{"id":123222,"date":"2020-05-15T13:34:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T19:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=123222"},"modified":"2020-05-22T11:08:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T17:08:50","slug":"porcadilla-delivers-commencement-keynote-we-rose-above-all-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=123222","title":{"rendered":"Porcadilla delivers Commencement keynote: “We rose above all else.”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
JayJay Porcadilla, Student Government Association president and one of two recipients of the Student Achievement Award, delivers the May 15 virtual spring commencement address.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

JayJay Porcadilla, the 2019-20 Student Government\nAssociation president and one of two recipients of the Student Achievement\nAward, delivered the commencement address for May 15\u2019s virtual spring\ncommencement ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His remarks reflected on the many different paths UCCS\nstudents walked to reach their graduation day, and celebrated all that the\nClass of 2020 has achieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday is to reflect on all of our accomplishments,\u201d\nPorcadilla remarked. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy getting here. We have jobs and home lives.\nSome of us are nontraditional. Some of us had hardships. Some of us served in\nthe military. Some of us are raising the kids of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He continued, \u201cSome of us struggled filling out the form to\ngraduate, because it took us more than four years \u2013 and that\u2019s okay. Because\none thing is for sure: we are proud Mountain Lions. We hold true to our past,\nkeeping it close, and never losing sight of our goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
“I encourage you to thank the people who influenced your life. Cherish them forever,” Porcadilla said as he blew a kiss to his parents. “This one is for my mom and dad. I could not have done it without your help.”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Porcadilla, who is graduating with a bachelor\u2019s degree in\ncommunication, structured his speech around advice gleaned from defining films\nof many graduates\u2019 childhoods \u2013 namely, those that are now available on Disney+.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quoting \u201cMulan,\u201d Porcadilla reminded graduates that \u201cthe flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of them all.\u201d Quoting \u201cPocahontas,\u201d he told the Class of 2020, \u201cIf you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you\u2019ll learn things you never knew.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And he shared his personal favorite, from \u201cFinding Nemo\u201d: \u201cJust\nkeep swimming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Porcadilla reminded the Class of 2020 that graduating\nin the midst of a pandemic was just one defining characteristic of their class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are a great class because we are part of history,\u201d he said.\n\u201cPersevering and completing a degree in the face of a pandemic? We didn\u2019t sit\naround and wait. We took action. We made scholarships. We made opportunities.\nWe rose above all else.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is what it means to be a Mountain Lion,\u201d he concluded.\n\u201cWe rise to the occasion. We let nothing stop us. We are great \u2013 we are the\nClass of 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The heartfelt remarks are perhaps best summed up by another\nDisney quote, this one from the movie \u201cUp\u201d: \u201cThanks for the adventure. Now go\nhave a new one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Porcadilla spoke to the graduates as one of two Student\nAchievement Award winners. UCCS conferred degrees on more than 1,500 students\nduring the main May 15 virtual ceremony. The ceremony featured messages from\nnotable alumni, elected officials and the conferral of doctorate, master\u2019s and\nbachelor\u2019s degrees. It welcomed the graduates into the alumni association and\nfeatured Porcadilla as the keynote speaker. Each of UCCS\u2019 six colleges also\noffered a personalized ceremony celebrating individual degree recipients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JayJay Porcadilla, the 2019-20 Student Government Association president and one of two recipients of the Student Achievement Award, delivered the commencement address for May 15\u2019s virtual spring commencement ceremony. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":123238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40,82,114,86,39,42,131,190,105,332],"class_list":["post-123222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","tag-college-of-business","tag-college-of-education","tag-college-of-engineering-and-applied-science","tag-college-of-letters-arts-and-sciences","tag-college-of-public-service","tag-commencement","tag-department-of-communication","tag-graduate-school","tag-helen-and-arthur-e-johnson-beth-el-college-of-nursing-and-health-sciences","tag-more-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/JayJay1.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-w3s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123222"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123243,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123222\/revisions\/123243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/123238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}