Allan Appel Photo
Mary Perez’s mother Maria Serrano (left) also received an associate’s degree, in medical administration.
Beginning at age 10 Mary Perez had a front row-seat to see how nurses and doctors treated her dad’s transverse myelitis, a spinal condition that can cause paralysis. The experience made her want to care for others. A decade later she earned her degree to do just that, as a newly minted nurse.
Along the way, Perez had help from the Board of Ed and a teacher who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
On Thursday afternoon Perez received one of the 732 diplomas awarded by Gateway Community College (GCC) in festive ceremonies featuring a sea of blue mortarboards and gowns at Woolsey Hall at Yale University. It was Gateway’s 20th commencement, the largest graduating class ever, and the last before the school moves into its new downtown digs this summer.
“Next year we’ll be able to walk to Woolsey,” said GCC spokeswoman Evelyn Gard. This year’s class is 62.8 percent women, 33 percent nonwhite, 27 percent New Haveners, 67 percent from the Greater New Haven area. The average age of graduates is 32. The average GPA is 3.24; that includes 23 students with perfect 4.0s.
Perez was a high-achieving senior in high school in Philadelphia when her family moved to New Haven so her dad Carlos Perez could receive treatment at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Because they landed on Asylum Street in the Hill, Perez was assigned to go to Hillhouse, the neighborhood high school.
Commencement Speaker State Comptroller Kevin Lembo and GCC Prez Dorsey Kendrick. She charged the graduates to “increase virtue in the world.”
“They helped me get into a magnet high school,” Perez said, referring to Board of Ed officials who noted her very high GPA. They directed Perez to Metropolitan Business Academy.
There Perez received help from a teacher who steered her to a patient care internship program the school had with Yale-New Haven Hospital, where her dad was receiving treatment. Even though the program was well underway, Perez was able to enroll. That sealed the deal on her career.
Perez not only graduated from the demanding GCC nursing program; she already has a job at Yale-New Haven as a student nurse. She hopes to pass her boards in July.