Ursinus Announces Speakers for 152nd Commencement Ceremony

Steven Forti, chief wellness and resiliency officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery, and retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters and deliver the keynote address during Ursinus College’s commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 17.

The Reverend Dionne Boissière, chaplain of the Church Center for the United Nations and associate minister for Mount Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport, Conn., will receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity and deliver the Baccalaureate address on Friday, May 16. Ursinus will also bestow an honorary Doctor of Divinity upon Lenape Elder John Thomas, indigenous peoples advocate and elder of the Delaware (Lenape) Tribe of Indians in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

“While the work they do and the communities they serve may vary, these three remarkable individuals share an unwavering passion for advocacy, a deep commitment to their communities, and a dedication to empowering and enriching the lives of others,” said Ursinus President Robyn Hannigan. “Each one embodies the core values and transformative spirit of an Ursinus education.”

Featured in The Twenty-Year War: Our Next Greatest Generation exhibit at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum, keynote speaker Steven Forti says that his entire existence has been shaped by his military experience, which began when he was 19 years old. Enlisting in 1991 and completing Special Forces training in 1994, Forti served over 30 years in the United States Army, eventually earning the rank of master sergeant.

Now serving as chief wellness and resiliency officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), the premier orthopedic hospital in the country, Forti is responsible for creating and managing programs that promote the mental and physical health of the medical staff, clinicians, and employees, a role that grew out of his experience during the COVID pandemic in March 2020. At that time, Forti was serving as a consultant for crisis management at the HSS, where he assisted HSS teams convert the orthopedic surgical hospital into a COVID treatment facility and provided wellness support to HSS frontline staff.

Forti’s diverse and varied background also includes serving as an ICU nurse, a trauma consultant, and as founder of FitFight LLC, a global competition fitness platform that allows athletes to compete virtually and earn cash rewards.

Chaplain of the Church Center for the United Nations (CCUN), Rev. Dionne Boissière is the first woman of African descent to hold the position in the history of this New York ecumenical and inter-faith landmark. Owned by the United Methodist Women, CCUN’s purpose is to expand the ecumenical community’s capacity and access to the United Nations, to bring greater voice to the broad moral and ethical concerns of the church in international affairs, peacemaking, and advocacy. As the chief spiritual steward of the CCUN, Rev. Boissière ensures that the Church Center provides sacred space, worship, hospitality, community advocacy and a forum for partners and civil society to engage in transformative education that seeks to empower and build the things that make for peace.

Rev. Boissière also serves as an associate minister at the Mt. Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport, Conn. She uses her gift of preaching, teaching and facilitation, conducting workshops for various churches, faith based and civil society institutions throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Rev. Boissière has been listed among those called the ‘next generation’ of black women ministers and has one of her sermons and prayer devotionals featured in two publications; Those Preaching Women: A Multicultural Collection (Judson Press) and Soul Sisters: Devotions for and from African American, Latina, and Asian Women (TarcherPerigee).

Elder John Thomas, a key partner in the Welcome Home Project and a retired leader within the Delaware tribe, has advocated for the rights and protection of indigenous people, both nationally and internationally, through the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the International Indian Treaty Council. He has worked to defend against desecration of sacred burial sites in the United States, his work contributing to the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which focuses on the reburial of ancestral remains that have been in the hands of museums, universities, and private collectors. Thomas served in the U.S. Army 101st and 82nd Airborne in 1962, and as a diplomat at the 1979 Hostage Crisis in Iran.

Ursinus sits on Lënapehòkink, the original homelands of the Lenape or Delaware Indians. As a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, Elder Thomas has been a key figure in helping the college make progress on the Welcome Home Project, including the development of a Land Acknowledgment Statement, as well as the Statement of Mutual Intentions. In addition to presentations, Thomas has loaned the college 50+ years of materials that he accumulated as part of his advocacy for the rights and protection of indigenous people, both nationally and internationally.

This year marks Ursinus’s 152nd commencement ceremony. It will take place at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 17, under the tent on the lawn in front of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art. A baccalaureate ceremony precedes commencement on Friday, May 16, at 4 p.m.