Sonoma State graduates asked at commencement: ‘What will you do?’

Sonoma State University President Ruben Armiñana shook more than 1,000 hands Saturday at the school’s 55th commencement ceremony, which also marked a milestone for the man in charge of the Rohnert Park campus for the past 24 years.

It was Armiñana’s last at the helm of the 9,000-student university, and the veteran administrator had some parting advice for graduates.

“I charge you to live a life of learning. Continue to hone your skills, to ask questions and seek answers,” he told students from the schools of education, arts and humanities, and business and economics Saturday afternoon at the grassy commencement lawn.

As it turns out, the 69-year-old SSU president is also heeding his own words. After he steps down from his post, Armiñana, who transformed the 269-acre campus during his tenure as the longest-serving president in the California State University system, plans to return to work on July 1 as a trustee professor.

Armiñana said he will “retool” himself for a continuation of his academic career, possibly returning to the classroom to teach political science. He paused during the day’s celebrations for a brief interview on the third floor of the Student Center, which opened in 2013.

Earlier in the day, graduates from the schools of science and technology and social science had donned their black gowns and tasseled mortarboards for a morning ceremony.

Armiñana, a Cuban immigrant, said he considers commencement the university’s finest day: “The fulfillment of the graduates’ and their family’s dreams.”

“I take a great deal of pleasure in seeing the bright, happy faces of young men and women who are commencing, beginning a new phase of their lives with the education they have received at Sonoma State University.”

Invited speaker Dan Nevins, an SSU alumnus, hushed the afternoon commencement crowd with an account of the wartime bomb blast that resulted in the below-the-knee amputation of both his legs. Nevins, now 43, recalled how he had settled into a dream life as a pharmaceutical sales rep living in Windsor and making a six-figure salary when the California National Guard dispatched him to Iraq in 2004.

A combat squad leader, Nevins said he was headed out of a base camp on a “pitch black, eerily quiet” morning in a Humvee, head bowed in prayer as usual, when a hidden bomb lifted the truck “six feet in the air in a ball of fire.”

Nevins said he thought he was going to die, but medics saved his life and during a prolonged, painful recovery he relocated to the Jacksonville, Fla. area, working for the PGA Tour and Wounded Warriors Project, which he still passionately supports.

But after his 36th surgery two years ago, when the “invisible wounds of war” began clouding his mind, Nevins told the audience he found relief in meditation and yoga, much to his own surprise.

“I’m a soldier, I eat meat, I blow things up. I don’t wear spandex,” he said.

Nevins now travels the world, teaching yoga, convinced it is “exactly what I am supposed to be doing.”

“Now it’s all up to you - what will you do?” he told the graduates.

“My advice is to fly. Open your wings, smash your throttle and find out what the world needs you to do.”

Carole Addison-Goyne of Penngrove, who received an executive masters of business administration degree Saturday, said she will help her husband, Scott Goyne, develop his brewery business. “I feel so grateful for my mom who always believed in me and my husband who was supportive,” ?she said.

Erik Fritz of Rohnert Park, another MBA grad, said the 18-month program was a strain, along with a full-time job and a family, including his son, born two days before classes started.

Fritz, who also has a degree from the Culinary Institute of America, said he plans to work in the fast-casual segment of the food industry.

“I’m ready for more things to happen,” he said.

Krystal Godfrey of Petaluma, also an MBA grad, works as associate marketing manager of innovation for Amy’s Kitchen, the Santa Rosa-based organic food company.

“I feel more like a leader (with the degree),” she said.

The SSU program emphasizes sustainability in business practices, adhering to the three Ps - people, planet and profit, she said.

“It’s kind of cool to have that framework wherever I go,” Godfrey said.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.