Under sunny, blue skies, some 900 jubilant Bronx Community College students were awarded their associate degrees in a memorable outdoor ceremony on BCC’s College’s University Heights campus.
"We are proud to be diverse, but now is the time your contributions as graduates need to be put into words and deeds to truly validate the full meaning of diversity, a concept that too many people pay lip service to but often don’t put into action," stated Vice Chancellor of New York State Board of Regents Adelaide Sanford will be BCC’s Commencement speaker on Friday, June 4. Preceding Dr. Sanford’s uplifting remarks, were words of encouragement from Assemblyman Luis Diaz, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr. U.S. Senator Charles Shumer followed with his good wishes.
Saying this was an unforgettable time in their lives, President Carolyn G. Williams opened the Commencement by telling students that, "today is the culmination of all your hard work. Today, you can begin to look at your new future – another college to complete your degree or a job to utilize the skills that you have learned here. As I look out at you – I see the eagerness, the potential in your faces.
"When you look around the BCC campus, you can see the world. Students come together from many different backgrounds, each bringing a unique perspective. We pride ourselves in our ability to use these differences to generate new energy, to develop new ways of learning, and to create an educated, productive and healthy community, growing stronger as it progresses."
Enthusiasm for the special moment was reflected in the smiles and words of excitement of such students as Jose Hernandez, 23, an honors business major student who headed the procession line of graduating students in mortar boards and gowns who assembled to march. It was only minutes before he would collect his associate’s degree.
Victim of a diving board spinal cord injury at 16, Hernandez, who is confined to a motorized wheelchair, is not daunted by the academic climb it took to graduate – getting up every morning two hours early since 2000 so he could travel on his motorized wheel chair to the bus stop where he waited for the bus in rain, sleet, and snow to bring him to college.
The first in his family to go to college, Hernandez has six brothers and two sisters.
"If I can do it, anybody can do it," Hernandez stated with confidence, completely overlooking his disability. Looking back at graduates lined up behind him, he added, "I am no different than one of those students."
Natalie Camacho, 20, delivered the valedictorian’s speech to the class. In it she revealed how her desire, determination, discipline, and family helped her to transform herself from an unmotivated high school student in 2002 into a graduate with a 4.0 grade point average and a scholarship to New York University where she will study to be a clinical psychologist.
Salutatorian Atcha Agbere, 33, who emigrated from Togo, was excited because now he moves on to City College where he plans to earn a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and an M.D. Agbere is philosophical about life and says that one must always be ready to face it. He had just started at BCC when the World Trade Center attack occurred in 2001 and his brother, Hamid Lary, 37, died.
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Bronx Times Reporter, Inc.