Stetson University awarded degrees to 570 students during Spring Commencement ceremonies May 7 – celebrating years of hard work and sending the graduates into the working world or on to graduate school. Of the Class of 2011 at the DeLand campus, 411 undergraduates received bachelor’s degrees and 159 students received graduate degrees.

President Wendy B. Libby gave the “charge” – a tradition where the president places a duty and responsibility upon the graduates. She challenged the graduates to ask themselves what the legacy of their Stetson education would be.

“How will you go on to lead lives of significance?” Libby asked. “I would suggest to you that the question gets to the core of your education and how you will apply this in the rest of your life. You may want to be known for excellence in your profession. But let your answer be more expansive. Apply the core values we shared to your day-to-day life. Ethical decisions based on values that seemed easy in a classroom become much more difficult when applied in the real world. As a Stetson graduate, you must not compromise your beliefs and your values. That will be your legacy.”

Graduating seniors Caitlin Peterson of Ocala, Fla., representing the College of Arts & Sciences; Jason Reese of Telford, Tenn., representing the School of Business Administration; and Maxwell Grossman of Wellington, Fla., representing the School of Music, were the commencement speakers.

Several awards were presented, including the Etter McTeer Turner Award for outstanding academic performance, leadership and community service, which went to Peterson. The 2011 McEniry Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Dr. Camille Tessitore King, associate professor of psychology. Associate Professor of English Dr. Jamil Khader received this year’s Hand Community Impact Award. Professor of American Studies and History Dr. Paul Croce and Associate Professor of Geography Dr. J. Anthony Abbott received Hand Awards for Research, Creative and Professional Activity. Students were given a variety of honors, including five graduating seniors who were recognized for being commissioned the day before as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army.

At the Honors Convocation the day before Commencement, the 2011 John Hague Teaching Award for outstanding teaching in the liberal arts and sciences was awarded to Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. Harry Price. Graduating seniors Lauren Torres, Marylin Winkle and Steven Carrillo each received a 2011 Sydney Algernon Sullivan Award for their leadership, commitment to service and application of spiritual qualities to daily living.

Commencement for the Stetson University College of Law will be held May 14, in Gulfport, with Yale Law School Professor Jules Coleman and retired Delaware Supreme Court Justice Andrew G.T. Moore II addressing the class. The College of Law has 259 graduates this spring. Stetson Law is graduating a record number of five national ABA Law Student Division section liaisons.

Some of this spring’s outstanding graduates are:

Abigail Lemay, College of Arts & Sciences

In her four years at Stetson, Abigail “Abby” Lemay of Cranston, R.I., has become one of the university’s best-known social justice activists. The 22-year-old American Studies and Sociology double-major, with a minor in Gender Studies, re-founded Stetson’s chapter of the National Organization for Women in fall 2009, was producer of the student production of the Vagina Monologues in 2010 and 2011, and served on both the Gender Equity Council and the Women and Gender Studies Committee. Her leadership has inspired other students to get involved and has brought about changes in attitude regarding gender equity.

Nationally, Lemay has become a student activist on the issue of pay equity for women. She first heard about the unfair pay gap between women and men while taking a Stetson course. She studied it more on her own, and through NOW and other Stetson organizations, she organized an Equal Pay Day event involving downtown DeLand businesses in 2010. She won a national Undergraduate Social Action Award from the Sociologists for Women in Society for her activism and is also working on the equal pay issue as one of 10 college women in the United States serving on the National Student Advisory Council for the American Association of University Women.

“In the United States, women earn only about 77 to 80 percent of their male coworkers’ salaries,” said Lemay, president of Stetson’s NOW chapter. “This takes into account men and women having the same educational background and work experience. It’s a national phenomenon and, while women’s salaries are slowly becoming closer to men’s, the issue persists. We want to call attention to the wage gap and work to eliminate it.”

In 2010, she was named Stetson’s Social Justice Advocate of the Year, and she won first place in the West Volusia NOW’s essay contest for her paper on the “Status of Women in Iraq since the Invasion” (in 2003). A contributing writer to the student newspaper, The Reporter, Lemay was also co-founder of the university’s American Civil Liberties Union chapter in November. She also was active in Kaleidoscope, Stetson’s gay/straight alliance.

