A graduate of the Pontifical Catholic University Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) in the Dominican Republic said she broke down in tears during the university's 79th ordinary graduation ceremony last Saturday, after spotting her doctoral thesis advisor among the academic authorities filing into the hall.
The graduate received a doctorate in Spanish Studies: Linguistics and Literature, the result of five years of study, including around four years devoted to her doctoral research. She wrote that the truly unforgettable moment came before she collected the degree, when she recognized her advisor, Rafael Nunez Cedeno, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago, among the officials taking part in the ceremony.
Mentor's journey from Chicago
Nunez Cedeno had traveled from Chicago to attend in person. Seeing him there, the graduate said, made her understand more clearly the scale of his support over the years. Since he taught one of her doctoral courses, she said, he took on her research with a commitment that went beyond academic duty, combining rigor, demanding standards and correction with trust, patience and generosity.
Over the course of the doctorate, she said, the two stopped being simply advisor and doctoral candidate and became family, a description she extended to Nunez Cedeno's wife, Yulissa, who she said was present in different ways throughout the process.
Rector's message on AI and humanity
Minutes later, the graduate said, PUCMM's rector, the Reverend Father Secilio Espinal, addressed the ceremony on protecting the human person in an age of artificial intelligence. One phrase from his remarks stayed with her, a call to act with humanity.
According to the graduate, Espinal urged those present not to let technological advances weaken people's capacity to listen to one another, meet, hold dialogue, walk together and stay attentive to others' needs. She said his words led her to look again at her mentor, since acting with humanity is not only a challenge raised by artificial intelligence but a daily choice in the face of everyday imperfections, haste and the indifference that so often separates people from one another.
PUCMM is a private Catholic university based in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, with campuses across the country. The University of Illinois at Chicago, where Nunez Cedeno holds emeritus status, is a public research university in Illinois, in the United States.
The graduate said Nunez Cedeno taught her linguistics, research methods and scientific discipline, and taught her to look beyond the obvious, read between the lines, question and give her best. But she said his presence that Saturday taught her something no academic program covers, that knowledge reaches its fullest dimension when it comes paired with humanity.
She said she is only beginning as a researcher and has much still to learn, but that she carries with her a seed she hopes to cultivate always: curiosity, rigor and constant inquiry. She thanked Nunez Cedeno for traveling so far to be close to her, and thanked Espinal for reminding the ceremony from the podium that no degree, no scientific advance and no intelligence, however extraordinary, means anything if humanity is lost along the way.
