René Alexander Oquiza, Ph.D. address to the Class of 2026
René Alexander Orquiza, Ph.D., associate professor of history and recipient of the 2025-2026 Joseph R. Accinno Faculty Teaching Award, presented this address to the Class of 2026 at the Academic Awards Ceremony on Saturday, May 16, 2027.
If there’s a group of students who would appreciate one last lesson, it’s this one, the recipients of the most prestigious awards around campus. Please join me in an exercise that we historians love: Let’s board a time machine to the past so we can better understand a part of the present. In this case, a song you’ve heard many times at PC.
Our first stop: Helsinki, Finland. July 2, 1900. The Helsinki Philharmonic Society is about to perform a new piece titled “Finland Awakes!” written by Jean Sibelius, a composer and fierce champion of Finnish independence from Russian imperial rule. His new piece accompanies a collection of paintings depicting scenes of modern Finland: a young teacher in a rural schoolhouse, people debating in a legislative chamber, a locomotive crossing a field. They are part of a fundraiser to aid Finnish journalists who had been fired for critiquing Tsar Nicholas II and his laws silencing the press. In time, Sibelius’ song becomes a rousing success, making its US debut in 1905 performed by the Metropolitan Orchestra in New York under the name “Finlandia.” Its melody is adopted for anthems around the world. Sibelius himself is perplexed at the popularity of the piece, saying, “It is not intended to be sung … It is written for an orchestra. But if the world wants to sing it, it can’t be helped.”
Our next stop is closer to home: Providence College, Harkins Hall, June 10, 1934. It’s five years into the Great Depression, and five years until the start of World War II. You watch 116 Providence College seniors — and two Dominican sisters from the extension school — receive their diplomas. Notably, there are three commencement speeches on the necessity for internationalism in economics, society, and religion. Later, you attend the commencement ball downtown; it begins at 9 in the evening, ends at 2 in the morning, and includes a light supper at the reasonable hour of 11:30pm. You witness the granting of class awards for some categories that haven’t aged well: most popular, handsomest, best dancer, best dressed, most easy going, smallest, and, naturally, tallest. Providence College was a very different place. But one thing would feel familiar: The Alma Mater, set to Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” sung for the first time on campus during the 1934 commencement.
Our final stop is right here, right now. You’re back in Peterson, seated among the friends you’ve made these last four years, smiled upon by your families who have waited their whole lives for this weekend. In an hour, you’ll join two-thousand people singing The Alma Mater, the song you’ve just heard, thanks to the time machine, in 1900 Helsinki and 1934 Providence.
How has this journey to the past shaped our understanding of the present?
While a lot has changed — the Class of 2026 is majority women, the number of graduates is 10 times larger, and your awards are much more substantive — some things are deeply familiar. The hindsight of history shows us that a song originally composed in defiance of an authoritarian’s attack on the press is still relevant. Commencement speeches on the importance of thinking globally — to prevent war, to cure an economy recovering from tariffs, to celebrate the value of human dignity — will pop up on your social media feeds this month and every graduation season hereafter.
We faculty would argue that this time machine is a priceless gift of a liberal arts education. It gives you empathy and an ability to connect seemingly unconnectable dots. Your education allows you to see the connections between the past and the present, between the sciences and the arts, between faith and reason. You are well equipped to act in service to the Mother of Truth.
For four years, we faculty have scaffolded your learning. We have pushed your intellectual exploration. We have flooded your inboxes with Canvas notifications. Now, you are in charge of your learning. You craft the syllabus in a course called life. You are equipped to be firm in your advance, and nothing will beguile you.
Finally, we faculty know that you will live the richness of the human condition. In a culture that relentlessly outsources thinking to chatbots and AI, only you can process how your past will shape your present and your future. Only you can bridge what exists today with what others cannot possibly imagine. You can brave what comes next.
Congratulations to the Class of 2026, and Go Friars!
