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VOL. 33 NO. 23
JUNE 2 - 8, 2022
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Molloy celebrates final graduation as a college By TOM CARROZZA tcarrozza@liherald.com
After two long years defined by the absence of in-person interactions, students at Rockville Centre’s Molloy College finally got to walk onto a graduation stage at the Nassau Coliseum on May 24. The school celebrated its 64th and final commencement as a college before changing its name to Molloy University on June 1 after being granted university status this spring. The institution conferred 1,472 degrees last week, including 908 undergraduate and 409 master’s diplomas. Valedictorian Alexandra Fiederlein, of Merrick, graduated with a bachelor’s in biology on the pre-medical track and a minor in chemistry. She shook off what she described as pre-ceremony nerves before delivering her remarks to the few thousand people in attendance. “The goals you set must be inspired by the passions engrained in your soul,” Fiederlein told her fellow graduates. “These passions will motivate you, they will excite you, they will make you feel alive and they will set your soul on fire. It is up to you to have the courage to listen to these passions.”
Fiederlein said she hoped to open a birthing center that specializes in unmedicated births. She was inspired, she said, while volunteering as a doula at Winthrop NYU Hospital, where she provided physical and emotional support to women giving birth. The commencement speaker, Keechant L. Sewell, commissioner of the New York City Police Department, encouraged graduates to embrace the next chapter of their lives and praised them for their fortitude during the pandemic. “Faced with the possibility of reconsidering your education, you simply recalibrated,” Sewell said. “You acclimated to Zoom, rallied for each other, and marshaled resources to thrive.” Two of those resilient students were Goldera Surles and Courtney Chamblin, who both received bachelor’s in communications. It hadn’t been an easy four years for Surles, who grappled with the pandemic and the loss of her father and a sibling. “Multiple times I thought I was going to drop out of college all together,” she said, “so to be able to stand here today, I am extremely proud of myself.” Chamblin, who graduated a year early, said that CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
Tom Carrozza/Herald
Marching to remember The Rockville Centre Police Department color guard marched past St. Agnes Cathedral at Monday’s Memorial Day Parade.
RVC resident supports suicide prevention with walk By MIKE SMOLLINS msmollins@liherald.com
For Kimberly McGuigan, every step will be for her daughter, Jamison Novello, who died at just 15 as a sophomore at South Side High School on March 22, 2019. In her daughter’s memory, McGuigan is set to take part in an overnight walk for the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention, called Out of the Darkness, on Saturday. The walk is just the latest effort McGuigan is making to promote suicide prevention and help raise money for programs and counseling for those who are struggling with depression.
“This walk is basically about bringing you from the dark night, walking 16 miles through the night in New York City and bringing you into the light in the morning,” McGuigan said. “It shows you that there can’t be light without darkness.” To participate in the walk, attendees must raise $1,000 for the AFSP. McGuigan has donated over $23,000 to the foundation. The walk comes just a few days after the conclusion of Mental Health Awareness Month in May. McGuigan has raised more than $85,000 in scholarship money for students in Jamison’s memory through a separate foundation, Jamison’s Dream,
which supports scholarships in her memory at the Broadway Dance Center in Manhattan. Dancing was one of Jamison’s favorite activities, her mother said, and she practiced five days a week at the center. Jamison began dancing in Rockville Centre at age 11, and moved on to the Broadway Center two years later. A month before her death, she won a summer scholarship for choreography at the Artists Simply Human Dance Convention in New Brunswick, New Jersey. “Dance was her soul,” McGuigan said. “She was determ i n e d . S h e wo u l d d a n c e through anything. She commuted. She was exhausted, but she
gave it everything that she had.” McGuigan described her daughter as an empathetic person with a bubbly, warm personality and a strong sense of humor and independence. She added that she was cyberbullied, and believed that it led to her death. McGuigan said the loss has created a void for her, her ex-husband, Anthony Novello, and Jamison’s siblings, Cart-
er Rose, Beckett and Brooks, and that she takes part in events like the walk to try to make sure no one has to go through what her family has. I n J a m i s o n ’ s m e m o r y, McGuigan also commissioned a program for local Girl Scout troops centered on kindness. Elizabeth Carnaval, a Rockville Centre resident who runs an art CONTINUED ON PAGE 14