This is not the end, it’s the beginning. That was the message from U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona ’01 MA, ’04 6th Year, ’11 Ed.D., ’12 ELP to UConn’s 2021 graduates, delivered Saturday, May 8 via video during the livestreamed commencement ceremony for all students receiving degrees this year – undergraduate, graduate, and professional.

.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona praised new University of Connecticut graduates for their work in helping to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and urged them to use their uniqueness as their “superpower” to accomplish their career and life goals, in a recorded speech played Saturday at a virtual 2021 commencement. Cardona, Connecticut’s former education commissioner who earned graduate degrees at UConn, taped the speech Friday at UConn’s football stadium in East Hartford, the site of Saturday’s ceremony. The school awarded nearly 8,200 degrees.