COMMENCEMENT RECAP: RHEE, SCHUMER, SULLIVAN INSPIRE CLASS OF 2011

ALBANY (May 14, 2011) -- In a light-hearted ceremony that hit some bittersweet notes, more than 900 students from The College of Saint Rose received their degrees Saturday at the Times Union Center. Nationally known education reformer Michelle Rhee and Saint Rose President Dr. R. Mark Sullivan both urged the new graduates to move forward with optimism and a sense of purpose.

“I was told none of the graduates actually listen to the graduation speaker,” proclaimed Rhee, the former Washington D.C. school chancellor, whose candor immediately pulled in her audience. “They are thinking about where they will meet their parents after the ceremony and whether there will actually be a diploma inside the envelope because that last paper they wrote for humanities was not so good.”

Rhee, who earned an honorary doctorate of humane letters, used her 20-minute address to reflect on the experience of taking over one of the nation’s most troubled school districts. In his remarks, President Sullivan referred to the challenging months of recovering from a stroke he suffered suddenly last September.

“In those early days in the hospital ICU, I didn’t know if I’d be able to walk again, work again or recover fully,” said Sullivan, who walked in the processional and stood for most of the two-hour ceremony. “But here I am today, addressing you on the day of the year I enjoy the most. I owe it to all your thoughts and prayers and a healthy appreciation for the power of optimism and resiliency.”

Approximately 690 undergraduates and 1,059 graduate students earned 1,749 degrees and certificates of advanced study at the College’s 88th commencement. Celebrated in recent years at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, the ceremony was held at the downtown Albany venue for the first time. The indoor location provided shelter from a grey, windy day. Arena seating encircled the graduates, who sat at floor level. The stage was backed by a 72-foot-by-30-foot gold and black Saint Rose banner, and marquee lights blinked on reading “Congratulations 2011 graduates. You did it! The College of Saint Rose is proud of you.” For the first time, the audience could watch speeches, the music and the processionals on a big screen.

Rhee, who has never shied away from confrontation, rankled much of the education establishment from 2007 to 2010 at the helm of Washington schools by cutting hundreds of teaching jobs and closing dozens of low-performing schools. As chancellor and now founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, which pushes to overhaul public education, she has held to the stance that schools are built around the needs of the adults who run them.

In her Saint Rose address, she recounted her dismay at hearing over and over again how poverty simply makes successful schools impossible. In a struggle to find an antidote she said that she reached out to financier Warren Buffett, who had a simple solution: outlaw private schools, and force wealthy executives and politicians to send their children to the same randomly-selected schools poor children attend.
 

“If they had to send their children to Anacostia,” she said, referring to the schools in one of Washington’s poorest sections, “you’d see vast improvements and, I guarantee you, a system of excellent schools.”

Promising she’d keep her speech only as long as her nine year-old daughter, seated in the audience, could bear, Rhee offered a few lessons from the schools. She noted that children make careful choices about how they spend their time. She recalled visiting a D.C. high school early on a day when most students were absent. But one classroom was packed with 35 students, whom she learned were drawn by a compelling teacher. Rhee was surprised, then, when a number left school after that class.

“‘That was our first period teacher, who is great,’ they told me. ‘The second period teacher is not so good so we’re going to roll.’ This is not the typical picture of a truant who stays in bed until noon,” she noted. “They make conscious decisions on how they will use their time.”

Also, she complained that the premium placed on boosting a young person’s self-esteem comes at the expense of actual achievement. She joked about the many soccer trophies crowding the bedrooms of her daughters, whom she said, are not especially skilled at the sport. Americans, she said, are becoming less skilled and competitive as actual achievement is downplayed.

“We should be striving always to be better or we will never be better,” she said. “Our country needs to regain its competitive spirit.”

Rhee, who is accustomed to making speeches and confronting protesters, noted that she is generally not open to addressing graduations. “It is not my thing,” she admitted, to laughs. But she said she agreed to the request from Saint Rose because it came from Albany native Jim Sandman, who had become attached to the College through his mother, Margaret. Mrs. Sandman graduated from Saint Rose in 1940 and went on to become a special education teacher. She died last summer, and on this Saturday more than 20 members of the family, including Margaret’s husband, returned to their hometown to attend Commencement and dedicate the college's new alumni garden to her.

“This is a homecoming for us,” said Nancy Sandman, ’70, one of five children. “We keep driving up and down the streets where we lived and where we went to school. And it will always be nice to know that our mother is remembered in this way.”

President Sullivan also had a special tribute to pay to an undergraduate named Sarah Patten, who contacted him Saturday morning to remind him that they had been at Albany Medical Center together during their respective illnesses.

“We sweated and rolled through therapy together. She’s been hospitalized a number of times and today she’ll walk across this stage as a graduate,” he said, to applause.

Also speaking were Bishop Howard Hubbard and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who commended the College’s legacy of community involvement.

When it was over, students and their parents spilled onto Pearl Street, which was closed to cars. New graduate Anthony Esposito, who joined his family, said the commencement like his Saint Rose education had sounded the right notes.

“We had Jimmy Fallon graduate and it would be difficult to compare anything to that,” said Esposito, of Poughkeepsie, who plans to pursue a teaching career. “But what she did she was both funny and to the point. She really got off to a good start when she said she doesn’t usually do these speeches. And when she said he didn’t think most of us would listen to a graduation speech it caught my attention.”

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