Lemay has received a graduate assistantship to attend graduate school in women and gender studies and teach undergrads at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Cesare Gallo, School of Business Administration

Cesare Gallo attended college far from his hometown near Venice, Italy, but he was a perfect fit on a team with many European members, almost all School of Business Administration majors and a strong emphasis on the term “scholar-athlete.” Nine of the 11 team members this year were business majors, and the team had more Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athletes than any other Division I team in the nation.

“Having all these teammates on the same page, academically, has been nice,” said Gallo, 23, an International Business major. “We’re all competitive with each other. We all tried to do better than the other, in a friendly way.”

Gallo met Coach Pierre Pilote through a fellow tennis player who’d attended Stetson. He’s been playing tennis since he was 10 and, last semester, he was ranked 108th in the nation in singles – one of just two players in Stetson’s history to be ranked nationally. He rushed a bit, finishing college in three years with an outstanding 3.7 grade-point-average. (A GPA of 3.5 or higher is required to be named an ITA Scholar-Athlete.)

His mentor is Peggy Stahl, a lecturer in Management and International Business. In addition to teaching him management, professional writing and professional speaking, Stahl came to all of Gallo’s tennis matches. “She’s been a big part of my experience at Stetson,” he said.

Gallo’s family came from Italy to celebrate commencement – it was their first visit to the campus he’s grown to love as his home-away-from-home in the United States. He now hopes to be selected for an internship in marketing or management before going on to graduate school to earn a Master of Business Administration degree.

Elizabeth Scovil, College of Arts & Sciences, and Shawn Scovil, School of Business Administration

Elizabeth Scovil, 46, put her college career on the backburner in the 1990s to help her husband run the family business and home-school her young son, who’d been diagnosed with dyslexia and needed a little extra attention. Shawn, now 24, had sometimes attended Stetson classes with his mother and, when it came time for college, he decided to become a Hatter, too.

“When he started Stetson, I asked him how he would feel if I returned in time to graduate with him,” Elizabeth said. “Shawn’s answer was, ‘you gave it up to help me, and I’d be honored.’”

The mother and son from Apopka, Fla., received their degrees the same day – Elizabeth’s Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and American Studies (double-major) at the morning ceremony and Shawn’s Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing a few hours later at the afternoon ceremony. Their story was featured in several area newspapers including the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the West Volusia Beacon and the Orlando Sentinel.

“It was always a personal dream of mine,” Elizabeth said. “I always knew I would come back, but my family was a priority at that point and it was the choice I had to make.”

Political Science Professor Dr. T. Wayne Bailey encouraged her to continue working for her degree and now, she’s applying to law school at the Florida A&M University College of Law in Orlando. In addition to Shawn, two of her other three children are now in college, too. Shawn is now working in marketing for his family’s business, Ability Wood Flooring in Orlando, with the goal of someday becoming CEO of a large company.

“I tell my sons to ‘finish strong.’ I want to be an inspiration to others to keep going and never stop,” she said. “You’re never too old to reach your dreams.”

Heather Grove, College of Arts & Sciences

Heather Grove, 22, or Orlando, has come to define what it means to be a High Achiever in the 21st century. She proves that giving back to the community really makes a difference. Earlier this year, the Orlando native, won the 2010 Excellence in Service Award (EIS) from Florida Campus Compact, for being one of Florida’s most dedicated student service scholars who is making a positive impact through contribution of service. Grove was also named the 2010 Udall Scholar for her commitment to environmental awareness and to a career in sustainable development as a means to help end environmental and social injustice.

Since the beginning of her freshman year at Stetson, she has been an active member of Bonner Scholars, through which she contributed many volunteer hours to local schools, community centers, soup kitchens and residents in the DeLand area.

With a double major in Environmental Science and Geography, Grove spent a summer planting trees in Guatemala with Stetson Political Science Professor Dr. Anne Hallum’s non-governmental organization, the Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR). Of the experience Grove says, “There, I learned the importance of sustainability, which made a large impact on my service and my motivation for what I do now.”

Grove is also a co-founder of Hatter Harvest, an organization dedicated to food, health and environmental sustainability awareness and education on Stetson’s campus. Her passion for community service was strengthened the summer before she came to Stetson. That summer, she volunteered helping her grandfather collect and ship material aid to Honduras, and then went on her first trip there to visit some of the sites he had been funding for years. In 2008, she co-founded the non-profit John Grove Memorial Fund to continue funding her late grandfather’s humanitarian efforts in Central America and the Caribbean. “Service is most rewarding when it becomes a part of your lifestyle,” she said.

