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'I loved every aspect': 236 graduate from Claflin

Times & Democrat - 5/7/2023

May 6—Claflin University graduating senior Patrice Burgess took the nontraditional route to graduation.

The 40-year-old Orangeburg resident received her master's in nursing with a concentration in leadership Saturday morning.

She's excited about what the future has to offer. She was one of seven students — known as the Super 7 — to be the first to graduate in the university's master of nursing program.

"It was a long time coming," Burgess said. "Being able to reach my goals with the help of family, friends and the church means the world to me."

Burgess earned her associates degree in nursing from Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College and her bachelor's degree in nursing from Claflin.

As a nontraditional student and a U.S. Army veteran, Burgess feels she was better prepared than if she attended college straight out of high school.

"The military prepared me for any kind of situation that came up," Burgess said. "Being deployed, being a medical assistant, working in migrant health, as a phlebotomist and then becoming a nurse ties back to my experiences being a nurse. It worked for me."

Burgess loved studying at Claflin.

"I love the interactions I had with my instructors. The availability of my instructors was a great experience," Burgess said. "The opportunity to attend an HBCU was at the top of my list.

"I loved every aspect of being a student at Claflin University."

One thing she will not miss?

"All the homework," she said, laughing. "There was a lot of homework."

Burgess joined her fellow graduates for the spring commencement convocation at Claflin University'sJonas T. Kennedy Health and Wellness Complex.

Of the 236 graduates, 96 graduated with honors. University officials believe it marks the first time in half a century that there were nine student valedictorians. The students made straight As during their time at the university.

About 15 students graduated with master's degrees.

The keynote speaker, former S.C. Rep. Bakari Sellers, told the students to continue to fight for what is right no matter the obstacles and hurdles they may face.

"We need you," Sellers said. "The world needs you right now."

"I have hope that burns like the sun inside me telling me that we know that life ain't fair, but it ain't fixed either because we are here," Sellers said. "We have hope and we have a voice that tells us there is something here worth fighting for. It tells us that a lot of time Black folk are going to have to work longer and work harder, but if you believe in something, that victory is much sweeter."

Sellers told the story of retired U.S. Army Sergeant Major Teresa King, who became the first female commandant of the Army Drill Sergeant School at Fort Jackson.

King, who was born in North Carolina as the daughter of sharecropper, rose through the ranks of the United States military.

"She had a sense of right and wrong and wasn't going to quit for anyone," Sellers said.

There were many who did not accept her position as a minority woman leader in the military, he said.

King's success was noted by a number of media outlets, but in 2011 King was suspended from her role as commandant of the Drill Sergeant School following an internal personnel action investigation around her command style.

"Some folks did not like answering to a woman, much less a Black woman," Sellers said. "It wasn't just the folks beneath her. It started with the whispers, 'She doesn't belong here. She didn't earn it. She is not like us, just a diversity hire.'"

"The whispers got louder. They became conversations. They evolved into plans of actions, allegations," Sellers said.

King was cleared of wrongdoing six months after her suspension and returned to duty, but soon lost her job.

"The Army needs you somewhere else, they told her," Sellers said. "What they were really saying is that you are not one of us. They took her career, they took her future, they even took her good name and they ran her out of the Army."

Sellers said King learned, "that everybody gets knocked down. That is not the important part of life. What matters is when you got your behind back up. She got back up not to fight back but to fight forward."

King took on the Army for 12 years in a lawsuit, but eventually won back her good name and her honor.

"I want you to know not assume and not guess but know that there is a part of Teresa King in you, too," Sellers said. "That part is going to be important in years to come. You know that life ain't fair."

"You know how hard it gets. Some of you have come from poor communities where the school leaks when it rains. Some of you all left everything you knew behind. Some of you all come from a place where nobody believed in you except your preacher and your teacher, but you are here standing, so that shows you know how to get back up, too," Sellers said.

"The world ain't fair, but you can change the world and I know you will," Sellers said.

Nickeisha Cuthbert, a 23-year-old resident of Jamaica, wants to change the world.

As an Alice Carson Tisdale Honors College scholar and one of nine valedictorians, Cuthbert majored in biotechnology and minored in chemistry.

Graduation is "a time that allows me to reflect on all the amazing people I've met and experiences I've had at Claflin," Cuthbert said. "Also, as an international student and a first-generation student, this is a momentous occasion for my family as well as myself."

"Claflin provided an excellent environment for growth that pushed me to succeed even in the darkest times" of the pandemic, Cuthbert said. "The familial environment and excellent mentors unreservedly encouraged me throughout the years. Undoubtedly, they fostered the 'Claflin Confidence' and I'm happy to be graduating from CU with an amazing education and skills to take on the world."

Cuthbert will continue her studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston where she will pursue a doctorate in biological engineering.

"I'm very interested in working in the biotechnology industry," she said.

In addition to the 2023 graduating class, about 33 members of Claflin University class of 1973 were presented with the Golden Diploma.

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