The graduating NHTI class of 2016 celebrated its diverse pasts and exciting futures at the community college’s 66th commencement Friday in Concord.
Among the featured speakers under the white, big-top tent was Lydia Stacy, a nontraditional student who said she was old enough to be the mother of many of her classmates.
Stacy, who was recognized with the President’s Award for Outstanding Citizenship, said the varied backgrounds that students bring to NHTI is a notable advantage for its graduates.
“In almost any given class at NHTI, there may be someone my age alongside a high school student taking college credits; a student who has never left New England may pair up for a project with a student who fled a country destroyed by war; a father may ask someone his daughter’s age for help with an assignment.
“We’re all strengthened by this,” she said.
Indeed, among the 586 students receiving diplomas on this sunny morning were a few who received special recognition for the individual hardships they overcame.
One woman born in Afghanistan lived in a refugee camp for 11 years before coming to the United States and graduating Friday, said President Susan Dunton in her introductory remarks.
Another graduate was diagnosed at two years old with several developmental delays that led a geneticist to tell her parents she wouldn’t be able to tie her shoes. Denton said the student plans to finish a four-year degree and spend her career as an advocate for people with disabilities.
Twenty-nine military veterans made up about 5 percent of the graduating class.
Raman Sandhu, a graduate who was recognized with the Institute Leadership Team Award, said when she first arrived at NHTI she took the attitude “that it was just a community college and I would take courses and simply graduate.”
“I didn’t realize how much NHTI had to offer me, how much I would grow here,” she said.
Sandu, who said she’s originally from a small town in India, became an orientation leader and vice president of the student senate, among other responsibilities. In India, achievements from financial stability to acquiring a driver’s license would have only been dreams, she said.
“In America, I’m able to achieve my dreams. I don’t have to depend on other people. I have the freedom to do what I want by having the courage to put myself out there and try new things,” she said.
For all the students’ unique perspectives, Stacy pointed out that they each had something in common, too.
She took the opportunity when her son first went off to school to go back for herself. She would have been the first woman in her family in six generations not to graduate college, she said, dating back to the 1870s when her great-grandmother’s grandmother enrolled at school in Columbus, Mo.
Like her, all the graduates made sacrifices in their lives to study, she said.
“We have all chosen to carve out a section of our lives to focus on learning, not just about our major but about ourselves and the others around us,” she said.
As they walked across the stage in front of maroon-and-white banners touting their more than 30 majors, the students took their first steps toward the workforce and four-year institutions.
The chairman of the Community College System of New Hampshire’s board of trustees, Paul Holloway, asked just one more thing of them as they plan for their futures.
“Think about staying in New Hampshire,” he said.
(Nick Reid can be reached at 369-3325, nreid@cmonitor.com or on Twitter at @NickBReid.)