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Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 2,200 graduate from Sonoma State University

May 16, 2015
News Articles

By Julie Johnson

Standing in cap and gown in a line of graduates on the Sonoma State University campus Saturday, Orlando Martinez of Santa Rosa had come a long way from grade school, where he had trouble reading.

The only person more proud than Martinez that he was graduating with a biology major and anticipating going after a master's was his mother, who stood nearby filming every moment as he waited in line to enter the commencement field. Ana Martinez said she watched her son struggle with reading and writing through his years at Lincoln Elementary and then Santa Rosa middle and high schools.

"He studied so hard; I saw him study through the night," said Ana Martinez, who teaches Spanish at Sonoma Valley High School. "There are no words to describe the satisfaction of watching your child reach this accomplishment."

Martinez was among about 2,200 students who graduated Saturday in two ceremonies at Sonoma State University. Students in the Arts and Humanities, Business and Economics and Education programs graduated in the morning. The Science and Technology and Social Sciences graduates were celebrated in the afternoon.

Before the afternoon event, the graduates lined up outside Stevenson Hall, the campus' oldest classrooms, some slugging champagne and others arm-in-arm with friends.

Kaitlin Phillips, 22, stood among a biology major cohort who had decorated their mortarboards with feathers, animals and sequins — an SSU tradition.

Phillips had feathers and the words "My Zoo Dreams Came True," and the Vacaville native said that was true. She had just accepted an offer of her dream job as an assistant zookeeper at Safari West, where she will help care for birds and small mammals.

"Finally, it is here," Phillips said. "I'm really ready to start."

Samantha Adair, 23, who is from Sacramento, put a lyric from Disney's "Pocahontas" film on her hat because she was hired for an internship in conservation education. She will work with fish and dolphins at Disney World.

"It says, ‘You'll learn the things you never knew you never knew,'" Adair said.

Hundreds of family members filled the bleachers and sat on blankets on the lawn. Seated on the grass, Marianna Ronveaux said she had traveled all the way from Belgium to watch her granddaughter graduate with a nursing degree.

"Young people need to know the value of this life," Ronveaux said.

In his address, Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said that the most meaningful trip he had taken as a U.S. congressman was not to an exotic international location but happened earlier this year when he visited Selma, Ala., to commemorate the anniversary of the 1965 voting rights marches.

He told the students that the most meaningful changes in American society started with ordinary people. He intoned the names of civil rights figures in America's history like suffragist Susan B. Anthony, farmworker advocate Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr.

"Even if you have the biggest bank account and the largest house, you still have a duty to address income disparity. Even if you've never been a victim of bigotry or the target of discrimination, you have a duty to take a stand against it," Thompson said. "Every injustice we've stomped out, every oppression we've overcome, every inequity we've defeated, every prejudice we've prevailed against: They were all the result of people recognizing their duty to get involved and then taking action."

But he also urged graduates to have fun.

"Even President Lincoln skipped cabinet meetings to play basketball on the White House lawn," Thompson said.

Student speaker Bianca Tomantzin Zamora urged her graduating cohort in the afternoon event to see themselves as leaders.

"Leadership is alive in all of us, we have all had to face it straight on in our every day lives as students," Zamora said. "The ways in which we have handled those moments of financial instability, academic obstacles, intolerance and challenging relationships have developed and shaped our experience as leaders."