Families of candidates had already gathered in droves at the Marriott Convention Center by the time Augusta University began its 2023 Spring Commencement for undergraduates at 10 a.m. Friday morning.
Doug Burks, founder and CEO of Security Onion Solutions, was the morning ceremony’s keynote speaker. In his address, he encouraged students to be eschew complacency, take initiative, cultivate communication skills (“You can be the smartest person in the room, but if you can’t communicate effectively…you will never win”) and to be lifelong learners.
“Find your dream job, and if you can’t find it, create it,” said Burks, who graduated from AU (then Augusta State University) in 2005 with a bachelor’s in computer science. “Don’t allow impostor syndrome to control your career. Find your dream job, or start your dream company.”
AU graduated 1,436 candidates this year, including 218 Medical College of Georgia students and 99 from the Dental College.
Commencement of undergraduates was split into two ceremonies on Friday. Candidates from colleges of Allied Health Sciences, Education and Human Development, Science and Mathematics and the School of Computer & Cyber Sciences were presented in the morning.
Grads from the Hull College of Business, the College of Nursing and the Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences were honored in the afternoon ceremony starting at 2 p.m.
Two ROTC cadets took their oaths of office during the commencement proceedings, 2nd Lt. Darby Wills in the morning and 2nd Lt. Jordan Newton in the afternoon, to become commissioned Army officers. Newton has earned her degree in nursing, while Wills is a cyber sciences graduate. AU president Brooks Keel noted that Wills will be one of 70 cadets nationwide to join the Army Cyber Corps this year.
The student commencement speaker in the morning was Jasmine A. Coleman, who graduated with a bachelor’s in elementary education. Coleman used a personal anecdote from her time teaching at Copeland Elementary School, in which one of her third grade students surprised her with a letter thanking her, to hearten her fellow graduates to keep sight of their purpose.
“Being a first-year teacher is truly as hard as they say it is, but this one act of kindness from an eight-year-old confirmed that not only am I doing what God called me to do, but that I’m making a difference in my students lives,” said Coleman, who will continue studies at Augusta University to pursue her Master of Education degree. “This is my ‘why,’ this is my reason, this is what keeps me going even on those days when I feel like I’m in over my head… My question for you today is, what is your ‘why?’”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
