Valparaiso University President José Padilla spoke at his final commencement ceremonies Saturday, urging graduates, “Don’t run away from greatness. Lean into it hard.”
“Maybe one of you will be a United States senator in the state or Indiana or the state of Illinois. It’s entirely possible,” he said.
Others will go on to greatness in their chosen fields, Padilla said.
The university is searching for a new president as Padilla heads toward retirement.
“This fortress of faith, this school that punches above its weight,” will continue to embrace the graduates well into the future, he said.
“We’re going to be the angels on your shoulders that will give the answers to you when you’re facing the hardest questions of your lives,” he said.
If the graduates live to 80 years old, their time at VU will be just 5% of their lives, but they will have outsized importance. “These four years, these 1,460 days, will be the most consequential and impactful of your lives, he told them.
“The friends you have right here now will be your friends 20, 30, 40 years from now,” even if you don’t see them for years, Padilla said.
“Forty years from now, you will still remember the professors would not accept mediocrity from you,” he told them.
“Here you know that the power of a sharp mind is magnified 10 times by a soft and loving heart,” Padilla said.
“Because of you, I’m so much more optimistic about the future of our world,” he said.
Older generations have created a divided world. Padilla urged the freshly minted graduates to be repairers of the breach.
“You’ve got this world where you want it because they won’t see you coming,” Padilla said. “We know who you are, and they don’t know what you’re capable of doing.”
“Your values will guide you like a north star,” Gloria Castillo, who led The Chicago Community Trust’s five-year We Rise Together: For an Equitable and Just Recovery initiative, told the graduates.
“Use your voice,” she said. “Responsible exercise value and voice in a larger environment.”
“Make a mark on the world that cannot be erased,” she said. “Make a difference and have some fun along the way.”
New graduate Peyton Evans urged fellow grads to “remember you hold the power to grow beyond one label.”
“College gives us more than just a degree,’ she said. At VU, she met strangers who have become friends. “Embrace every moment, both the joy and the struggles.”
Evans was a member of the first class to go all four years with Beacons as the teams’ name. “When the university announced we would be Beacons, I really had no idea what that was,” she said. As a student, she learned about beacons’ role in lighting the way.
Among the Beacons who graduated Saturday is Isaiah Stafford, of Bolingbrook, Illinois, a point guard and shooting guard on the men’s basketball team. The first game was an emotional time for him, but he singled out his work in the weight room. “We always had a good time in the weight room,” he said.
Paulette Burnett, of Oswego, Illinois, is proud of Stafford, her first grandchild to graduate from college. “I’m so proud,” she said, holding a cardboard cutout of her grandson to cheer for him during the ceremony.
Mason Greve, of Valparaiso, commuted for his first three years and lived in a fraternity house his final year. “That pretty much changed my college experience,” making it seem less like an extension of high school, he said.
“At the end of the day, it was the best decision I could have made” to attend VU, he said.
Rayne Velazquez, of Hammond, commuted the whole time. Her mortarboard was adorned with a sparkly tribute to Psalm 23 to “give my respects to God and how he was here for me,” she said.
A death in the family made her time at Valpo difficult for Velazquez, but professors helped her get through it.
Many of Velazquez’s classmates from Hammond went to Purdue University Northwest. “I wanted a change in environment,” and her parents were proud of her for being accepted to Valparaiso.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
