HGSE Presents Convocation Honors

Posted May 28, 2015
By Bari Walsh

On a warm and sunny afternoon filled with all the festivity of the season, the Harvard Graduate School of Education brought its community together yesterday to celebrate individual achievements and affirm the essential role of education as a path to opportunity.

A happy crush of graduating students, families, faculty, staff, and alumni filled the tent in Radcliffe Yard for HGSE’s annual Convocation exercises, an opportunity to review the year’s accomplishments and to embrace the possibilities of the future.

Convocation speaker Roberto Rodriguez, Ed.M.’98, White House deputy assistant to the president on education issues, reminisced about his own memories of life on Appian Way and asked graduates to pause for a moment “before you pop that champagne” and consider how their journey to this day had started.

“Like you,” he said, “I came seeking knowledge and skills to lead. . . . Like you, I came here to stoke a passion for changing the world. . . . Like you, I came here deeply committed to serve. . . . Like you, I’ve experienced special, unforgettable, personal moments during my time here.”

By choosing to embrace education as their vocation, not just their profession, HGSE graduates were demonstrating their commitment to “fostering education as the first rung on that ladder of opportunity that defines our shared dream as Americans. We know that through education, that dream is attainable,” Rodriguez said.

But he went on to describe how the dream is threatened by rising income inequality and a widening gap in opportunity that “has left too many of our sons and daughters behind.”

Fulfilling the promise of opportunity for every single child in this country, he said, will challenge graduates to “enter this fight as I did, ready to give it your all.” He ended by reminding them that “success is not measured by whether you win or lose a fight, but by how you bear witness to the challenges around you that you are working to fix.”

Student speaker Olamide Abiose, an Ed.M. candidate in Human Development and Psychology, also described the power of education as a source of connection. As she reflected on this year’s community-wide conversation on diversity — a series of events and discussions called “Fulfilling the Promise of Diversity” — Abiose said that she came to realize the extent to which we simply “don’t know each other.” Contemplating the litany of tragic events in Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, and other U.S. cities, she asked, “How many individuals have to die before we understand that we are bound to each other? Quite literally: What exactly does it take for us to know each other — or more specifically, to recognize each other’s humanity?

“I think that’s precisely what’s at stake in the quest to fulfill the promise of diversity,” she concluded, expressing the hope that these “courageous conversations” would begin “to look less like rare acts of bravery and more like responsibilities.”

In a lively and affecting address, faculty speaker and assistant professor Karen Brennan reflected on how students are changed by their teachers and their schools, and how teachers and schools are in turn changed by their students. The “notion of being changed and of changing others” prompted her to ask her audience what they wanted to hold on to — from the day, or from their months or years at HGSE.

She injected an unexpected element of interactivity into the Convocation exercises when she urged audience members to reach beneath their seats, where they found an envelope containing an index card and a pen. She asked each person to take two minutes and jot down the experiences, feelings, and memories that came to mind. As the audience buzzed with surprise and laughter, Brennan urged them to tuck their cards away for later reflection.

As one example of the kind of mutual impact that Brennan described, Class Gift chair Rina Deshpande, an Ed.M. candidate in Mind, Brain, and Education, announced that the Class of 2015 had broken the all-time record for participation in a class gift drive, with a remarkable 74 percent of graduates making a donation. The class wanted to “invest in paying education forward,” she said, and it will do just that, having raised $24,473.54 for financial aid for future students.

Among the other honors presented at Convocation were the Morningstar Family Teaching Award, given this year to Deborah Jewell-Sherman; the Alumni Council Award, given to Denise Juneau, Ed.M.’94; the Phyllis Strimling Award, which went to Elizabeth Schibuk, Ed.M. candidate in Special Studies; and the Intellectual Contribution/Faculty Tribute Awards.

The complete list of Convocation honorees:

HGSE Convocation Speaker: Roberto Rodriguez, Ed.M.’98 (read the full text of the speech)

Convocation Student Speaker: Olamide Abiose, Ed.M. candidate in Human Development and Psychology (read the full text of the speech)

Convocation Faculty Speaker: Assistant Professor Karen Brennan (read the full text of the speech)

Morningstar Family Teacher Award: Deborah Jewell-Sherman

Alumni Council Award: Denise Juneau, Ed.M.’94

Phyllis Strimling Award: Elizabeth Schibuk, Ed.M. candidate in Special Studies

Intellectual Contribution/Faculty Tribute Awards:

Arts in Education: Aysha Upchurch
Education Policy and Management: Jessica Lander
Human Development and Psychology: Olamide Abiose
Higher Education: Rachel Freeman
International Education Policy: Nicole Paulet Piedra
Language and Literacy: Heather Elgin
Learning and Teaching: Ahoba Arthur
Mind, Brain, and Education: Jayne Everson
Prevention Science and Practice: Heather McCormack
School Leadership: Cornelius Lee
Special Studies: Maya Ayoub
Teacher Education: Elyse Terry
Technology, Innovation, and Education: Nick Giacobbe

2015 HGSE Commencement Marshals

Ed.D. Marshals
Aaliyah El-Amin, Marc Johnson

Ed.L.D. Marshals
Ventura Rodriguez, Ansel Sanders

C.A.S. Marshal
Lauren Alexander

ED.M. Marshals
Tarin Griggs, Arts in Education
Juontel White, Education Policy and Management
Gerardo Ochoa Sosa, Higher Education
Sophie Von Garnier, Human Development and Psychology
Lukas Kailimang, International Education Policy
Holly Boerner, Language and Literacy
Elliot Dickson, Learning and Teaching
Jessica Hennessey, Mind, Brain and Education
Meishi Haslip, Prevention Science and Practice
Christopher Thompson, School Leadership
Adam Malaty-Uhr, Special Studies
Matthew Flood, Teacher Education
Elliot Mandel, Technology, Innovation, and Education

Class of 2015 Gift: $24,473.54