MSU Graduates Praised For Their Perseverance And Compassion At Emotional Ceremonies

Anna Liz Nichols

May 5

Speakers at Michigan State University’s spring graduation, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, former chief medical adviser to the president, spoke on Friday of resilience, loss and community.

Michigan State University students, many of whom attended the school during the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced the horror of the mass shooting in February, gathered on campus in East Lansing to celebrate a milestone in their education and reflect on their time at the school.

Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for several presidents, including both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, gave the commencement address at the doctoral degree ceremony, praising the class of 2023 for their resilience in the face of adversity.

“I have been privileged over the years to deliver a fair number of commencement addresses. Yet, your class is truly exceptional because you persevered despite the profound upheaval, constraints and loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fauci said. “Each of you will carry a unique imprint of this extraordinary experience that confronted you during a very pivotal period of your lives.”

With a pandemic that forced medicine and science to advance and adapt, Fauci said he learned many lessons that can be applied to students as they emerge from the comfort of the university they knew so well to whatever the future may hold for them.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, new scientific realizations about how the virus spreads and mutating variants kept health experts on their toes, Fauci said.

“Planning your life path is commendable and in many situations, advisable. Yet in my own experience, some of the most significant events that I have experienced or directions that I have taken, turned out to be wholly unanticipated, or unplanned,” Fauci said.

Fauci noted that career paths are not always linear. In life, graduates will experience disappointments and triumphs, he said, but added that with unexpected challenges can come exciting, life-changing opportunities.

With the rise in volume of anti-science and anti-vaccine sentiments during the pandemic, Fauci encouraged graduates to be bold and not allow misinformation that threatens the health and safety of the public to flourish. He said graduates need only to look at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to see what happens when lies go unchecked.

“I do not believe that I am being hyperbolic when I say that the normalization and casual acceptance of untruths without our fiercely pushing back … can gradually lead to the erosion of the foundation of our democracy.” Fauci said. “You are our best hope to counter this threat to our society. Do not hesitate to push back these destructive forces with all the strength that you can muster.”

MSU economist and professor Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, spoke at the undergraduate ceremony earlier on Friday afternoon.

Amidst the celebration, there also were moments of silence for the three students killed in the mass shooting on Feb. 13: Arielle Anderson, Brian Fraser and Alexandria Verner. All three students will be awarded honorary degrees at ceremonies for their respective colleges, according to university communications.

Spartans are so often defined by their willingness to “bear each other’s burdens,” interim MSU President Teresa Woodruff said during the undergraduate ceremony. She noted that the “remarkable” 2023 class has risen to each challenge over the last few years with resilience and compassion.

“You are bound together, perhaps as no other class, by the challenges you faced and through them that care [you] demonstrated for one another,” Woodruff said.

Difficult and devastating times have bonded this graduating class together, said Elyse Baden, senior class speaker for the undergraduate class.

“I’m so proud of how our community came together to support each other. I’m also grateful to the university and the local community in East Lansing, for providing us with resources as we tried to figure out each day and continue going to class, even after we’ve survived something that nobody, especially no students should,” Baden said.

“It wasn’t enough time,” graduating senior Will Myers said while sitting with his friends at the ceremony. He added he’s grateful to have been at MSU and grateful that despite the obstacles, his class made it through.

“It just kind of seemed like everything was going against us for a while there. … But just the sense of community. Just knowing that everyone’s going through the same stuff with you every day, it’s gonna be weird getting out to the real world,” Myers said. I’m just so happy to finally be sitting here. … There’s not really anywhere else on earth like this place.”

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