AROUND CAMPUS
The Year of Two Commencements May 2021 saw the Classes of 2021 and 2020 graduate with all the pomp, circumstance, and joyousness expected of long-anticipated in-person ceremonies. Both events were held outside on Joe McDaniel Field. CLASS OF 2021: MAY 22, 2021 Milton Moreland, Centre’s 21st president, was beaming as he presided over his first Centre commencement. The procession included his innovation, a Centre banner, in addition to the bicentennial mace used for the first time at the 2019 opening convocation. Turning to a traveling metaphor, he told the 339 new graduates to “always take the winding road.” “Take a lot of side roads, living a life filled with improvisation, exploration, and courage,” he said. “Along the winding road, use your Centre education for good: seek justice and equity for others.” In her commencement address, Andrea Abrams, Centre’s vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion and an anthropologist, used a concept anthropologists favor, liminality, to aptly describe the graduates. Liminality, she said, is “a state of transition between one stage and the next, especially between major stages in one’s life. . . In other words, you are no longer one thing, but you are not yet quite another.” The valedictorians were Nicole Frey ’21 and Luke Martin ’21. Frey won the Wiseman
Prize and Martin received the Welsh Prize as the woman and man with the highest GPA. The Class of 2021 included students from 34 states and eight foreign countries (Brazil, China, Egypt, Ghana, India, Japan, Morocco, and Vietnam). The top five majors were 1) economics & finance; 2) biology; 3) international studies; 4) behavioral neuroscience; and 5) a three-way tie with history, politics, and psychology.
CLASS OF 2020: MAY 29, 2021 The Class of 2020 finally had the in-person graduation they had been promised. Thanks to COVID, they had to wait a year to be back on campus. Last year a virtual ceremony was held on their originally scheduled graduation day, but it specifically was not called “graduation” (although they did receive their diplomas). The weekend started with the traditional baccalaureate service, during which President Emeritus John A. Roush and former First Lady Susie Roush were honored for their 22 years of service. Board Chair Mark Nunnelly ’80 unveiled the new name for the student center— the Roush Campus Center. In addition, he
announced that the green between the Roush Campus Center and Old Centre would be known as the Susie Miller Roush Lawn. Rick Axtell delivered the baccalaureate sermons for both classes, his 10th and 11th such talks. The next day, John Roush, who retired in June 2020, gave the commencement address to the 352 members of the class, Centre’s largest class ever. Roush spoke about the importance of courage, which he defined simply as “do the right thing.” And with courage comes the challenge of being consistently courageous even when it’s hard, he added. “I promise you that within the hour, some of us will be faced with the choice of doing the right thing,” he said. “Or choosing to be ‘quiet’ even when you know that ‘misinformation’ is being paraded as truth. The challenge to do the right thing will happen right outside these gates. It will be your choice, my choice, and we must summon the courage to make the right choice—do the right thing.” Susie Roush also addressed the graduates. “Class of 2020—do not deny yourselves the joy of ‘building bridges’ and ‘planting trees’ for those who follow after,” she said. “P. Roush and I will be watching and, of course, cheering you on.” Both Roushes received honorary degrees as part of the ceremony. The Class of 2020 valedictorians were Emily Brown ’20 and Matthew Joshua Ko ’20, the first year there has been a tie. Brown received the Wiseman Prize and Ko received the Welsh Prize as the woman and man with the highest GPAs. The Class of 2020 had graduates from 31 states and six foreign countries (China, Japan, Myanmar, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand). The top five majors were 1) economics & finance, 2) behavioral neuroscience, 3) international studies, 4) biology, and 5) politics.
The class of 2021 poised to seize the future. Centrepiece Fall/Winter 2021
3
