DECEMBER GRADUATION 2015
Presentation by Adele Kupchella ‘60
December 11, 2015 - Bertschi Center & Technology Commons
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INTRODUCTION - THOMAS P. FOLEY, JD
President, Mount Aloysius College Good evening and welcome to the 162st year of Graduation at Mount Aloysius. This is a very special evening and you have each earned your place at this table. I have three functions here right now—a welcome, some thanks and a special hello, so let me get right to it. First assignment, welcome—family, friends, graduates and our Mount Aloysius community. Whenever I am invited to say a few words at events like this, I am reminded of the story of the woman who invited a group of friends to dinner. At the table, she turned to her six year old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?” “I wouldn’t know what to say,” the girl replied. “Just say what you heard mommy say,” the woman replied. The little girl bowed her head and said, “O my God, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner.” Christina Koren, I don’t recommend that as our closing prayer! Second assignment, thank you. Thank you parents, spouses, children, grandparents, significant others—all of you who helped these graduates get to this day. “It Takes a Village” isn’t just the title of a best-selling book. We know for many of you it is the story of your education, and we applaud you and all the partners who helped motivate and guide you to this day—your parents and siblings, your friends, your teachers, your classmates, and for some of you today, your children. Parents, brothers and sisters and grandmoms and grandpops, aunts and uncles and for a few of you your
children—we thank you all for getting them to this point. You should all be very very proud. We thank you for the roles that each of you have played in the lives of our newest Mount Aloysius College graduates—whether it was building up their confidence or knocking it down sometimes, whether it was showing them how to tie a slip knot, how to rig a fishing-line, how to catch a fly ball or handle a sly insult, how to play Knuckles O’Toole on the piano or make the perfect pumpkin pie. Or solve algebraic equations, decipher nursing terminology, write a compelling essay or practice a short speech at your kitchen table. All of these skills helped them to find and develop their own Voice. You who came with them today came with them for a reason and it wasn’t just to drive the car. It was to carry all their possessions home for them. No—just kidding!! You came with them because you made them, because you love them, and because now you are brave enough to let them go out into the world with their college degrees. They say that courage is the first virtue, and we thank you all for showing that kind of courage in abundance here, again, this evening. Third assignment, hello graduates. We are here tonight to celebrate your accomplishments and to mark another landmark in your professional training. In the judgment of our faculty, you are prepared to take your place with professionals in health care, business, education, criminal justice, technology and other fields. It is our custom on these occasions to invite a prominent member of the community—someone who has been successful in the life of the mind or the spirit, in business or the arts—someone who has given back to the community. Well, you are all very lucky, because
we found one person who has done all those things. Adel Kupchella has been a leader of business, educational, arts and community organizations, in whatever locale her career has taken her—and all while she raised three successful children with her husband Chuck. Adele has served as a Trustee on numerous community and professional boards, including with the League of Women Voters and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. When her husband Chuck took office as President of the University of North Dakota, Adele founded the UND Chapter of Operation Campus Friends—during the first Iraq War to support military families in the community—and was especially active with the Healthy UND Steering Committee, the Empire Arts Center and the non-traditional students mentoring program. Chuck isn’t the only President ion the family. Adele also served as President of her Chapter of the National Association of Life Underwriters, as President of the University of Louisville Women’s Club and as President of the Council of State University President’s Spouses. Most importantly on this evening, Adele is a proud graduate of Mount Aloysius, one of several family members to go to school on these grounds. She serves on our Board of Trustees, where she chairs the Committee on Institutional Advancement. Adele is one of the very first friends that Michele and I made when we came here six years ago. She is very proud of her alma mater, and I can tell our students here today that she is one of your biggest fans, on our Board of Trustees and in the community. Welcome, Adele.
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REMARKS OF ADELE KUPCHELLA
Member - Board of Trustees, Mount Aloysius College Good Evening and congratulations to all of you, graduates and family members alike. Graduates, it’s not been an easy time for many of you to get your degrees; I know, I’ve been there. I know that many of you have had jobs and/or families while you were working on your degrees. But that makes your accomplishments all the more wonderful. Your families are proud of you and you should be very proud of what you have accomplished. President Foley started a tradition at Mount Aloysius College in picking a theme each year that wraps around every aspect of life at the College. In readings, in service, in dorm activities, in the speaker series, and in all other aspects of college life. The theme this year is Voice. And there are many different types of voices. Of course there is actual voice when someone is actually speaking to you, or you to another person. This is the most direct kind of Voice. Some of the actual voices can be overwhelming when they all come at you at once. Have you listened to some television news interviews or political debates where everyone is
talking at one time and all you can hear is noise. You don’t know what anyone is actually saying? It is just loud. There are ways of giving voice to feelings without actually speaking.
