 The trustees and the faculty of Fairfield University are happy to welcome you, the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands, wives and relatives, and friends of the candidates for the degrees in course of the class of 2018. The academic procession is now entering the Bellarmine Terrace commencement area led by the grand marshal, Dr. Jamie Macbeth, assistant professor in computer science in the School of Engineering. And this year's Alpha Sigma Nu teacher of the year. Professor Macbeth carries the mace of the university. The academic procession is punctuated by gonfillins representing each school of the university. The gonfillin colors represent the colors of the hoods for the various disciplines offered at Fairfield. The gonfillins are interspersed throughout the academic procession. The first groups approaching in the graduation procession on the right side of the aisle are the candidates for the doctor of nursing practice and the candidates for the master in nursing. The Marion Peckin Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies gonfillin is apricot representing the discipline of nursing. Following the Marion Peckin Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies on the right side are the candidates for the master of arts, master of science degrees, master of public administration, and the master of fine arts from the College of Arts and Sciences. The arts and sciences gonfillin of white represents the humanities and social sciences. And the yellow and white gonfillin of the College of Arts and Sciences represents the master of science degrees. The candidates for the master's in business administration and the master of science. The gonfillin for the Dolan School of Business is beige and white, beige representing the discipline of business. On the left side of the aisle are the candidates for the master of arts and the six year certificates from the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. The gonfillin for the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions is blue and white. So on the left are the candidates for the master's in engineering. The gonfillin for the school of engineering is orange and white, orange representing the discipline of engineering. Joining their colleagues who are serving as marshals for the academic procession are the members of the faculty of Fairfield University and representatives from the Demented, Nicelius Library, and Student Affairs. They are preceded by the university gonfillin and the color of red with the seal of the university centered on the banner. A straight of staff are represented in the procession. And the various colors of their robes and hood signify their areas of academic discipline and the universities from which they received their graduate degrees. To the university chaplain and special assistant to the president of university, university, the secretary of the general faculty, the Alpha Sigma Nu graduate teacher school's advisory community, the honorary degree recipients and their escorts. And at the end of the procession, Frank Carroll III, chairman of the board of trustees, and Dr. Mark R. Nemek, president of Fairfield University. Members of the board of trustees, chairs of the advisory committees, deans, members of the faculty, administrators, president of the alumni association, members of the graduating class, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen. As provost for the university, I would like to welcome you to the 68th commencement exercises for Fairfield University. Will our graduates remain standing, and our guests please rise for the invocation, which will be offered by the Reverend Michael Tunney, Society of Jesus, superior of the Fairfield Jesuit community. Please remain standing for the singing of the national anthem by members of the Mendelssohn Choir of Connecticut, under the direction of Carol Ann Maxwell, artistic director and conductor, and accompanied by Beth Palmer and the brass salad quintet. The most powerful force on earth is the human soul on fire. Let us pray. Generous God, you give us this commencement day, this graduate celebration. All these students and their accomplishments, their families, and their friends. Now set us on fire. On fire with your desire for wisdom, rooted in faith and in reason. On fire with your vision of justice for all peoples. On fire with your one love across all our faith traditions and our goodwill. God of all blessings, fill and fold us our graduate Fairfield celebrations today. The gifts of your Holy Spirit give us and let them set our souls on fire. Amen. Saint Robert Bellarmine, pray for us. University, have the honored special