Nature cooperated with UH Hilo on Saturday, May 11. Torrential rain and flooding the day before and more rain after, but during the commencement ceremony, the sun was bright. The sun paled in comparison, however, to the many smiling faces in the crowd as ‘ohana and friends assembled to cheer on their graduates!
Near the end of my script are the lines, “We know you are ready for the next step in your career and we are excited by what the future holds for you. Be successful and demonstrate to the world what graduates of UH Hilo can accomplish.” Try as I might, my voice always catches on the second sentence, as the emotion of the day and the year all converges on me.
In that moment, I am simply overwhelmed: overwhelmed with pride in our students and all they have accomplished, overwhelmed with gratitude for the hundreds of people working across our campus to support the personal and educational journeys of these students, overwhelmed with excitement for the next chapter in the lives of our graduates, overwhelmed with concern about the challenges those graduates will face.
The concern is counterbalanced by the excitement, gratitude and pride of the day. Commencement day is the day I smile the most every year, so much so that my jaw aches a little! After all, one cannot look out at over 2,000 joyful cheering people and not smile. As I leave the stadium and make my way to the car, I see more ‘ohana and friends greeting the new graduates. Some came from hundred of miles away, but on that day, we all smile.
The lead-up to commencement day is filled with symposia and celebrations as departments and colleges give out honors and awards and celebrate their graduates in smaller venues. Graduate students might make one more research presentation, undergraduates squeeze in one more exam, and faculty enter the grading zone, inundated by exams and papers. Those projects and exams verify that the students are indeed ready for what comes next, whether it is graduate school or work.
These milestones give me the confidence to know how much “graduates of UH Hilo can accomplish.” Our students have been guided by experts in their field, supported by any number of people in the greater UH Hilo ‘ohana, and driven by their inner drive and ambition. Many of them already have jobs when they graduate; others are still searching, but we know that they are ready.
Commencement day is also a day of reflection. Speeches meant to be inspiring are quickly forgotten in the emotion of the day. Those speeches often contain hopeful messages and encouragement, but also notes of concern about the many things in the world that we hope might be improved. And, we proclaim, our graduates are the ones who will cure disease, address social and economic problems, and care for the environment. The older generations look back at what we did not/could not accomplish and instill our hope in those who enter the world of work now. It may not be fair, but the cycle of generations is always accompanied by the message that “we did not fix the world, but you can.”
UH Hilo hosts any number of place-based, community-engaged, hands-on learning experiences that help students prepare to change the world. They act locally, which is how change begins. At several of those pre-commencement convenings, I meet students and hear about their capstone projects. Some of our students work in labs and libraries, but many are working on the ‘aina or in the community. They learn that positive change takes hard work because their capstone experiences do not always go smoothly. They encounter real world issues of bureaucracy and economics, regulation and recalcitrance. Yet they continue to kindle the fires of optimism, and they learn persistence.
The Monday after commencement day, I am once again in the real world. The rain comes back, as do the challenges. The campus is quiet, and those of us at the university gear up to welcome another group of students in the fall. I kindle my own fires of optimism, and set my sights on a better future for us all. And I smile.
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.