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Thousands graduate from the University of Hawaii

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  • BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COM

    University of Hawaii undergraduates file onto the floor and lower level seating of Stan Sheriff Center to participate in the 105th Annual Commencement Exercises at the University of Hawaii.

More than 2,500 University of Hawaii students participated in today’s spring graduation ceremonies, marking the university’s 105th commencement.

The class of 2016 was awarded a total of 3,166 degrees, 2,208 of which were undergraduate degrees, 915 master’s and doctorate degrees and 43 certificates of education.

During this morning’s undergraduate ceremony that ran from 9 a.m. to noon at the packed Stan Sheriff Center, keynote speaker U.S. Sen Brian Schatz commended the nearly 2,000 students for completing their studies and offered some words of wisdom — Make wise choices.

“Your real life starts now,” he said. “What really matters is not what you’ve done so far, but what you do next.”

At the advanced degree ceremony from 3 to 5 p.m. at the arena, keynote speaker Angela Davis, an activist and professor, spoke to the nearly 700 students about the importance of “post-graduate critical thinking.”

“I hope you will treasure the approaches and ways of thinking that you learned more than the facts,” she said. “Hopefully you have learned to cultivate a deep sense of place.”

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      • Corruption, when it’s time to choose a prospective between a hs dropout, one with a hs degree and another with “Your worthless piece of paper” guess who they’ll hire? Oh, by the way, you can’t even apply for MANY State jobs without a bachelor’s degree. Now how “worthless” is that job is the starting pay for that job is $40,000/year? Golly, that was definitely a babooze statement. Good luck, new grads. My son graduated in May from UH years ago. He got his job in his field four months later.

        • He / she is obviously jealous of people who made better choices and studied in school. Anyone who would suggest that a college degree is worthless is ignorant beyond words.

        • Good for you. May you become a contributing member of society, unlike now.

  • Keynote speaker at the advanced degree ceremony was Angela Davis, a former Black Panther terrorists, once on the FBI’s ten most wanted list, a former leader of the US Communist Party and recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize. I do not understand why the UH is so enamored by her. Is it that the UH leadership are in tune with what she represents?

    • You always leave out the details. Like the fact that she was targeted by the FBI on false charges that they knew were false. And that she was acquitted at trial. Can’t you ever stop lying?

      • What about the detail that it was her gun that blew off a judge’s head. Oh, doesn’t matter, she was acquitted. She’s a saint. Is Ronin lying about her Lenin Peace Prize, too.?

        • The peace prize is the one thing that he didn’t lie about – a rare thing, by the way. Please explain your scholarship about how that prize in 1979 ties into her speech at UH. You won’t be able to of course, but please go ahead and try. With regard to the judge, ms. Davis was acquitted at trial. I know that the law and Constitution seem foreign to you, but they really do mean something.

      • Regarding your comment below, you are lying. The law is not foreign to me. Ronin did not lie about Davis being a member of the communist party or being on the FBI list (rightly or wrongly). A person’s CV is a person’s CV, going back to whenever. My scholarship has nothing to do with it.

      • Kalastri, you are spouting nonsense as usual. You claim to be a lawyer, yet you do not seem to understand that all persons concerned with the commission of a crime are considered principals in the crime even though they do not directly commit the crime. Are you still with me? In 1970 a young black teenager armed with a sawed off shotgun and other weapons took over a court room in Marin County California in an attempt to free two black convicts who were accused of killing a guard at Soledad Prison. The teen and the two convicts attempted to escape by taking with them the judge, the prosecutor and three jurors as hostages. In an ensuing gun battle with police, the judge and the tree black men were killed. Subsequent investigation revealed that the shotgun used in the crime was purchased by Angela Davis two days before, which made her a principal in the crime. That is an undeniable fact. Are you still with me, Mr. Lawyer? A judge in Marin County, California, where the crime occurred, charged Davis with aggravated kidnapping and the first degree murder in the death of the Judge, and a warrant was issued for her arrest, but she already had gone on the run. Four days later, the FBI placed her on the Ten Most Wanted List. Please tell me what is false about what I have thus far said. You are right about Davis being found not guilty. Although she owned the weapon used to kill the judge, the imbeciles on the jury determined there was insufficient evidence to establish her responsibility for the plot.

