“I am proud of each one of us for making it this far,” said Rihanna Domingos, the student speaker at UD’s ceremony. “I am sure the journey has not been easy. I know that behind each student here there’s been a series of sleepless nights.”
The journey to this moment differed for each of them, she said, but many of the students had one thing in common.
“What we went through, through COVID, through the pandemic,” Domingos said.
For the graduates who were also high school graduates four years ago, she said things changed quickly for them at the end of their senior year in 2020 when they went from being excited about not having class for a week, to “Wait a minute, there’s no prom?”
Being quarantined and having to miss out on a high school graduation has been a journey for those students and her fellow classmates, Domingos said.
While impacted by COVID, they were not going to be defined by the pandemic, said Domingos, a first-generation graduate in her family in the U.S. who earned a Bachelor’s of Science in biology on Sunday.
“Here we are, four years later, at our college graduation ceremony. That’s something to be proud of,” Domingos said.
UD conferred about 2,170 degrees, with 1,710 degrees for undergraduates, according to the university. The record for undergraduate degrees is 1,582 degrees during 2021, and the record for overall degrees awarded at a spring commencement ceremony is 2,185 set last year.
The mood Sunday at UD Arena was celebratory and lively as many students excitedly accepted their diplomas.
“I’m feeling like Floyd in this May weather,” said Charles Lynch, a finance major graduating on Sunday.
Other excited graduates included Maria Wellmann, originally from Baltimore, and Madeline Sautbine, originally from Indianapolis. Both were receiving degrees in health science on Sunday, and Sautbine said she planned to go into nursing.
Sharon White, a 1978 graduate, spoke on behalf of the almuni association during UD’s ceremony, welcoming the students to a community of more 130,000 UD alumni.
“Your connection to UD does not end here,” White said.
Eric Spina, UD’s president, also recognized the graduates and their accomplishments before awarding students their diplomas.
“You are graduating from the University of Dayton,” Spina said. “I can feel your happiness, your pride.”
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