Women's Lacrosse | April 29, 2015

by Jon Caroulis, University Communications

Maddy Collins is the second straight La Salle student-athlete to be selected to deliver the Commencement address, joining softball player Emily Moran in 2014. They are believed to be the only student-athletes to give the student address in University history.

PHILADELPHIA - La Salle University senior Maddy Collins has been selected to deliver the student Commencement address at La Salle's Undergraduate Commencement ceremony on May 17. And it might not have happened if she hadn't had a conversation with a buddy, campus security officer Joseph Kitchen, who informed her of something.

"He's so friendly, and we talk when I pass him on my way to lacrosse practice and class. Last year, he told me how any student could try out to deliver the address, and he mentioned the speaker, Emily Moran, and how amazing it was that a student-athlete was giving the 2014 student address," said Collins, an Honors student with a double major in English and marketing.

"I'm pretty competitive and creative, so from there I put writing a speech on my 'to-do' list and bounced ideas around over the summer and all year, but I didn't have anything significant committed to paper until the week it was due," Collins said. After learning she would be giving the speech, she told her parents and her boyfriend, and then Kitchen.

It wasn't until September that she found a theme for her speech. "I've been writing and reading poetry since I was in fourth grade, and took (La Salle English professor) Dr. Bryan Narendorf's poetry workshop class last semester, which changed the way I approach creative writing," said Collins, a resident of Millstone Township, N.J., who will attend St. John's School of Law in Queens, N.Y. in the fall.

"I get ideas for poems all of the time, though whether or not they materialize into a poem is another story," Collins said, "so basically what started as an idea for a poem became the backbone for a Commencement speech. Looking back at the writing process, it was cool to see how my English major sparked the idea, but that my marketing major ended up shining through often in the speech as well."

Collins added, "The speech probably took me an hour to write. After that, I left it for a day, then came back to edit and submit it. The whole foundation for the speech is about a culmination of genuine, first-hand experiences, so I didn't want to re-work it that much. I also didn't show it to anyone before submitting it for the same reason—I wanted it to come off as fresh and authentic."

Any graduating senior is eligible to apply to be Commencement speaker. First, written entries are submitted to a selection committee. Then, five finalists are invited to deliver the speech to the committee and a selection is made.

"Presenting it to an audience who were as committed, if not more committed, to La Salle than I am was an almost indescribable experience," Collins said. "This speech is intentionally Lasallian in every way—so presenting it and knowing everyone in the room understood the perspective I was talking about and was bringing their own Lasallian memories into this one particular listening experience was humbling. Saying it in front of people for the first time made me feel like a college freshman, senior, and alumni all at once—it made the fact I'll be graduating soon very, very real to me."

Two words form the theme of the speech: tradition and innovation.

"These words … were they opposites or compliments? Do they contradict each other? Can they truly co-exist to create La Salle University's identity?" Collins wrote. "But then I wondered: what if they balance each other out? Tradition and innovation. If La Salle's past and future as a university could be described in opposing terms, I was certain that the experience—what it means to be a student here, an alumnus from here, a 'Lasallian,' an Explorer—surely could be described in a similar way."

She also discusses being an athlete.

"Being a part of the women's lacrosse team for the past four years has contributed to my college experience immensely," Collins said. "I'm blessed to have had the opportunity to be a Division I athlete with such an amazing and fun group of teammates. I do realize, though, that not all students who go here are athletes, and wanted to make this speech a true representation of the graduating Class of 2015, so I bring more than athletics and what it's like to be on a team into the speech."

"Every athlete I know here has more than school and their sport on their plates—that's the type of experiences this speech is about," Collins said. "It gets at that dual-identity, that balance of opposites that is unlikely for a college student, but which works perfectly to create the dynamic identity La Salle and its graduates embody. For me, being a part of the lacrosse team was always at the core of my La Salle experience, but being a double major, a member of the Honors Program, and volunteering with different organizations also contributed to my growth as an individual while at La Salle."

Candace Taglianetti Bossell, head women's lacrosse coach at La Salle, said, "We are so proud of Maddy and all that she has accomplished while being a dedicated student-athlete in our lacrosse program. Maddy has been an invaluable member of our team, and her dedication to the program is a testament to her incredible character."

La Salle University was established in 1863 through the legacy of St. John Baptist de La Salle and the Christian Brothers teaching order, which St. La Salle founded in 1680. La Salle is an educational community shaped by traditional Catholic and Lasallian values. Money magazine named La Salle University a "Value All-Star," ranking it the eighth-best college nationwide for adding the most value for a college education. Globally, the Lasallian educational network includes 1,000 schools (60 of which are institutions of higher education) serving 940,000 students in 80 countries.