Video and Slide Show Features Highlights from June Commencement at UC

View the slide show featuring highlights from all three of UC’s Commencement ceremonies.

The University of Cincinnati celebrated All-University Commencement on June 8-9 in three ceremonies, with each ceremony including doctoral, master’s, bachelor’s and associate degree candidates.

“Class of 2012, all told, we are awarding this weekend more than 5,600 degrees – the largest number we have awarded since 1980,” said UC President Gregory H. Williams.  “For all of our new graduates – today of all days – we look ahead to the promise and potential that each of you possess as newly-educated citizens of the 21st century. Our hearts are filled with hope for you and your future, because you are our future,” Williams said.

“What awaits you in the years ahead may prove to be a unique and different destiny from all the other eras that have gone before. None of us can know for certain what your tomorrow will bring or what unexpected challenges may arise. But as a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, you now have a lifelong connection to a community that reaches back nearly 200 years – a distinguished community of UC alumni who have marked this milestone in the years before you,” said Williams.

A UC graduate delivered a university oration at each of the three ceremonies. In Saturday afternoon’s ceremony, Nick Hunter, who earned his bachelor’s degree in communication, discussed how technology is rapidly changing how people are communicating with each other, and how he has come to appreciate the value of time.

“We live in a society that will ask you to put out maximum results in minimal time,” he said.

“We replace face-to-face encounters with texting and Facebook. We replace in-depth conversations with short tweets and posts. We spend less time with our family and friends.”

Hunter, of Colerain Township, added, “There’s no app for good relationships. We have to earn people’s respect by showing them that we care.

“Think of your time as an investment. It’s not something to be wasted, but something that will yield results, depending on how you use it. It’s valuable, and when used to enrich the lives of others, the return will be incredible,” Hunter said.

Journalist, radio/TV personality, activist and humanitarian Nick Clooney addressed the graduates at all three ceremonies. Clooney was awarded an honorary doctor of Humane Letters during the June 9 morning ceremony.

“You will be leaving here to define the American experiment for your time, just as your parents did in theirs. Some did well, others, not so much. But they all advanced what it meant to be an American, and so will you, starting today,” Clooney told the graduates.

“We are rattling and clanking our way deeper into the 21st century, adjusting to a vulnerable global economy,” Clooney said, adding that, all the while, we're held "in the embrace of an immediacy, never before imagined. Ready or not, change is coming. We won’t meet it successfully unless our intellectual centers like the University of Cincinnati continue to raise the bar for what we expect of ourselves.”

Each ceremony was followed by a reception for graduates and guests at the Russell C. Myers Alumni Center, hosted by the UC Alumni Association.