recognition for her academic achievement. The Alumni Association of Fairfield University, in conjunction with the academic division, selects a graduate student each year who is committed to the Jesuit ideals of high academic standards and involvement in her community. This award is known as the Loyola Medal. And this year, it is conferred upon Teresa Spencer of the Merriam-Peckham-Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. The Alumni Association has made a donation of $1,000 in Dr. Spencer's name to the program in psychiatric mental health in the Merriam-Peckham-Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. The president will now officially confer the honorary degree on Ambassador Mark Dible. The citation will be read by Dr. Patrick Kelly, Distinguished Fellow Merriam-Peckham-Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. For his groundbreaking work on the treatment and control of HIV-AIDS, his compassionate advocacy and his embodiment of the Jesuit ideal of cura personalis, care of the whole person, the president and board of trustees hereby proclaim Mark Dible, Doctor of Science, honoris causa. The president will now officially confer the honorary degree on Jack R. Mitchell. The citation will be read by Dr. Valeriam Martinez, Associate Professor of Finance in the Dolan School of Business. For the inspiration of his unique relationship-based business model, his passion for lifelong learning, and his longstanding commitment to the community, the president and board of trustees hereby proclaim John R. Mitchell, Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my pleasure to introduce Jack R. Mitchell, our 2018 commencement speaker. Wow. Wow, I'm absolutely thrilled to be here today. Thank you very, very much. I'm honored. And of course, I'm very humbled at the same time. I'd like to share with you some very simple yet meaningful values and beliefs in my family and our family business. Whether you're in business or you're going into nursing or teaching or counselors or creative writers, public service workers or engineers, whatever dream you follow, connecting with people on a personal level and sharing these values with them, friends, colleagues, workers, customers, employees, and caring deeply about them. It's all been part of my life's journey and, of course, my business journey. The mission of our stores is to make people feel great. We focus on our customers. They're the center, absolutely the center of the universe. And we build personal relationships with them and personal relationships with our employees that we call our associates. And we use data. We use technology in this modern world to keep things personal and to know the score in everything that we do. And we're always striving to be better, to be excellent by listening, learning, and growing, and also having fun. As you know from the program, these values are expressed in something I call hugs. Hugs are any act or deed that says, wow, you really care about the person that you're dealing with. It's definitely, you know, hugging is a metaphor. Just remember this in this day and age. And it's also very much embedded in the Jesuit core value or motto of Cora personalis, caring for the whole person and recognizing each person as a child of God's creation. So let's have some fun now quickly. I always wear my tape. So you'll remember that I'm a real retailer. I'm really, you know, I'm on the selling floor and I'm meeting and greeting customers. Also that everything I say here is for real and authentic. First thing I want you to do is I want you to hug yourselves. Everybody here, hug yourself. Everybody, give it a big hug. You've earned it. Back there, family and friends, everybody, hug yourselves. Give yourself a hug. You're graduating from one of the finest universities in the world, graduates and parents and friends and family, you've supported and educated and supported and nurtured these wonderful graduates. Give yourself a big hug. My message of course is that you need to extend these hugs from yourself to your family, friends and business colleagues to everyone you encounter. We've been doing that in our family and our family business for over 60 years. I remember like it was yesterday, my mom and dad started our family business 60 years ago. My dad was a commuter between Westport, Connecticut and New York City, hopped off the commuting train with my mom's help, but 55 years old started our family business in 800 square feet. Today that store is 27,000 square feet and we have eight stores throughout the country. So we've grown rapidly, but it's about the values. Of course we like to make people feel great by the