'Hope is not naïve': At Notre Dame commencement, class of 2024 grads celebrate connection

SOUTH BEND — Isabela Tasende, the valedictorian of the University of Notre Dame's 2024 graduating class, came to campus from her home country of Panama in fall 2020 for one of the most fraught semesters in recent history.

She traveled thousands of miles to a campus that students and faculty had largely deserted halfway through the prior semester, when in-person classes and events were abruptly canceled that March as the COVID-19 pandemic upended American life. Student life returned to campus in August, only for administrators to mandate two weeks of remote instruction to curb the surging virus.

Not to mention that Tasende, an economics and political science major who plans to work for a Boston consulting firm, brought with her the kind of personal dilemmas that accompany each new student, she told her fellow graduates in her valedictory address during the university's 179th commencement ceremony on Sunday. Her remarks followed an invocation by Shaker Erbini, the salutatorian who was born in Syria and raised in Crown Point, Ind., and will attend the Indiana University School of Medicine.

A child of the tropics, Tasende left year-round average temperatures between the high 70s and high 80s for harsh winters in the shadow of Lake Michigan. A "Panamanian theater kid," she faced a campus where most of her peers had been varsity athletes or were sports fanatics. And as an international student far from home, she was torn with grief when two fellow freshmen from abroad — Olivia Laura Rojas, 19, from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, and Valeria Espinel, 19, from Guayaquil, Ecuador, both of whose families accepted degrees on their behalf this weekend — died that October after a vehicle struck them off campus.

"I quickly realized the most pivotal lessons Notre Dame had to offer revolved not just around academics," Tasende said to more than 26,000 students, family and faculty gathered in Notre Dame Stadium, "but on finding the courage to have hope amid hardship."

"Hope is not passive," she added. "Hope is not naïve. And most surprisingly, hope comes not just from our successes against injustice, but from the love we share and the communities we build along the way."

Notre Dame commencement 2024: A look back at the Rev. John I. Jenkins' 19 years as president

In 19th commencement, Rev. John Jenkins delivers speech

In the 19th and final graduation ceremony over which he presided, Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins delivered his first commencement address to students seated on the field where he awaited a Notre Dame degree 48 years ago. A native of Omaha, Nebraska, Jenkins graduated in 1976. ("Apologies," Jenkins joked. "First you make it through the pandemic, and then you get me as a commencement speaker.")

Jenkins said the class of 2024 learned about isolation and loneliness during the worst of the COVID-19 disruption. Connection, he said, is essential to weather crises.

But Jenkins, a member of the board of directors for the Commission of Presidential Debates, said he worries about the raging business of partisan politics and its reliance on contempt as fuel.

He urged students to pursue their convictions with likeminded peers, but to avoid being seduced by the story that dissenters are evil. Find ways to engage with unlikely people, he told them, through volunteering and coaching and community groups — and "most of all," he said wryly, "get off your phones."

"If we speak only to those with whom we agree, our contempt for the evil opposition can seem like a sign of our own moral superiority," Jenkins said. "We despise the other so much, we tell ourselves, because they are so evil, and we are so good."

The university conferred a total of 3,343 degrees over the weekend, including 2,275 degrees to undergraduate students on Sunday.

Five people, including Rev. Jenkins, received honorary degrees during the ceremony: Jack Brennan, chair emeritus of the investment firm Vanguard and chair of the University’s Board of Trustees; medicinal chemist Sabine Hadida, senior vice president and San Diego site head at Vertex Pharmaceuticals; Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States; and Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa.

The Laetare Medal, the most prestigious award among American Catholics, was given to Claire Babineaux-Fontenot. She served in Walmart's leadership team for 13 years, rising to executive vice president of finance, before a breast cancer diagnosis in her early 50s moved her to create the nonprofit Feeding America. A national network of food banks and charitable and faith-based partners, Feeding America works to rescue, store and distribute food to more than 49 million people facing hunger each year.

Leaving a robust community, Notre Dame students value connection moving forward

Echoing their valedictorian, several new graduates who spoke with The Tribune expressed hope for their coming endeavors despite the unsettling start to their college careers.

They worried about fulfilling their ambitions after leaving a campus rich with a sense of community, they said, but felt grateful that they now know the importance of nurturing a supportive group of friends and mentors.

One of the graduates Sunday was Luis Sosa Manubes. He was awarded a full-ride scholarship after immigrating from Mexico with his family to finish high school in the U.S.

He majored in studio art and computer science — a combination that honored his artistic side as well as his desire, as the son of poor immigrants, to earn a potentially lucrative degree, he said. But in both courses of study, he fixated on ethics and issues of human dignity. He plans to attend law school with an aim toward practicing humanitarian law.

While he's grateful for the robust support system he found at Notre Dame, he's also worried about its coming absence. Will he find the same backing that seemed so ubiquitous on campus?

Maria Wainscott, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, shares a similar conflict.

She struggled to make friends with whom she really bonded growing up, she said. Not at Notre Dame.

For the last two years, she worked as a sideline reporter at football games and made connections in campus media. She plans to intern as a sideline reporter with the Washington Commanders NFL team this summer before attending Syracuse University in the fall to pursue her master's degree in broadcast journalism.

Through dorm life and off-campus gatherings, she said, she's found the women she already knows will be her bridesmaids. Now the challenge is to navigate life without them.

"Keeping friendships strong is something new for me," Wainscott said.

Tasende, the valedictorian, grew up in Panama City, Panama, where she co-founded Somos Voces, a student-run nonprofit that identifies systemic challenges facing young mothers. She won the O'Donnell Prize for best senior thesis in comparative politics for a paper on the military's role in sustaining Venezuela's authoritarian regime. She contributed to research on gender-based violence in Latin America.

And yet she admits that the more she learned about deeply entrenched injustice, the more strongly she felt pulled toward despair.

What lured her back toward hope in each endeavor? The people with whom she lived in community, she said. The rich history of her own family — a blend of immigrants from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Cuba and Spain — and the dignity of the families she met while volunteering. And when two students died in her first semester on an anxious campus, she witnessed the sublime beauty to be found in collective grief.

"Let us recognize the injustices around us that seem too large to conquer and all that lies beyond our control," she told her fellow graduates Sunday. "But let's also have the courage to dive into that uncertainty. To approach pain with resilience, struggle with discipline and hopelessness with connection.

"We have already demonstrated our capacity to find community in the face of distance. This, in the end, is what gives me hope."

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame class of 2024 graduation Sunday features Rev. John Jenkins