Actor Bill Murray appears as unexpected graduation speaker

 

It’s “Graduation Season” across America – the time for caps, gowns, diplomas and tassels – a celebration for those who have reached educational milestones. There will be speeches galore, chock full of sentiment and inspiration.

All the “pomp and circumstance” will generate a flood of news media coverage. One story that may have flown “under the radar,” however, occurred in my hometown – Adrian, Mich.

Actor and comedian Bill Murray was the super-secret, surprise commencement speaker at Siena Heights University, a private Catholic institution, in Adrian, which awarded bachelor’s and master’s degrees to 441 graduates this spring.

 

As an entertainer, Murray’s credits include a three-year run on television’s “Saturday Night Live” along with stardom in a string of successful movies, such as “Meatballs,” “Caddyshack,” “Stripes,” “Groundhog Day,” “Lost in Translation” and two smash-hit “Ghostbusters” films.

Murray was there in Adrian to support his sister, who is Sister Nancy Murray, a member of Adrian Dominican Sisters, the founding sponsor of Siena Heights University.

 

(This was the school’s final commencement exercise. The institution, which began in 1919, is now officially closed, having fallen upon difficult financial times. The Class of 2026 is the last to graduate. Undergraduates are being placed within other colleges and universities.)

University President Cheri Betz conferred honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees upon Sister Nancy as well as her famous younger brother, William James Murray.

 

Dr. Betz said both Murrays are “artists who have provided hope for this world by bringing compassion, joy and laughter. The university board voted enthusiastically to support awarding the honors.”

Sister Nancy Murray is well-known for her ministry of performing a one-woman stage presentation of 14th century mystic Saint Catherine of Siena, the Italian Dominican nun who influenced popes and became the patroness saint of Italy.

“Sister Nancy has carried the voice of Saint Catherine into communities across the United States and around the world,” Dr. Betz said, “performing hundreds of times and inviting audiences into a deeper understanding of faith, justice and vocation.”

To play the role of Saint Catherine, “I tell everybody all I need is a candle, a crucifix, a table, a chair and a small bouquet of flowers,” Sister Nancy said. “It works all over the world.”

 

Nancy Murray said that she was inspired to become a nun by the sisters who taught her at Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, Ill., a village north of Chicago on Lake Michigan.

When she first entered the order, she studied drama at Siena Heights in Adrian, but because she was dressed in a nun’s habit, she was limited to working only offstage jobs – crew, box office, costumes.

Later, after more and more Catholic sisters adopted layperson’s dress, she attended Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla. (also founded by the Adrian Dominican Sisters). Here, Sister Nancy was able to perform on-stage roles as well.

“It’s the irony of my beginnings in theater,” she said. “At first, I could only work backstage because I was in habit. And now I’m onstage because of the habit.”

Sister Murray encouraged the Siena Heights graduates to be authentic and courageous, to act with love, to endure challenges and to “be active in the world while embracing your unique identities.”

Bill Murray said the honorary degree meant he was now officially a member of the “Siena Heights Saints family.” The crowd cheered its approval.

On a more serious note, he offered profound guidance. 

“Whenever we had something like this, a big threshold, a Rubicon that one of our family had to cross, our mother, who by that time was a widow left with nine children, would say: ‘Carry on and be brave,’” Murray said.

 “Brave is always. It never goes away.”

 

 Siena Heights graduates advised

to ‘set the world on fire’

Janelle D. James of Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit news organization based in Detroit, was assigned to cover the final graduation ceremony this spring at Siena Heights University in Adrian, Mich.

 

She noted that “the university is closing due to financial strain and declining enrollment,” reflecting a “trend of small, private, faith-based Michigan colleges that are shutting down or scaling back.”

Rollan Richard Mattson of Hillsdale, Mich., “didn’t expect to make history when he lined up for Siena Heights University’s commencement,” James wrote.

 

“But, the 22-year-old nursing major walked across the school’s fieldhouse stage with a rare distinction: He was the final graduate of a private Catholic university that has been around for more than a century but is closing its doors for good,” she said.

“After 440 fellow graduates crossed the stage before him, Mattson heard his name called and received his diploma for a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing,” James wrote.

“Hundreds of family members and friends packed the Siena Heights Fieldhouse in Adrian for the graduation ceremony, which doubled as a farewell, marking the end of an era for faculty, students and alumni.”

 

James reported that Siena Heights officials said the decision to shut down operations resulted from “a perfect storm of factors, including steep enrollment declines, increased operational costs, competition with trade schools and resulting financial strain that larger universities are better positioned to weather because of public funding and endowments.”

Dr. Cheri Betz, president of Siena Heights, said: “It’s unfortunate that it seems to be the small, private institutions that have a faith-based affiliation that have been impacted, whereas if you’re a state school or a state institution, you have different funding pools to pull from than a small, private institution,”

 

Over the past decade at Siena Heights, enrollment has declined, while tuition and fees have spiraled upward.

“Dr. Betz pointed to the lower birth rates in Michigan that have shrunk the pool of 18-year-olds seeking a college education, a trend that heavily impacts small private institutions like Siena Heights.”

Dr. Betz added: “The common pressure in higher education today is the fact that there are fewer people…who are entering and going to postsecondary education. You cannot recruit students who were never born.”

James noted that Michigan’s population growth has lagged, and the state is graduating about 8,000 fewer high schoolers than it did 15 years ago.

She mentioned three other colleges in Michigan that fell on hard times in recent years. Finlandia University in Hancock (in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula), Marygrove College in Detroit and Concordia University in Ann Arbor.

Credit Siena Heights with giving its student body plenty of advance notice. The university announced last June that this would be its final year of operation.

Senior leadership of the university communicated: “It breaks our hearts…to close our beloved Siena Heights University at the end of the 2026 academic year.”

An assessment of “the financial situation, operational challenges and long-term sustainability,” however, made it clear that “continuing operations beyond the coming academic year (2025-26) is no longer feasible.”

“For 105 years, Siena Heights has been a beacon of light in a world sometimes cast in darkness,” said Dr. Douglas B. Palmer, who was president at the time. “The spirit of Siena Heights will continue long after the institution closes its doors because it lives in every graduate, faculty member and staff person….”

 

The five-member General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters also issued a statement reading: “Sadly, the challenges Siena faced finally proved insurmountable. We are painfully aware of and lament the profound impact that this closure has on Siena Heights students, faculty and staff. We also lament the significant cultural and economic loss for our region…and its impact on our cherished Lenawee County community.”

“A high priority for us Adrian Dominican Sisters, as the religious sponsors of the institution, is that the university closes honorably – attending, especially, to the needs and concerns of all members of the Siena Heights community. It means providing students, faculty and staff with…assurances that every effort will be made to support them in their transitions to other educational and employment opportunities.”

“All Adrian Dominican Sisters – especially those who have dedicated years of their lives in loving service to the institution and the many proud graduates – join with us in extending our hands to offer with great love and gratitude our Dominican blessing on every member of the Siena Heights University community.”

“We join with our Dominican Sister Catherine of Siena, patron saint of the university, in encouraging everyone at Siena Heights, as you step into the unknown future, to ‘be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.’”

Sacred Heart Hall, built in 1921, is the oldest building on Siena Heights University’s campus. It housed many of the administrative offices.