Ensuring Belonging for All
Dear Graduating Class of 2023
Mary Ann Villarreal, vice president for Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion shares a personal message for the class of 2023.
Mary Ann Villarreal • April 28, 2023
Dear Graduating Class of 2023,
This time of year used to be one of mixed emotions for me, but I’ve come to appreciate the full joy of celebrations, transitions, and new journeys. I am uplifted by the (very recent) warmer Utah spring weather, the blooms and bright budding branches beginning to open in the garden and yard, and the busy throngs of graduating students on campus, so full of energy and promise, ready to take on and transform the world.
I’ve come to know many of you closely, our graduating students, because you’ve worked in our Resource and Cultural Centers, connected with us through events or our annual Welcome Back Bash, or served as our Presidential Interns. I’m excited for you, but I will also miss talking with you, sharing ideas, and learning about the exciting adventures you are having.
Some of you are moving forward with great certainty and others are still discovering the opportunities that will come to you as graduates of the University of Utah. Many years ago, I sat with my own graduating class at Mt. Holyoke, waiting to hear my name called so I could walk across the stage and receive my degree. I knew something was about to change—but I didn’t know quite what that change would be. And I wore a special gown for my graduation, something that only one graduate from our department was gifted to wear, emblazoned with a woman’s fist raised in the Venus symbol. Sadly, I didn’t completely know at the time what the symbol meant either.
I guess what I’m saying, Class of 2023, is graduation is a big day for you—but it’s ok if you don’t have it all figured out because you arrived at this moment with purpose. In the crowds or on livestream at your graduation ceremony, your family, your kinship, your chosen families—they have your heart and you have their support. Sitting among the crowds of happy family members on the day I graduated was Momo, my grandmother. I knew she was beaming because that day sprouted new hope and unimagined dreams, but I don’t think my grandmother knew exactly how I’d gotten to this strange place—filled with new people and ideas—or how exactly I’d gotten through it. She did, however, know that she loved me.
A few months ago, I was on a stage in Las Vegas addressing a different audience—a gathering of faculty and university leaders committed to equity and inclusion at their schools. After months of attacks on our work, hundreds of bills to de-fund and dismantle diversity and equity on college campuses across the country, I knew my colleagues were feeling anxious and uncertain. I was encouraging them in the face of so much opposition to find strength in each other. With so much resistance to equity these past few months, so much push-back on our efforts to create a more inclusive university and campus—I told them: “we have to stay connected, be there for one another, remember we belong to each other.”
I want to tell you the same thing.
Just like many of you, on the day of my graduation, I didn’t know exactly what adventures and trials lay ahead of me—and that frankly terrified me. All the wonderful mentors, the teachers and guides, the advocates who’d helped this south Texas joven, this estudiante pila (a young and eager student) get through five grueling years in the valley of New England private schools couldn’t help me then either.
But what I did know is this: that all of them, including the woman who’d raised me—who had sacrificed and worried about me countless times—and who was now sitting in the amphitheater, beaming at me and tolerating one of the hottest days of the month, even though she couldn’t tell you exactly what I’d done—she and all the rest of them were my heart.
I know these support systems have been there for you, too graduates—the teachers, mentors, and friends who helped you study. The families and communities who supported you along the way. And the truth is graduates you are headed out into the world now to do wonderful, amazing—but also sometimes hard things.
So I want you to remember—you have already thrived in spite of social distancing and isolation; you have made it when you weren’t sure how you’d pay for your books or find time to study; you have sacrificed, put in the long hours, and triumphed. And the greatest, most lasting of our achievements are always won together.
There’s an old proverb that says: if you want to go fast, go alone—but if you want to go far, go together. Stay connected, reach out, and check on each other, remember that there is strength in your communities, your families, and friends.
You need to stay connected, be there for your friends and family, remember you belong to each other … and remember graduates, you’re part of this community now, too. Congratulations, University of Utah Class of 2023—we’re so proud of you and can’t wait to see what wonderful things you do next!
With great affection on behalf of Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion,
—Mary Ann Villarreal