The University of Belize kicked off the first of its two major graduation ceremonies on the weekend in Belmopan on Saturday, involving students from the Belmopan and Belize City campuses and the smaller center at Central Farm.
The graduation exercises are held once per year and are the University’s eighth since its five predecessor colleges, the University College of Belize, the Belize Teacher’s College, the Belize Technical College, the Bliss School of Nursing and the Belize College of Agriculture, merged in August 2000. Numerous invited guests, including ministers, representative of the Embassy of Taiwan Wayne Wong, and others attended.
A total of 504 students were graduated with certificates and Associate and Bachelor Degrees in 44 disciplines, from agriculture to English to social work. Around 400 actually attended Saturday’s grand ceremony at the UB Gymnasium.
The weekend’s second graduation was held on Sunday afternoon in Punta Gorda for students at the Toledo campus of UB. Paco Smith, UB public relations officer, reported today that 58 students graduated from three of the university’s four faculties – 19 in Education and Arts, 26 in Management and Social Sciences and 13 in Science and Technology.
In the Belmopan ceremony, the leading faculty was Management and Social Sciences with 179 graduates, including Belize City student body president Moses Sulph, who graduated with an Associate Degree in Business Administration but was not present at the ceremony. Following were Science and Technology with 129, Education and Arts with 123, and Nursing, Allied Health and Social Work with 73.
University president Dr. Santos Mahung congratulated the graduates on their achievement and challenged them to use their degrees and acquired knowledge to the benefit of the nation. He was joined in this by commencement guest speaker Mrs. Merlene Bailey-Martinez, CEO of Social Security and former Commissioner on the DFC Commission of Inquiry, who reminded the graduates of the ceremony’s theme, “Poised for New Horizons”, saying that U.B’s graduates needed to be prepared both “offensively and defensively”, like the combatant’s in the American NBA finals, for what she called the “onslaught” of globalization and all its accompanying ills.
Top students on the day included the Faculty of Science and Technology’s Martin Friesen, an Information Technology major who finished with the best Grade Point Average in his faculty, and cumulatively among all Bachelor students in the class of 2008, at 3.86. Top certificate program student was Javier Wong of the paralegal studies cohort on 3.96, and top Associate student was Abel Castaneda, tourism studies major, at a whopping 3.98. Friesen, Castaneda and Wong earned the Academic Excellence Award in their respective programs.
Closely trailing Friesen in the Bachelor’s class were Education and Arts majors Shantell Yearwood (English) and Lucretia Pott (Primary Education), who both finished with 3.85, Shoshana Moody (Accounting) from Management with 3.84, and NAHSW’s Anna Friesen (Nursing), with 3.81.
80 students graduated magna cum laude, with a GPA of 3.5-3.74, and were awarded gold honor chords. Twenty-seven graduated summa cum laude, with a GPA of 3.75-4.0, and received purple honor chords. The choice of colors reflects the University’s official school colors.
Other highlights of the ceremony included performances by the University of Belize choir and the Belize Choral Society, and the induction of graduates into the university’s alumni association.