Editor
Communications Office
Río Piedras Campus – UPR
Thousands of graduation candidates met early in the morning to attend their longed for appointment in the Hundred and Fourteenth Grade Collation of the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), held today (Tuesday, June 11, 2019) at the Coliseum of Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot.
On this occasion about 2,744 university students paraded in a ceremony, whose goal is to record a path of achievement and tenacity. Thus, the significant amount of 84 doctorates, 484 masters, 2,005 baccalaureates, 165 Juris Doctor and 6 Postgraduate Certificates were awarded.
The college with the most candidates for graduation was the College of Social Sciences with 593. It was followed by the College of Natural Sciences with 544, the College of Humanities with 427 and the College of Business Administration with 390. The academic picture is completed with 336 from the College of Education, 174 from the Law School, 133 from the School of Communications, 85 from the School of Architecture, 26 from the Graduate School of Planning and the College of General Studies, as well as the Graduate School of Sciences and Technologies of Information, both with 18 degrees.
Within the most notorious degrees, it is worth highlighting the program of the UPR Law School with Dual Degree with the University of Barcelona, that is, the Juris Doctor and Degree in Spanish Law. The graduates from Puerto Rico were Ángela S. Meléndez OIivera and Alexandra Rivera Rojas, while the graduates from Barcelona were Eric Expósito Ronda, Claudia Mas Durán, Ariadna Pérez Lecha, Alejandro Romero Sánchez, Manuel A. Martin Méndez, Paola N. Ramos Peña , Paola Rivera Hernández, Mónica Rocafort Silva and Alberto Matos Ortiz. For the second time, and for the second time in the history of the degree, the UPR Law School graduates Lenny J. Reyes González, who will obtain a joint degree of Juris Doctor and Master of Architecture (JD-M.Arch).
During the ceremony, Dr. Luis A. Ferrao Delgado, Chancellor of the UPR Rio Piedras campus, addressed the Class of 2019, with an emotional message of congratulations for his achievements. “Dear graduates, this day is a day of joy for you … for you mainly, but it is also a day of great joy and satisfaction for your parents, for your relatives, for your teachers, for your friends and for all those people who in some way have been part of that long and challenging path that you have followed until this moment that, without a doubt, unequivocally and forcefully crowns the commitment you made some years ago to prepare yourselves in what is the best university in our country “, said Ferrao.
“Also, this is a day of rejoicing for our beloved campus that continues with that perennial tradition – already centenary – to deliver to the country a new strain of professionals who come to this day with considerably more resources than they had when they crossed by the first time the gates of our campus with the illusion of triumph, of being men and women of substance for yourselves, for your families and for the present and future of this country that needs so much of you to recover hope “, added the Chancellor of the Río Piedras Campus.
Meanwhile, President of the UPR, Dr. Jorge Haddock, focused his speech on reaffirming that the graduates are the promise of a future for the island. “For me it is a true honor and source of immense pleasure to share with you in my first cycle of graduations as the twentieth president of the University of Puerto Rico, convinced that you are coming to this moment in the company of people who have been very important throughout the challenging road that today has a fundamental station and that marks a watershed in the lives of each and every one of you. Our students are and should continue to be the supreme priority of the University of Puerto Rico, and in reaffirming it, I also emphasize that that certainty is tied precisely to the fact that it is in you where the promise of the future beats and that it allows us to glimpse with optimism a better tomorrow for our land and for all who live there, “said President Haddock.