![\"December,](\"http:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/newsletters\/BusinessNetworks\/2008\/01\/images\/commencement.jpg\" "\\"December,")
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At the Fall Commencement on December 17, 2007, approximately 810 undergraduate students and 241 graduate students became the newest alumni of the College of Business Administration.<\/p>\n
Undergraduates from the\u00a0Landon School, with the exception of the School of Accounting, received their diplomas during an afternoon ceremony, with the Chapman Graduate School and the School of Accounting ceremony taking place in the evening.<\/p>\n
Joyce J. Elam<\/strong>, executive dean and vice provost, FIU Online, spoke at both gatherings, recapping the college\u2019s many achievements\u2014including the recent completion of the first phase of the new College of Business Administration Complex\u2014and communicating to both audiences the idea of GEM: gratitude, engagement, and meaning.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile you\u2019ve each earned your degrees yourselves, I hope you also feel grateful to all those who made it possible . . . and to your good fortune to have had access to the opportunity\u2014afforded to only a few people in the world today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Tying the idea of gratitude to the notion of engagement, she explained that their engagement \u201cfacilitates our reputation for educational excellence,\u201d expressing her hope that they would continue to stay engaged in the college.<\/p>\n Finally, she brought together both concepts to help graduates grapple with the all-important question: What gives meaning to your life?<\/p>\n \u201cI suggest that being aware and grateful for who and what surrounds you provides one clue to creating and finding that meaning,\u201d she said. \u201cI think engagement in all you do represents another.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Colombian ambassador and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) President\u00a0Luis Alberto Moreno<\/strong> gave the commencement address at the afternoon ceremony.<\/p>\n While special for all, ceremony holds heightened significance for three.<\/em><\/p>\n When the top three students in the Master of Science in Management Information Systems (MSMIS) program received their diplomas, the moment culminated a long journey toward academic distinction and to a recovered friendship, renewed by an almost unbelievable coincidence.<\/p>\n \u201cEduardo Baez<\/strong>,\u00a0Veysell Naranjo<\/strong>, and I were born and raised in a very humble city in Cuba and attended the same school, although years apart,\u201d said\u00a0Mairim Avila<\/strong>, who knew both of them. \u201cWe lost contact for years and became unaware of what had happened in each other\u2019s lives. The first day of class, we met, but time had passed, and we did not recognize each other. Before that day ended, though, we discovered each other\u2019s identity.\u00a0 It was an amazing coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the Fall Commencement on December 17, 2007, approximately 810 undergraduate students and 241 graduate students became the newest alumni of the College of Business Administration. Undergraduates from the\u00a0Landon School, with the exception of the School of Accounting, received their diplomas during an afternoon ceremony, with the Chapman Graduate School and the School of Accounting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[470,711,1405,1619,1651,2632],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24192,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions\/24192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biznews.fiu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n \n ![\"MSMIS](\"http:\/\/business.fiu.edu\/newsletters\/BusinessNetworks\/2008\/01\/images\/three.jpg\")
\nEduardo Baez<\/strong> and\u00a0Mairim Avila<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n