By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Choice and change were recurring themes at the University of Maine at Farmington’s 152nd commencement ceremony Saturday.

About 375 graduates followed a five-man bagpipe ensemble down High Street to a parking lot behind Olsen Student Center, where President Theodora Kalikow, in her opening remarks, welcomed people in both English and French.

During her comments, Kalikow honored graduate Priscilla Parvanta, of Winthrop, a single mother of four, for attaining three bachelor’s degrees cum laude in social science, anthropology and general studies.

“Enough already, Priscilla, we’re impressed,” Kalikow joked.

UMF Professor Emeritus Archie “Bill” W. Berry Jr. received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. Berry, retired geology professor and owner of Saddleback Ski Resort, initiated the university’s geology field trip and is an active community supporter and philanthropist, according to Kalikow. He is also a man of many skills.

He can “fix a cranky hay baler and teach a child to ski,” she said.

Student speaker Ashley Nadeau told fellow graduates, they all deserved “to be congratulated today.”

Nadeau, daughter of Kathleen and Gerald Nadeau, of Bath, was a member of the student senate, the college radio station, a comedy improv group – The Lawn Chair Pirates and student social and environmental activism group – SEA-Change. She graduated Saturday with a bachelor’s in political and social sciences.

“It is an incredible privilege simply to have been given the chance to earn a college degree,” she said. Only about 1 percent of the world’s population has a four-year degree, she added.

She urged her classmates to consider their choices as they move forward. The “American dream” has changed over the years, she said.

“Success is not as simple as a happy family, nice dog and white picket fence anymore. It’s more likely to look like a four-bedroom colonial with cathedral ceilings, two-car garage and swimming pool, in a gated community just close enough to the interstate,” she said. “As educated people in an increasingly globalized world, we have a responsibility, not only to ourselves and our own success, but to the rest of the world.”

Home sizes, automobile fuel efficiency, clothing and food choices all have a potential impact on people in distant countries, she said.

“Nothing is truly self-contained, and ours will probably be the first generation to fully realize the extent of the connection we have to the rest of the world,” she added.

Keynote speaker Dr. Carolyn Reed, also spoke about choice and change.

A native of Farmington, whose father, Clayton Reed, an education professor at UMF, died of cancer in his 40s while she was attending University of Maine. His death, she said, solidified her desire to become a doctor to study and treat cancer. Now a nationally recognized cardiothoracic surgeon, Reed is director of clinical affairs at Hollings Cancer Center in Charleston, S.C.

Admitting that much of what she said would be forgotten in the excitement of graduation, Reed divided her comments into three sections focusing on risk, lifelong learning and “footprints in the sand.”

Quoting from poet Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” she said risk provides opportunities for growth.

Referring to the thesis of “Who Moved My Cheese,” by Spencer Johnson and Kenneth H. Blanchard, she told graduating seniors, change happens. It is the choices one makes to respond to change that makes all the difference. It is through lifelong learning that people are more able to adapt to change, be open-minded and open listeners, she said.

“Do not doubt that all of you will leave footprints in the sand,” she said. “It will be your job to be lifelong learners and to pass this on to the next generation,” she told them.

“By doing you will learn, by learning you will do,” she concluded.