Allan Appel Photo
Fonda, DeLeon, and Rodriguez, who is still in the Marine Corps reserve and therefore wears his uniform to the ceremonies.
Marine and Army combat vets Mike Fonda, Jonathan DeLeon Lopez, and Jonathan Rodriguez helped lead the procession of graduates to receive their degrees at the 26th annual commencement exercises of Gateway Community College.
It was one of the many small but noticeable innovations introduced by Paul Broadie, who in a cost-saving measure, mandated by the cash-strapped state, became the president last summer of the now combined Gateway and Housatonic Community Colleges.
The graduation for the now-combined New Haven unfolded with pomp, family hoots of good cheer, and academic circumstance at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, just around the corner from the Housatonic branch. It marked the first time the two now sister institutions shared the same venue for their ceremonies.
The veterans contingent, numbering in total 18, led in 1,132 Gateway graduates at 11 a.m. The same venue is to be the site of Housatonic’s graduation exercises, where Housatonic Community College’s 716 members of the class of 2018 get their sheepskins at 5 p.m.
Grad Brandon Mustow, with Ashlie Foresberg, said the GCC/Housatonic partnership was so seamless, he never noticed.
Broadie praised the students’ perseverance and courage, giving several individual shout-outs to students from whom he said he’d learned particular life lessons.
Among those was Gateway’s New Jersey-born but Guinea, West Africa-raised Student of the Year Klotoume Kromah, affectionately known as “KK.”
Rathford, KK, and Stubbs
Having returned to America, and New Haven at age 14, KK overcame language challenges to graduate, at age 16, with a 3.8 grade point average, and the vice president of the school’s Phi Theta Kappa honor society. The liberal arts/science major and future doctor — in part because she saw lots of suffering to do very inadequate medical care on her native continent — also worked in one of Gateway’s administrative offices and was a star power forward on GCC’s women’s basketball team.
Her mother took her home from New Jersey to Guinea at a young age, she said, in part so she could experience cultural values that she might miss as a teenager in the U.S. Among those, KK said, was seeing all one’s community as members of an extended family.
“I consider all the students at Gateway my brothers and sisters,” she said as she formed up in the graduation line with fellow basketball playing graduates Shantel Rathford and Elizabeth Stubbs
KK surrounded by Sergio and Erica Chavez.
President Broadie also hailed Erika Chavez Cardenas and her 21-year-old son Sergio, both arrivals from Cancun in Mexico four years ago. Cardenas helped her son with a little algebra and English. As a result, he’s graduating and heading on to a four-year degree in computer science. His mom, whose goal is to be a dentist, has just heard this very day she’d been accepted in one of Yale’s intensive summer medical academies.
Togo-born Ayida Famah learned English and raised four kids on her nine-year journey to an accounting degree.
Broadie called the blue-clad graduates before him superheroes. “You leap over all challenges, and you melt all obstacles with your intellectual ability,” he said.
The ceremonies included the presentation of the GCC’s President’s Award to New Haven Mayor Toni Harp and an honorary Associate Degree in science to Larry Bingaman, the president and CEO of the South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority. Alumnus and GCC Adjunct Professor Edwin Martinez delivered the keynote address.
The longstanding most popular major continued to be liberal arts & sciences, which positions students to transfer to four-year institutions. Other popular majors included business, transportation and engineering technologies, allied health, nursing, computer science, and early childhood education.
Rick Palinko, who coordinates veterans activities at GCC, said there are 217 veterans enrolled in the school, including the 18 who graduated Thursday.