PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (Dec. 13, 2023) – The Prairie View A&M University Fall Class of 2023 graduated December 9, finally done with final exams, 8 a.m. classes, and 30-page papers.
“But commencement is not about completion; it’s a new beginning,” said the speaker for the 28th Fall Commencement, Dr. Dietra Trent, former Virginia Secretary of Education. “It’s about blazing a new trail. Today marks a new beginning for you.”
Dr. Trent, the new executive director of the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity through Historically Black Colleges and Universities, also offered graduates congratulations on behalf of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“As an HBCU alum, your degree is but one of many credentials you carry with you,” Trent told the graduating class. Prairie View has equipped them “mightily” the past four years on “a social and intellectual journey” that allows them to “unapologetically” be themselves.
In her introductory remarks, PVAMU President Dr. Tomikia P. LeGrande called Trent “a leading force” in strengthening the standing of HBCUs at a “pivotal time” when higher education sits at a crossroads.
Trent recalled her own graduation 36 years ago from Hampton University in Virginia, where former Ambassador Andrew Young gave the commencement speech. She admitted she does not remember what he spoke about, only how she felt that day: somewhat anxious, a bit excited, a little nervous, a little emotional. “But mostly, I just wanted him to sit down so I could walk across the stage to receive my degree.” Laughing, she promised to keep her speech short so graduates can do just that and take their selfies.
On a more serious note, searching for “worthy” advice to give on this auspicious occasion, Trent quoted from the Bible: “Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”
This broken country needs you, she told them. “America is besieged by brokenness,” Trent said, from broken relationships to the climate to the broken health care system, the broken economy, and the education system in a post-pandemic world engaged in not one but two wars at a time when gun violence is reaching “epidemic levels” with “hyper-policing” in communities amid “racial relations gone amok and politicians gone wild.”
Yet, true to her position as executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs, which was founded in 1980 and aims to advance “educational equity, excellence, and economic opportunity through HBCUs,” Trent held the HBCU graduates to a higher standard: “But HBCU alums don’t point fingers. We don’t blame others. We fix what is broken. We repair that which is breached.”
Trent urged graduates to remember, “HBCUs grew out of communities of faith with the audacity to believe they could accomplish far greater than they can imagine.”
This fall, the University awarded 490 bachelor’s, 148 master’s, and eight doctorates across different majors, from agriculture to public and allied health. But no matter their field, no matter where they go, Trent said, they have now all been equipped to lead.
So, she charged the Class of 2023: “As our ancestors gazed into the future, they saw you. So today, I charge you to unite the faith of our ancestors with the work that still needs to be done.” Just as their sacrifices brought the current generation through the decades and centuries, Trent called on the graduates to now be “the prologue of the chapter of future HBCU leaders.”
By Christine Won
-PVAMU-