For her senior project, Grove researched the capacity for a local food system in Volusia County. She wanted to analyze the relationship, or lack thereof, between Stetson and local farmers. Her inspiration for the project emerged while she was working with local farmers through Hatter Harvest and completing the Real Food Audit of the Commons. She is also working on another research project on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Last summer, while working at the John Grove High School, named after her late grandfather, in Honduras, she completed a Sustainable Agriculture Initiative for a large pepper-growing corporation. Because she has experience working with both sides, the non-profits and for-profits, she has realized that corporations are in a much more stable place, given the current recession, to provide for the communities they are located in. She is currently not sure where this research will take her, but she has a feeling that she will return there over the next year to implement some of the pilot projects for the pepper growers in Honduras.

Throughout all of her achievements, awards, and scholarships, Grove has remained humble and driven by the opportunity to help others. “The opportunities that have come out of the awards and scholarships I have received throughout my college time have been endless, but one unifying and reoccurring theme that is important is the theme of ‘living legacies.’ Most scholarships are created in memory of someone or something, in hopes that funding similar aspirations of students will carry on the dreams of others. The power of those who initiate scholarships or awards should never be underestimated. They inspire you further.”

Jenna Siladie, School of Music

Jenna Siladie, a talented opera singer, is the first Stetson voice student ever accepted into the prestigious and all-expense-paid Yale University School of Music graduate program. The 21-year-old St. Petersburg, Fla., resident is one of two sopranos worldwide selected to start at Yale this fall. The intensely competitive selection is based on recordings, interviews, coaching and a live audition.

A vocal performance major, Siladie studied German lieder (art form) at the Franz Schubert Institut in Austria last summer through the Stetson Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE grant) and presented at the Stetson Showcase – Undergraduate Research and Creative Arts Symposium this spring. She was this year’s Giffin Scholar, as well, chosen in the spring of her junior year from all other fine singers in her class to carry that honor in her senior year. She was a semi-finalist at the Sarasota Voice Competition last year. She sang the lead in several opera productions at Stetson, including Susanna in Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” this spring and the title role in Puccini’s “Suor Angelica” last year.

Siladie started singing in church as a child and got very involved in music in high school. Her goal is to sing opera professionally and possibly teach. Earning a master’s degree is critical in her field, she said.

“Stetson was the perfect school for me for my undergraduate studies,” she said. “The Music School gives us a conservatory feel, but then you also have the rest of the university. That gave me the chance to meet other people and go to basketball games and do other things.

Stetson’s School of Music is demanding, she said, and teaches students how to be successful music professionals. She sang in the Concert Choir and practiced many hours each week.

“Studying with Dr. Maddox has just been amazing,” Siladie said. “Dr. Maddox is an incredible teacher. He’s always renewing his ways of communicating to us and to explaining to us how singing works in ways that each student can understand.”

Kristen Warren, College of Arts & Sciences

Kristen Warren, 25, of Ormond Beach, drew on her experience as a former correctional officer and her social networking connections as she conducted her outstanding senior thesis research. A Sociology major in the Honors Program, Warren received support for her research from the competitive Stetson Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) and from Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Grady Ballenger’s Fund for Student Research.

Warren’s work experience and social media connections proved helpful in getting candid responses to the probing questions she asked her research participants. Her 120-page thesis, “Inclusion and Exclusion among State Prison Correctional Officers: A Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Gendered Workplaces,” received the Sociology Department’s most prestigious award this spring – the Durkheim Prize for Research Excellence.

Outside the classroom, Warren is founder and president of Stetson’s College Libertarians and led the organization to be named the “New Organization of the Year” in 2009 and win the “Bridging the Gap” award in 2010. She organized a campus-wide charity event that raised more than $1,400 toward a university staff member’s kidney transplant-related bills. She also serves as president of Stetson’s sociology honor society Alpha Kappa Delta and is an active member in many other student organizations.

“What I liked about Stetson is the personal attention from the faculty and staff,” Warren said. “At Stetson, you’re not just a number, you’re an individual. It shows that Stetson has a vested interest in its students. My Stetson education has taught me how to think critically about myself, my community and my place within it. And for that, I will always be grateful.”

Liz Amaya, College of Arts & Sciences

Liz Amaya, 22, spent the summer after her sophomore year as a teacher assistant in Colombia – and discovered her life’s passion: education in developing countries. Now, the Sociology major with a minor in Education is planning to dedicate her life to service.

