Rowan University Undergraduate Commencement, May 17, 2013 (Gallery 1)

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(Gallery by Lori M. Nichols / South Jersey Times)

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GLASSBORO — At Rowan University, a sea of black caps and black robes stretched across a grassy lawn before rows of alumni and administrators standing tall in front of Bunce Hall.

As the sun beat down on a warm Friday morning, more than 2,000 graduating seniors heard a number of dignitaries, including the state Senate president, tell them how Rowan’s undergraduate commencement day might be the most important day of their lives.

Rowan’s graduation ceremony on Friday evoked a full range of emotions for both the Class of 2013 and even the keynote speaker, Senate President Steve Sweeney.

While it was a celebration for all who attended, the ceremony was not without somber reminders of what it took for this class of 2,600 people to get to this point.

Sweeney, who spoke of his own children — a daughter diagnosed with Down Syndrome and a son who graduated from college last year — gave the most noticeable display of the emotions that spread through the crowd as the realization that their college years were finally complete washed over them.

The Senate president used stories of his two children to inspire the graduates to continue to work hard even when life seems its toughest.

With a message of “don’t settle” dominating his speech, he told the crowd how his son’s accomplishments in graduating from college last May and moving onto graduate studies, are ones that even the state Senate president cannot claim, having only a high school diploma from Pennsauken High School.

“Nothing ever beats having a quality education,” said Sweeney. “Nothing beats seeing your child succeed and go farther than you ever did.”

He implored the crowd, using the example of how he and his wife are raising their daughter who has Down Syndrome, that quitting a larger goal is “the easy way out.”

After being influenced by his daughter’s plight to run for public office, he said he learned that there are temptations to quit on lofty goals even in the New Jersey State Senate, like the restructuring of the region’s higher education entities which saw Rowan inherit two medical schools.

“Twice before, they brought up restructuring the universities, and twice before it failed,” said Sweeney. “A lot of us could’ve bowed out because it would’ve been easy. But we didn’t.”

Sweeney’s speech focused on the importance not only of obtaining a college degree but also of the continuing success of the university fueling the economic movement in southern New Jersey.

“The future of our economy and current educational structure is crucial to the state of the economy for the entire state,” said Sweeney.

Among those graduates honored with praise and adulation with cheers of congratulation from the audience were two students whose parents accepted their degrees posthumously for them.

Rowan University Undergraduate Commencement, May 17, 2013 (Gallery 2) 42 Gallery: Rowan University Undergraduate Commencement, May 17, 2013 (Gallery 2)

The parents of Nicole Halstead, who died in April, along with the parents of Matthew Uhl, who died after being struck by a car driven by an alleged drunk driver also in April, were at the ceremony on Friday.

After the crowd observed a moment of silence for the two along with three other students who had died in the past year, President Ali Houshmand embraced both families in an emotional scene with Dawn Uhl, Matthew's mother, raising his entrepreneurship degree high above her head before walking off stage.

As students started leaving the campus green, with their tassles turned and their horizons looming in the distance, they began to reflect on what life outside the campus will be like.

Casey Lutz, who received a bachelor’s in Art Education on Friday, said that after four and 1/2 years of going to the university to realize her goal of going into the education field, she valued the time she spent in Glassboro after having transferred from an art school in Philadelphia.

She said she’ll miss the diversity of students she met at Rowan, but admitted that she’s “just glad it’s done” after years of meeting benchmarks and taking tests.

The same goes for writing arts graduates John Lipartito and Laura Kennedy.

Lipartito, an Atco resident, graduated on Friday after going to the school for more than seven years and said he was glad that he was finally on the path into the job world.

For Kennedy, however, the feeling was a bit different after graduating in six years.

“I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” said Kennedy. “I don’t think it’s going to hit me until this fall when I don’t have to register for classes.”

As the ceremonies wrapped up, the university’s Student Government Association President Tom Holroyd said the impact that the graduates will have isn’t confined to their jobs outside the college.

“What we’ve failed to realize is that we have been changing the world these past few years as students at Rowan,” said Holroyd, citing charity causes like humanitarian efforts to bring clean water to impoverished countries run through the college.

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Contact staff writer Phil Davis at 856-686-3631 or pdavis@southjerseymedia.com