The Value of a College Degree: Dean Christine Carrino Gorowara Commencement Remarks
February 6, 2026
Remarks for January 2026 Commencement
Dean Christine Carrino Gorowara
School of Education
Welcome and congratulations, graduates! And welcome families and loved ones who are here to support them!
Today we celebrate our graduates, because you have done something special and important – you have earned a college degree. This is something only about one in three Americans have done. Some of you have actually earned a second college degree, something fewer than one in six Americans have done.
Now it seems like we have been hearing more questioning in recent years about whether a college degree is worth it. And mostly when people ask that, they mean is it financially worth it – will the time and effort and money you invested in getting a college degree pay off in the form of greater earnings in the future.
By the way, the answer to that question is still, in most cases, yes, a college degree is worth it financially.
But we might think about whether a college degree is worth it by other measures. Here’s what I would ask: how did earning this degree change your life?
I saw this interesting thread on Reddit that asked people to describe their life in five words.
Some people chose five things they were or things they did, like:
- Wife
- Mother
- Teacher
- Swimmer
- Reader
Some people chose five adjectives, like:
- Adventurous
- Love-filled
- Authentic
- Messy
- Hopeful
Some made a five-word phrase, like:
- Work
- Eat
- Sleep
- Rinse
- Repeat
Or:
- Bad
- Jokes
- And
- Awkward
- Moments
Some were kind of meta, like:
- I
- Never
- Finish
- Anything
So how is the five-word description of your life different because you have earned a college degree?
Maybe as of today, your five words would be the qualities you discovered in yourself as you were studying for your degree while balancing school with work and family responsibilities:
- Resilient
- Persistent
- Intelligent
- Disciplined
- Resourceful
Maybe they describe how you now see your future:
- Doing
- A
- Job
- I
- Love
Or:
- Life
- Is
- Full
- Of
- Possibility
Maybe they reflect ways you have come to see yourself:
- Learner
- Analyzer
- Professional
- Leader
- Expert
Think about your five words, and how they are different today from what they would have been before you came to Trinity. Whatever they are, know that from this day forward, they will be linked in some way to these five words:
- I
- Earned
- A
- College
- Degree
Lean Into Compassion: Dean Brigid Noonan Commencement Remarks
February 4, 2026
Remarks for January 2026 Commencement
Dean Brigid Noonan
School of Nursing and Health Professions
To the Class of 2025 – Congratulations!
To your families, your friends and your faculty … thank you for supporting these individuals!
Today we gather to celebrate you. This moment represents years of late nights, early mornings, challenging exams, difficult conversations, missed time with family and friends, and countless hours spent learning how to care for others. Whether you are graduating from nursing, occupational therapy, public health, or counseling—at the undergraduate or graduate level—you share something powerful in common: you have chosen a profession rooted in service, humanity, and at a time that we need it badly … HOPE!
You are entering fields that do not exist at a distance from people’s lives. You will be invited into moments of vulnerability, uncertainty, transition, and healing. You will meet individuals, families, and communities at their best—and at their most fragile. That responsibility is an honor, a privilege and a calling.
As you step forward into your professional lives, I want to offer three commitments to carry with you: lean into compassion, continue to develop empathy, and always remain a lifelong learner—especially when you think you don’t need to be.
First, lean into compassion.
Compassion is not passive. It is not simply feeling for someone—it is choosing to act with care, dignity, and respect even when it is difficult and incredibly challenging. Compassion shows up when systems are strained, when resources are limited, when time is short, and when answers are unclear. It shows up when burnout whispers that it would be easier to disengage.
Leaning into compassion means seeing the person behind the chart, the diagnosis, the referral, or the statistic. It means recognizing that every individual you encounter carries a story shaped by culture, experience, trauma, resilience, and hope. Your technical skills will, of course, matter deeply—but your compassion will often matter more.
Second, continue to develop empathy.
Empathy is not a skill you master once; it is a practice you return to again and again. It requires humility and grace—the willingness to listen more than you speak, to suspend judgment, and to acknowledge what you do not know.
As professionals, you will gain expertise. You will earn titles and credentials. And yet, empathy asks you to remain open—to recognize that an individual’s lived experience is a form of knowledge no textbook can fully capture. Developing empathy means staying curious about perspectives different from your own and honoring the voices of those you serve as partners in their own care, healing, and well-being.
Empathy is also essential for how you treat one another and yourselves. Extend it to colleagues navigating stress, to students who will one day look to you as mentors, and to yourself when the work feels heavy.
Finally, always be a lifelong learner—even when you think you don’t need to be.
The fields you are entering will change. Evidence will evolve. Best practices will shift. New challenges will emerge that demand creativity, critical thinking, and courage. Lifelong learning is not about collecting credentials—it is about staying responsive, reflective, and responsible.
Perhaps most importantly, learning keeps you grounded. It reminds you that expertise does not mean certainty, and leadership does not mean having all the answers. The moment we believe we have nothing left to learn is the moment we stop growing—and in professions like yours, growth is essential to ethical and effective practice.
