A total of 413—307 undergraduates and 106 graduate students—received newly-minted degrees.

First-term Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and Worcester-area philanthropist Mary DeFeudis also were recognized with honorary doctorates in Public Administration and Humane Letters respectively.

With the graduates in black gowns and mortar-board hats filling the front rows, and family and friends overflowing the rest of the sprawling tent set up in Copper Quad, Nichols President Susan West Engelkemeyer declared. “We know you are leaving us at your best right now, but the best is yet to come.”

Engelkemeyer’s send off followed the words of Connecticut Governor Malloy, the featured commencement speaker, who advised the graduating students to embrace life after Nichols.

“It is now time for you to shape the world around you,” Malloy said. “The future is nothing to fear, but it must be met with a sense of urgency.”

Malloy also counseled that changing times require open minds and considerable flexibility. “There will be changes in government, in business that will affect our lives in ways we could never have imagined,” he said. “Accept a new idea even if it confounds what you know about the subject previously.”

Two Nichols graduates—class valedictorian Stephen Mack and senior president Stefany Mendez—offered reflections on their four years at Nichols.

“Our time at Nichols was about celebrating and sharing our true self with others without the confines of intolerance,” Mack observed. “To be quirky, different, or push the boundaries of the status quo was genuinely acceptable as well as appreciated.”

“True and pure life lessons, born from real life experiences, is what we gained from our interaction with the faculty at Nichols,” Mendez added. “They have prepared us well for the world of work, but more importantly for a way to live our lives.”

“I’m done, and I get to be a real adult,” quipped graduating senior Fae Risio.

To classmate Eric Lowell, the occasion was bittersweet. “It’s a sign of a new beginning,” he reflected. “But I’m really going to miss this place a lot.”

Besides receiving their degrees, more than two dozen of the graduates were honored for achievement in their academic programs or for distinction in their Nichols careers.

The latter category of awards recognized Keith Turbesi for academic excellence in the Nichols Graduate program; Crystal Dennison for best representing the ideals of the College; Stefany Mendez for character and citizenship; Kristina Lindgren for best overall achievement; Stephanie Lee for industry and consistent application; Thomas Haggerty for loyalty, integrity, and cooperation; Kyle Butler for most significant improvement academically; Megan Woodruff for dedication, service, and commitment to perfection; and Gianna Raffa for service to Nichols College.

Going to the NCAA Division III post-season tennis tournament is getting to be a habit for the Nichols men’s and women’s tennis teams.

After playing in the NCAAs last spring, the Bison men followed suit on May 9th, defeating Colby Sawyer in a 5-0 shutout in the first round of this year’s tournament before dropping a second round match, 5-1, to a powerful Williams team the following Saturday.

These high-profile accomplishments represent only the latest chapter in a continuing success story for both the men and women of Nichols tennis.

The men’s team consists of 16 players, two of whom come from overseas, Carlos de la Cruz from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Eduardo Irizarry from Lajas, Puerto Rico. The women’s team, meanwhile, features 13 players, some of whom like Anna Dyakiv from the Ukraine and Kelsey Peterson from Fairbanks, Alaska, have come to Nichols from even farther afield.

As a freshman Irizarry had a singles record of 17-2 and an identical doubles record compiled with sophomore doubles partner Brandon Roode. Irizarry also was named CCCC Rookie of the Week three times.

“Making it to the NCAA tournament and competing against very tough teams in the fall season has given us a lot of confidence because we know that we can beat those teams,” says Roode.

The men’s tennis team prepares for the NCAA tournament by playing big name teams in the regular season. In the past season the Bison faced Division I school Holy Cross, beating them in a surprising 7-0 victory.

“In the summer I really enjoy training and getting better for the fall season to face these big opponents. I can’t wait for next fall to try and go a step further,” Roode says.

As for freshman partner Irizarry, “It’s been very different for me, the language, the food, and culture,’ he admits. “But I have enjoyed myself very much this year and love playing tennis here.”

Recruiting almost all 29 of his players, ninth-year coach Paul Brower has built the men’s and women’s teams into conference champions. “I spend a tremendous amount of time on recruiting,” Brower explains. “And a successful team is a big part of getting recruits to come to Nichols.”

The women, who play the bulk of their schedule in the fall, won the CCC Championship in 2010, 2011, and were CCC tournament finalists in 2012. The men won the league championship in 2012 as well as this year. Both teams have made it into the second round of the NCAA Divison III championships.

While the Nichols students gathered in the high-tech Finance and Technology seminar room at the Fels Student Center at 8:30am, their Chinese counterparts participated from an evening class at their school.

