Cal U graduates celebrate degrees
As part of what was called a magnificent celebration to honor the 2002 graduating class of California University of Pennsylvania on Sunday, everyone joined in on an impromptu chorus of “Happy Birthday Cal U.” “You don’t need a rehearsal for everything,” said President Dr. Angelo Armenti Jr. in suggesting the song. Along with the Rev. Norman Hunt, Armenti urged everyone in the packed gymnasium to sing along with “Happy Birthday Cal U.” The moment of levity was welcomed graciously before everyone got down to the serious business of conferring degrees to more than 1,200 students.
The song was in commemoration of the founding of the university 150 years ago. Saturday’s commencement marked a continuing celebration of the sesquicentennial of the university that began last June and will end this October.
During the ceremony, which included choral selections from university choir, Armenti individually conferred degrees on 1,273 students.
Before turning over the podium to the featured speaker, Armenti urged all of those who were becoming alumni of Cal U to uphold the university’s core values of “integrity, civility and responsibility” during their lives. In introducing Dr. Judy G. Hample, Armenti said that she exemplifies the core values on a daily basis.
Hample, the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, told the class that graduation is many things, including a completion of a chapter of their lives, a time to reflect and the beginning of a life of learning and work.
Hample cited a statement made by former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli 125 years ago that a university should be a place of light, liberty and learning.
She said that going to a university is like walking from evening darkness and into a brightly lit banquet hall.
She urged the graduates to seek, risk and expect more of themselves than others do. Hample said today a college education is a necessity and not a luxury that is needed to succeed in life. She said the graduates had already acquired the greatest liberty in life, “the freedom to think for yourself and be your own person.”
Hample urged the graduates to try to make the world a better, safer, healthier and happier place. “The challenge is to be your own person,” she said.
“You make a living by what you get from life. But you make a life by what you give to others,” she said.
When they entered the gymnasium in Hamer Hall to receive their degrees, the class was met with a standing room only crowd. The ceremony was so well attended that six additional classrooms with closed circuit television were being offered to those who couldn’t fit into the crowded gymnasium. Some people sat on steps after the bleachers became full.
The center of the gymnasium was filled with cap and gown clad students. One by one they made their way up to the stage to accept their degrees.
In addition to receiving their degrees, the graduates also received a Cal U pin, a Cal U 150 poster and the only diplomas that will feature the Cal U 150 logo on them. Armenti pointed out that everyone received a real diploma, not a blank piece of paper that they can “hang proudly on their wall for years to come.”
At the conclusion of the ceremony, Armenti joking conferred “PHT degrees” on all those in the audience who had helped to inspire the graduates to get their degrees. He said the degree means “push him or her through.”
The students received degrees from the School of Graduate Studies and Research and the undergraduate colleges of Education and Human Services, Liberal Arts and the Eberly College of Science and Technology. The graduates included those who completed studies in August and December 2001 and May 2002. Sixty associate degrees were also conferred.