They finally had a proper graduation ceremony.
The Class of 2024 – most of whom marked their high school graduations four years ago with drive-by diploma pick-ups and Zoom speeches – got to don caps and gowns and proudly walk across a stage to the applause of family and friends.
“For many of you, this has been a long time coming, and hopefully the wait has made this an even more glorious event,” said Chuck Seifert, Ph.D., in his first Commencement as Siena’s president.
The College awarded 886 bachelor’s degrees at its undergraduate ceremony on May 12 at the MVP Arena in Albany, following a full Senior Week of celebratory activities.
This class of Saints has seen a lot of changes during their time on campus. When they arrived as freshmen, it was all about masks and social distancing. They closed out their undergraduate careers with packed townhouse parties. Senior class president Collin Acampora ’24 asked his classmates to think back on those first days, then recognize how far they have all come since then.
“Think about all of the memories we have made with one another over the past four years,” he said. “Think about how different you are from the day you walked onto campus, to this day when you are walking off. Look at all the people sitting around you and think of all the memories you have shared with one another.”
The College conferred an honorary doctor of humane letters degree on James V. McDonald ‘86, M.D., M.P.H., commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, one of the largest health departments in the world with an annual budget of $101 billion. Dr. McDonald also delivered the Commencement address. (His father, John McDonald ’53, was in attendance.)
He noted how this graduating class knows well the concept of resilience.
“What resilience really means is adapting to change,” he said, “and you know a lot about adapting to change, don’t you?”
The physician and public health administrator said that because of the pandemic the students needed to show so much adaptability and flexibility to make their major life transition to college, already a big change in and of itself.
“Your parents are so proud of you. And rightfully so,” he said. “Getting through college is hard. There’s a reason why it’s hard. College is a place where you should learn about yourself, grow, adapt, stretch, be uncomfortable. That’s what college is for. It’s great place to learn resilience. And you know resilience now. You’re going to need that skill as you go throughout life, because resilience is critical to success.”
Dr. McDonald spoke about the concept of interdependence – another life lesson driven home during the pandemic, and one he learned during his days as an undergraduate from professors and classmates.
“At Siena, we help each other out,” he said. “At Siena, we all succeed when we all succeed. It’s really amazing how interdependent we are.”
As the state’s health commissioner, he is dedicated to eliminating health disparities for all New Yorkers. Good health and medical care are a right, and he said they should not be impacted by race, education level, age, socioeconomic status and other variables. Those principles of health equity he said he learned at Siena.
“There’s just no reason in a civilized culture why we should have different health outcomes based on these factors,” he said to applause.
The senior address was delivered by Ragy Beshay ’24, who was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt. A biology graduate, he will go on to Albany Medical College to earn his M.D. He asked his classmates to reflect together on the concept of love, which he said had been occupying his thoughts a great deal during the past year.
“What does St. Francis mean in the beautiful prayer that our friars always share with us when he says, ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love.’ How can we live by that, especially in a world right now that is full of conflict and division? How can we go into the world as Saints, being instruments of peace, sowing love among people?”
Beshay shared that it doesn’t matter how much we study or how many degrees we acquire, “what’s important is how much we love.”
“Let us take the example of St. Francis and apply it to every aspect of our lives, so that as Siena Saints going out into the world, we seek to love and not just think and talk about love. This might seem like a difficult undertaking, but it can only be achieved one step at a time, by the simple day-to-day decisions we take to love others, until it becomes the essence of our existence.”
