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Class of 2009 Sets Forth
139th Commencement launches graduates
A crowd of 20,000 honored UMass Amherst’s Class of 2009 on Saturday, May 23. Approximately 4,250 graduates received bachelor’s degrees in more than 100 majors during the 139th undergraduate Commencement of the flagship campus.
UMass Amherst’s Chancellor Robert C. Holub presided at the Commencement and conferred degrees, and UMass President Jack M. Wilson addressed the graduates.
Featured speaker Earl Stafford ’76 told the campus’s newest alumni that current economic uncertainty will force innovation and creativity; he told them to remember to “believe in ourselves…in each other…and in the promise of tomorrow.”
Distinguished Achievement Awards were given to Stafford, a Virginia businessman and organizer of the “Peoples’ Inaugural Project,” which invited disadvantaged people to President Barack Obama’s inauguration, along with businessman Robert B. Brack ’60 of Milford, Massachusetts, and Aaron D. Spencer, founder, director, and chairman emeritus of UNO Chicago Grill pizzerias.
Student speaker Jackie Hai of Lexington, Massachusetts, told her classmates, “We have the ability to take what we’ve learned from UMass, and like a seed, carry it with us. And wherever we end up, for work, for duty, or for love, we can plant that seed and let it flourish for our new neighbors. Whether it’s volunteering at a soup kitchen, mentoring a kid, becoming a coach, promoting arts and literacy, or starting a community garden, we can each do our part, because we already know how.”
A reception for graduates and their families, hosted by the chancellor, immediately followed the ceremony. Earlier in the day, Holub had told the audience, “I have something in common with the graduates today: We are both experiencing our first commencement at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I share with you the exhilaration of accomplishment and the feeling of having made it to the finish line in an exhausting, trying, but ultimately exciting and thoroughly fulfilling race.”
Read the text of Chancellor Holub’s remarks to the Class of 2009:
Stockbridge School Commencement
Commonwealth College Honors Convocation
Commencement Slideshows:
