Ohio State recognized the class of 2021 at commencement in the Schottenstein Center Sunday afternoon. Credit: Courtesy of Ohio State
During a ceremony for the summer class of 2021 Sunday, former Ohio State Executive Vice President and Provost Bruce McPheron told the graduates that he experienced feelings of uncertainty for what the future would hold for him and his classmates when he graduated in the Vietnam War- and Watergate-eras.
Those feelings pale in comparison to what the class of 2021 faces amid a pandemic and the current political climate, he said.
Ohio State honored its Summer 2021 graduates with a masked in-person event held at the Schottenstein Center Sunday. McPheron recognized the suffering students experienced with education interrupted by the pandemic, commending the adaptability they demonstrated.
“Long after you’ve forgotten the name of your commencement speaker, you will remember the historic events that shaped your college career and the grim perseverance that carried you through,” McPheron said.
The university honored about 1,788 graduates from the class of 2021, Melissa Shivers, senior vice president for student life, said. This includes 997 Bachelors and Associate degrees, 492 Masters, 279 Doctorates and 20 graduate professional degrees and certificates.
McPheron said as students were forced to learn from less than ideal places with pandemic precautions, they had to adjust their normal way of life.
“Think about how this experience has uniquely prepared you to handle curveballs or thunderbolts the future will throw at you with little warning,” McPheron said. “Your mental health and wellbeing were severely tested, and yet you pivoted, adapted and found a way to succeed.”
University President Kristina M. Johnson said graduate students in particular faced challenges with their research being interrupted by pandemic protocols, forcing some to rethink their original project.
“As you coped with sudden closings of your laboratories and studios and then gradual reopening requirements that included density and physical density limitations, you nonetheless kept going until this happy day,” Johnson said.
Johnson said shortly after she started graduate school at Stanford University, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma — dashing her dreams of becoming a field hockey olympian.
“Counterintuitively it turned me into what my friends call an obnoxious optimist,” Johnson said. “But I decided nonetheless to seize any sliver of an opportunity to survive and to learn all I could from the experience. That determination to make the most of whatever challenges life throws my way has never left me.”
The university recognized multiple individuals for their accomplishments. Carol L. Newcomb, the Columbus Metropolitan Club chair, and William J. Shkurti, an emeritus vice president for business in finance in University communications, were presented the Distinguished Service Award. David A. Awschalom, a physicist and vice dean for research at the University of Chicago was also granted an honorary doctorate degree of science.
McPheron said the graduates’ success is not only defined by their degrees from Ohio State, but also how they still succeeded during a pandemic.
“The legacy we leave as Buckeyes is only as great as the good we do for the world,” McPheron said. “Congratulations to you and your families. The story you’ve written is unique, and it’s a treasured chapter in the history of this great institution.”