Music, poetry, photography, painting are some examples. Your voice is heard when you are cooking or baking for your family or friends. It’s a way of saying, “I love you.” You even make your voice known through your feelings simply by facial expressions or attitudes. But there are other voices that are not so obvious. They whisper and sometimes get louder if you ignore them. One of these quiet voices is your inner voice and it is often obscured by other, louder, actual voices. Maybe it is the voice of conscience. What is it trying to tell me? Maybe it’s the voice of experience. What does experiences tell me to do in this situation?
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Other inner voices come to you in your reflective, quiet moments. It’s the voice inside your head that needs to be recognized and listened to. Perhaps it needs to be coached to become a bit louder so you hear it. Specifically, I’m referring to the voice that tells you to take care of yourself. This one is especially in danger of being drowned-out by outside voices—both actual and subtle—telling you to put everything else first. Your children, your family, your friends, your work. All good things that do need your attention
—unless they come at the expense of your own well-being and good health. If you don’t take care of yourself you will be less effective, especially if you become incapacitated or worse. Who will take over your responsibilities then? If you listen, your inner voice will tell you when you are not doing what needs to be done to keep yourself healthy. If you listen to your body, your body will tell you what it needs. If there was something wrong with
your car, you would get it fixed, Do the same for your body. I’d like to share a personal story with you about listening to your inner voice. My husband and I spent nine years before our retirement at The University of North Dakota. I took full advantage of the wellness facility and wellness classes there. I have always paid attention to an inner voice telling me to take care of myself physically—eating nourishing foods, keeping my body hydrated and exercising to keep my body strong. I believe that if you take care of your body, your body will take care of you. A couple of months before my 60th birthday, I took a class in kickboxing. My husband thought I was crazy. What’s a nearly 60 year old doing taking kickboxing? Maybe he was afraid of what I was going to do with it. But I was up to the challenge and was really enjoying the class for a couple of months until I started to have some pain in my left knee. In kickboxing, you put some extra stress on your bones. Pain is actually a kind of inner voice—something without an actual voice that is trying to tell you something. I continued my classes for about a week or so thinking that I must have sprained something and it would work itself out. It didn’t. My doctor agreed that I must have injured it while exercising and sent me to a physical therapist. When it didn’t get better, a friend suggested I see an orthopedic doctor and I did. After taking x-rays, the doctor thought there was an infection in my knee, but he sent the x-rays to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. To make a long story short, it was cancer. I had non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, the primary site was in the bone in the
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distal femur. The doctors told me that this type of lymphoma usually has no symptoms until the cancer is much further advanced. In fact, only about three percent is found before it metastasizes to other parts of the body. After surgery, chemotherapy, immuno-therapy and radiation treatments, I was and am cancer free. I was very fortunate. If I hadn’t been exercising, if I hadn’t listened to that inner voice telling me to exercise, I might never have felt the pain until it was too late. And if I hadn’t listened to that inner voice telling me to do something about the pain, I have no doubt I would have had a very different outcome. So my message to you today is to take care of yourself. Keep your body strong so that you can do everything that is expected of you throughout your life, and most important, listen to that inner voice that tells you to take care of yourself. Here’s a way to remember this message: When you board an airplane, the first instruction you receive from the airline attendant is “in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will fall. If you are with a child or someone you need to assist, put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting anyone else.” Obviously, if you don’t take care of yourself first, you will not be able to help another person. You certainly won’t be as effective as you could be. Make yourself the priority that you deserve to be. I wish you all the best. Congratulations again, be proud of your accomplishments, celebrate this evening with family and friends, have a wonderful life and, and, to each one of you—take care of yourself.
