About 4,300 students graduate from UM this spring, hear from nationally known speakers
As soon as the processional began at the University of Miami commencement ceremony Friday morning, Ana Scheker’s eyes darted from one graduate to another, searching for her daughter’s smile.
The mother flew in from her native Dominican Republic on Thursday. When she finally spotted her youngest child among the sea of students dressed in black, she waved her arms and repeatedly called her name.
“Manky!” Scheker shouted, using the nickname for Maria Laura Garcia, 22.
Garcia was one of the about 4,300 students who graduated from UM — about 2,300 undergraduate, 1,300 graduate, and 200 medical and about 400 law degrees.
The graduates attended one of the seven in-person ceremonies held from Wednesday to Friday at the Watsco Center, said UM spokeswoman Megan Ondrizek. The three undergraduate ceremonies took place Friday.
Waving back as she walked toward her seat, Garcia, who received a bachelor’s in psychology, pointed at her cap, which she had kept secret until that moment. It read: “Thank U Ma y Pa.”
Wiping tears from her eyes, Scheker said, “It’s the excitement of finally seeing her here and graduating after so much effort.
“I feel happy, fulfilled and like I, too, graduated because I have finished this part of being a mother,” she added, explaining Garcia’s older siblings already graduated from college.
The only COVID-19 restriction that UM implemented was limiting guest tickets to six per student. Still, about 26,000 loved ones attended the ceremonies, in total, Ondrizek said. UM is the largest private university in South Florida with about 19,000 students and 17,000 employees.
UM President Julio Frenk stood alongside graduates for photos but didn’t shake hands. Masks were optional.
Education is all you can carry sometimes
The 8:30 a.m. keynote speaker, L. Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started his remarks with a sound check — and an “accent check.”
“For those of you who have never been to Massachusetts, I’ll let you in on a secret: The accent you’re hearing is not a Boston accent,” said Reif, who was born and raised in Venezuela.
He moved to the U.S. to pursue a doctoral degree from Stanford University. He joined MIT as a faculty member in 1980 and rose to lead the acclaimed university in 2012; he will step down in December.
Reif shared a lesson he learned as a boy. His family fled Eastern Europe and migrated to South America in the late 1930s amid the start of World War II: “They had nothing. They didn’t speak the language. They were poor. The knew no one.”
But despite his parents never having access to education themselves, they encouraged Reif and his siblings to treasure it.
“I remember my father telling me when I was little, when you have to leave in a hurry, education is all you can take with you,” he said, a message that resonated with many in the audience in Miami, a city filled with immigrants who escaped authoritarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and beyond.
Reif said following his older brother’s steps helped him achieve his goals. He urged graduates to keep that in mind.
“You never know who may be paying attention to what you do,” he said.
Breaking historical glass ceilings
One of the spring graduates, Isha Thornton, often connects with students from her former schools in Baltimore and helps them see they, too, can go far.
Thornton, 22, graduated Friday with a major in public relations and a double minor in business law and music business after receiving a scholarship and a grant to attend UM. She graduated summa cum laude.
This fall, she will enroll in law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, to pursue her goal of becoming an entertainment lawyer, the first attorney in her family.
She’s a first-generation college student. Growing up, her dad drove trucks and her mom couldn’t work much because of health issues. Thornton, who is African American, sees the end of this chapter as a way to honor her parents and other relatives.
“There’s generations of my ancestors who simply could not go to school because that was not allowed,” she said. “It’s nice to be here, to know that what a lot of my ancestors, my grandparents and my great grandparents dreamt about and hoped to be able to do one day ... I can bring that to fruition now.”
Paula Kerger, president and chief executive officer of PBS, spoke at the 1 p.m. ceremony. Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., vice chair of UM’s Board of Trustees, was the scheduled keynote speaker at the 5:30 p.m. ceremony.
“I encourage you to find your authentic voice — you know what I’m talking about, the one that whispers to you about what you were put on this Earth to do. The voice that is enabling and inherently yours, not an imitation of someone else,” Kerger said. “It may not come to you immediately; don’t worry. It will.”
Correction: Multiple female Ibises
At the graduation ceremony Friday, UM President Julio Frenk said Maddie Clinger was the first female student to don the outfit of Sebastian the Ibis, the school’s mascot.
“I’m inspired by the fact that for the past three years, we had a unique situation,” Frenk told the graduates. “We had the chair of the board of trustees being a woman. We had the chair of the senate and the officers, women. In two of those three years, the president of student government a woman. And the last glass ceiling that remained has been broken by having Madison as the first female Sebastian the Ibis.”
After the article published online, an alumna who portrayed Sebastian from 1974 to 1978 contacted the Herald, disputing that Clinger was the first female to wear the mascot’s togs.
“I wasn’t the first female to wear the suit. I don’t know who was the first, but Maddie certainly wasn’t,” said Cindra Sasso, who graduated from UM in 1978 and provided a newspaper photo of her wearing the costume back then.
UM spokeswoman Ondrizek acknowledged Monday that UM had erred.
“Unfortunately, we were not correct in stating Maddie Clinger was the first female Sebastian mascot,’’ Ondrizek wrote in an email to the Herald. “She was apparently one of a few, including Cindra Sasso, a 1978 graduate of the University.”
Sasso remembers there were two ibises back then: Gertrude and Sebastian. The fiberglass head sat hot and heavy on her chest, leaving callouses, she said. She used to give tours, appear at school activities and help students move into the dorms.
“It’s something that I was very proud of. I bleed orange and green,” Sasso said. “We really tried to instill spirit at a time in the 70s where there was none.”
A previous version of this article incorrectly said Maddie Clinger had been the first female student to embody Sebastian the Ibis. There were other female students who were Sebastian over the years.
This story was originally published May 13, 2022 at 6:00 PM.
