A day to remember: graduation 2010

The joy and excitement, of course, were felt by the 466 degree recipients – the largest graduating class in DMU’s history – and hundreds of family members, friends, faculty and staff. Keynote speaker Thomas Vilsack, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and two-term Iowa governor, congratulated the graduates and encouraged them to be both “healers and leaders” in three areas: addressing the “crisis” of chronic disease, revitalizing rural America and serving the under-served in other countries.

“There is work to be done by trained, qualified and committed healers,” said Vilsack, who received an honorary doctor of laws degree at the ceremony for his career in public service. “You, too, can help in doing this to reshape America’s view in terms of the rest of the world and to reshape the rest of the world’s view of America by contributing to a sense of community, of giving something back…to help heal those around the world who are in need.”

Commencement participants also felt sorrow: Peter Pintus, a Holocaust survivor who was to receive an honorary doctor of humane letters at the ceremony, unexpectedly died just five days earlier on May 24. He was honored posthumously.

A Des Moines resident since 1964, Mr. Pintus used his life experiences to teach lessons of tolerance, understanding and forgiveness. A hospital chaplain, Episcopal deacon and – most recently – assistant to the rabbi at Temple B’nai Jeshurun, he addressed students and faculty for several years at DMU’s annual Holocaust remembrance.

The week before commencement, Moisés Cartagena Aponte, his wife, Idamaris Santiago, and sons Moisés and Adriel celebrated his upcoming graduation by enjoying local attractions including the Science Center of Iowa and Adventureland amusement park. As they should – after all, they’d traveled more than 2,300 miles to get to Des Moines.

Cartagena, a physical therapist and instructor at the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao, chose to pursue a doctorate in physical therapy to better help patients and to comply with the American Physical Therapy Association’s expectation that all physical therapists have doctoral degrees in the discipline by 2020. He discovered DMU’s post-professional doctor of physical therapy program on APTA’s website.

“I was looking for a D.P.T. program that offers distance learning, so I could finish it here and continue working,” he says.

DMU’s P.P.D.P.T. program and master’s programs in public health and health care administration can be completed with courses on campus, online or a blend of both. In his program, Cartagena came to campus twice – in February 2008 for a manual therapy course and for commencement this May.

“I decided to participate because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I want to share this event with my family,” he said before traveling to Des Moines. “It is the culmination of a long, formal educational career.” He deserved to celebrate. Cartagena’s first language is Spanish, so he “spent a lot of hours” translating and proofreading from English to Spanish and vice versa. Like many other online students across the country and around the world, he had to track his classmates’ time zones to complete group assignments.

“I had to readjust my sleep hours because in many instances, projects were done in groups, and I had to wait during the night for their feedback to submit my assignments,” he notes.

Still, Cartagena is “thankful” for the “great experience” and glad to be part of the Class of 2010.

“I really enjoyed the accessibility of the faculty during all my courses and the constructive teaching style,” he says. “Working in groups with my classmates taught me the importance of collaborative work in our profession. The program gives me tools to be a better physical therapist and a better health care provider.”