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CLOSING REMARKS - PRESIDENT FOLEY Thank you Doctors Pugliese, Haschak and Anderson, for your gracious oversight of today’s festivities. Thank you Adele Kupchella. Thank you for sharing a bit of your life with us; thank you for your thoughtful and personal remarks to our graduates here today; thank you for embracing our theme Voice, with your helpful insights about the inner voice. Thank you Doctor Lovett and your staff for organizing this ceremony and for the role you played in their matriculation and today in their graduation. And thank you to our faculty, who more than anyone else at the College, helped get you to this wonderful evening. Now, as you leave the College tonight and as you look forward to accepting positions as fully credentialed professionals, we hope that as Mount Aloysius graduates, you will remember those other parts of your education here—education not just about how to earn a living but education on how to live a life. They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world— someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for. One of my wife Michele’s favorite authors, Anna Quindlen, puts it another way. She says—“Don’t ever confuse your life with your work...the second is only part of the first.” There are tons of people with the same degree that you have as of today and maybe tons more with the same job that you will have. But you are the only person alive who has full custody of your life—your own particular, special, remarkable and individual life. Your entire life—not just your life in the emergency room, or the classroom, or the rehab center
or the office. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just the size of your bank account, but the measure of your soul. You alone have full custody of these things that I talk about. Our mission at Mount Aloysius is not simply to prepare you for a job, but to help prepare you for life. It is no accident that you heard the college statement of philosophy so often while you were here. One more time: “Mount Aloysius College provides a setting in which students are encouraged... ... to synthesize faith with learning, ... to develop competence with compassion, ... to put talents and gifts at the service of others and ... to begin to assume leadership in the world community.” You have all done some of that during your time here, or you wouldn’t be sitting here as graduates. Your challenge is to take those lessons about a “life well-lived,” as well as a “profession well-practiced,” out with you into your world—and let others learn from and admire your example. As future leaders in the professions you will serve, as role models in the settings in which you work and as active duty citizens in the neighborhoods, towns and communities in which you will live, you have the chance to make a difference—in work and in life. And that is the complete message of your education here at Mt Aloysius College—that you have the talent to make a difference in your work, in your life, and in the lives of those around you. Never doubt
it, because each one of you already proved it to the faculty and your advisors here on this campus. You brought hope with you when you first came onto this campus, and now you take hope back out into the world with you as you leave. Final words—first to family and friends and then to our graduates. Family and friends with us here tonight, someone once said that the universe is not made up of atoms, it is made up of stories. And we know there are 350 different stories sitting out there tonight. We thank each you for the special story of your family, the story that led you to bring your children here to us at Mount Aloysius in the first place. Graduates, Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Weisel likes to say that “God made man (and woman) because he loves stories.” Go out, develop your voice and write your stories. Congratulations.
ADELE KUPCHELLA
Biography
Adele Kupchella is a 1960 graduate of Mount Aloysius Academy and alumna of The University of Louisville where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Mrs. Kupchella has been a member of the Mount Aloysius College Board of Trustees since 2008, and serves as the Chair of the Institutional Advancement Committee. She has been a leader in business, educational and community organizations, while simultaneously raising her own family with her husband Chuck, who formerly served as the President of the University of North Dakota. During and after her professional career in the insurance industry, Adele expressed the Mercy values through her community involvement. She has served on numerous community and professional boards, including the League of Women Voters, Community Theatre, President of her Chapter of the National Association of Life Underwriters, Youth Orchestra, and as President of the University of Louisville Women’s Club. When Adele’s husband, Charles Kupchella, served as the President of the University of North Dakota from 1999 to 2008, she was actively engaged in service both locally and nationally. As First Lady and Special Ambassador for The University of North Dakota, Adele organized and hosted formal events for the University, community, state, and national groups and individuals. She served on numerous committees for the University of North Dakota including the UND Capital Campaign Steering Committee, American Indians Program Council, Healthy UND Steering Committee, Women’s Health Advisory Committee, and Non-Traditional Students Mentoring Program. Adele founded the UND Chapter of Operation Campus Friends during the Iraq War, which was a support group for UND students and staff who were deployed in the military. Additionally, she served on the Board of Directors of the Empire Arts Center in Grand Forks, ND and chaired its annual fundraising event. Nationally, Adele served as Secretary, Presidentelect, and President of the Council of Presidents’ and Chancellors’ Spouses of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. As President of the Spouses Committee, she served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. She also served on the Spouses’ Committee of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Adele is the mother of three successful children. She has six grandchildren, one great-grandson, and another great-grandchild on the way. She and her husband reside in Ebensburg, Pa.