Monica Rischiotto, English and community leadership double major, women’s soccer player, and Resident Assistant, has dedicated herself to community at Aquinas College throughout the past four years, heart and soul. Whether on the field or in the classroom, as a columnist and editor of The Saint or as a student ambassador, Monica is one of the most recognizable students at Aquinas. Monica’s clear passion for Aquinas coupled with her genuine and warm personality are the reasons why she is the student commencement speaker for graduation 2012.

Unlike the majority of Aquinas students, Monica does not come from the Grand Rapids area, or Michigan, or even the Midwest. Monica is from Portland, Oregon. In high school she received some promotional literature from Aquinas, found herself lured by pictures of the Holmdene lions - she swears they winked at her and said, “Yes, you know you want to visit!” - and then worked up the courage to ask her mom to visit a school halfway across the country. When Aquinas sponsored half of the transportation costs, Monica and her mother traveled to Michigan. After a day in Grand Rapids complete with a campus tour, a practice with the women’s soccer team, and a meeting with Mary Clark-Kaiser (Director of Campus Ministry), whom Monica cites as having “essentially stamped [her] commitment letter by telling me [about] Campus Ministry,” her decision was indeed made: Aquinas College. “I think the best way I could put it,” Monica said, “is that visiting Aquinas was not a staged performance, it was the real deal.”

Monica soon moved to Grand Rapids, adjusted to the different culture, and settled into the Aquinas community. “One thing I had to get used to,” she said, “was how long people talk! I used to be a quick ‘Hello, how are you, goodbye’ kind of person, but the culture in the Midwest is so different, and I love it.” Monica defined the past four years at Aquinas as “an exciting adventure of continuously opening doors.”

“[Aquinas] College is rooted in a community where faculty, staff, and peers alike are eager to see those succeed around them,” she said. “As a student, I truly feel surrounded by people who not only have the natural ability, but also the desire, to bring out the best in those around them.” The people at Aquinas have profoundly shaped her life. “Not only have I made new lifelong friends,” Monica said, “but there are faculty and staff members who I will forever hold as models of Christian living.”

Monica’s total commitment to Aquinas is because of her love of real community. Community can be an abstract word, but Monica knows exactly what it means to her: “I have been truly blessed to go to schools, be on teams, in groups or clubs, even in my own neighborhood back home and my family, where community in a nutshell is the heart of Christian living.” When Monica was in middle school, her youngest sister was born with a rare muscle disease, an event that reinforced the importance of community to her: “My heart has really grown to become more aware and intentional with creating and offering a safe place for people to feel like they are a part of something. That is what we are all seeking, and we owe it to each other.”

“Monica practically IS Aquinas College,” said English professor Dr. Brent Chesley when describing her, by virtue of her contributions to campus. “One day in the hall of AB [Academic Building], she and a friend of hers and I were discussing asking President Olivarez for a favor,” Dr. Chesley said. “Monica thought that I should ask him because I'm a professor. I told Monica, ‘You're involved in so many things that you should ask him. You have more influence on campus than I do.’” In addition to the roles already listed, Monica is the Vice President of Across State Lines (a club for out-of-state students), an ARETE retreat leader, and student representative on the College's 125th Anniversary executive committee.

When Monica is not occupied with schoolwork or campus life or sports, she enjoys stretching her legs on and off campus. Most recently, Monica volunteered at the Blandford Nature School. “I was able to ride my bike there through December; so great!” she said. Last year she began training for marathons and plans on running in one this April. She also luxuriates in reading the newspaper in actual newsprint. “To be up to date, at the very least with what is going on in your immediate community, is so important,” she said, a conviction that accounts for her role with The Saint. At home in Portland in the summer, Monica takes day-long bike trips. “You just feel so alive when you have the essentials on your back, a healthy body to get around, and ultimately that ability to get lost for a while from trail to trail is such an adrenaline rush,” she said.

Monica feels “deeply honored and humbled to be chosen” as the student commencement speaker. “I have the distinct privilege to be graduating with a group of extremely gifted and talented individuals, so the pressure is on to serve them with a speech that will make for a meaningful, memorable, and enjoyable ceremony.”

After graduation, Monica will remain in Grand Rapids finishing a volunteer coaching position with Girls On the Run and then she will work at Camp O’Malley in nearby Alto for the summer. In August she will either begin training for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, a yearlong service program that sends its volunteers all over the country and world, or earn her Masters in Teaching through a service teaching program at the University of Portland. While her plans are undecided, she is “looking for a more faith based experience that completely puts me out of my comfort zone, gives me the opportunity to travel, and ultimately a chance to ‘do.’”

Monica has this advice to pass on to students: “Never lose sight of your gut feeling. Each and every year I think we are challenged with bigger and bigger decisions in which society is telling us one thing and our hearts another. And if we ignore that gut feeling too many times, pretty soon we fail to recognize it at all.”

Monica recommended that students “test their values and beliefs in waters that are perhaps unfamiliar to their own and exercise that ability to really examine who you are and what you stand for. And above all,” she stressed, “get to know your professors. Don’t wait until senior year to realize how incredibly lucky you are to have the professors and staff members that we have at Aquinas. Nourish those relationships throughout your four years.”