Monday, 12 May 2008

At NEC, focus is on the family

Graduation ceremony highlights connections

By Victoria Shouldis
For the Monitor
May 11, 2008

The theme of family - both in terms of the people who raise you and family in the most global, community sense - was the focus of yesterday's commencement ceremony at Henniker's New England College.

Members of the school's 61st graduating class heard firsthand about family - and the almost unimaginable devastation of loss - from commencement speaker Loung Ung, who lost both parents and two siblings in the genocide following the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia.

In a stirring and paradoxically upbeat speech, Ung offered a brief retelling of her life, from degradation, starvation, and unrelenting grief to new life in the United States and a passion for writing that sustains her.

About 300 students from NEC's undergraduate and graduate program received degrees yesterday in the ceremony at the Lee Clement Arena; in addition to Ung, poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Galway Kinnell and human rights advocate Radhakant Nayak were awarded honorary doctoral degrees at the ceremony.

Nayak has devoted much of his life to the more global family, working for justice and equality for those who remain disenfranchised from the effects of India's former caste system. Kinnell focuses his poetic eye on those unexpected failings and foibles in each slice of family life; he read his poem "It All Comes Back" - a comic-but-suddenly-not-so-comic look at a cake mishap at his 4-year-old son's birthday party.

In the audience, Dave Gallup, his mother-in-law, Janice Griffin, and son Adrian, 5, enthusiastically waited to cheer on June Gallup, who was receiving a master's degree in management. As Adrian passed the time with a small green dinosaur and a Gameboy, Gallup's mother talked about the importance of the day.

"It's a family effort. We'd talk every night, and it seemed like every time I turned around, June was in school again!" Griffin joked. "I am proud of her. She's my special daughter."

Max and Diane Lavoie were thrilled to find a picture of their son James Hawkes V in the latest edition of the student newspaper as the ceremony began yesterday. Hawkes, from Manchester, was a theater major. Diane Lavoie was able to list most of the productions her son has been in at NEC - from Laramie to The Diviners. She also recalled his most revealing role.

"He played Tartuffe, and I got to see my son all dressed in gold lame and boxer shorts including a scene where he showed his behind for a minute," recalled Lavoie. "I was worried about how his grandmother would react - but we warned her, and we sat on the left side where you couldn't see so much of him. His grandmother said that that was the most she'd seen of him in 18 years, since she'd last changed his diapers!"

Alumnus and trustee Franc Perry - who identified himself as the first openly gay African American on the NEC board of trustees - offered graduates advice taken from a blessing given to slaves as they were separated from family in the 1700's: remember who you are, where you come from, and God bless you. Perry then led the crowd in the singing of "America."

In her address to the class, Ung talked about her earliest childhood memories. She began with herself as a 4-year-old, content and comforted in the lap of her father at a movie theatre.

"I had soy milk and dried crickets- crunchier than popcorn, I'll tell you - and when I didn't want to hold these things anymore my father put his hand out and just knew to take them," she said.

"See we didn't have cup holders in Cambodia back then but we didn't need them. We had fathers."

Within a year of that memory Ung's family was dispossessed and moved into rural camps where there was forced work and widespread starvation. And fewer than four years later - about the time it takes to get a college degree, she noted - her parents were dead and two siblings were gone and Ung was left to somehow put together the pieces of her shattered life.

But put together her life she did - intervention from relief organizations eventually landed her in Vermont - and in her life, Ung found her resilience, her voice, and even a sharp sense of humor. She also found a deep appreciation for family in the loss of her own.

"Your family is your road map to your past, present and future," she said, urging graduates to take a moment to appreciate the value of what they have. "Today: grab your father's hand and kiss your mother: they make all the difference in a cold world."

As the names of the graduates were announced one by one, perhaps the youngest person in the crowd ,14-week-old Sophie, found comfort and curiosity in her father Ted Olivo's arms as they waited for mom Senja Olivo to cross the stage.

"Mommy's next and you have to clap for her," Ted Olivo stage-whispered to the infant. And with a little help, she did.

No comments: