William Rickert, Amelia Berlandi of Pawling, Caitlin Roth of Patterson Graduate from the University of Vermont
BURLINGTON, VT (07/14/2023)– UVM President Suresh Garimella conferred degrees on an estimated 3,383 graduates at the university’s 222nd Commencement ceremony. Speaking on the spirit of excellence, the Honorable Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the U.S. National Science Foundation, delivered the keynote address.
The following local students earned bachelor’s degrees from UVM:
Caitlin Roth of Patterson graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor’s in Sustainable Landscape Horticulture.
Amelia Berlandi of Pawling graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor’s in Public Communication.
William Rickert of Pawling graduated from the University of Vermont with a bachelor’s in Music.
This year’s commencement was marked by a spirit of resilience and triumph. The world was a much different place when the Class of 2023 entered UVM in the fall of 2019, and with the advent of a pandemic in the spring of their first year, they learned to adjust to unique challenges and contribute to UVM’s successful response to the crisis.
The ceremony was especially meaningful for UVM President Suresh Garimella, who began his tenure at UVM in 2019 as the class of 2023 was beginning their first year. Garimella invoked words of writer Vladamir Nabokov to encourage graduates forward: “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible,” he read. He urged students to follow the same spirit. “Go forth and write your next chapter in bold strokes. Go dauntlessly wherever your stories take you.”
About UVM
Since 1791, the University of Vermont has worked to move humankind forward. Committed to both research and teaching, UVM professors-world-class researchers, scholars, and artists-bring their discoveries into the classroom and their students into the field. Located in Burlington, Vermont, one of the nation’s most vibrant small cities and top college towns, UVM is a top 100 national research university educating over 14,000 undergraduate students, graduate students, certificate and non-degree students, and M.D. students in the Larner College of Medicine.
