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Worcester Campus Holds Commencement for 206 Nursing & Pharmacy Graduates
A record 206 students received Doctor of Pharmacy and Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees at the MCPHS-Worcester/Manchester Commencement exercises on May 15 at the DCU Center in downtown Worcester. The graduates hail from as far away as Nigeria and the Ukraine, and as close as Central Massachusetts (31 students) and the city of Worcester (12 students). Thirty-six of the students are graduates of the Manchester campus’ Doctor of Pharmacy program.
President Charles F. Monahan Jr. presided over the ceremony, and Michael F. Collins, MD, Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Medical School, delivered the Commencement address.
Student addresses were given by Laura Flateau, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and Kelechi Ogbonna, Doctor of Pharmacy. Flateau, a resident of Sudbury, Mass., earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Regis College in 2002. She is a volunteer for the local Medical Reserve Corp and has worked as a part-time medical assistant at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates during her nursing coursework here at MCPHS. She has also served as the secretary for the National Student Nurses’ Association on the Worcester campus and has been a key part of the group’s efforts to assist with orientation for new nursing students. Flateau looks forward to becoming licensed as a nurse, working in a Boston area hospital, and eventually pursuing a Master’s degree to become a child and adolescent psychiatric nurse practitioner.
In her speech, Flateau reflected on the rigors of the accelerated Nursing program, and how those experiences will help shape the class of 2010. “We’ve missed our families… the absence of your presence made it that much harder; some of us were minutes away while others were thousands of miles away,” she said. “But now here we are… and you are here with us… there’s no better feeling in the world than this moment right here, right now.”
Ogbonna is from Cinnaminson, New Jersey and studied chemistry and pre-pharmacy at Fairleigh Dickinson University for three years before transferring to the Doctor of Pharmacy program on the Manchester campus. While at MCPHS, KC has served as a peer mentor, student representative on the Faculty-Student Relations Committee, Co-Treasurer of the Phi Lamda Sigma Leadership Society, vice-president for Campus Connections and as president of the Manchester Student Government Association. He is a student member of both the national and New Hampshire branches of the Society of Health-System Pharmacists. He is also a student member of the American Pharmacists Association and Phi Lamda Sigma. After graduation, he went to Connecticut to complete a VA ambulatory care residency.
Ogbonna used his remarks to point out the diversity of the class and how it helped each student grow personally and professionally. “All of my colleagues that sit before you today come from various backgrounds, disciplines and professions,” he said. “By working together through the good times and the bad and sharing our individual experiences, we have not only gained the required knowledge to become excellent pharmacists but we have also gained the necessary knowledge to understand ourselves.”
Degree candidates were presented by Michelle Kalis, Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost and Jean Joyce-Brady, Dean of Students. Serving as College Marshals were: Jean Joyce-Brady, Tammy Stuart, assistant professor of Nursing; and Alice Gardner, associate professor of Pharmacy Practice.
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