The mood inside Battell Chapel was as sunny as the skies Monday afternoon as Dean Paul Cleary led graduation ceremonies for the more than 150 cheerful public health students receiving professional degrees.
Cleary thanked the large number of family and friends who traveled from near and far to attend the ceremony. Referring to the graduates’ accomplishment, he said, “There are very few vocations that contribute so much.”
Unni Karunakara, Dr.Ph., M.P.H. ’95, senior fellow of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale, was the keynote speaker. Karunakara has been a humanitarian worker and public health professional for two decades, with extensive experience in the delivery of health care to neglected populations affected by conflict, disasters and epidemics in Africa, Asia and America. He was the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and helped found VIVO, an organization working toward overcoming and preventing traumatic stress and its consequences.
“I can’t think of anything more meaningful than being in a position to help the most vulnerable and marginalized,” he told the gathering.
Reflecting on his career, particularly the difficult work he did in Somalia, he told the graduates, “You have your degree, now you need an education.” What he meant is that when students get into the field they will receive another kind of education, ones from the “wise, indigenous teachers” that they will meet. “Learn, listen and reflect,” he said. He also advised the graduates to evaluate a situation from all sides and “advocate for the people, not the system.”
Karunakara noted that public health is “inherently political.” He told the graduates to “be activists,” and to “engage” and diplomatically accomplish what needs to be done. His advice to students, gleaned from years of public health work, is that “People who most need care are the ones least likely to seek it out. To ignore is to be complicit.”
Finally, Karunakara complimented students on the field they chose and said, “Here’s to fellowship and lives filled with passion.”
In the student address, Cory Gordon said that in the two years he has been at YSPH, he has tried to answer the question: What in the world is public health?
“I struggled to come up with a good answer,” said Gordon, who earned his M.P.H. As he pursued his studies, a partial answer emerged. “Diversity of passions, ambitions and skills” are part of it, he concluded. But he also saw that the mission of the public health practitioner is “so indefinable,” that we risk getting pushed aside. “We must be stakeholders and standard bearers,” he told his classmates.
I can’t think of anything more meaningful than being in a position to help the most vulnerable and marginalized.
Commencement speaker, Unni Karunakara
Gordon said public health practitioners “stand at the intersection” of medicine, law, economics and other fields. “We see a problem from all sides. We consider all perspectives and find consensus.”
Four awards were handed out during Monday’s celebration: The Dean’s Prize for Outstanding M.P.H. Thesis went to Colette Jolynn Matysiak; The Wilbur G. Downs Outstanding Thesis Prize was presented to Emily Ann Briskin; The Henry J. (Sam) Chauncey Jr. Inspiration Award was given to Rachel Campbell Zorn; and the
Lowell Levin Award for Excellence in Global Health was awarded to Shaylen Susalla Foley.
After the awards and diplomas were handed out, a surprise diploma was presented to Cleary to commemorate his “wonderful service” to the school. Cleary is stepping down later this year as dean after leading the school for 10 years. The room rose to its feet for a heart-felt standing ovation.
Blinking back tears, Cleary told the audience that his job as YSPH dean has been “the most rewarding activity of my life.” Then, borrowing from Karunakara, he said, “You’ve got your degree; now you need an education. Use your tools to create solutions to make the world a better place.”
To see pictures of the Yale School of Public Health’s 2016 commencement, visit Facebook at www.facebook.com/YaleSPH/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1257754457583084
or Instagram at www.instagram.com/yalesph/