Cornell College held commencement exercises Sunday, May 14, at the Small Sports indoor arena.
Walking with the class of 2023 was Fred Taylor, a former Springville native and graduate of the class of 1943. Taylor completed his requirements to earn his diploma in 1943, but was called to active duty before his commencement ceremony in World War II.
Taylor has recounted to family that was the one thing that felt like it was incomplete of his college experience, never getting to walk that stage, and his daughter reached out to the college earlier this year to see if it was a possibility.
Taylor not only walked to receive his diploma, but as an honored alumnus attending, was able to lead the class of 2023 into moving their tassels from the right side of their head to the left side to reflect their graduation status.
In an interview with KWWL after the event, Taylor gave this advice to Cornell graduates.
“Get in the career that you like and stick with it and be kind to other people,” Taylor said.
Cornell College president Jonathan Brand said Cornell had added a few other requirements since Taylor’s graduation, mainly a focus on experiential learning in internship settings or civic engagement.
“You are probably one of our first graduates to have met those requirements before they were even required,” Brand said.
Cornell speaker of the class was Makayla Kelleher of Newton.
Kelleher walked students through the four years they had at school, beginning the fall of 2019.
“As freshman, we were enjoying the magical experience that was our time at Cornell,” Kelleher said.
The spring of 2020, the school year was cut short, as students were ordered to shelter in place at home following spring break due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The start of the next school year was also slightly delayed, as the campus dealt with the after effects of COVID-19.
Still, the class persevered through those challenges and online learning to back in person learning, adapting to social distancing, masking and weekly testing for COVID-19 exposure.
This year, Kelleher said, students experienced a number of their last things – last group projects, last papers, last exams and started setting their sights on what is to come next.
“I just want to thank those who took the time to help our class,” Kelleher said. “And thanks to the Class of 2023.”
She charged the class to continue their journeys they started four years ago at Cornell and to wherever the future might find them.
Speaker of the class for academia was Christina Penn-Goetsch, professor of art history.
Penn-Goetsch started her speech with a cardboard representation of Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, which had been in controversy earlier this March at a Florida charter school.
She outlined the 16-ton marble sculpture’s impact in modern culture and mores.
“To say the statue of David is pornographic is not to understand the Bible or Renaissance art,” Penn-Goetsch said.
She connected the statue similar to the Cornell College student’s own journeys. Here, they stood as a class, waiting to continue to tackle their own Goliaths.
“You, as Cornell students, have had many of your own impossible foes you’ve faced,” Penn-Goetsch said. “Group projects, papers, exams, presentations, along with your personal challenges, and you, like David, have faced them head on and persevered.”
Penn-Goetsch said 26.1 percent of students did not return to college following the pandemic, which meant that students here already persevered.
Brand read portions of the charge from the class of 1943, Taylor’s graduating class, which he argued could have been just as applicable to the charge to the college of 2023 80 years later. That charge commendied the students grappling with World War II, the faculty, the staff and the college’s alum.
“The college’s future is as bright as it’s resilient past,” the charge of 1943 concluded.
Brand’s own charge for the class of 2023 was one he said was simple.
“Continue to do what you do best,” Brand said. “Continue to show the world the big hearts and big minds you’ve had, and continue to build relationships in all ways.”
The college also honored three outgoing professors with professor emeritus status – Michelle Mouton, Craig Tepper and Barbara Christie Pope.
Cornell College President Jonathan Brand helps Fred Taylor, class of 1943, up the ramp to the graduation stage in the Small Sports Arena Complex Sunday, May 14.