Cohort’s jewelry distributed in Milano Ballroom reception; president toasts accomplishment
With snow falling and outdoor breath steaming, it may be hard to contemplate Spring Commencement. But the civilian Class of 2022 stepped toward their finish Friday night, receiving their class rings in a Milano Ballroom ceremony.
Norwich’s civilian class ring tradition was started in 1990 (the Corps of Cadets class ring tradition traces back to 1923). By tradition, Norwich’s rings feature a class crest on one side and Norwich University’s crest on the other. (The Norwich-crest side is also called the 1819 side, for the university’s founding year.) Student committees solicit ideas and create class-side designs for both Corps and civilian students.
About a dozen students attended the reception along with President Mark Anarumo, Assistant Student Activities Director Crystal Drown and others.
Reine Gibb, a senior biology major, said she was glad to be among classmates when she collected her ring, a portable symbol of her college days.
“Even though we still have our degree to look forward to, this ring is something we can carry with us anywhere,” she wrote in an email. “It's an amazing feeling to get to that junior year and be surrounded by people who have been on the same path and have succeeded this far with you.”
Gibb, who presented research at last August’s Vermont Disease Ecology Conference on campus, said her ring will remind her of her professors and friends and represents not only her class’s personal triumph, but her own. The word “vaincre,” French for “conquer” or “defeat,” across her ring’s stone will remind her of sticktoitiveness.
“For me, the importance of the ring is to put in check my negativity. Even when other people tell you that you can succeed, sometimes your inside voice is the loudest,” she wrote. “I definitely will wear it more often than not as a reminder that I made it through when I could have given up.”
The Corps of Cadets had its ring ceremony Oct. 1 in Plumley Armory, welcoming author and podcaster Randall H. Miller ’93 M ’07 as guest speaker.
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