clothes they wear, but it's much more than that. It's deeper, it's about executing on these particular values. And along my journey, of course, I have written, as you just heard, three business books on hugging. Hugging your customers, hugging your people and selling the hug your customer way. That's all about how we really personalized each and every relationship we have with our customers, with our associates and even our vendors, people like George Armani and Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors and others that we get to know on a personal basis and they gain mutual respect and trust and this trust becomes something that remains with them forever, forever in our business. I wanna share with you a fun story. I think it's a meaningful story because it shows, again, how you can hug yourself and then also hug other people. This was a story four or five years ago. I was walking around our selling floor with my tape and meeting and greeting customers and this young lady came up to me and she said, are you the Mitchell that wrote that book, Hug Your Customers? I said, yes, I am. She said, well, you changed my life. I said, wow, how did that happen? She said, well, you know, I'm a singer. I said, where do you sing? She said, I sing a Carnegie Hall in nice places like that. I said, wow. She said, I said, how did my book change your life? She said, well, I was all about myself. I was, you know, before I had a concert on stage, I was thinking, what's I gonna say? Remember the words, was my voice gonna crack and I was very nervous. Sometimes I even threw up before I went on stage. She said, I read your book and I realized it was about hugging my customers, hugging the audience, getting the energy from them, listening to them and talking to them, each and every one of them. And when I did that, guess what? All my anxiety or most of it, 90% of it went away and I really have enjoyed myself and I enjoy singing and relating and caring for each and every person that I sing to. I'm confident that these are spiritual and emotional and intellectual connections that happen when you go this whole body idea of sharing yourself with others, to each and every person, each and every day. My book is full of stories. Another one that I really like because I think it symbolizes how simple hugs can be and how simple messages can be that become almost like the gospel of spreading the word. And they become ambassadors to our family business. This is a story about a gentleman by the name of Lou Gershner. You graduates may be a little too young to remember Lou, but he was the CEO of IBM, chairman of IBM. His creditor was really quote, saving IBM. And my story goes back as my brother and I were the chairman and have been for several years of the Inner City Foundation for Catholic Charities, a big fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut, where we have a store of Richards. We were, it was a black tie affair. We were meeting and greeting our friends and customers and Robin Gershner, Lou's wife, comes up to me and she's smiling and she said, you know what you did for me today, Jack? What did we do for her? She said, well, you know, we go to a lot of these fundraisers last night. We were in New York at the Waldorf and Lou put his tuxedo jacket on and he went to button it and the button fell off and he picked up the button, put it in his pocket all night, it was squirming and I knew we were coming to the Inner City Foundation for Catholic Charities event. Tonight it was a black tie also. I took it down to Richards and you know what you did. So what did we do, Robin? She said Tulio, who's worked for you for 46 years, he sewed the button on, you know. Wow, that was, you know, she sewed the button on and then she said, you know what else she did? What else did we do? By this time there were 50 or 60 people, she took a long time to tell the story. She pressed, he pressed the jacket and he pressed the trousers so Lou could look in Walsa's Lou so elegant tonight. The president of IBM's wife was impressed because we sewed a button on and it wasn't even a Richards tuxedo. So if you forget all the stories that I tell you, remember the button story. You know, it can be so simple. We have 18 tailors, what, of course. We don't, you have inhibitors of not a Richards tuxedo. I thought that was a good story and I actually told the story to a lot of people and, but it didn't, it didn't end that way. So two or three years later I was, I'm a tennis player, I like to play tennis but I also, if somebody invites me to the US Open, it was a big US Open event and it was one of these sky boxes I was in and the next one next to me was