Eric Jaukkuri of Quincy receives Dupont Award for contributions to the Saint Michael's College community

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Eric Jaukkuri of Quincy wins Dupont Award at Saint Michael's College.

COLCHESTER, VT (05/21/2013)(readMedia)-- During Commencement Week activities May 9-12 at Saint Michael's College, Eric Jaukkuri, a senior, English major, the son of Ellen and Gary Jaukkuri of Quincy, received the Reverend Gerald E. Dupont Award for outstanding contribution to the Saint Michael's community.

Mr. Jaukkuri was praised for his energy and enterprise in bringing exciting events to campus in his role as co-secretary of programming for the Student Association. He brought John Hodgeman, Macklemore and other national figures. Mr. Jaukkuri was also cited for his extensive leadership in the MOVE (Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts) Extended Service program. Additionally, he worked as a tour guide through the Founders Society, welcomed new studies being an Orientation leader, and organized campus ministry retreats through LEAP.

"Eric transferred to Saint Michael's as a sophomore and took the place by storm," said the SA President in presenting the award to Mr. Jaukkuri. "He shows unending willingness to help others whether with a cup of coffee and a hug or doing any odd job that needs to be take care of to ensure the success of an event," the presenter said. "His attention to doing the right thing embodies the ideas of courage, vision, devotion and faith."

Mark Shields Commencement Speaker

The Commencement speaker was political commentator Mark Shields, who addressed 470 students earning bachelor's degrees, 43 earning master's degrees and 4,000-plus in the assembly. Shields, who has a storied career in American politics, has written a column for the Washington Post since 1979 and appeared as a regular commentator on The PBS NewsHour. He offered the 2013 graduates advice for life and a powerful endorsement of the value of politics.

"Call your mother ... not text, not e-mail, call her," he said during the Mother's Day ceremony. "She wants to hear how you sound." He also said that "no one in recorded history on his or her death bed has ever said, "Gee, I wish I had spent more time at the office." And he advised graduates to pay off their student loans so later generations will have adequate funds to attend college too. Shields told them not to worry about what others think of them "because believe me, other people are not thinking about you ... they are worrying about what you think of them." Shields said he believes in the value of politics, "the peaceable resolution of conflict between legitimate competing interests, adding, "I don't know how else we can resolve our public differences and live together." At its best, politics "can help to make ours a world where the powerful can be made more just and where the weak can become more secure," he said.

And Shields said, "I value the politics that wrote the GI Bill, the politics which passed the Marshall Plan to rebuild a war-devastated Europe-politics that wrote the Clean Air act which has taken 99% of the lead out of the air and that save the Great Lakes through the Clear Water Act-the kind of politics that took want and fear out of old age through Social Security."

Along with Shields, the audience heard excellent speeches from three students, the college president and the chairman of the board. Honorary doctor of humane letters degrees went to Shields, Alice Boutin, the first "first lady" of Saint Michael's College, wife of the late Saint Michael's President Bernard Boutin; Patrick Robins, a 1961 graduate of Saint Michael's, Burlington community leader and founder of Symquest Group; and Father Daniel Riley, ofm, founding member of Mt. Irenaeus, Franciscan Mountain Retreat, who has been called "a living saint."

About Saint Michael's

Saint Michael's College www.smcvt.edu  students are challenged to do their best, find their niche, take on opportunities to grow, and immerse themselves in academic pursuits. Intellectual rigor, compassion, teamwork, caring-these characterize a Saint Michael's experience. A residential Catholic college, Saint Michael's is steeped in the social justice spirit of its founding priests, the Edmundites. Saint Michael's is located three miles from Burlington, Vermont, one of America's top 10 college towns. Headed by President John J. Neuhauser, the college has 1,900 undergraduate students and 500 graduate students. Identified by the Princeton Review, 2013 as one of the nation's Best 377 Colleges, and included in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2013, Saint Michael's students and professors have received Rhodes, Woodrow Wilson, Goldwater, Pickering, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other grants. The college is one of the nation's top-100, Best Liberal Arts Colleges as listed in the 2013 U.S. News & World Report rankings