{"id":38308,"date":"2018-05-08T09:08:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-08T13:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=38308"},"modified":"2018-05-14T09:13:26","modified_gmt":"2018-05-14T13:13:26","slug":"dnr-emu-sends-off-540-undergraduate-graduate-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/dnr-emu-sends-off-540-undergraduate-graduate-students\/","title":{"rendered":"DNR: EMU sends off 540 undergraduate, graduate students"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

After spending nearly all his life in school, Caleb Schrock-Hurst saw Sunday as a transition.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt definitely feels like the end of an era,\u201d the Harrisonburg native said before Eastern Mennonite University\u2019s commencement. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely a lot of changes. It\u2019s definitely exciting and I think EMU has prepared us to find a way to participate in society.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Leymah Gbowee MA ’07 receives the university’s first honorary doctorate. (Photo by Andrew Strack)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Schrock-Hurst joined 540 graduate and undergraduate students who received degrees during the school\u2019s 100th commencement on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0\u201cThe students graduating this year have a special place in EMU history,\u201d University President Susan Schultz Huxman said.<\/div>\n
\n

As part of the centennial celebration, EMU awarded its first honorary doctorate to commencement speaker Leymah Gbowee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Gbowee is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who shared the 2011 award with two other women for their role in mobilizing women to help stop the Liberian civil war.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Gbowee, who received a master\u2019s in conflict transformation from the school in 2007, focused on political strife throughout the world. She urged the graduates to stand up for justice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take long to walk up to someone and give them hope,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen issues are no longer trending and the hashtags are no longer hashing and the lights and camera are off \u2014 defend peace, defend justice and you can never go wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Graduate Alexa Weeks couldn\u2019t put the flood of emotions running through her head into words, feeling \u201cscattered\u201d before receiving a degree in elementary education.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like I\u2019m supposed to be graduating,\u201d said the Westmoreland County native. \u201cI\u2019m just kind of like I don\u2019t know what to do. There\u2019s just so many emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

For biology major Kat Lehman, the day was \u201ca little bittersweet\u201d as she thought of her friends from the past four years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little exciting,\u201d said Lehman of Dover, Ohio. \u201cBut it\u2019s definitely just starting to feel real that everybody\u2019s sort of headed off to new things at this point and it might be a long time before I see some of these folks who I\u2019ve spent four years with.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00a0Sarah Bailey, who received a master of divinity, told the graduates during the ceremony that Sunday was the culmination of all their hard work.<\/div>\n
\n

\u201cToday we trade it all in for a piece of paper,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cBut it\u2019s more than just a fancy piece of paper with our name in calligraphy. … It\u2019s a receipt of our experience here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Although many graduates wanted to reflect on the past four years, that doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t looking forward.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Lehman plans to attend medical school at Ohio State University while Schrock-Hurst will spend a year as an editor in a publishing house in Vietnam. Weeks will stay local as she takes a job as a third-grade teacher at Smithland Elementary School.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cWe did it,\u201d said Keyri Lopez-Godoy, who received a degree in elementary education. \u201cWe are on our way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article is republished from the May 7, 2018, Daily News-Record.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After spending nearly all his life in school, Caleb Schrock-Hurst saw Sunday as a transition. \u201cIt definitely feels like the end of an era,\u201d the Harrisonburg native said before Eastern ... read more about DNR: EMU sends off 540 undergraduate, graduate students<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16077],"tags":[],"feature":[],"class_list":["post-38308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commencement-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\nDNR: EMU sends off 540 undergraduate, graduate students - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/dnr-emu-sends-off-540-undergraduate-graduate-students\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DNR: EMU sends off 540 undergraduate, graduate students - 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