Michael Patrick O'Neill receives a top award at Saint Michael's College commencement event

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Michael Patrick O'Neill, left, wins top award at Saint Michael's College. The Rev. Brian Cummings, SSE, presents the award.

COLCHESTER, VT (05/20/2013)(readMedia)-- During Commencement Week activities May 9-12 at Saint Michael's College, Michael Patrick O'Neill, son of John and Kathy O'Neill of Leominster, was awarded the 2013 Elizabeth A. Durick Award, which is given to a senior who has made a significant contribution to the Christian goals of the college. Mr. O'Neill graduated with a double major in political science and religious studies, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude.

"Michael participated in virtually every Edmundite Campus Ministry offering during his four years on campus," said the Rev. Brian Cummings, SSE, campus minister, who presented the award. Michael served as a peer ministry leader, was a program coordinator for Connections, a Scripture-based faith sharing group, helped organize Taize Prayer services and participated in the weekly evaluation of the Sunday liturgies.

Father Cummings praised Mr. O'Neill's participation in the retreat ministry, including Emmaus, Leap, Busy Student and Weston Priory retreats, and his leadership of high school Confirmation retreats in the Diocese of Burlington.

"As a team leader in these retreat programs ministering to his peers, Michael witnessed to his faith, sharing his commitment and evolving understanding of what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ," Father Cummings said. Mr. O'Neill is one of several Saint Michael's graduates doing a year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps next year.

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.