Remember, the world you are entering needs you—not just your knowledge, but your values. It needs professionals who lead with compassion, practice empathy with intention, and commit to learning for a lifetime. It needs you to be courageous advocates, thoughtful collaborators, and steadfast servants of the public good.
As Wilfred Peterson said: “The world needs less heat and more light. It needs less of the heat of anger, revenge, retaliation, and more of the light of ideas, faith, courage, aspiration, joy, love and hope”.
So … the world needs your knowledge, your integrity, your courage, and your heart. As you leave Trinity, carry with you what you have learned—but also carry the humility to keep learning, the empathy to truly listen, and the compassion to act with purpose.
Congratulations, Class of 2025. The work ahead matters. And so do you.
The Relevance of Liberal Arts: Dean Sita Ramamurti Commencement Remarks
February 2, 2026
Remarks for January 2026 Commencement
Dean Sita Ramamurti
College of Arts & Sciences
Good evening, and congratulations to our graduates!
Today we celebrate your accomplishments, your journey, and the moment you’ve reached.
During your time at Trinity, you have grown not just in knowledge, but in confidence, in character, and in the power to make a difference. Today, we celebrate all that you have become, and all that you are ready to be.
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank your families, friends, mentors, and our faculty and staff, who have supported you and are here today to cheer you on. Thank you all for being here!
Now, graduates, if you hear people questioning whether a liberal arts education is practical, marketable, or even relevant in today’s world, I want you to pause and consider what this education has truly given you. In an era defined by technological disruption, shifting careers, and complex global challenges, the most valuable skill isn’t mastering a single job or tool. It’s the ability to adapt and keep learning.
One of the greatest strengths of a liberal arts education, and the gift you take with you today, is intellectual adaptability. We haven’t prepared you for one narrow role; we’ve helped you learn how to think, how to analyze information, communicate clearly, understand different perspectives, and ask meaningful questions. These skills don’t expire, even as industries and job titles change.
And to our nursing graduates especially—this matters. Nursing is often viewed as purely technical, but you know that’s not the whole story. Every day, you draw on empathy, communication, ethical judgment, and cultural understanding—skills deeply rooted in the liberal arts.
So, graduates, embrace adaptability fully. Let it guide how you face uncertainty. Let it guide how you seize opportunities. Let it guide the lives you build and the impact you leave behind.
You may remember the lesson often credited to Charles Darwin: survival belongs not to the strongest or the smartest, but to those who can adapt.
A liberal arts education is not the opposite of practical—it is practical at the deepest level.
I’ll leave you with this final thought:
Nurture your curiosity.
Nurture your openness.
Nurture your commitment to continual growth.
These qualities will carry you far beyond today.
Congratulations, graduates, we are so proud of you!
Moral Depravity in Minnesota
January 26, 2026
Thousands gather downtown in sub-zero temperatures as hundreds of Minnesota businesses close in a statewide “ICE Out” protest and strike against federal immigration enforcement and the expanded ICE operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jan. 23, 2026. Photographed by Erin Trieb for NPR.
Perhaps it’s too early to tell whether the wanton murders of American citizens at the hands of ICE agents in Minnesota will be the political Waterloo for the cruel, inhumane and un-American regime of the current president. But we do know that what has happened in Minneapolis is a true moral catastrophe, a depraved and lawless assault on human life, our Constitution and the entire notion of the rule of law. The moral catastrophe is enmeshed in an official skein of lies and remarkable fabrications of truths we can see with our own eyes. The official use of the phrase “domestic terrorists” to describe Renee Good and Alex Pretti shamefully mis-appropriates the language of recent American suffering at the hands of real terrorists to describe ordinary citizens exercising their rights to speak and protest official misconduct.
We have all witnessed real terrorism — the awful scenes from 9/11, planes flown into buildings by the acolytes of Osama bin Laden, with thousands dead and maimed; the horrific 1995 bombing of the federal center in Oklahoma by a real domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh killing 168 and injuring hundreds.
SHAME on members of the current administration who have denigrated Renee Good and Alex Pretti by equating their actions with those of actual terrorists. SHAME on an administration that seeks to excuse the brutality of its agents by claiming that the ICE shooters were “in fear for their lives” as if Renee Good, Alex Pretti and the immigrants they sought to warn and help were otherwise unconcerned for their own safety. The videos show otherwise — Renee Good, a mother and poet, was trying to warn immigrants of impending danger; Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse, was trying to protect two women who were violently pushed to the ground by the ICE agents.
What is in danger of being lost in our anger and horror at the appalling murders of Good and Pretti is the alleged reason why thousands of ICE agents have descended on the otherwise-peaceful realm of Minneapolis, a cold northern city with a warm heart and welcoming soul. ICE invaded Minneapolis at the behest of a president whose racism and nativism is immense, who has found willing collaborators in his cabinet officers and the thousands of people willingly deputized to wear the garb of official intimidation and brutality. Outfitted with their camo and kevlar vests and helmets and pepper spray and guns, these agents of official violence are allegedly seeking out undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. In Minneapolis, the search was supposedly focused on Somalian immigrants. But the real reason seems to be less about immigration and more about political retribution against the governor and mayor who are Democrats; some commentators have even suggested that Minneapolis is a test case for regime change nationally. We will see.
