Each year, graduation is among the most anticipated events for the Gannon community.

This year will be no different.

Families from all over the world will gather to share in the joy of watching family members mark such a momentous accomplishment.

Flash bulbs will undoubtedly go off, handshakes will be exchanged and tears shed.

However, we are somewhat disappointed that the presence of a recognizable name as the commencement speaker will be absent from the ceremony on May 11.

We’re confident this year’s speaker, Mary Ann Dillon, R.S.M., Ph.D., a Mercy Sister who serves as Senior Vice-President of Mission and Sponsorship at Mercy Health System, will knock her speech out of the newly renovated Erie Insurance Arena.

Providing quality and compassionate healthcare for the vulnerable among us—something Mercy Health Systems prides itself on— is of utmost importance in our society today, and we should be grateful to have such an accomplished administrator share in this special moment with us.

We realize that we should not expect to see leaders in politics, media and academia every year.

However, we had been hoping that Gannon would be able to produce a larger name, especially considering that Gannon searched internally for the speaker for the past two years: in 2011, outgoing president Antoine Garibaldi gave the commencement speech before Bishop Donald Trautman was honored last year.

We are all very excited for this year’s graduation and look forward to seeing our classmates and friends take a monumental step into the world. And our enthusiasm is not diminished in the least.

Here’s to this year’s and many more successful graduations.