By Philip Newman
LaGuardia Community College installed Dr. Gail Mellow as president during school’s 29th commencement Tuesday and she exhorted the graduates to fill what she said was America’s need for “everyday heroes.”
Mellow spoke shortly before conferring degrees on 1,600 graduates at Madison Square Garden. Many of them, after identifying themselves and their field of study, thanked parents, husbands, wives, children, friends and faculty members for support in their academic striving on the Long Island City campus.
Some of the graduates’ voices broke with emotion and one dedicated the occasion “to my unborn son.” Many exclaimed “God Bless America!”
In a particularly moving moment, the diploma of Alfred Vukosa was given to his widow. Vukosa was killed while at work Sept.11 in the World Trade Center.
Mellow said the present times were “especially poignant for some of the LaGuardia students “who have given up so much to come to this country and now worry that the United States will become like the countries they left — governed by military might and authoritarian secrecy rather than the messy and vibrant democracy that we have cherished.”
She said the nation had seen many heroes in the last month, including those who had performed “small things, apparently minor acts that made them everyday heroes. It is their courage, vision and fortitude I would like to speak of today.
“After the heat of crisis, what America needs are thousands of everyday heroes, ready to act and think. That will maintain this powerful and precious democracy,” she said.
Mellow said she had witnessed many individual examples of everyday heroes who are students.
She told of “Josephina,” who began LaGuardia while living with her two children in a Queens public park as a homeless mother.
“She graduated from LaGuardia, transferred to a four-year college and is now making $40,000 a year as an employee of the Department of Aging.”
“Think of Sung Lee, who gets up before dawn, dresses her 3-year- old son, takes the bus from Jamaica to Flushing to bring him to her sister, takes another bus to the No. 7 train to class, then to her job at her brother’s restaurant until 10 p.m. Then back to the subway, buses and home. She’s carrying a B-plus average.”
“Or Mohammed, who was too frightened and embarrassed to believe at the age of 36 he could go to college. Yet after receiving his emergency medical technician certificate, he began working the night shift. This allows him to come into an 8 a.m. English literature class to complete his paramedic degree,” Mellow said.
“These are the kind of people who are graduating before you today.
“Everyday heroism leads to dreams and opens doors and unlocks potential. At LaGuardia, as in all community colleges in the country, we continually create the foundation for the maintenance of a middle class, the only thing that really ensures freedom and democracy.”
“Community colleges are messy; they can seem chaotic. It may sometimes provide a second chance for those who maybe don’t deserve a second chance and yet, watch them fly when they get it. It is multicultural, multiethnic, dense and interactive.”
Mellow said many of her students were “part of an America of families who never dreamed of college.”
“The everyday heroes live,” Mellow said, “and they are before you today, about to graduate.”
Mellow conferred the LaGuardia College President's Medal on state Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette (D-Jackson Heights) in recognition of his legislative achievements on behalf of education.
The invocation was by the Rev. Bonita R. Collins Hobbs, pastor of the Tabernacle Community CME Church in St. Albans.
Mellow became LaGuardia Community College’s third president since its founding three decades ago.
Reach reporter contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
