844 students get degrees at UW-W winter commencement
By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater winter commencement Dec. 19 was not only a beginning for 782 students who received bachelor’s degrees and 62 students who got graduate degrees but also for Chancellor Beverly Kopper.
Kopper conferred degrees for a first time as the 16th chancellor for the university, which was founded in 1868 with a first class of 48 students and nine faculty members.
“Commencement,” in the sense of “school graduation ceremony,” appeared in American English by 1850, having been derived from the late 13th century Old French word “comencement” meaning “beginning, start.”
The winter 2015 UW-W graduating class includes 17 international students, 34 military veterans, 169 nontraditional students and 49 students who identify themselves as having disabilities.
In greeting the graduates and their family and friends filling the Kachel Fieldhouse, Kopper described the event as “more than just a milestone. It is a celebration of years of hard work and dreams, of successes and failures, that have all culminated in this moment.”
Kopper acknowledged that, as first-generation college students, many graduates “have accomplished something no one else in your family has ever done before,” whereas other graduates carry on “a proud educational tradition that may go back many years,” sometimes representing “several generations of Warhawk graduates.”
Kopper drew special attention to students whose cumulative grade-point average qualified them for cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude by asking them and their family members to stand.
Cum laude status is for graduates with a GPA of 3.4 to 3.59; magna cum laude, 3.6 to 3.84; and summa cum laude, 3.85 or higher.
“As graduates of UW-Whitewater, you have the tools, the experience and the skills to positively impact your community, your state, your county, and, yes, the world,” Kopper said. “And you are this university’s legacy.”
John Stone, interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, introduced the student speaker, Fernanda Contreras, a native of Brownsville, Texas, who moved with her family to Jefferson in 2011. She received a Bachelor of Science degree and plans to attend law school.
“Ms. Contreras has become one of the student body’s most active and recognized leaders,” Stone said, citing her experiences as a McNair Scholar and as participant in the undergraduate research program, as well as her service as a Warhawk ambassador, president of Latinos Unidos, and vice president of the Panhellenic Council.
Stone said Contreras also was selected for the 2015 Servant Leadership Award and the Greek Woman of the Year Award and the 2014 homecoming queen.
Contreras began by asking her fellow graduates, “Doesn’t this seem just so surreal?”
She admitted that coming from a small town in Texas, she never imagined surviving a day in snow, let alone attending a university in Wisconsin, but soon came to learn that “becoming a Warhawk was the best choice I ever made.” She said her love for UW-W was formed by her involvement on campus, the campus itself and especially by her relationship with UW-W students.
Describing the graduates as “welcoming, passionate, diverse, successful and selfless,” Contreras said UW-W has shaped them into becoming “the present and the future of America.”
“No matter if you spent four, four and a half or even six years on our wonderful campus, what you take with you are the experiences which fostered you into a socially responsible, critically thinking individual,” Contreras said.
Contreras charged her fellow graduates “not to forget those who came here today to cheer their hearts out for us – our parents, siblings, significant others, friends and even our mentors. Although we do not tell this as often as you deserve it, without you, we wouldn’t have made it this far. You are the reason we began, continued and are now graduating as Warhawks.
“You are now the present and future of America,” Contreras told graduates. “Go out and welcome others into our Warhawk family. Be passionate about what makes you happy. Teach others the diversity you learned here. Be successful, and when obstacles come your way, never give up. But most of all, live your life selflessly.”
Roger Pulliam, emeritus assistant vice chancellor of academic support services and former director of advancement at UW-W, was this year’s commencement speaker. Pulliam was also co-founder of UW-W’s McNair Scholars Program and helped hundreds of students participate in travel study programs, as well as a founding member of the Office of the National Black Student Union.
Pulliam earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from Western Michigan University where he established the Martin Luther King, and his Ph.D. in education at the University of Michigan.
In welcoming Pulliam to the podium, Stone described him as “a man who devoted his distinguished academic career to opening the doors of education and then welcoming everybody inside.”
During his commencement speech, Pulliam, a natural born and easy-going story-teller, wove a tapestry that combined snapshots of his life as part of a Mississippi sharecropping family that relocated to Gary, Indiana, and his career as a university (University of Illinois at Chicago, Indiana University Northwest, UWW) and public school (School District of Beloit) educator, with challenging questions and thoughtful advice for the graduates.