After Goncalves talked briefly to both groups about the role of Asia, and China in particular, as emerging markets, the students took over, asking and answering each other’s trans-Pacific questions.

Among their exchanges during the 45-minute session, the Saint Joseph students inquired about the requirements and roadmaps for opening a business in the United States. For their part, the Nichols International Business majors concentrated on areas such as the ability of China’s developing infrastructure to support the expansion of American into that country.

Goncalves notes that he had prepared his Nichols undergraduates for a range of topics, but hadn’t told them that the more than two dozen Chinese students they would encounter were enrolled in the Saint Joseph’s MBA program. “The students and the professor in China were impressed with our students,” Goncalves reports. “And they sent us emails praising our technology and facilities.”

More significantly, Goncalves says, the participants at both schools benefited from the diversity they brought to their joint classroom during the videoconference. When Goncalves tweeted some of the pictures of the ongoing event, they got re-tweeted across the Nichols community.

The idea for the Nichols/Saint Joseph’s collaboration emerged from a class that Goncalves taught in Macau last summer. “We came up with a bilateral relationship between our two colleges,” he says. “Eventually students from each could come to each other’s campus.”

Goncalves, who travels frequently to teach at universities and consult with companies abroad, has made similar inroads into his native country Brazil. During May last year, a dozen of his graduate students spent ten days studying the Brazilian economy at Salesian College and visiting major companies in the Brazilian city of Victoria.

“I’ve been branding Nichols abroad,” Goncalves explains.

In relocating to the Currier Center, the ARC left its offices in the basement of Conant Library. The Nichols Fischer Institute, which previously occupied the Currier Center, moved to its new offices at the Fels Student Center after it opened last November.

The new ARC features a reception area surrounded by stately wooden columns. To either side, students can find an array of study areas, including a spacious room with multiple round tables for tutoring sessions or study groups.

“This is a more open space,” explains ARC director Marissa Loon. “It’s a happy place, and the tutors love it.” The ARC has almost 20 Nichols students who have been trained as tutors and who provided help for almost 200 of their undergraduate peers last term.

Another large room, ringed by computer stations, is equipped with rows of chairs that allow large group review of course materials. Adjacent “quiet” rooms are available for as many as seven or eight students to study individually or together, as well as for meetings with faculty advisors.

The new location and amenities have given the ARC a more visible presence on campus, Loon adds. “It shows current and prospective students and their families that academic support is part of a college career here,” she says. “And this place reflects the energy and dedication that students and tutors put in.”

In March, the Nichols radio station WNRC dedicated its new studio on the ground floor of the Fels Center in the name of former student James Gahan IV. Gahan, who was in the class of ’04, perished 10 years ago in the tragic fire at the Station music club in Rhode Island. He was reporting on the concert for WNCR.

In a ceremony attended by family members, friends, and classmates. Gahan was remembered for his pioneering radio shows and his frequent excursions with fellow reporters to do interviews off campus.

“At the time, they would use their press passes to get big interviews,” notes former classmate and Director of the Nichols Fund Kerry Barnes ’05, “They were interviewing tons of people.”

In her remarks at the dedication, radio club co-advisor Andrea Becker noted, “We are so proud to have with us today Mr. and Mrs. Gahan, who blessed our campus and radio club when he attended Nichols.”

Representing the Nichols Center for Student Involvement, seniors Mike Kowal, Gianna Raffa, and Stephen Mack and juniors Mike Shaheen, Abby Gould, Colleen Coleman and Alyce Viens were joined on the trip by sophomores Amanda Lovejoy and Kerry Postale, as well as faculty chaperone and academic advisor Nora Cavic.

The nearly dozen Nichols volunteers worked in areas in the city that still have recovered from devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as well as the more recent Hurricane Isaac. They were assigned to particular construction projects by Gulf Coast Volunteers for the Long Haul, a non-profit that arranges service trips by students and other volunteers and provides their housing.

Prior to their journey, the Nichols students had raised more than $6,000 for donations to rebuilding efforts and for their airfare.

While the mornings in New Orleans were dedicated to putting up drywall in rebuilt houses, notes Cavic, “Every afternoon our group went to different sites to demolish the homes that were still sitting there since Hurricane Katrina.” That work involved tearing up moldy carpets, ripping out cabinets, and knocking down entire walls.

The Nichols crew—outfitted in masks, goggles, and heavy gloves—proved a quick study in wielding sledge hammers and crowbars on the demolition side and laying down wood floors on the construction side, Cavic says, adding that there was time for some local experiences after the long workday had ended.

