Convocation Ceremony | May 11, 2024
PLEASE BE SEATED
Good evening! My name is Alain-Philippe Durand, and it is my privilege to serve as the Dorrance Dean of the College of Humanities. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our May 2024 Convocation celebration.
We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O’odham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service.
Please note that the ceremony today is being live streamed. Your family and friends can watch us now at humanities.arizona.edu/live. All graduates will receive an email with the video recording and it will be available on our YouTube channel next week.
In addition, thanks to our National Center for Interpretation, a Spanish translation of today’s speech is available. Please scan the QR code in your program.
¡Buenas noches! Me llamo Alain-Philippe Durand y es un privilegio ser el Decano de Dorrance de la Facultad de Humanidades. Quiero aprovechar esta oportunidad para darles la bienvenida a nuestra celebración de Convocatoria de mayo de 2024.
Tengan en cuenta que la ceremonia está siendo transmitida en vivo hoy. Su familia y amigos pueden vernos en humanities.arizona.edu/live. Todos los graduandos recibirán un correo electrónico con la grabación en video y estará disponible en nuestro canal de YouTube la próxima semana.
Además, gracias a nuestro Centro Nacional para la Interpretación, el discurso de hoy está traducido al español y disponible en su programa.
First, let me thank DJ Logan Phillips who got us in the mood with his fantastic set. The College of Humanities is the only college at the University of Arizona with an official DJ. A bilingual poet, performer and DJ, he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona and has worked on a wide range of performance, music and community-centered education projects in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia and beyond.
To my left are Professors Ken McAllister, who is our Associate Dean for Research and Program Innovation, and Chantelle Warner, who is our Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs. They will be assisting me with today’s ceremony.
Next, let’s give all of our students who are graduating from the College of Humanities a round of applause for their academic accomplishments.
I would also like to acknowledge your family, friends, and classmates. You deserve a warm round of applause from all of us for all of your support for your graduate.
We are particularly excited to honor and celebrate the class of 2024. Many of you graduated high school at the height of the pandemic, and this is your first time celebrating a graduation event with friends and family. We applaud you for your diligence, resilience and hard work to continue with your studies and arrive at this moment.
Each of our students who is with us today was invited to give us the name of a favorite, most influential, faculty member. These faculty members represent the outstanding teaching that goes on in the College of Humanities.
This year, our students have named 21 different professors as favorites, which is a testament to the world-class teaching in the College. To all of our faculty members here today, please stand so our students and their families can offer their thanks.
Now, I would like to recognize the College of Humanities faculty award winners for 2023-24.
Suzanne Thompson, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, is the recipient of the Distinguished Undergraduate Advising/Mentoring Award.
Sarah McCallum, Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics, is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.
Additionally, two professors are recognized with University of Arizona Awards of Distinction:
Harris Kornstein, Assistant Professor in the Department of Public & Applied Humanities, has received an Early Career Scholar Award.
Rob Stephan, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics, has received the University of Arizona Foundation Leicester and Kathryn Sherrill Creative Teaching Award.
Please join me in congratulating our winners!
This evening we will individually recognize those undergraduate and graduate degree recipients who were available to attend tonight’s ceremony. University of Arizona President Robert Robbins is the only one who actually confers degrees. We are here to enhance that celebration. We are honored to call each graduate by name and congratulate you personally.
A few students are joining us virtually, and we will announce their names within the procession later. We are equally excited to congratulate all of you wherever you are today!
Now, I would like to welcome Mason Maltbie and Suzanne Thompson for the presentation of our Outstanding Senior Award.
SUZANNE THOMPSON speaks:
Good evening. As an assistant professor of practice and the undergraduate advisor in the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, allow me to express my deep thanks to the College of Humanities for recognizing Mr. Mason Maltbie as Spring 2024’s Outstanding Senior. Mason was nominated not just by our Department of Russian and Slavic Studies but also by the Department of Religious Studies.
I have known Mason, a triple major in Russian, Religious Studies, and Creative Writing, for most of his undergraduate career. He has studied with me in many courses, and in each he has shown himself to be an outstanding scholar and member of our community. He has been exceedingly active in our Department, serving as the president of the Slavic and Eurasian Club and helping the Department at various language fairs, Meet Your Major fairs, film screenings, recruitment events, and as an ambassador of good will in his capacity as a student on our 2023 study-abroad program in Kazakhstan.
