By Preston Williams
For images from the 2014 Commencement, visit this gallery.
On a sunny spring day with a breeze just right for rustling green tassels, George Mason University graduated more than 7,500 students during a moving yet at times playful 47th annual Commencement ceremony at the Patriot Center, where President Ángel Cabrera hailed the 20 percent of graduates who became the first in their families to earn a college degree.
President Cabrera presents Commencement speaker David M. Rubenstein with a honorary doctor of humane letters with Provost Peter Stearns. Photo by Alexis Glenn.
Cabrera also honored three university pillars with Mason Medals, the college’s most prestigious award. Commencement speaker David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder and co-CEO of The Carlyle Group global asset management firm and himself a first-generation college graduate, received an honorary doctor of humane letters. Rubenstein connected the life of George Mason the man to the lives of the George Mason graduates by sharing an, ahem, e-mail from the Founding Father himself.
But the stars of the ceremony were the 7,695 graduating students, including 4,711 with bachelor’s degrees, 2,512 with master’s degrees, 187 with law degrees and 285 with doctoral degrees. The Class of 2014 represented 54 countries, 42 states and the District of Columbia.
“We like to define our success by the number of lives we help change, not by how many people we turn away,” Cabrera told the capped and gowned throng smiling from seats on the Patriot Center floor. “Your graduation is a family accomplishment. It is a community accomplishment. So many people helped shape you into the person you are now and you will continue to become.
“Each of you will depart our campus today with ideas in your heads and fire in your hearts. I’m proud to count each one of you as one of ours. As they say, once a Patriot, always a Patriot. True and bold, as the fight song says.”
Cabrera singled out four graduates, among them 79-year-old theater major Mia Norton, a Korean native who moved to the United States in 1976 and for years ran a gardening business before enrolling at Mason.
The 47th annual Commencement for George Mason University took place at the Patriot Center. Photo by Craig Bisacre.
As Cabrera shared her story, Norton was shown on the video screen, prompting a rousing ovation from her fellow Class of 2014 graduates and their families.
“Never forget that example,” Cabrera said as the cheers persisted. “Learning never ends.”
Before the ceremony began, a faculty member backstage had shared with Cabrera a letter that he had found Saturday morning slid under his office door. Cabrera was so moved by the letter that he incorporated it into his remarks. It read, in part:
Thank you for helping me to fall in love with a subject that I didn’t even begin to understand just four months ago. Thank you for expecting a lot out of me and [for] challenging my beliefs. Thank you for making me question my partisanship and ideas and the way I view the world.
“This is really what [a Mason education] is about,” Cabrera said moments before asking the university’s faculty and staff to stand to be recognized. “This is what we’re trying to do.”
Provost Peter N. Stearns, one of the three Mason Medal winners, received a standing ovation from faculty and students for his service to the university and greater community. Since Stearns became provost, Mason has more than tripled its level of funded research and number of doctoral programs and also expanded its global partnerships, including the establishment of a new branch campus in Incheon, Korea. Stearns will step down as provost next month but will continue to teach at the university.
Developer Gerald T. Halpin, founder, CEO and president of West Group Inc., and Frank M. Pettrone, MD, the head team physician at Mason and an orthopaedic surgeon, also received Mason medals for their years of dedication and accomplishments both on and off campus.
Rubenstein, whose interest in history is evident in his vast philanthropic works that help repair and preserve American treasures such as the Washington Monument, told the graduates there are three questions they will repeatedly be asked for the rest of their lives: What is your name? Where are you from? Where did you go to college?
“Rightly or wrongly, people judge other people to some extent by where they went to school,” Rubenstein told the students. “And that is a good thing for you because the school from which you have just earned a degree has, in a relatively short time for universities, earned an excellent reputation for providing a world-class education and for producing intelligent, motivated and focused graduates, very eager and fully ready to make their mark in the world.
“You should always answer the question of where you went to school by saying the words ‘George Mason University’ with enthusiasm and with pride.”
Rubenstein said that the life of George Mason the man, “one of the greatest Americans,” can provide lessons for the 2014 graduates. In their pursuit of happiness, they should, just like Mason, give back to their community and country, follow their conscience and communicate effectively and persuasively.
To support those words of wisdom, Rubenstein produced his iPad and shared an e-mail he said he had received from the Founding Father. That flourish was a hit with the graduates.
“You now carry George Mason’s name with you for the rest of your life,” Rubenstein said. “Wear that name proudly. And do the kinds of things that would make George Mason proud.
“And, with some luck, you may get an e-mail message from him thanking you for what you have done for society and perpetuating his name.”