Amaya’s journey began when her advisor, Senior Professor of Sociology John Schorr, introduced her to the nonprofit organization Partners of the Americas, with which he is active. He guided her to the internship in rural Colombia, where she participated in social projects that promote social, economic and cultural development and volunteered as an English teacher assistant through Foundation Formemos (which services children impacted by violence and internal displacement).

“The couple weeks of work in Foundation Formemos became the most rewarding experience of my whole life,” Amaya said. “After my time there, I knew I was meant to dedicate my life to the service of others. It was this experience that awoke in me a deep passion and gave a new meaning to my life. I am forever thankful of the opportunity given to me by Dr. Schorr.”

A native of Colombia who moved to Altamonte Springs 10 years ago, Amaya also did her senior research there – surveying 10^th-grade students in rural Viota, Cundimamarca, and in urban Bogota for the project, “A Comparison of Educational and Occupational Aspirations among Poor Urban and Rural Colombian Students: A Quantitative Analysis.” She presented her outstanding thesis at the Florida Statewide Student Research Symposium: Excellence in Undergraduate Research in Jacksonville, Fla., and at Stetson Showcase – Undergraduate Research and Creative Arts Symposium.

For her achievements, Amaya was named Outstanding Senior of the Sociology Department. Her other activities at Stetson included active participation in her sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha, and its philanthropic efforts. She was the Hollis Center Employee of the Month in March 2010, studied abroad in Austria and completed an internship at a local elementary school. She now plans to do two or three years of service before attending law school to study international and human rights law and, ultimately, starting a nonprofit organization related to education.

Maggie Jean-Baptiste, College of Arts & Sciences

Maggie Jean-Baptiste has had her share of struggles, and they kept her from finishing college – until now. After 25 years of starting, stopping and re-starting college, Jean-Baptiste earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish during Commencement 2011. And now she’s headed to graduate school with a new goal: a Ph.D.!

One of six daughters of a tight-knit Haitian family, Jean-Baptiste, 43, has lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Central Florida. Her parents played a major role in raising her son, and she worked in office administration, the New York school system and at a construction/engineering firm while plugging away at college.

“Over the years I had gone to college off and on, but there was always some type of financial or personal situation going on, and I was never able to complete my degree,” she said.

She was living across the county from DeLand when she got laid off in 2007. She remembered a high school teacher’s recommendation of Stetson more than two decades ago and, after earning an associate’s degree at Daytona State College, she became a Hatter. Despite the age difference of her fellow students, she lived on campus and became a resident advisor. She’s been active on campus, and younger students fully accepted her.

“It hasn’t mattered – not my age, not my color,” she said. “I’m a student here like everyone else – just trying to do better for myself, for my son and my family. And Stetson has been a great part of that experience. It wasn’t always easy, but I’ve had a lot of encouragement from people here on campus that I will be eternally grateful for.”

Her son Justin, who will graduate from West Orange High School in Winter Garden in June, along with her mother, cousin and aunt, all attended commencement to help celebrate the accomplishment she worked so long and so hard to achieve. Now, Jean-Baptiste has received a full scholarship to attend the graduate program in second language acquisition at Indiana University at Bloomington. She will be an associate instructor in Indiana’s intensive English program. Ultimately, she wants to earn a Ph.D. and teach.

“I have been very positively influenced by my professors here,” she said. “They have helped me grow a lot as an individual. I always knew I wanted to teach, but being here gave me the impetus to do that.”

Max Grossman, School of Music

Max Grossman enrolled at Stetson reluctantly after he didn’t get into his top two picks for schools; he had planned to stay a year before transferring.

“Then I realized how much individual attention you get here and how special the School of Music is,” said Grossman, 22, a Piano Performance major. “It’s definitely the best decision I’ve ever made. Not only train you to be a better musician, but you learn so much about who you are and how to be a better person. It’s about discipline and professionalism and what you need to do to succeed in the music business.”

A talented pianist and conductor from Wellington, Fla., Grossman has excelled at Stetson. In November 2010, he won first place in the Tampa Bay Symphony Young Artist Competition for piano and, this spring, performed the Grieg Piano Concerto (Mvt I) with the orchestra twice. He was the 2011 Presser Scholar at Stetson and was selected as the commencement speaker representing the School of Music. And now he’s been awarded a full scholarship and graduate assistantship to Ithaca College in New York for graduate study in opera/theatre conducting.