the IBM box and I saw Lou and he came over to me and he gave me a huge high five for those of you who know Lou, that's unusual for him but he gave me it anyway and he told everybody in the IBM box that we were the greatest clothing store in the world because we sewed a button on. Can you imagine? You see what distinguishes us really is that we're all about, again, about personalizing these relationships one customer at a time. We welcome them in our store just as you would welcome people into your home or to your apartment. That's what we try to do with every single customer that we work with. Now the big challenge for you today, I'm challenging you, is can you execute these hugs? Do you, first of all, do you want to? Have you decided you wanna be, you don't have to use this word but you know what I mean, do you wanna be a hugger? Are you a hugger now? During your time here at Fairfield, did you clean your room up after you had that big party? Or did you even clean up, help your roommate clean up that mess? Did you, could you get up in the morning and do you smile and do you say good morning to everyone? Do you try to figure out which person each day you're going to do something special to to make their work and their lives feel better? That's what hugging is all about. It builds mutual respect and trust when you do that and you have more fun doing it. In case, you know, I'm sure many of you are huggers and those of you who are great. For those of you who need a little practice, here's a simple little exercise. I received an email years ago from a gentleman that, excuse me, I'm gonna make sure you understand my story is gonna be real. I had to put my tape back on. Gentleman was a jeweler in Madison, Wisconsin and he said, Jack, I have to confess I was a nasty jeweler and older. I used to ball my people out. Why didn't you buy them after they sold a nice, beautiful, expensive necklace? Why didn't you sell the ring and also the bracelet? I jumped up and down. I just, I never complimented anyone and it was sort of an unhappy place but you know, we were doing okay. I read your book. He said, I decided I was gonna try to be a hugger and I started smiling but he said I needed some help so I took 10 pennies and I put them in my left pocket and I went around and I said, wow, Sally, nice job on selling that bracelet and I put them in my right pocket and he said by noon time I was complimenting people and people were smiling and guess what? We were having a lot more fun. Fast forward the story. He said, the end of the story is, he said, guess what? After about two months I was putting my old silver dollars that I had from Las Vegas and we were jumping up and down after we had a great day and a great week and everybody was having a much more happy time, happy associates or employees mean happy customers and guess what? Sales went up, cash flow went up, profit went up. You see, hugging can go in a business or it can do anything that you need to know so sometimes you need help. So I want you today to think about whether you're gonna be pledging and will be committing to be a hugger, okay? So the very first thing, you know, you've done this before with me. The first thing I want you to do is hug yourself again. Everybody hug yourself again? Okay, now remember, come on family, friends, same thing, I wanna see you in the back rows there. Come on, hug yourself, hug yourself. The next thing I want you to do is commit. Will you execute? Will you execute? One hug today, Sunday, by Tuesday, I want you to try to hug somebody. It could be an email, it could be a text, it could be a nice handwritten note with a reeling pen. It could be somebody that you fell out of favor with, a surprise hug to somebody. Maybe a roommate, maybe your undergraduate roommate, maybe a family member, maybe it's your best customer on your new job. How about everybody commit to that one question, but put your hand up if you're gonna commit to that, please, a little higher, a little higher, I can't see you all. Wave, okay, all right. Fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Now the last thing I want you to do, and I want you to remember this for a long time, graduates to be, stand up please, everybody stand up, right? Please stand up, yes, everybody stand up. So what I want you to do is the people around you, I want you to smile at them, give them a smile, give them a good fair handshake, if you give them a high five, if you wanna go for it, give them a hug, give them a hug. Let's sit, all right, how does that feel? How does it feel, keep going, let's see. Look at this down here, look at this hugging going on down here, look at this. Thank