More than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students received degrees from St. John’s University during the school’s 139th commencement exercise on the Great Lawn of the Queens campus.
Parents, family and friends came from all around the country, to help the students celebrate the joyous achievement on Sunday, May 18, and this year’s commencement speaker – Rwandan genocide survivor Immaculee Ilibagiza – captivated the audience with her inspirational story.
During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Ilibagiza and seven other women spent 91 days in silence in the bathroom of a local pastor’s house. When Ilibagiza entered the house, she was a 115-pound student with a loving family; but three months later, she was whittled down to 65 pounds and learned that her entire family, except for one brother, had been brutally murdered.
Ilibagiza turned to prayer and eventually she found it possible – and even necessary – to forgive the people who tormented her and murdered her family.
“In your life you have to be able to forgive, and you have to have the will to let go,” said Ilibagiza, who received an honorary degree from St. John’s. “Once I was able to do that, I began to feel great joy and pass the message on to others.”
In addition to Ilibagiza, St. John’s also presented special honors to Michael Repole, St. John’s alumnus and co-founder of private drink maker Glaceau – the successful maker of Vitamin water – and Joseph Schwartz, a St. John’s alumnus and retired Partner of Wellington Management Company.
Reverend Donald J. Harrington, President of St. John’s, told all of the 3,245 graduates that they left St. John’s a better place than when they first came to the university and praised the parents and students
“Your commitment, your own extraordinary gifts of faith and of fidelity, your multiple personal gifts and strengths all bode well for the future of this University as well as the future of our city, our nation and our world,” Harrington said.
St. John’s senior Thomas J. Wasilowski II, of the Peter J. Tobin College of Business, delivered the student address, sharing memories from his time at St. John’s as well as some pieces of advice for his fellow graduates.
“St. John’s University has not only provided us with an exceptional education, but also life skills that we will take with us wherever we go and now it is our responsibility to take what we’ve been given with us into the working world,” said Wasilowski.