In four years here at the UA, Mason has performed brilliantly in each of his three majors—all while working a nearly full-time job of up to 30 hours a week. His achievements have been recognized through his receiving many scholarships and accolades. Just this March, Mason received both the Donna Dillon Manning and Larry Horner Endowed Humanities Award for Study Abroad and a Fearless Inquiries Abroad Scholarship. He plans to study in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, this summer.
In 2022, Mason received myriad awards: the SILLC Global Award, the B.G. Thompson, Jr., Study Abroad Award, the Donna Swaim International Award for Religious Studies, the Rombach and Bretall Scholarship, and the Donna Dillon Manning and Larry Horner Endowed Humanities Award for Study Abroad. Throughout his undergraduate career, he has also routinely made the Dean’s List with Highest Academic Distinction.
Please join me in extending a very warm welcome to Mr. Mason Maltbie.
MASON MALTBIE speaks:
Fellow graduates, I have the honor of congratulating you on your dedication to the Humanities, and the privilege to be able to say, “It’s over!” At last, we can reflect on our accomplishments, thank those who helped along the way, and move on to the next chapter of our lives. As we embark on our careers and future scholarship, we have the privilege of bringing the experiences we’ve shared and lessons we’ve learned during our time in the College of Humanities.
We’ve reached across language, borders, and ideologies to find new truths, beloved colleagues, and close friends. We’ve learned how to understand peoples and cultures vastly different from our own, and recognize ourselves and our humanity in the “other”. Through speaking new languages, forming deeper understandings of others, and visiting places once locked behind the pages of literature, we’ve translated ourselves into the world and come to know people from worlds quite different from ours. In this endeavor, we find the true meaning of the Humanities.
In no place is the spirit of this endeavor more poignantly expressed for me, than in a little, Soviet-era cartoon named Cheburashka. Cheburashka, like many undergraduate students, is a strange creature of unknown origin, discovered alone inside of a crate of oranges. Upon being discovered, he meets a similarly lonely crocodile named Gena. Together, they resolve to build a house so that everyone that’s lonely can come together there and make new friends. As they work diligently, other lonely creatures come along and join them in constructing the House of Friends. When they put the finishing touches on the house, they realize that it’s actually no longer needed, because all of the lonely creatures had become friends through building it. Discouraged, the naïve Cheburashka hangs his head in defeat, thinking that he’d failed. It is only through the gentle nudging of Gena that he appreciates all his new friends. Today I’d like to be your Gena and remind you to look back on all you’ve achieved, all the friends you’ve made and all the successes you’ve had.
To those who worked tireless days to get by—waking up, going to classes, going home just to get ready for work, and coming home from work just to go to bed— I commend you. To those who struggled with the endless turmoil of personal crises or a mental illness— I commend you. To those who couldn’t bear to face the page, because they didn’t know if they had it in them to complete the assignment— I commend you. And to those who thought about giving up, and still made it here today— I most humbly commend you. The true spirit of the Humanities is knowing that the “other”, no matter how seemingly distant, feels and struggles just like you. I know that it took great resolve and character to get here, because I’ve felt and seen all these things too.
Last year, a friend of mine tried giving up. Once I was finally able to reach them at the psychiatric hospital, I scrambled to find the right words to fill the little time we had to speak. In the last moments, I decided to read them a poem of mine. Later, they told me that messy conversation was the first time they felt a bit of peace after what happened. To close, I’d like to share that poem with you as a last reminder to keep on fighting:
The House of Friends
Together we built a house of friends
Where lowly stops and lonely ends
Where the rending, turbid burning mends
And soaks the balm
The house of friends
The break of mold, manufacture parts
Seals the seams of broken hearts
And from the waxen peel departs
From the house of friends it starts
It falls, it falls, and falls right down
Into our hearts it makes the sound
That place where praise is placed aloud
The place where house of friends is found
The tear in me will fall away
I’ll suck up from the mucky gray
Rebuild the house in me today
The house of friends is where I’ll stay
Thank you, I hope this achievement will bring you peace.
DEAN DURAND speaks:
Mason, congratulations on your fine achievements
Now, I want to recognize our graduating ambassadors. The College of Humanities Student Ambassador Program consists of students pursuing a major in the college who represent some of our brightest, most enthusiastic and well-rounded Wildcats. In addition to assisting with recruitment and retention efforts, members of this selective internship opportunity develop skills in the areas of leadership, communication, and public speaking. Congratulations to those ambassadors who are graduating today and we thank you all for your many contributions!