Those experiences included plenty of southern food, a jazz concert, and a swamp boat tour. But, Cavic stresses, the Nichols students focused their considerable energies on the construction tasks at hand.

“I was amazed at how seriously they took their work and at their persistence. They were exhausted by the end of the day, but they never complained,” Cavic reports. “I think they understood the depth of what needed to be done.”

In making the gift of nearly $380,000 – the largest outright scholarship gift in the College’s history – to create the fund, Wagner noted that he himself has serious dyslexia, a learning disability that affects reading, writing, spelling, and the organizing of information.

The fund will provide annually renewable scholarships for Nichols students who have been professionally diagnosed with the condition and will become available for the 2013-2014 academic year.

In recent years, breakthroughs in brain science and improvements in learning assessments have led to recognizing and responding to dyslexia earlier and in many more students than had previously been accounted for.

Dyslexia is estimated to affect as much as 10 percent of the population, and advances in teaching dyslexic students have made a growing number college ready.

According to the terms of the agreement with Nichols, Wagner expresses his interest “in helping young (adults) inflicted (with dyslexia) to earn a college education at Nichols,” as well as his motivation “to help Nichols students, a mirror of himself in 1957, assuming that they are otherwise qualified to attend Nichols.”

The Wagner scholarships will be determined by a special committee consisting of the Nichols director of financial aid, the dean of recruitment and retention, the assistant dean of learning services, and an academic dean.

In her keynote address Mayor Lisa Wong noted, “I had a passion and worked hard,” adding that achieving her office by age 28—and twice winning re-election—required moving from being elected “second most bashful” in high school to finding her voice and reaching her constituency, often on foot.

In her first campaign, Wong explained, “I knocked on enough doors so people understood what I was talking about.” Nowadays, Wong quipped, “It’s a job where I can’t ever go to the grocery store without getting yelled at, but I love my job.”

With the business aspirations of her audience in mind, Wong also pointed out that on a larger level she sees herself as “the CEO of a $140 million agency.”

The audience, which ranged from women working in companies and non-profits, consultants, entrepreneurs, and Nichols students, dispersed after the address to classrooms throughout Davis Hall for moderated sessions.

Those seminars ranged from keys to successful leadership, the business opportunities created by social media, and the personal side of balancing work with family, managing finances effectively, and even improving memory.

The panelists at the sessions included representatives from Fallon Community Health, Prudential Financial, and a range of marketing and social media companies.

The conference participants, mostly from the greater Worcester area, capped off their evening with a one-and-a-half hour networking session. “We are all here to support one another,” Deanna Mills, vice president of Commercial Development for conference sponsor Hometown Bank, reminded them. Other conference sponsors included lead sponsor Webster Five, as well as Small Business Insurance Agency; 4 The Cause Marketing and Consulting; Harrington HealthCare System: Kerrin Graphics and Printing; MotiVact Group; Reliant Medical Group; Whalley Computer Associates: and Quabaug Corporation.

The dinner, a tradition since 1999, took place this year at the Inn at Woodstock Hill in Woodstock, Connecticut and as usual was sponsored by Nichols trustee, alumnus and generous benefactor Robert Kuppenheimer ’69, affectionately known around Nichols as “Kuppy.”

The dinner also recognized the two recipients of the Robert B. Kuppenheimer Scholarship for promising students from the Midwest. This year the winners included senior Zach Kohn from Hartland, Wisconsin and a double major in Economics and Finance, and freshman Tyler Beasley from Indianapolis, Indiana.

“I’m thrilled to be part of the school, and I applaud you in everything you do,” Kuppenheimer, a Worcester native, told the faculty clustered around the dining tables filling the banquet room. “Students will remember a lot of the classes they took with you, the knowledge they received, and how that knowledge benefited them throughout life.”

The Faculty Dinner usually features an extra course in professional development, and this year the evening’s speaker, Nichols alumnus and former trustee Peter L. Lynch ’74, served up a presentation entitled “How Prepared are Graduates for the Workplace?” Lynch has led major supermarket chains for more than 35 years, most recently as the chairman of the board, president, and CEO of Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc.

Before filling those positions, he served as president and chief operating officer of the Albertson’s supermarket chain and president of New England-based chain Star Markets Company, Inc.

In his talk to the faculty, Lynch emphasized that advancing in business careers calls for many of the skills his alma mater teaches. Reminding his audience that “Nichols produces by ratio more CEOs, presidents, and business owners than almost any college in the country,” Lynch underscored the importance of financial and communication skills, as well as the ability to work in teams.

“Business-oriented schools obviously prepare students better than other schools. You can’t have enough financial skills,” Lynch observed. “This is a financially-driven world, and you need to know your numbers, whether in finance, accounting, or macroeconomics.”

