Commencement 2022: Welcoming our newest alumni

May is a month filled with many celebrations for our students and 2022 was no exception.

We celebrated our 50th year of our esteemed Physical Therapy program. We graduated our first class of Physician Assistant Studies students, and we welcomed our first Communication Sciences and Disorders graduates to the School of Medicine.

As you become our newest alumni, I hope you remember that you have a purpose greater than yourself. It is a purpose made famous by Berné Brown, a thought leader and educator, but it’s also a mantra I hope you carry forward as you enter this next phase of your lives – be it an advanced degree or a first job in your profession.

While this season of commencement is a time of great joy, it may also be a time of uncertainty. Many are navigating unknowns – an ongoing, ever-changing global pandemic, perhaps a new job, maybe a new city or state.

In these moments of uncertainty, I hope you ground yourself in community – a community of peers, professionals, family and our larger Mountaineer family across the globe.

Impact is forged from taking time for positive action and reaction each day and in each small moment.

May those moments bring you great joy, built on a life of compassion and purpose. I hope West Virginia University has helped provide you with the foundation for both.

Kindness. Community. Compassion. Purpose. Joy. These are the makings of wholeness that I see in each of you.

Clay Marsh, M.D.

Chancellor and Executive Dean for Health Sciences

View photos from the M.D. and Ph.D. celebrations

View photos from the Professional and Undergraduate ceremony