Grossman started playing piano when he was 6 because his mother felt it was important for him and his brother to explore their creative sides. “It was the only thing I was good at when I was little,” he said. “I’ve been taking lessons my whole life.”

He studied at Stetson under Professor Michael Rickman. Professionally, he plans to go into musical direction (conducting) for either opera or musical theatre. In the meantime, he expects to get plenty of piano time playing at rehearsals for Ithaca’s productions.

Steven Carrillo, College of Arts & Sciences

Steven Carrillo, 21, of North Plainfield, N.J., has truly embraced Stetson’s commitment to community engagement – spending countless hours serving migrant farmworker families at La Plaza Comunitaria in rural Pierson north of campus. A member of CAUSE – the Campaign for Adolescent and University Student Empowerment, he has a passion for youth empowerment that he plans to take into his career. The staff members and fellow students of Stetson’s Center for Service Learning and Office of Student Involvement have become “family,” he said.

Building on his involvement in the teen leadership program, Lead the Way, Carrillo started a similar program in Pierson for elementary schoolchildren. His program, Super Kids, develops leadership qualities using super hero stories and activities. Super Kids had 10 volunteers and received $1,000 in grants for youth programming in Pierson in its first year. The program was featured in a workshop presented by Carrillo at the national IMPACT conference. He also was in the Top 15 for the Students in Service national award and was named Student Leader of the Year at Stetson.

A Psychology major with a minor in Marketing, Carrillo worked at the Office of Student Involvement as the undergraduate director of marketing and completed internships at the Gateway Center for the Arts and the Children’s Home Society. In addition to volunteering through CAUSE, he also helped with NightCap on event programming and was active with Co-Sign and the Hispanic Organization for Latin Awareness (HOLA). He presented at the South Eastern Psychological Association’s 57^th annual meeting and facilitated a workshop on marketing to Stetson students.

Carrillo will remain at Stetson as an Issue Based Site Leader at the Center for Service Learning through the national AmeriCorps service program. And he will begin graduate school in Marriage and Family Therapy. His goal is to become a motivational speaker in the area of youth empowerment.

“In the Office of Student Involvement, I have built friendships that will last forever, specifically with my supervisor Kelly O’Hara,” he said. “She has been such an amazing mentor and has brought me through times in which I lost faith in myself. And The Center for Service Learning provided me with my first Stetson Family through the CAUSE program. The people involved in service are the most caring and friendly people I have ever met, and they welcome anyone in with open arms. It truly has been a great experience to be part of Stetson, and it has been an even greater experience to be part of these families.”

Tommy Keller, School of Business Administration

Tommy Keller, 26, of West Palm Beach, Fla., has taken two paths – one traditional, one entrepreneurial – since earning his undergraduate degree from Stetson in 2007. He worked as a financial analyst at Daytona International Speedway before returning to Stetson for the Master of Accountancy degree he earned at Commencement 2011. On the less traditional journey, he and several fellow students and alumni started a recording label – talkback records – that’s already become far more successful than they’d ever imagined!

For his part, Keller is CEO of talkback, handling the business side and coordinating the legal side. The label’s biggest name is Nick Driver of Raleigh, N.C., whose song Let’s Stay Together is on the Sirius Radio rotation. Talkback is also partnering on some TV and sports team projects now.

“We continually look at the business, and we always talk about how much time and energy we want to put into this,” he said. “It’s gotten beyond where we expected at this point, so now we’ve taken an end date off the table. We hope to continue to build it.”

With his new master’s degree, Keller is also continuing his career as an accountant. He will start the process to take the CPA exam this summer. And he started his new job as a staff accountant (focusing on audit and tax) at James Moore & Co. in Daytona Beach on the Monday after commencement.

At Stetson, he was active in the College Republicans, both on campus and at the state level. His favorite professor was Pat Knipe, an adjunct professor who is a public accounting partner in Orlando.

“He drove home to me that accounting is a people business,” Keller said. “You have to understand your clients and know the things that matter to them.”

Outstanding 2011 graduates from the College of Law include:

Tiffany Colbert, one of only three students elected from law schools across the country to be Student Delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates, is also former 5th Circuit Governor for the Law Student Division including Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Puerto Rico.

Aaron Swift, two-term president of the student organization Equal Justice Works who raised more than $30,000 for summer stipend scholarships for students doing public interest work, is also a national American Bar Association Law Student Division section liaison.