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Students shine at December graduation

Alexis Douge was the first speaker at the event.

December 10, 2020

By Genevieve Buthod

The School of Communication gathered virtually Dec. 9 to celebrate the graduation of 30 students for the mid-term commencement.

SOC staff and faculty, some of whom donned their regalia, attended and cheered for the students, while friends and family from different cities and time zones joined through Zoom.

After a welcome from Dean Hong Cheng, Faculty Staff Chaplain Chris Murphy led the students in prayer, “in the hope that their intellect, talent, and leadership will be used to improve this world.” He reminded students that graduation is a time of ending, but that it is also a time of beginning.

The first student speaker, Alexis Douge, inspired the audience by boldly rejecting the idea that success is in any way related to material wealth, and instead saying that, “success is about intellectual wealth, and how you use it to make the world a better place.” She went on to quote James Baldwin, whose words, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” helped to drive home her point that, “it is our responsibility to be active in that change.”

The second student speaker, Luke Scaletta, made sure his fellow students knew, “Our experience at Loyola is not defined by this pandemic...It doesn’t feel like a great time to leave the world of school, but the world desperately needs your talents.”

Luke Scaletta

The guest speaker for this year’s fall commencement was Holly Harnisch, Director of Brand Marketing at The New York Times and a Loyola SOC alumna (’09). She told students that when they face a daunting challenge, “when your gut says, ‘This is going to be really hard’—that’s your gut saying, ‘Let’s do this.’ And when that happens, you’re going to need your support system. And I believe I am looking at them virtually right now.”

And to conclude the ceremony, Assistant Dean Lauren Sanchez read the names of the graduates.

The graduates and their degrees are as follows:

Carina Jo Anderson
FDMD-BASOC
Tyler Kenneth Bodda
FDMD-BASOC
Carla Leonor Buenrostro
CMUN-BASOC
Kelly Annabelle Cooke
ADPR-BASOC
Mariko C Dennis
CMUN-BASOC
Tess Catherine Donelon
CMUN-BASOC
Alexis E Douge
ADPR-BASOC
Mary K Ellis
CMUN-BASOC
Ariel Barbara Fusz
CMUN-BASOC
Diana Guliyeva
ADPR-BASOC
Kendall Ann Herbert
ADPR-BASOC
Baher M. Hussein
MJRN-BASOC
Jessica Alexandra Kelley
CMUN-BASOC
Elizabeth Louise Kidd
CMUN-BASOC
Anne King
CMUN-BASOC
Stella Marie Krueger
ADPR-BASOC
Declan Christopher Lyons
CMUN-BASOC
Marguerite Rose Michaud
MJRN-BASOC
Brooke Hannah Moore
ADPR-BASOC
Emily L Morris
CMUN-BASOC
Finisha O'Quinn
DMST-MC
Dhruvi Rashminbhai Patel
ADPR-BASOC
Brian Nicholas Powers
FDMD-BASOC
Paul Lawrence Quinn
DMST-MC
Gabriela Rojas
ADPR-BASOC
Jenna Catherine Ross
ADPR-BASOC
Luke Manning Scaletta
ADPR-BASOC
Emma Therese Stokes
MJRN-BASOC
Allison Grace Tallman
CMUN-BASOC
Alexis Elizabeth Tiller
GSCM-MS
Amy Tran
ADPR-BASOC
Vishal Varma
ADPR-BASOC
Andrew J. Weigel
ADPR-BASOC
Emma Patricia Whaley
ADPR-BASOC
Yong S. Won
MJRN-BASOC
Ashley Wright
MJRN-BASOC
Martina Alice Steel Zornig
ADPR-BASOC

If you missed the event, but would like access to the recording of the day, please contact SOC Events Coordinator Genevieve Buthod at gbuthod@luc.edu.