FARMINGTON — Joan Benoit Samuelson told University of Maine at Farmington graduates Saturday how she broke ground as a female competitive runner, and urged them to persevere and work as hard through the challenges they would face in the future.
“You will have setbacks and challenges from which you will have to reboot and reroute,” Samuelson told the nearly 400 students, family and friends at commencement ceremonies on the UMF campus.
Benoit Samuelson delivered the commencement address to a crowd that packed rows of chairs and spread out onto a grassy hillside outside the Olsen Student Center after marching down High Street under overcast skies. UMF awarded 392 bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 2015. Most graduates were from Maine and some grew up only miles from campus, but their numbers also included students from Jamaica, the United Kingdom and Japan.
“You will not win all the time,” Benoit Samuelson added, pointing out the eight surgeries she had endured and noting that she had “lost many more road races than I have won.”
Benoit Samuelson, a Maine native, in 1984 was the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal for the marathon. She won the Boston Marathon women’s race in 1979 while still a student at Bowdoin College, setting an American and course record. In 1983, she set a world record as she won the race.
There was no women’s cross-country team when she went to Bowdoin, so she joined the men’s team instead, Benoit Samuelson said, pointing out that students need to make their own way in the world.
A committed environmentalist, she also commended the university’s moves toward sustainability and its “real world” curriculum, including its outdoor recreation business administration degree.
“A clean, sustainable Maine will attract jobs and provide a multitude of opportunities for UMF graduates here in Maine and beyond,” she said. “Maine desperately needs your knowledge, energy and fresh ideas.”
Chelsea Lear-Ward, from Levant, delivered the senior address. She left her classmates with some pieces of advice that she learned through her four years at UMF that highlighted avoiding negativity, not taking themselves too seriously, working hard and keeping in touch.
Lear-Ward choked up as she started reading her fifth piece of advice, “voice appreciation.”
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