MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — MTSU’s 2,171 new undergraduate degree
holders left Murphy Center Saturday, May 6, after a day of commencement
ceremonies, full of hope, relief, excitement and plenty of guest-speaker
wisdom.
Former state commissioner of Tennessee Economic and
Community Development Randy Boyd related
knowledge gleaned from his experiences as founder of Radio Systems Corp. and
his role as special adviser to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, where he helped create the state’s Drive to 55
initiative, the Tennessee Promise and Reconnect higher education programs.
“Every success begins with ‘yes,’” Boyd told
undergraduates at the morning ceremony. “Have your plans, have your objectives,
but always look forward to something better happening than what you planned. If
you expect it, it typically happens.”
Williamson
County Schools Superintendent Mike
Looney urged the afternoon undergrads to embrace “TODAY”: time,
opportunity, determination, adventure and yesterday.
“Savor
the moment we’re experiencing with our 12,000 favorite friends,” Looney told
the crowd, which included his son Zachary,
who earned his Bachelor of Arts in history during the event. “Enjoy this
moment. … And whichever journey or path you’re taking, seize on the opportunity
that’s been provided to you today.”
Itasca Liddell’s new bachelor’s degree in
computer information systems put her one more step closer Saturday to a career
she never expected. The Murfreesboro native took a summer class in business
intelligence and analytics before her junior year, prompting her to change her
major and her future.
“The
class was structured at a very fast pace, and everything seemed to be so
relevant to how society is changing,” said Liddell. “I honestly just had a
blast being able to geek out over a computer and figure out what I could do
with it.”
Liddell,
who’s part of MTSU’s accelerated bachelor’s and master’s program, will work as
a graduate assistant for the CIS department this fall and plans to wrap up her
graduate degree in May 2018.
Economics
major Tyler Holweg, 22, of
Morristown, Tennessee, counted 11 family members attending Saturday’s
commencement. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant May 5 during Army ROTC
ceremonies and noted that his father, retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Cmdr. Eric Holweg, was an influence on his
decision.
“I’m
excited,” said Holweg, who’ll serve as a transportation officer at Fort Lee,
Virginia, for four months before moving to the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell,
Kentucky.
“It’s
kind of like graduation from high school. You are ready to move on to better
things and my career. I want to keep making myself proud and other people
proud.”
On May 5,
372 graduate degree recipients heard heartfelt words from longtime psychology
professor Michael Hein, who
developed MTSU’s nationally recognized graduate program in
industrial/organizational psychology and directs the university’s Center for Organizational and Human
Resource Effectiveness.
Hein
recalled his military basic training, when he was told to “police your area.
Leave it better than you found it.”
“I’m not
going to ask you to go out and change the world,” he told the new doctoral,
master’s and education specialist degree-holders. “I’m just going to ask you to
leave your piece of the world better than you found it, every day, every week,
every month. If we all do that, that’s going to have a huge impact.”
New
doctoral grad Jeannie Stubblefield
received her bachelor’s degree in biology in 2011, then used research in drug
discovery for what she called “some of the worst neglected tropical diseases”
to earn her Ph.D. in biosciences May 5. Her success included co-authoring
papers and two patents through the Tennessee
Center for Environmental Research.
“I feel
very blessed to have been a part of the MTSU community through all this,” said
Stubblefield, who’s received a prestigious fellowship with the University of
Washington in Seattle and will move there in July.
“MTSU was
a great stepping stone. “I would not have achieved this opportunity without
their help. It’s the end of one chapter and the start of a new career.”
Echoing the new grads’ comments, MTSU President
Sidney A. McPhee encouraged the
university’s newest alumni at each of the ceremonies to “bask in the glory that
surrounds this day” but reminded them that it’s also a starting point for their
next adventures.
“You may feel that this long journey is over,”
McPhee said. “We feel that it is just a comma, not a period, in your story. It
is just the beginning of even greater things to come.”
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