This post was written by sports editor Nick Ong. 

After years of a tough work load leading up to their celebration, graduates of the College of Professional Studies and the Graduate School of Political Management were finally given a simple task: to listen.

Keynote speaker and D.C. Water general manager George S. Hawkins urged graduates to listen to the things that speak to you because often “the divine speaks to us quietly.”

Telling the bizarre story of how he found himself running a farm in Central New Jersey, Hawkins offered three pieces of hallmark wisdom to hear that voice.

Do something that matters to you. Do something that you like. And do it with people that you like.

His speech, praising the graduates for already making the changes he wished he had made earlier in his life, talked of the “big voices” of today and the small voices of tomorrow, and the next day.

“Something different is going to speak to you,” Hawkins said. “There have been plenty of times in my life when I unfortunately haven’t listened to a small voice I should have, but I thank the Lord Almighty, or whoever you may think that is, that I did that day.”

Bryne Fox Elwes Owen-Deatry, a 29-year-old political management graduate, was reminded of the hero’s journey that he and his fellow classmates now have the tools to go on.

“I think it’s also the value of doing what you really love, your passion, instead of just doing what you need to,” Deatry said.

Following Hawkins, student speaker Pascale Dahrouj, a political management graduate and native of Lebanon, recognized the important role her class now has in creating a dialogue among equals within civilization.

Coming from a life full of “uncertainty and instability,” she discussed the many things the world needs to end conflict and make up for the mistakes of those before us.

“The world needs us. So let us go out there. Go see the world, go discover culture and chart our own footprints on different lands than we are familiar with,” Dahrouj said.