HealthCare, challenged the 557 School of Education and School of Nursing graduates to consider their past challenges during the pandemic as lessons learned while committing to their future as lifelong learners.

“You have each selected a profession dedicated to the service of others,” said Orlando. “Our celebration of your accomplishments must also include the fact that you are a pandemic class – educated during the height of the pandemic – and two fields that are essential to human well-being and development: healthcare and education.”

As the first chief medical officer for Hartford HealthCare, Orlando directed and assisted clinical staff in their efforts to achieve national pre-eminence in patient quality and safety, as well as creating seamless care coordination across the network.

Speaking about his personal commitment and deep family ties to the fields of education and healthcare, Orlando commended the graduates for their resilience and dedication as they balanced their education with a worldwide crisis and noted the critical roles students, faculty and staff performed as essential workers, caregivers, teachers and administrators.

“You all responded, you showed up to do what had to be done and you demonstrated flexibility in pivoting from in-person to online and back to in-person. For the nurses in the early pre-vaccine days of the pandemic, you did so at great personal risk, and we salute you for this,” Orlando said. “The teachers strived to continue to educate students whether in person, via Zoom or hybrid – and you had to withstand the criticism of your efforts from many in our communities – we salute you for this. Congratulations to all of you for your success as we have emerged from the pandemic.”

WTNH News 8 evening news and chief political anchor Dennis House delivered an emotional address at Sunday morning’s commencement exercises for the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Communications, urging the 688 graduates to face professional and personal adversity head-on and “promise yourself you will come back stronger.”

The award-winning broadcaster, a fixture on evening newscasts in Connecticut for three decades, echoed his best friend and former co-anchor at WFSB-TV, the late Denise D’Ascenzo, who 10 years earlier gave a commencement address at Quinnipiac.

“Be open, be brave and be kind,” House said, quoting directly from D’Ascenzo’s speech.
House fought back tears as he reflected on the most trying year of his life, which began in December 2019 with the sudden death of D’Ascenzo. Soon after, he lost his job at WFSB-TV and then his father to a long illness, leading him to reassess his life and start plotting a comeback. The determination with which he navigated this difficult inflection point mirrored his struggle to break into the news business as a shy college graduate who had fought tirelessly to overcome a stutter.

“I made a tape and got rejection after rejection after rejection,” said House, who was introduced by retiring associate professor of journalism Richard Hanley. “I still have a looseleaf binder with those rejection letters, over 100 of them. My advice to you is to be determined. When someone says they won’t hire you, ask why not? Learn from rejection and learn from brutal honesty.”

On Saturday afternoon, Arthur Caplan, Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics, New York University, delivered the keynote address to the 774 graduates of the School of Health Sciences.

One of the most influential and outspoken voices in his field, Caplan detailed his own battle with polio, with which he was afflicted at the age of 7. After witnessing children his age confined to iron lungs and their families kept in the dark about the harsh realities of their condition, he said he made it his life’s work to amplify medical information and protect it from those who would corrupt it for personal gain.

The threat has only been compounded in the age of social media, where it’s all too easy to pose as an expert and denounce genuine medical advancements in favor of unproven alternatives.

“You have the power to inform, to sway minds,” Caplan told the graduates. “You all today are the best antidote to ignorance and disinformation that I can think of. You can do it. Power has decided that it doesn’t always want to hear what science and medicine believe. You can play a big role in combatting that inclination.”

Jill Mayer, CEO of Bead Industries, encouraged the 902 graduates of the School of Computing and Engineering and School of Business on Saturday to meet every opportunity with courage.

As a fifth-generation leader, Mayer charted a career path that took her from a biotech company in Vermont to a startup affiliated with Google to her family business in Connecticut.

“Your path may be a windy one like mine. At times, you may feel as if you’ve lost your way and you aren’t on the career journey you envisioned in your mind when you started. But you are,” said Mayer.

“All you have to do is remember to face every opportunity that comes your way with courage because it may still get you where you want to go,” she said. “Of course, you should still have a plan for your career path but be flexible. Perhaps you’ll take an important detour you didn’t even know you needed. The trials you face along the way will be the moments that define and shape you.”

On Friday, Dr. Malika Fair, senior director of health equity partnerships and programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges, delivered the keynote address to the 96 graduates of the Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine.

“You are the last graduating medical school class to enter medical school unaware of the impending global COVID-19 pandemic…Research has shown a connection between the experience of adversity and creative thinking, the ability to see the world in a different way,” said Dr. Fair, senior director of equity and social accountability for the Association of American Medical Colleges.

“What came as a surprise to your class can ultimately be a gift to help you envision solutions to the most complex problems with your patients, in your health system and in our nation and world,” she added.

The Honorable Victor A. Bolden, U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut, urged the 124 graduates of the School of Law to be extraordinary. But not in the unremarkable context of the latest viral moment, which is soon forgotten.

Bolden encouraged graduates to make “an uncommon commitment to the most ordinary of things,” those precious opportunities in life to change the world for the better in a lasting way.
“The road from Plessy versus Ferguson to Brown versus Education, from state-enforced racial segregation to the point where the doctrine of separate but equal had no place in the law,” Bolden explained, “was paved with an uncommon commitment to the most ordinary of things.”