Northern Michigan University President Kerri Schuiling addresses the crowd on Saturday during the school’s fall commencement ceremony. Almost 400 students were expected to participate in commencement. (Journal screen shot by Randy Crouch)

MARQUETTE — The student commencement speaker at Saturday’s Northern Michigan University fall commencement ceremony gave a different perspective on his college experience.

Nearly 400 of the more than 500 students eligible to participate in the ceremony were slated to take the stage.

One of them was Jeff Ferrington of downstate Macomb Township, who represented the NMU Global Campus as the student speaker. Ferrington graduated on Saturday with a degree in applied workplace leadership, minoring in business administration.

The Global Campus program allows students to start, continue or complete their degrees online.

“While the world looks a bit different than when some of you started your pursuit four years ago, others of us started it 20 years ago,” Ferrington said. “It doesn’t change that as we look forward to this ending, we are really just beginning.”

Ferrington said lessons will have to be learned.

“Some will be easy,” he said. “Others are going to be more of a struggle, and those struggles are tough — tough enough to shatter the direction that we think life should go into a million pieces.

“It’s ironic that some time you find out who you’re supposed to be by doing the things you’re not supposed to do, but nobody goes through life alone, and in our struggle, we’re grateful we can turn to our village.”

That village, he noted, includes friends, family and professors or advisers who have supported them.

“It’s OK to struggle,” Ferrington said. “Our circle of friends will change. We may find ourselves in new locations and enter the workforce as an adjustment. There are challenges with all of that, but allowing ourselves to not be perfect is the first mental step in persevering and recognizing the beauty in those broken pieces.”

NMU Board of Trustees Chair Steve Young spoke at the commencement as well.

“Completing one’s degree is always a major milestone, but doing so while navigating a global pandemic, well-being challenges and tough economic times is even more impressive,” Young said.

Diana Lafferty, assistant professor of wildlife ecology, was the faculty keynote speaker at commencement. She was selected through a nomination process overseen by the Associated Students of Northern Michigan University, the student government organization. 

“Although my instructional style and the content we cover in each of my courses are quite different, I infuse a common thread that runs through all my classes, which is the idea that as humans, we all have a significant impact on the ecosystems we inhabit and we are all connected to one another through our shared use of Earth’s natural resources and the ecosystems’ services on which we depend,” Lafferty said.

Higher education and public policy leader Linda Thompson, who was instrumental in creating NMU’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program in a previous capacity as dean of nursing at Oakland University, received an honorary doctorate degree in nursing on Saturday. She has served as president of Westfield State University in Massachusetts since July 2021.