October 05, 2021
Providence College’s Class of 2020 returns for its long-awaited commencement ceremony
By Vicki-Ann Downing ’21G
The Providence College Class of 2020 reunited for the first time in more than 18 months on Sunday, Oct. 3, 2021, for its long-awaited commencement exercises — twice postponed by the pandemic but finally celebrated in Peterson Recreation Center before more than 2,000 parents, faculty, staff, and administrators.
More than 750 class members, including those who earned graduate and continuing education degrees, returned for the celebration, held during the college’s Homecoming Weekend. They were invited to a class-themed welcome event on Friday night outside the Smith Center for the Arts, a brunch in the remodeled Raymond Dining Hall on Saturday afternoon, and a party at WaterFire in downtown Providence on Saturday night.
“We tried to do this twice before, and it’s really great to be able to do it today, and in real life,” said College President Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard, O.P. ’78, ’82G, who took office as the college’s 13th president on July 1, 2020, and was formally inaugurated during the weekend.
The Class of 2020 commencement, the college’s 102nd, should have taken place on Sunday, May 17, 2020, in the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in downtown Providence. Because the coronavirus pandemic halted in-person classes two months earlier, degrees were conferred during a virtual ceremony instead. The college hoped to host an in-person commencement in October, but pandemic restrictions continued to make large gatherings impossible.
In March 2021, when restrictions eased thanks to high vaccination rates, the college announced the in-person ceremony as part of Homecoming Weekend.
Mae C. Jemison, M.D. ’20Hon., who as science mission specialist aboard the USS Endeavor in 1992 became the first woman of color to travel into space, received an honorary doctor of humanities degree and was the keynote speaker. She spoke about events of the past 18 months that “bombarded us with challenges that tested our fortitude and our faith” and ultimately have challenged everyone to create a better way of living.
“People are talking about getting back to normal just as soon as possible,” Jemison said. “Do we really want to get back to the normal we had before? I think we have to re-think normal … There’s a lot of work waiting for you out there, but it’s not just yours. It’s the responsibility of all of us.”
Honorary degrees also were awarded to Val Ackerman ’20Hon., commissioner of the BIG EAST Conference; Sister Jane Gerety, R.S.M. ’20Hon., former president of Salve Regina University; Dr. Hugh F. Lena III ’20Hon., the College’s first provost and senior vice president for academic affairs; and Erich E. Miller ’20Hon., president of My Brother’s Keeper, a Christian nonprofit in Massachusetts that delivers furniture and food to those in need.
J. Peter Benzie ’70, ’20Hon., an emeritus trustee of the college and a financial services senior executive who died in November 2020, and Dr. Francis Patrick MacKay ’20Hon., a chemistry professor and co-founder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Program, who died in September 2019, were awarded degrees posthumously.
Jemison holds a medical degree from Cornell University and studied chemical engineering and African and Afro-American studies at Stanford University. While in medical school, she worked and interned in Cuba, Thailand, and East Africa. After graduation, she worked for the Peace Corps in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where she was responsible for the health of volunteers.
Since concluding her service with NASA, she has established two nonprofits, the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, named for her mother, and 100 Year Starship, dedicated to making travel beyond the solar system possible within the next 100 years while benefitting life on earth.
Jemison said her spaceflight was “this incredible platform from which to see the earth, myself, and my connection to the universe.”
“I vividly recall looking out a window of the shuttle, and I saw this planet with this thin, iridescent layer of blue light. That’s our atmosphere,” Jemison said. “We flew through the southern lights and there was a shimmering dance of a curtain of green light, and looking from a slightly different angle, I could see the sun rising above the earth while I was still in orbit. And at that moment I recognized the connection with a star system 10,000 light years away, that I was made of the same stuff as stars, and it felt right.”
Throughout her life, Jemison said, she has realized the importance of “looking up.”
“It is just as profound to look up at the stars as it is to look from orbit down at the earth,” Jemison said.
“When you look up, it’s not just looking up at the sky. It’s looking up from your tablet, from your phone, from your desk. I hope that no matter where you end up or whatever work you do, that you never forget to look up, to keep this bigger picture in mind. When deadlines loom or someone is sick, our kids are crying or the bills need to get paid, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. It’s so easy to forget who you are, why you’re here, and what is most important to you.”
“Look up and remember what inspires you, what you’re doing this for, and why you cared in the first place,” Jemison said. “Because if you can keep that sparkle in your eye, that dancing energy of aliveness and possibility, if you can keep that long past graduation, you’ll be on your way to a magical life, a life full of love, service, and connection in meaning. And all you have to do really is to live deeply, and look up.”
Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. ’80, now president of St. John’s University, was greeted with a standing ovation by students and parents. Father Shanley’s term as PC’s 12th president concluded on June 30, 2020, and he said he was “a little bit hurt” that so many students and parents approached him before the ceremony to say they weren’t sure he would attend.
“You’re my last class at Providence College,” Father Shanley said. “I needed to be here.”
“I have to say that I am surprised and delighted by how many of you have returned to campus for this ceremony, because technically we conferred your degrees a year ago,” Father Shanley said. “But we know and you know that virtual conferral was incomplete and unsatisfying. You needed to put on your cap and gown and come here together and walk across this stage. What you longed for was the completion that comes through ritual and ceremony and community.
“Deep down in our nature, we need to pass through the important transitions in our lives in a meaningful way, and together,” Father Shanley said. “That is something that we lost in the time of pandemic. Just think about all the baptisms, weddings, funerals, anniversaries, and graduations that we were not able to celebrate together and that we grieved. Today, we reclaim the power of ritual.”
Father Shanley also was the homilist during the Commencement Mass, held under a tri-span tent on the Slavin Center lawn on Sunday morning. On Friday evening, he became the 17th recipient of the Veritas Medal, the college’s highest honor. Father Sicard announced that a new residence hall, to be built near Glay Field, will be named in Father Shanley’s honor.
Julia Gaffney ’20 (Hampton Falls, N.H.), an English major who was president of the Class of 2020 and now is attending law school at Northeastern University, greeted the class.
“We left Providence College before we were ready to say goodbye and became postgraduates in a world controlled by a global pandemic,” Gaffney said. “We shared the fears and anxieties felt by the rest of the world in a time of complete and utter uncertainty, which made our untimely departure from Providence that much harder.”
“We may regret the time that we lost at PC, and we will miss our home here, but let us always be grateful for the memories we do have,” Gaffney said. “Today, we can finally give Providence College a proper goodbye.”
The three top students in the Class of 2020 were acknowledged during the ceremony:
- Theresa Durkee ’20 (Salem, Conn.), a health policy and management major, who now is a benefits analyst with Boston Benefit Partners, an Alera Group Company.
- Shannon Moore ’20 (Mansfield, Mass.), a history major, now in her second year at Notre Dame Law.
- Megan Monte ’20 (Somerset, Mass.), an English and secondary education major who is teaching.
As immediate past president of the National Alumni Association, Kate Hennedy Kennedy ’92 presented greetings. Alyssa Parsons ’20 (East Bridgewater, Mass.) sang The National Anthem and Deirdre Lahiff ’20 (Goshen, N.Y.) sang the Providence College Alma Mater.
Readings at the Commencement Mass were by Alec DiCiaccio ’20 (Tewksbury, Mass.), Emily Ascherl ’20 (West Orange, N.J.), and Thomas Koch ’20 (Minneapolis, Minn.).
