The college will officially become Western New England University on July 1.
SPRINGFIELD - It may not have been the end of the world, but it was the end of an era for graduates at Western New England College on Saturday.
Not only was it a new chapter for approximately 600 undergraduate students of the Wilbraham Road campus, but the end of one as the commencement marked the last as Western New England College. The school will officially become Western New England University on July 1. The campus began as the Springfield division of Eastern University in 1919, according to college President Anthony S. Caprio.
“You are the last of the college’s pioneers who have led us to the new frontier,” Caprio told the sea of royal blue-clad graduates before him. The theme of the commencement was “launching leaders” and featured political humorist Jimmy Tingle, who also received an honorary doctorate during the ceremony.
“We asked (former California) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he declined. Something about a busy Father’s Day,” history professor John S. Baick told the crowd, eliciting surprised titters. “Too soon? C’mon, it’s been a few days.”
Jokes at the expense of "the Terminator” aside, the message to graduates facing a tough economy and uncertain futures was a hopeful one.
Tingle, a stand-up comic, writer, actor and political commentator who has appeared on CNN, The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and other prime time series, said he cut his professional teeth on open microphone nights, amateur Gong Shows and as a street performer in Harvard Square.
He opened his speech by joking that the world was scheduled to end at 6 p.m. on Saturday, according to California preacher Harold Camping, who blew it on a similar prediction in 1994.
Tingle also told graduates that a man he met in a pub in Dublin when he was fresh out of college put an important life lesson into words over fish and chips.
“He said: “Sing your song, son. Sing your song,” Tingle recounted, reviving the message for the graduates of 2011. “Sing your song, and if you can’t sing yet, practice until you can sing.”
Another 200 graduates came from the college's postgraduate programs including the Western New England College School of Law.