NORTHFIELD, Vt. — Michael Anthony Cordeiro of Washington received a Bachelor of Science in biology from Norwich University at the May 11 commencement ceremony held in NU’s Shapiro Field House.
Norwich University celebrated commencement during its 200th year of educating citizen soldiers in service to the nation with a ceremony in which 444 students graduated from 32 undergraduate programs and one master’s program.
New York Times best-selling author and historian Alex Kershaw, who penned “Citizens & Soldiers: The First 200 Years of Norwich University” gave the commencement address to the Class of 2019 in Norwich’’s bicentennial year.
Graduates include future military officers, law enforcement officers, and many who will go on to graduate school, jobs in the federal government, athletic training, construction management, and numerous sectors of public service. The Class of 2019 was comprised of 159 civilian students and 285 students in the Corps of Cadets.
Kershaw, who is a graduate of Oxford University, highlighted standout alumni, such as Norwich engineers who built the United States in the 19th century. A World War II historian and native of Great Britain, Kershaw highlighted specifically a 1944 graduate, Private Richard Austin, who jumped into the darkness above Normandy, one of the legendary Screaming Eagles, to liberate Europe. He lauded Norwich’’s many firsts’ particularly the first eight women who in 1974 became the first female members of the Corps of Cadets
Kershaw concluded his remarks to the Norwich University Class of 2019 with this: You are luckyThis place provided a great platform for [Norwich alumni] success, a launching pad. Norwich gave a distinct, a rigorous and importantly a disciplined and moral education, and that basis will serve all of you very well as you go forward.
The ceremony also included remarks from an enactment of Founder Captain Alden Partridge reflecting on how Norwich has grown and succeeded 200 years after its founding.
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