1,101 Graduates

2014 Huntsman School valedictorian, Brooke Siler

By Klydi Heywood

The Huntsman School of Business graduated 817 students at a commencement ceremony on May 5, with 141 of those degrees granted through the Huntsman undergraduate program in China, and 284 students earning graduate degrees this year.

The commencement ceremony began with this year’s valedictorian, Brooke Siler, who graduated with bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Biochemistry with a 4.0 GPA. She served as the president of the Society for the Advancement of Ethical Leadership as well as the Chemistry Club, was a Huntsman Scholar, participated in our Koch Scholar Program, went to Asia through the Go Global study abroad program, and also received the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship while conducting research in the biochemistry department. This summer she will begin work with the global investment research group at Goldman Sachs.

Speaking from experience, Brooke advised students to use our diverse backgrounds to bring a fresh experience to any field they choose.

“Today I ask you to be aware of the inner walls that you put around your mind,” Brooke said. “I also ask you to search your soul, find your passion, and chase it, regardless of whether or not that passion has anything to do with your major, your past, or your current interests.”

After Brooke, the graduates and audience had the opportunity to hear from this year’s commencement speaker, Dr. Tayseer Al-Smadi, who earlier in the morning received an honorary doctorate degree from USU. Dr. Tayseer is currently a senator of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, where he serves as chair of the Senate Public Services Committee. Additionally, in February 2014, he was elected chairman of the Jordan Press and Publishing Corporation. Dr. Tayseer received a Ph.D. inEconomics from the Huntsman School in 1998.

2014 Huntsman Commencement speaker, Dr. Tayseer Al-Smadi

“My first thought which I want to share with you today is to live your humanity in the full sense with yourself, at home, at work, in the community at large, and wherever you go,” Dr. Tayseer said. “Don't take pride in your differences of race, or social rank, or gender, or nationality; remember that ‘strength lies in differences, not in similarities’, as the late Stephen Covey rightly said.”

“Success, in a nutshell, is a matter of ‘wining yourself,’” Dr. Tayseer said. “Make sure to keep ‘winning yourself’ all the time; for me, wining myself includes caring for others.”

As Dean Douglas D. Anderson concluded the ceremony he encouraged students to “remember that your passion for excellence must always be in balance with your compassion for your fellow human beings.”

“While economic logic connects input to output, and risk to reward, the moral logic is often inverse - it is better to give than to receive,” Dean Anderson continued. “To win yourself, as Dr. Tayseer has suggested, lose yourself in something greater than yourself.”