Download the Spring 2021 AEI Convocation Program
A Letter from the President
Dear Saints – The Graduating Class of 2020-21:
Today, your Convocation day, is both a joyous and a sad day, an end and a beginning.
I and St. Clair’s administration, and certainly all of your professors, are over-joyed as we celebrate your achievement. At the best of times, pursuing and securing a postsecondary education is an onerous challenge. The fact that your accomplishment took place in the midst of a global pandemic that severely disrupted many elements of our lives makes it all the more remarkable. With the greatest admiration, we congratulate you for your dedication and perseverance.
Our joy is tinged with sadness too…the sadness that arises whenever we must bid “Farewell” to students, exacerbated by the fact that we cannot do so with an in-person ceremony due to the ongoing pandemic. Please know that I and all of your professors are sending you “virtual hand-shakes and hugs” as we stage this on-line Convocation. We’re going to miss the inspired and inspiring Class of 2020-21.
This is the end of the first phase of your postsecondary education. I phrase it in that manner because I hope, and fully expect, that all of you will be life-long learners, who will continually be upgrading your skills and expanding your knowledge, both as a career strategy and a quality-of-life trait.
And as this element of your schooling concludes, your professional life begins. With your St. Clair-provided knowledge and skills in-hand, you launch your careers in a regional, provincial, national and international workforce that desperately needs your innovation and your persistent attitude. The pandemic has damaged business-and-industry, and social and healthcare services, in innumerable ways. To a very great degree, it is you, with your state-of-the-art abilities, who will be “coming to the rescue” of both our economy and our society. And I am unreservedly confident that this rebuilding and recovery will be in good hands, thanks to your involvement.
A word is warranted, too, to your family members and friends…two words, actually: Thank You. The support and encouragement that you provided to our graduates during their unusually difficult postsecondary experience played a significant part in their ultimate success. Their achievement is also your achievement, so I extend the College’s Congratulations to you too.
In closing, Dear Saints, Thank You for choosing St. Clair for your education, and for the truly exceptional dedication that you demonstrated during the past year as you completed that education in the midst of unprecedented crisis. That single-minded dedication will serve you well – and will serve our world very well indeed – in the years to come.
Farewell, and stay well.
Patti
Patricia France, M.Ad.Ed.
President
Class of 2021
* Click images for full graduation card. *