We are all profoundly inspired by the impressive accomplishments of this group of multi-talented students each graduating with a degree in a discipline that is central to the humanities.
Many of our undergraduate students are being recognized for double majors, or dual degrees. There are 68 majors from across the university represented in this graduating class.
We are proud of such interdisciplinary studies because it demonstrates that no matter the career trajectory or life pursuit, at the heart of them all are the essential skills and insights provided by a humanities education.
All of our students, who represent a diversity of geographic and cultural backgrounds, share a common purpose and fearless outlook on life. They are passionate; they work hard; and they endeavor to understand and serve others. Our students have traveled, studied abroad, conducted research, and worked in almost all areas of the globe, and this graduating class is no exception. Some of them have already been offered jobs; some have been accepted by prestigious graduate programs and all of them have committed themselves to lifelong learning.
Thanks to our world class faculty and advisors, these graduates before us are ready to go straight to the goal! Wherever they go, their motivation will be at the highest, they will never give up, no matter what happens!
Graduates: The skills for which you received training in the College of Humanities are the most sought after in the new global economy. You can think critically. You are adaptable, accountable, and flexible. You know how to collaborate with others and actively problem solve. You have learned to communicate and write. You have gained a global mindset and intercultural competence.
You are prepared to address the grand challenges of a rapidly changing world. Practice what you have learned. When difficulties arise, and they will, do not step to the side, analyze the situation, be humble and respectful, keep your head up, and don’t let go, ne lâchez rien as we say in French.
Please keep in touch with us in the future. Most importantly, make sure you fill out the alumni form that was distributed to you. I hope you will accept that we post your profile on our alumni web sites and social media, and that once in a while, you will send us updates about your fabulous lives.
You will always be welcome at the College of Humanities and, like your predecessors, you now become mentors, potential advisors, even models to follow, for our current and future majors and graduate students. We count on you, including for helping us in the future, once you become rich and famous, to create and to contribute to scholarship funds that will help the College of Humanities’ students and faculty.
Please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your choice of field and on your fine accomplishments. Know that as you head out into the world, you are now an advocate for the humanities in any community in which you live, work or serve.
We all wish you well as you move forward from today, so thank you again and good luck to you!
Next, as we continue our ceremony, a few directions for the recognition of our bachelor’s degree graduates. Students will be called forward by rows. When that happens, come forward as you are directed by our staff, and bring your NAME CARD with your name and major information with you. Then, one student at a time will come onto stage at which time you give your NAME CARD to Deans McAllister and Warner. After they read your major and your name, you will then walk toward me.
Graduates: you will receive a medallion from the College before you approach the stage. As you cross the stage when your name is called, please take a short moment to pause next to me for the photographer. Then please be seated again in the designated area for graduates until the end of the ceremony. In order to respectfully honor every single graduate, you must remain seated until everyone has been called. Families and friends, please remain seated as well through the end of the ceremony.
Graduates: Make sure you have your NAME CARD with you and follow our staff’s instructions as they guide every row to walk outside the building and re-enter backstage. Now, will the graduates PLEASE STAND.
To the graduates joining us virtually today, we will begin with announcing your names.
KEN MCALLISTER & CHANTELLE WARNER speak:
BACHELOR'S NAMES announced
Virtual graduates announced
Did we miss anyone?
DEAN DURAND speaks:
Wow, what an extraordinary class of graduates! While we wait for our students to return to their seats, thank you for patiently and enthusiastically celebrating with us.
This year, nearly 375 students are receiving their degrees from the College of Humanities, and almost 250 are celebrating with us, both live and virtually, so many that this year for the first time, we’ve had to move our convocation here to Centennial Hall.
In the College of Humanities, our majors have grown by 34 percent since 2016 and our message to the graduates is the same as what we tell all new Humanities students: You can do anything with a Humanities degree.
But don’t just take it from me. Yesterday, we were privileged to award legendary Wildcat and College of Humanities Alumnus Steve Kerr with an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree. Listen to a few words he shared with us:
What more can I say?!
May the graduates please stand. On behalf of the faculty, I am proud to present to you the May 2024 College of Humanities graduating class!
Thank you for attending – please exit in an orderly fashion and get home safely.