At the university’s 49th Annual Spring Commencement on Saturday, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe offered Mason graduates the same advice he gives his own five children.
“When you march out of here, I want you to think big, I want you to take chances, and don’t be afraid to fail,” McAuliffe said, capping his commencement address at EagleBank Arena. “People want to be with winners, not whiners.”
There were plenty of winners Saturday in the jubilant tasseled throng of the 8,502-member graduating class and their families and friends.
Mason President Ángel Cabrera told the graduates that he feels “a special thing in my heart” for the Class of 2016 because, like many of them, he too arrived at Mason four years ago. He rattled off many of the university’s accomplishments from their time here – and the fact that they had the mighty stylings of the Green Machine as their soundtrack.
“We’ve traveled together,” Cabrera said. “And if George Mason has changed your lives half as much as it has mine, I think we’re in very good shape. You have grown, and so has your university. I ask that you remain engaged and that you help to continue to build this great university of ours.”
Undergraduates in the Class of 2016 hailed from 51 countries and 36 states and also the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. About one-third were the first in their families to earn a degree from a four-year institution, a fact that drew hearty applause when Cabrera cited the statistic.
“We love that Mason bends trajectories for the better,” Cabrera said.
Students earning master’s, law and doctorate degrees hailed from 56 countries and 42 states, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
“You came here to George Mason to get a world-class education,” McAuliffe said. “I can tell you this: You came to the right place. You’re about to get a piece of paper in your hand that so many people in this country and so many people around the world would love to have.”
The graduates were not the only honorees at commencement. Mason Rector Tom Davis awarded the Mason Medal, the university’s highest honorary award, to Charles J. “Chuck” Colgan, the longest-serving state senator in Virginia history; Dr. Long V. Nguyen, namesake of Mason’s engineering building and a former Mason Board of Visitors member; and Jim Larrañaga, the men’s basketball coach who led Mason to the Final Four in 2006.
Student speaker Andrew Leich, graduating with an economics degree, noted the remarkable breadth of backgrounds at Mason, saying the university “sits at the intersection of diverse and accepting.” He also invoked the independent values espoused by George Mason the man.
“Freedom and learning shaped George Mason’s experiences as a student,” Leich said. “He was always a student, just as we were, we are, and we always should be. When we are called to action, when our all is at stake, we can all be George Masons, rising to meet the challenge and taking the road less traveled.”