you very, very, very, very much, and God bless you all and the best of everything going forward in your new careers. At this time I would like to take an opportunity to issue a very warm welcome to representatives of the class of 1968. Frank Beckerer, Francis Calzetta, and Charles Coletti represent alumni celebrating 50 year reunion at Fairfield University. We are honored by their presence and by their lifelong commitment to Fairfield University. I would like to take a moment to ask these three representatives of the class of 1968 to stand and be recognized by our graduating students, their guests, our faculty, and administration. We shall now have the presentation of candidates for degrees in course by the deans of the five schools of the university and the conferring of those degrees by the president of the university. Dean Meredith Kaiser will present the degree candidates from the Merriam-Peckham-Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. Dr. Kaiser. Will the candidates for the Doctor of Nursing Practice and Master of Science in Nursing degree from the Merriam-Peckham-Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies please stand. These men and women have fulfilled all the requirements established by Fairfield University for the Doctor of Nursing Practice and for the Master of Science in Nursing degree and are hereby presented to the president and trustees for the conferring of those degrees. By virtue of the power vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Fairfield University and the State of Connecticut, I hereby confer the degree Doctor of Nursing Practice and the degree Master of Science in Nursing on all those presented by the Dean of the Merriam-Peckham-Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. Congratulations. Will the graduates please come forward to receive their diplomas? The Doctor of Nursing Practice graduates will be hooded by Associate Dean Dr. Joyce Shea before receiving their diplomas from Dr. Mark Nemek. Please withhold all your applause until all graduates have been presented. Caroline Barone. Hillary Bartholomew. Peter Braemer. Bethany Burke. Olivia Carter. Amy Chacon. Thayer Clark. Alexia Cortella. Amanda Castella. Doris D'Aupui. Michael Dimasi. Samantha Diaz-Hennessey. Krista Esposito. Song Ihan. Tara Hall. Jane Hedrick. Nancy Ingenetto. Garrett Jaffe. Ryan Keenan. Christopher Lasarenza. Tambolze Marino. Jennifer Marlin. Samantha Maraz. Wanika Indubaku. Heidi Ochab. Taylor Priest. Megan Ryan. Zeda Sayaritupa. Rita Sklar. Krista Smeagol. Trisa Spencer. Yamirka Swayze. Kevin Trail. Nancy Velasco. Jessica Wexler. Chin Yu. Sarah Ottiaga. Teresa Aversa. Liza Bakaritz. Sandra Badauski. Ashley Bailey. Evelyn Barron. Dina Brown. Nicola Coleman. Carissa Cornelius. Laura DeVoe. Alma Duomfor. Nicole Ferreira. Catherine Fitzpatrick. Cariol Westgaywar. Lisa Jiren Lemeti. Margaret Gorlich. Julia Green. Erin Gunther. Lauren Hanulik. Allison Haiketz. Cindy Kim. Tyler Mamone. Christina McElroy. Christina Meehan. Cynthia Metz. Maria Minnet. Danielle Randall. Danielle Rivera. Carolyn Ruiz. Dana Smart. Larissa Smollery. Tatiana Tumenick. Nicole Vidi. Congratulations to all our graduates. Dean Richard Greenwald will present the degree candidates from the College of Arts and Sciences. Dean Greenwald. Will the candidates for the Masters of Arts, Masters of Science degrees, Master of Public Administration, and the Master of Fine Arts from the College of Arts and Sciences please stand. These men and women have fulfilled all the requirements established by Fairfield University for the Masters of Arts, Masters of Science degrees, Masters of Public Administration, and Masters of Fine Arts degrees and are hereby presented to the President and Trustees for the conferral of those degrees. By virtue of the power vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Fairfield University and the State of Connecticut, I hereby confer the degrees of Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Public Administration, and Master of Fine Arts on all those presented by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations. Will the graduates please come forward to receive their diplomas. Please withhold your applause until all graduates have been presented. Andrew Davenport. Joseph Fortuno. Catherine McGee. Alana McLeodownee. Maria Valentina Aduan Ramirez. Juan de Mayen. Jason Howell. Nicholas Kapoor. Stephanie Potter. Jonathan Rosofsky. Monica Sistowska. Lauren Felicia. Tavelin Halberg. Nicole Moffa. Brittany Netherly. Hannah Pike. Madeline Priest. Kadim Roberts. Patrick Saley. Julie Tizoli. Dean Marc Legas will present the degree candidates from the Dolan School of