{"id":1623,"date":"2012-12-18T15:10:16","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T15:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/?p=1623"},"modified":"2012-12-18T15:10:16","modified_gmt":"2012-12-18T15:10:16","slug":"grads-get-history-lesson-inspirational-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/2012\/12\/18\/grads-get-history-lesson-inspirational-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"Grads get history lesson, inspirational advice"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1624\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1624\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/files\/2012\/12\/Commence1-pik1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1624\" src=\"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/files\/2012\/12\/Commence1-pik1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"379\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1624\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Carrigg, retired CEO of New York State Electric &amp; Gas Corp. and founding member of the Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, receives an honorary degree from Provost Donald Nieman, left, and President Harvey Stenger.  Photo by Jonathan Cohen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>By Eric Coker|\u00a0DECEMBER\u00a017,\u00a02012<\/p>\n<p>James Carrigg has no doubts that the Class of 2012 will make the right decisions in the future.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs you all venture forth from this great University to a new job, additional education, or to start your own business as an entrepreneur, I submit you will someday have your own \u2018defining moment\u2019 when you must ask yourself: \u2018Is this the right thing to do?\u2019\u201d Carrigg said.<\/p>\n<p>Carrigg, a longtime chairman, chief executive officer and president of New York State Electric &amp; Gas Corporation (NYSEG), received an honorary degree and spoke at the Commencement ceremony held Dec. 16 at the Events Center.<\/p>\n<p>More than 760 bachelor\u2019s, master\u2019s and doctoral degrees were awarded during the two-hour ceremony, which also featured addresses from President Harvey Stenger, doctoral-degree recipient Jason Loew and bachelor\u2019s-degree recipient Matthew Comite.<\/p>\n<p>Carrigg has had a long and involved connection with Binghamton University, supporting the Anderson Center for the Performing Arts, athletics, the Institute for Child Development and scholarships honoring former President Lois B. DeFleur, former Watson Dean Lyle Feisel and Vice President Thomas Kelly. He is also a past chair of the Harpur Forum and a past member of the Binghamton Foundation Board of Directors.<\/p>\n<p>But Carrigg admitted to the graduates that \u201cmy role here today is clearly linked to the establishment of the Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science,\u201d which opened in June 1983.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA number of key people in this community banded together and embarked on a crusade to make it happen,\u201d Carrigg said. \u201cWhy? Because it was the right thing to do!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"http:\/\/www.binghamton.edu\/inside\/index.php\/inside\/story\/graduates-get-history-lesson-inspirational-advice\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Eric Coker|\u00a0DECEMBER\u00a017,\u00a02012 James Carrigg has no doubts that the Class of 2012 will make the right decisions in the future. \u201cAs you all venture forth from this great University to a new job, additional education, or to start your own business as an entrepreneur, I submit you will someday have your own \u2018defining moment\u2019 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-binghamton-university-events","7":"category-university-archives"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}