By Colin Young, News Staff
Northeastern’s 109th commencement ceremony was as much a celebration of community as it was of the more than 2,900 graduating members of the class of 2011. University President Joseph Aoun, honorary degree recipients and other speakers urged the graduates to take risks and enjoy life during the May 6 ceremony at TD Garden.
In his opening remarks, President Aoun addressed the class of 2011, the first to enter the university under his presidency, and reflected on the university’s global growth since their arrival.
“We have seen our campus become more diverse, with many more students coming to us from all over the world. We have expanded co-op by infusing it with hundreds of new global opportunities,” Aoun said. “You and your peers have worked in 160 cities in 69 countries and all seven continents, including Antarctica.”
Aoun stressed the importance of a worldly education and being a global citizen, something he said was part of the graduates’ journey at Northeastern.
“More than ever before, changes throughout the world will affect you directly, but you also have the power to effect the world,” he said. “If you can broaden your point of view, if you can navigate the world as a global citizen, then what others see as challenges will be opportunities for you.”
Connections to the world resonated deeply as the university presented the people of Japan with an honorary degree to recognize the nation’s strength after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami struck the country.
When introducing Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki, who accepted the degree on behalf of the people of Japan, Aoun said, “All of us have been touched by the extraordinary strength and resilience of the Japanese people, and they continue to inspire us.”
In his address to graduates, Fujisaki thanked the United States for its assistance and support of Japan after the natural disasters.
“Your experts, government officials, worked with us day and night. 20,000 American military men and women were deployed for search and rescue,” he said. “People around the country, from all states, have sent us cards, contributions and thousands of cranes from kids. It was so moving.”
Fujisaki assured the TD Garden crowd that because of the nation’s strength and the support they received, Japan would overcome the disasters.
“Because of the Japanese peoples’ resilience and support from the United States and people around the world, we are convinced we will come back, we will come back strongly,” he said. “It means a lot that the American people stood for us, stood by us. We will long remember this. From the bottom of our heart we will say thank you, arigato.”
Student speaker Sarah Tishler, an international affairs, psychology and French triple major who worked at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Switzerland on co-op, urged her classmates to embrace change rather than fear it.
“The prospect of leaving such a great place is understandably terrifying,” she said. “But if there is one final lesson we should learn form our time at Northeastern, it’s that we cannot be afraid of change.”
Former Genzyme Corporation CEO Henri Tremeer, the featured commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient, echoed Tishler’s encouragement and stressed the importance of taking risks and owning up to them.
“We have to be bold, and if we are bold, and if we take risks, and if we take responsibility for the risks that we take, in the following years we will change the world,” Tremeer said.
Bert and John Jacobs, founders of the Life is Good Company, Reverend Dr. Gregory Groover Sr. and Leslie Cohen Berlowitz were among other honorary degree recipients. Aoun reminded the graduating class of the Jacobs brothers’ mantra and implored them to enjoy life.
To conclude the ceremony, Aoun swapped his formal tam-o’-shanter cap for a baseball hat. After producing a Life is Good beach ball from the lectern, Aoun threw the ball into the crowd of graduates and told them, “Now, the ball is in your hands.”
