Spring 2017 Convocation celebrates opportunities to serve

More than 850 students participated at the spring 2017 College of Public Service and Community Solutions Convocation held May 11 at Wells Fargo Arena in Tempe. The graduates represent the college’s four schools: Community Resources and Development, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Public Affairs and Social Work and the College’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security program.

Diana Yazzie Devine delivered the keynote address. Yazzie Devine is CEO of Native American Connections, a nonprofit that provides behavioral health and housing to people in need.

“When you are working your passion like I have, you don't really feel like it's work,” Devine told graduates. “But you feel like it's more of a journey, my life's journey. My journey has offered opportunities that are expansive in ways that I could not even imagine.”

Devine, whose father coached ASU football in the mid-1950s, has served on numerous ASU advisory boards over the years, including the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Innovation in the School of Community Resources and Development. During her speech, she recognized key individuals she has worked with at ASU to solve community problems. Devine challenged graduates to develop the kind of relationships that can help them improve the communities they will serve.

“Every day brings those new relationships and ways to serve and make change,” Yazzine Devine noted. “As graduating students of the College of Public Service and Community Solutions, you will experience the same diverse opportunities to find solutions and improve the health and the wellness of your community.”
 
The College held a separate graduation ceremony in Tucson for 100 students from the School of Social Work’s Tucson campus.

Dean Jonathan Koppell told graduates that "if we brought that same spirit of empathy that you've embraced by virtue of the choice of degree and career, we as a whole would be far better off."

At the Tucson ceremony, Koppell commented on the fractious nature of public discourse in the United States. But he cautioned students that words only go so far.

“There's a there's a famous philosophical saying it's translated different ways but I think it's an important reminder that the best criticism the most important criticism you can make is by what you do I criticize by what I create what you do the solutions you find the way in which you choose to make your neighborhood, your community, your city, your state, your country a better place what you do is far more powerful than what you say at the end of the day,” said Koppell. “And so if you have a point to make about what you think the world should look like, about what values we ought to embrace and live by, the most powerful thing you can do--In addition to speaking about it--is to live by it and do it. And to me that's what you're choosing to do.”

Five students were honored as outstanding graduates during the ceremony at Wells Fargo Arena. Associate dean Cynthia Lietz recognized Andrea Lichterman from the School of Community Resources and Development, Blaise Caudill from the School of Public Affairs, Cassie Johnson from the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Catherine Moutray from the School of Social Work and Melissa Munguia from the College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
 
“The values and qualities exemplified by our outstanding grads, commitment, diligence, social justice, creativity, and mutuality, will remain important to you all as you seek to find real solutions to the problems facing our communities today,” Lietz said.”

The college awarded more than 950 degrees total.

Watch the Spring 2017 College of Public Service and Community Solutions Convocation.

Watch the Spring 2017 ceremony for Tucson graduates of the School of Social Work.