If any good can come out of the scandalous deaths of Good and Pretti, it may be this: the People of this nation are awakening from a too-long slumber ignoring the rising authoritarianism of the president and his agents. The anger and outrage over the deaths of American citizens exercising their right to protest crosses aisles; the utter disgust at the official lies is increasingly loud and forceful.
So what can We, the People do in a moment like this? We must speak up! Let’s remember the truth of the statement that says that, “The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.” Let’s not be those who do nothing in the face of official violence and lies. Let’s call it out every single time it happens. Let’s do more — let’s insist that our elected members of Congress take action to stop this ugly and unnecessary infliction of official harm against so many people.
More, let’s stand proudly with our brothers and sisters who are immigrants to this nation, who have come here in search of peace and security but, instead, in the current regime are finding only fear and threats and violence. No human being is “illegal” and No human being has a right to denigrate or threaten or snuff out the life of another. Pope Leo XIV has spoken out forcefully on behalf of immigrants, and so have the U.S. Catholic bishops. Just yesterday, Cardinal Tobin of New Jersey went so far as to call for ending funding for ICE and he urged Catholics to speak out and be counted.
And this is no time for the studied “neutrality” that too many universities have adopted… higher education must speak out about the abuses of law and morality taking place in Minnesota. We must show our students that we stand for their rights, their lives and freedoms.
In this 250th year of America, we have a choice: to renew our commitment to the founding purpose of our nation to raise up “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” for all — or to be co-opted into abject agreement with a regime that is the antithesis of American values. Our choices this year will determine whether the American Democracy will be here to celebrate its next milestone birthday.
Pray for them and all those being killed, beaten, intimidated and hurt by lawless government actions:
The Paradox of Education: Dean Mostowy Commencement Remarks
January 24, 2026
For my next few blogs I will be publishing the excellent remarks of our deans from the January 2026 commencements, starting Dean Thomas Mostowy of the School of Professional and Graduate Studies:
Remarks for January 2026 Commencement
Dean Thomas Mostowy
First and foremost, Congratulations to all the graduates! Also, a special thank you to all the friends and family here today, who have supported the students along the way and can now share in their achievement and celebration.
In the three years I have served as Dean and have been asked to speak at graduation, I’ve relied on quotes from great writers about the importance of education as well as the responsibility placed on the educated. I have always found a way to speak in a lighthearted and humorous way; however, during these unprecedented times, that seems a little out of place.
Instead, this year, I’ve decided take my cue from perhaps the most important writer of the civil rights movement, James Baldwin, whose words about the importance and responsibility of the educated person only ring truer with time. To quote:
“The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious, one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.”
If anyone wonders why, at the present time, there seems to be an entire political movement, as well as a government policy, dedicated to attacking higher education, Baldwin’s quote provides at least part of the answer.
AS does this: “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” Blind allegiance supports oppression and authoritarianism. Justice; and opportunity are never the goal.
Graduates; education provides you the tools and critical thinking skills necessary to become conscious of your society and the role you play in it. Education provides the tools to question the customs and norms that provide advantage and comfort to a few, while demanding the pain and sacrifice of many. Furthermore, education provides you the enlightenment necessary to dream of a better future and the knowledge and skills to build it.
Perhaps that is why, for much of American’s history, as Baldwin noted: “It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.”
Most of you know, at least somewhat, the story of Trinity’s founding at a time when higher education was systematically denied to women and also to most others in American society. Why? As Baldwin stated; the inherent distrust of educated, independent minds who were not considered part of societies’ elite by virtue of their wealth and privilege.
SO, the opportunities and tools for change that education provides had to be hoarded and only made available to those born to serve the status quo. The attacks you hear about in the media against DEI, while wrapped in the rhetoric of “merit” are really an excuse to DENY opportunity based on merit; to ENSURE that the greatest opportunities are only available to a select few as a form of birthright.
The fear is that equal opportunity and access to education will prove that people of different races, genders, and ethnicities have talent and motivation that exceeds those who have been gifted opportunities by their social status. YOU frighten them. They don’t want the competition.
The problem is, that sort of discrimination, the denial of equal opportunity, harms not just those who suffer discrimination directly, but society as a whole because it is denied the talents of so many who could move our nation forward, instead of trying to re-create a mythical past that never really existed.
SO; What do we, more importantly, what do YOU, with your newly acquired education and diplomas, do about it? YES, go out and build a great career and life for you and your families; BUT remember, along with growth, success, and opportunity, there is something more your education provides; and, that is… responsibility.
When I was sitting in your place decades ago, we thought, in our arrogance, that the difficult battles were behind us. The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the War on Poverty, etc. Now some seek to repeal not only those, but the last 100 years of progress towards those goals. It’s a little daunting to have to fight those battles all over again. There will be failures and setbacks once again, so I’ll leave with one more message from Baldwin:
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Congratulations once again!