        • “…..imbeciles on the jury..” just points out that whatever case you make has no merit.

        • Imbeciles on the jury? Of course. That always explains things when you’re wrong. That pesky Constitution gets in the way again of your all-knowing rule. I suppose it’s better to discuss the law from a platform of absolute ignorance, rather than actually knowing what you’re writing about.

        • Ok, Oxtail01 and Kalastri, so I said the jurors were imbeciles because they could not connect Angela Davis to the crime even though she purchased the weapon two days before it was used to murder the judge. You have to be blind or just plain stupid not to see the connection. I am still waiting for Kalastri to explain what was false about the charges filed against Davis that led to her being placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

        • Kalastri, you are the one who accused me of lying and who claimed the charges filed against Angelia Davis were false. I provided you facts to show that my comments were true and that the charges were not false, and I asked you to explain why you said the charges were false. That should be easy for someone who claims to be a lawyer and a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, but your refusal or inability to support your false charge claim suggests to me you are a fraud.

    • No! I was suprised too! Here they invite a major feminist when they have a mist unfeminist VCAA, one who took advantage of the two women i nhis life who made him, his ex wife and his mither in kaw who got him the job when he was fired from elsewhere, and he stepped on their body bags for his sexual pleasure? And she said nothing about how men should function to create equality?

    • Is belonging to the Communist Party a crime in the United States Of America with it’s boasts about freedom of choice? If it is, then all you right wing nutjobs should also be deemed criminals.

  • The moment you were born and started school is part of the real world! Peter Boy Kema was in the real world. Bullies are in your families, schools, and after school. That’s reality and the real world.

  • Do the best with your degree. Success not only depends on the paper but how to seek out the opportunities and surround yourself with other successful people, who lifts themselves, others and you to a better life and not thinking of me me me.

    • Yep! That’s the message they got from the Chancellor of Vice, the Vice Chancellor! Drink, cheat on your family, have sex galore, follow my example and that of Billy Kenoi, and that is how you succeed! Hey Klastri, that puece of paper is worthless anyway! Just gotra know how to sleep your way to the top,male and female!

  • Really Brian …so all the work the students did while attending UH dosen’t matter? Their real life begins now? Give me a break. As if your life in Washington is real. How about real ineffective at solving real problems?

    • Really Brian …so all the work the students did while attending UH doesn’t matter? Their real life begins now? Give me a break. As if your life in Washington is real. How about real ineffective at solving real problems?

  • Congratulations to the graduates and the faculty! But I couldn’t believe sitting there and watching that VCAA being allowed to run the show! What is the example to the students? Have mistresses? Dispense w your loyal supportive family! So disgusting! Whatever happened to 2disgusted? Felt like him/her! Also thought of Honeybadger! He was sitting there texting all through the ceremony! Who was he texting? Does the mistress,even though now wife, still need sexts on a continuous basis? Gosh how disgusting and insulting! And he startled when the alumni person talked about connecting thru Facebook! Afraid of i mau manoa? It is just disgusting that UH administration allows in a visible leadership position, a man of bad morals and a bad example to students! This is what makes the Trumps and Bill Clintons possible! Sleep arpund in office! Nothing happened to Clinton for desecrating the oval office, so nothing happens to those who have sex on their tables in Hawaii hall? Even the rudest of Beijing officials wouldn’t tolerate that! How does this man get away with this? And then you marry and dump who you please like Trump did! America has lost its moral compass! Was the constitution with its freedoms created in juxtaposition to the morals laid out in misc. religious texts like the Bible and whatever else? What about traditional Hawaiian values? This as the message to graduates yesterday: immorality suceeds!

    • The above is odd. But I thought the senator was wrong to say that university life is not “real life.” I was there seeing friends graduate and though Schatz was thoroughly mediocre in his remarks. He lacks intellectual depth.

  • Congrats UH grads! Please give back to the school. Improvements to the school’s reputation can benefit you long after you have left.

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