Bloomfield College Holds 127th Annual Commencement
Nearly 240 students participated in Bloomfield College's 127th Commencement exercises recently and received their Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees.
The College also awarded honorary doctorate degrees to Cornel West, race relations scholar and professor at Harvard University, and Faith Hochberg, U.S. District Court Judge from New Jersey and prosecutor in the "Unabomber" case.
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"Always muster the courage to love," Dr. West told the graduates. "And by love I mean the most daring, difficult and dangerous, yet delightful and lovely, force in the universe. It takes courage to love. Love yourself - especially if you've accepted the vicious dogmas of white supremacy, of male supremacy, or the class arrogance, or national haughtiness or hetero-sexist self-perception."
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Judge Hochberg praised the graduates for their hard work, and called attention to those who are the first members of their family to receive a college degree.
"As the granddaughter of the 13th child of a Romanian sheep farmer, I share your zeal for education, because it surely has altered my family's horizons. My grandmother arrived here, knowing nobody, and having barely a sixth grade education," Hochberg said. "While my grandmother never again saw her family in Romania because of the turmoil of two World Wars, she did make sure that her daughter, my mother, got the benefit of the education that she never had."
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"The power of that message about the value of education is indelibly imprinted within me," said Hochberg. "You can be the standard-bearers of that tradition in your families as well."
Full text of Cornell West's speech
