About 25 years ago, I asked my father to help me pay for my university regalia. I still remember my reasoning: “It costs about what my wedding dress cost, and I’ll use it a lot more.” Fortunately for me, Dad agreed, and since that time, I have participated in over 50 commencement exercises, each one different and meaningful in its own way.
My blue robes and velvet tam come out of the garment bag like clockwork twice a year, sometimes for just a couple of hours, other times for a whole day or ceremony and celebration. Rituals are important. They mark the beginning and ending of phases in our lives.
The ritual of commencement is particularly important at schools like the University of Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Community College where so many of our students are the first in their families to attend a college or university. Entire families share in the accomplishment, so much so that we often find ourselves with jammed parking lots, gyms and stadiums as excited families gather to support their students and watch them cross the stage.
Those students peer above the stacked lei around their necks, surrounded by the love and support and joy of families and friends, faculty and university staff. Each of those people that come to celebrate and honor our graduates has also made a contribution to the success of their student, and I know the students are endlessly grateful for those who have helped along the way. It is always so fun to see “Thanks, Mom” or “I made it, Dad” spelled out on the top of their caps, which is sometimes all that their family can see during the ceremony!
If this were a typical year, we would have celebrated another University of Hawaii at Hilo commencement yesterday. While we often refer to it as “graduation day,” “commencement” is the official title that universities use because this ceremony, like most rites of passage, is considered more as a beginning than as an ending. Of course, we use commencement to celebrate accomplishments, but we also use it to launch our new alumni out into the world. And what a brave new world they are entering this year!
Our students are ready for that world. As I reflect on the year that our graduates have had, from the stress around Thirty Meter Telescope and Maunakea to a global pandemic, I am humbled by them and their accomplishments under extraordinary circumstances. They have stayed true to their goal of earning an undergraduate or graduate degree in a field they are passionate about. Our faculty have worked with them to hone their expertise, their communication skills, and most importantly, their ability to think. It is especially those thinking skills that will serve them well into this new future.
New health professionals are graduating who can serve on the front lines. New business professionals are ready to help local businesses and national corporations help in our economic recovery. Newly licensed teachers are ready to pay it forward by educating the next generation of keiki who will need to be ready for challenges we can only imagine. New social science and mental health professionals are ready to help with the myriad of social needs of our community moving forward. New artists and writers are ready to provide us with the art that sustains us during times of stress and isolation. New science professionals are ready to help care for our environment and to contribute to new discoveries. New agriculture and resource professionals are ready to help us move toward sustainability for our island and state. Eight hundred fifty-two new alumni are ready to go out into the world and make a difference for all of us.
I may not have donned that well-worn regalia this year (except for a brief congratulatory video), but I have been whistling “Pomp and Circumstance” all week. We are graduating a great group of students from UH-Hilo this spring. The future is in good hands.
Congratulations to all the new UH alumni! We honor you with a video celebration this week, and in person when we can gather in large groups again. Imua!
Bonnie D. Irwin is chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Her column appears monthly in the Tribune-Herald.