At the same time, Lynch stressed the importance of the so-called “softer” skills, which also square with students’ experience at Nichols. “Create self-confidence,” Lynch counseled. “Give your students the opportunity to win with their projects and papers. And put them in front of the class to show them that they can win in front of others.”

For one thing, the uniforms looked different on this day, as more than 300 Nichols seniors, juniors, and sophomores—all wearing business attire—made their way through more than 70 stations occupied by a wide range of potential employers. And victory on this mid-winter day took the form of acquiring knowledge about the career search, not to mention getting leads to internships and full-time jobs.

The Nichols students and employers, who covered the spectrum from financial services and non-profit management to law enforcement, were gathered for the annual Nichols Career Fair, organized by the school’s Office of Career Services.

Financial company First Investors, which specializes in life insurance and retirement planning, was making its first appearance. “We’re casting a wider net,” said First Investors representative Michelle Onorio, who was impressed by the knowledge of the students whom she had met. “They knew who I was,” she says. “And they had done their homework.”

The well-dressed Nichols undergraduates, including junior Colleen Coleman, questioned and conversed with the array of recruiters. “It’s really exciting to see these different companies and the opportunities for internships,” she said, adding that since she was graduating a semester early next year, she was also on the lookout for job opportunities.

Coleman pointed out the table for the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce. “They want your resume, but you also need to say something that stands out and to explain how you can contribute,” she said, adding that her background producing events on campus and helping to pick the speakers matched up well with the Program and Events Coordinator position that the Chamber was seeking to fill.

The Hanover Theater in Worcester, which is well-known for presenting events from classical concerts to Broadway musicals, sent a representative in search of interns who were marketing or management majors. That non-profit organization has become a regular at the Career Fair and has taken on a number of Nichols students as interns.

There were also an unprecedented number of law enforcement agencies present, according to the fair organizers, testimony they say, to the strength and growing reputation of the Nichols Criminal Justice Management program. The state police from most New England states sent recruiters, as did a wide range of federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security force, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division.

Recruiter Melissa Brezniak, dressed in the full regalia of a Connecticut state trooper, found the Nichols students she met poised to take the next step in finding a job. “They have a good idea of what they want to do and how to get better prepared,” Brezniak observed.

The reputation of the college’s Sport Management program drew a return visit from the United States Tennis Association’s recruiter Sarah Rice, who presided over a table bedecked in colorful tennis rackets. While Rice was looking to fill a fulltime position in marketing, she was also on the lookout for able interns. “Since the Sports Management major is so popular here, we figure that this is the place to look,” Rice said. “This is the only career fair that we go to.”

Nichols will also confer an honorary doctorate in Business Administration to Mary DeFeudis, who previously served on the Nichols Board of Trustees and has long distinguished herself as a philanthropist in the Worcester area.

An active and enthusiastic investor and volunteer, DeFeudis has focused her philanthropic and volunteer interests in areas that benefit children, cancer research, and bettering the Central Massachusetts community. At Nichols, she established a scholarship for deserving students that bears her name.

Governor Malloy, who graduated magna cum laude from Boston College and Boston College Law School, was elected governor of Connecticut in 2010. Before running for that post, he had served the previous 14 years as the longest-serving mayor in the history of his hometown Stamford, Connecticut.

During Malloy’s tenure, he helped transform Stamford to make it one of the 10 most livable cities in the country, according to Forbes magazine. Among his accomplishments were bringing almost 5,000 jobs to the city; leading initiatives for more affordable housing and improved public transportation; implementing a city-wide pre-kindergarten program; and presiding over a 60% reduction in the crime rate.

The latter statistic extended Malloy’s crime-fighting credentials, which he established as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New York. In that capacity, he won 22 of 23 felony cases, including four homicides.

As the mayor of Stamford, Malloy garnered national recognition as a trustee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, as well as serving as president of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. Despite moving to the governor’s residence in Hartford, Malloy has stayed involved with the Stamford community through several charities and outreach organizations.

Throughout his career, Malloy has spoken openly about his lifelong dyslexia, which affected his reading and writing and which posed a formidable challenge that he had to overcome in college and graduate school. He has long advocated early intervention for elementary school students with the same learning disability and has visited schools to tell his story and encourage youngsters to overcome their own obstacles.

Malloy’s presence at the Nichols commencement in May follows the respective appearances over the past three years of then-U.S. Senator Scott Brown; Keith Anderson ’81, the chairman and chief investment officer at Anderson Global Macro; and nationally known Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy.

This year’s graduation ceremonies will begin at 10:30 am