Business. Dean Legas. Will the candidates for the Master of Science degree and the Master of Business Administration degree from the Dolan School of Business please stand. These men and women have fulfilled all the requirements established by Fairfield University for the Master of Science and the Master of Business Administration degrees and are hereby presented to the President and Trustees for the conferring of those degrees. By virtue of the power vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Fairfield University and the State of Connecticut, I hereby confer the degree of Master of Science and Master of Business Administration on all those presented by the Dean of the Dolan School of Business. Will the graduates please come forward to receive their diplomas. Please withhold your applause until all graduates have been presented. Alok Agirwal. Jonathan Agila. Kelly Alberti. Maria Bucousis. Amy Barden. Carolyn Bennett. Jeffrey Bonewald. Danielle Juano. Carolyn Byrne. Mary Calebra. Guy Defeo. Vincenza Domenico. Alexandra Fazio. Matthew Finnelli. Emma Fischio. Bridget Fitzpatrick. Ashley Flanagan. Sarah Gaelic. Megan Gallagher. Bridget Garvey. Barbara Goger. Connor Gose. Dominic Guarneri. Brenna Gayet. Christian Hauser. Niyun Guo. Robert Hedberg. John Hurley. Ashley Iannucci. Melissa Iannucci. Nastya Johnson. Kelly Keegan. Samina Kojvik. Ashley Korn. Brianna Korn. Kelsey Laforest. Robert Lawler. Tyler Longo. Marie Magliacco. Mayank Mahareswadi. Jennifer Maloney. Michael McGee. Alice McPartland. Jenna Mitchell. Daniel Molangano. Joseph Mosali. Fred Nefton. Tianquac Yun. Natalie Pace. Erica Paulias. Robert Pelk. Danielle Pires. Christopher Posevac. Emily Pritchard. Karen Pritchard. Everett Reed. Michael Reardon. Sarah Sanclementi. Hannah Sawyer. Elizabeth Sheeran. Colleen Sheridan. Lilybeth Silva. James Smallden. Elizabeth Solar. Donna Stiano. Eva Striegel. Catherine Talameli. Brianna Tancredi. Andrew Tropiano. Stephanie Van Fleet. Trong Vieu. Christian Wallace. Jay Wang. Alexandra Weiss. Jihao Yong. Brianna Zelko. Wilfredo Arbita Lopez. Gregory Berger. Maria Flores. Christopher Fonseca. Hannah Gerard. Patrick Grubb. Raymond Holian. Anthony Iorio. Michelle Jacobs. Jacqueline Leo. Sean McGady. Jennifer Nativo. Melissa Nelson. Kristen Oaks. Steve Onobamiro. Kenneth Schaefer. Charles Steen. Peter Sweeney. Antonio Tomas. Samantha Vigliotta. Melissa Villalobos. Zachary Wright. Michael Yorina. Joanna Zeba. Congratulations to all. Dean Bruce Burdaniere will present the degree candidates for the School of Engineering. Dean Burdaniere. Will the candidates for the Master of Science in Engineering degrees please stand. These men and women have fulfilled all the requirements established by Fairfield University for the Master of Science in Engineering degree and are hereby presented to the President and Trustees for the conferring of those degrees. By virtue of the power vested in me by the Board of Trustees and the State of Connecticut, I hereby confer the degree of Master of Science in Engineering on those presented by the Dean of the School of Engineering. Will the graduates please come forward to receive their diplomas. Please withhold your applause until all the graduates have been presented. Deepa Alugubelli. Radhika Balapanur. Prasana Bhagavatula. Vincent Corsello. Roja Donovath. Evan Fowle. John Fennazo. Sampath Reddy-Gottem. Matthew Galliano. Womainath Girum. Sai Maran Charavula. Lohith Chanda. Sumanth Gujaru. Sudhir Raj Haridas. Bab Harisi. Morris Jalo. Waleed Jawad Hussein. Venkata Taswalu Kakumanu. Tamea Kane. Shreya Karan. Jungsu Kim. Adivishnu Kamurovelli. Sosendra Maras. Rajesh Maganti. Carlos Mosquita. Christina Molina. Lavanya Marukar. Rajasai Naka. Christina Okoa. Prachi Ok. Ranjana Kamalakar Patankar. Hari Pogula. Dinesh Kumar Raghagaraj. Roshara Savadi. Sharvaya Suraneni. Christopher Souter. Nikhil Taloju. Anusha Vaka. Daniel Vesconyes. Abhilash Yalani. Surya Vamsi Ganavarapu. Venkata Siddhartha Penuganda. Tejaswini Gorati. Lakshmi Dharaja Domirla. Pooja Reddy Sirlam. Vikas Kumar Katkar. Mandan Mohan Reddy Viraruth. Congratulations to all. Associate Dean Stephanie Storms will present the degree and certificate candidates from the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. Dr. Storms. Will the candidates for the Master of Arts degree and for the sixth year certificate from the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions please stand. These men and women have fulfilled all the requirements established by Fairfield University for the Master of Arts degree and for the sixth year certificate and are hereby presented to the President and Trustees for the conferring of that