Commencement Is Also Homecoming For Student From Belize

The small gesture, moving the tassel from left to right, officially marks the passage from student to graduate.

It’s a moment that Niki Sanchez waited a long time for. Not just because she, like so many others, had worked very hard to complete her college coursework. But because she had to wait, withstand a pandemic, and travel nearly 2,500 miles to take part in it.

Sanchez has been at home in Belize City, Belize, since campus was shut down in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, completing the work for her accounting degree from afar.

“There was an initial shock and some adjustment there,” she said. “Basically, when I got back home, I had to get into the mindset that I’m doing something new and I’m doing my best to be flexible.”

Sanchez said her faculty certainly helped along the way. Having begun her college education in Belize before coming to Rockhurst in 2019, Sanchez might have spent more time away from the University campus than on it. Still, she said, she knew that if she was able, she wanted to be here for commencement.

“It was just by coincidence that the travel restrictions opened up in time for graduation,” she said. “I felt like this was the opportunity to see everyone and get the closure that I needed.”

And that closure was not just for her — Sanchez said it was equally important that she be able to bring her mother, too, who admitted her hands were shaking as she tried to take a video on her phone of her daughter walking across the stage.

“I just feel like it was a monumental moment. Not just for me, but for my mom,” she said. “Growing up with a single mom, my accomplishments were always her accomplishments as well.”