NEWPORT — Salve Regina University celebrated its 75th annual commencement on Sunday, May 18, on the Salve campus, conferring degrees to 508 undergraduates.
Honorary degrees were awarded to Tiziana Deering, the first woman president of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Boston, the former head of a research center at Harvard University’s Kennedy Center, and the host of WBUR’s “Morning Edition;” Kasim J. Yarn, a U.S. Navy veteran and the director of the Rhode Island Office of Veterans Services; and Cody Keenan, an author, professor, and presidential speechwriter.
It was Keenan who delivered the commencement speech for this year’s graduation. Keenan noted that this graduating class is entering into a world that is often confusing and chaotic, but that these hardships should not discourage the graduates from working to make the world a better place.
“It feels like there’s nothing you can count on, like everything is up for grabs. But that, too, is true for every generation,” Keenan said, noting that the key to positive social change is love of neighbor.
“We have let the idea metastasize that America is a zero-sum game, that helping someone else inherently hurts me. That’s not true. It runs contrary to the best of our history. In an era when cruelty and cynicism are rewarded, it is counterintuitive, almost countercultural, to be generous, bighearted, and sincere. But it’s also contagious. So, even if you think nobody can be trusted, that everyone is out for themselves, be the example that the rest of us need to follow.”
He encouraged the graduates to be proud to fight for the hungry, for the sick, for the stranger, for the planet, for the mother and child and for each other.
“People will follow you, and as long as you don’t give up, neither will they.”
Dr. Kelli Armstrong, president of Salve Regina University, noted in an interview with the Rhode Island Catholic that Keenan’s guidance for the class of 2025 is in many ways embodied by the students.
“I will have a difficult time saying goodbye to the class of 2025. All Salve students are special, but this class is particularly special,” Armstrong said, noting the particularly strong sense of comradery that exists among the members of this class both among themselves and with the broader school community, as well as the large number of students involved in larger community initiatives.
Armstrong said that she has been struck by the specific kindness of this class throughout their time as students at Salve.
She noted their desire to help others and said their sense of kindness is coupled with a sense of resilience that developed due to their early college experience in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the struggles to reestablish normalcy in the aftermath of the public health and political issues associated with it.
“At Salve, we measure our success by the impact that our students and alumni have on their communities,” Dr. Armstrong said. “From the moment they arrive at Salve, even before they begin classes, Salve students participate in service to others, and every member of our community is involved in service in one form or another. Our mission is to work for a world that is harmonious, just and merciful. Every student at Salve can cite the mission and it is woven into our teaching and the ways in which we interact with one another.”