certificate and degree. By virtue of the power vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Fairfield University and the State of Connecticut, I hereby award the Master of Arts degree and the sixth year certificate to all those presented by the Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions. Congratulations. Janessa Alvarez. Liliana Amadeo. Victoria Ault. Annette Bakes. Heather Barrett. Hilary Bassett. Victoria B. Jean Berberic. Chastity Berrios Hernandez. Leslie Boland. Ryan Brady. Juliet Brisman Zuckerman. Shannon Broderick. Steven Burroughs. Amanda Capella. Bianca Sanatiempo. Alyssa Cisquia. Victoria Cooperine. Anna Correa. Nicole Cotto. Christina Certo. Jessica Delillo. Ian Dempsey. Victoria Dest. Hazel Dewey. Brandon Di Giacomo. Krista Dobson. Becca Domogala. Kyla Farrell. Jillian Farance. Joanna Friedrich. Gina Fuller. Alessia Gagnon. Sarah Ganga. Jennifer Gini. Chelsea Jeremiah. Joan Gill. Christopher Gleeve. Anthony Granada. Katie Henderson. Sarah Yu Iangar. Paul Jurassic. Jennifer Johnson. Emily Kaufman. Lauren Kores. Arian Ladd. Alyssa Leahy. Kristen Lee. Rachel Leslie. Michael Levinson. Jillian Lucia. Amanda Morello. Kimberly Lindquest. Bermarie Maria. Samantha McLaughrey. Catherine McDonnell. Marissa McDermott. Mary McKee. Allison McGrath. Valerie Mondesier. Kelly Montanero. Elvato Morgan. Colleen Mulroney. Sally Ng. Alexandra Niccoli. Hadley Orr. Victoria Ortiz. Rutu Patel. Jane Penn. Alexis Polina. Kelly Posso. Maria Melissa Pretelt. Prayarna Purohit. Shantel Runwek. Lauren Roberts. Alexandra Rosati. Kathleen Ross. Lauren Stewart. Phillip Strang. Olivia Tengredi. Paul Tarr. Marcia Tashira. Sabrina Vagnon. Emilia Vargas. Valerie Vincent. Chelsea Vrabel. Morgan Walton. Thomas Wolmacher. Kimberly Ann Yumane. Mackenzie Yusco. Elena Chapman. Sean Collins. Breonna Coyle. Katrina Denzales Hicks. Amanda Duffy. Danielle Kopeck. Kira Russo. Jennifer Wolcott. Congratulations to all. At this point in the ceremony, I would ask all of our new graduates to please rise and acknowledge with applause your appreciation for your faculty as teachers, advisors and mentors. Thank you, and you can be seated. It is now my pleasure to introduce Dr. Mark R. Nemek, president of Fairfield University to offer remarks. Dr. Nemek. Thank you, Dr. Siegel. To our masters and doctor of nursing practice graduates, congratulations. As these last few remarks and Father Allen's benediction are all that stand between you and your well-earned status as graduate degree holders from Fairfield University, I will be brief. I would be remiss, however, if I did not use this occasion to share a few thoughts, a few sentiments to carry with you on your way. First, again, congratulations. Embrace the moment. Savor it. Now come to this celebration. But this celebration is not done because as you have entered into this course of study, you know you have entered into a lifetime of learning. Second, thank you. Thank you on behalf of the university. Thank you as president. I would thank you, especially in this regard. You as our masters and doctor of nursing practice students complete us. Fairfield has from its very founding been a university. And your commitment to advance study is what makes us thus. And lastly, may God bless you all in all your pursuits going forward. Again, to all our graduates, congratulations. Please rise. Reverend Charles Allen of the Society of Jesus, University Chaplain and Special Assistant to the President will pronounce the benediction. Let us bow our heads and ask for God's blessing. Almighty and ever-loving God, as we conclude our graduation ceremonies on this lovely spring afternoon at Fairfield University, we pray that these graduate students may go forward into their chosen professions with a new sense of competency and of confidence, of kindness and of compassion. Almighty God, we thank you for the parents, grandparents, children, classmates, teachers and friends who have helped these graduates achieve the goals we acknowledge today. For these graduates today, many years of challenge, study, good times and wonderful experiences come to an end. We ask that you would bless them, Lord, in the years to come so that the joys of their Fairfield years may be a part of their future lives and the lives of all of those whom they touch. We ask this of you, knowing that you are a loving God and so we say together, amen. To bring our commencement to a close, please rise for the singing of the Fairfield University. No. Sorry. Will our guests remain in their seats until those on the stage and the graduates have recessed? The 68th commencement exercises of Fairfield University are now officially concluded. Thank you.