PHOTOS and VIDEO: UND Winter Commencement 2025

‘Would you hire you?’ asks distinguished alum Jill Cholewa (UND ’77 and ’79), whose commencement address is reprinted here

Some 545 undergraduates and 311 graduate students were eligible to cross the stage during UND’s Winter Commencement 2025.

The event was held on Friday, Dec. 19, at the Chester Fritz Performing Arts Center on the UND campus. Three separate ceremonies were held: the Professional & Graduate Ceremony in the morning, and two Undergraduate Degrees ceremonies in the afternoon.

The Performing Arts Center “was full of cheers as President Andrew Armacost asked the right, middle and left rows to give their loudest applause during the morning’s graduate ceremony,” the Grand Forks Herald reported.

“Today is a day of celebration, and you braved the slick roads out there, the snow and the wind, and we’re so glad that you would be here,” Armacost said, as quoted in the Herald. “But our students – this day is for you.”

The Winter Commencement address at all three ceremonies was given by Jill Chowela, a UND alumna.

Cholewa is a 1977 and 1979 graduate of the University, a 2015 recipient of the Sioux Award for Distinguished Achievement & Leadership and a longtime supporter of UND academic and athletic programming.

She is a retired business owner currently serving as a SCORE Certified Mentor for small businesses and resides in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

UND Today is proud to reprint Cholewa’s address below. In addition, we’re delighted to include with this story a selection of photos of the 2025 Winter Commencement event, as well as a video short.

Hearty congratulations to all of the graduates!

The following is a transcript of Jill Cholewa’s address at UND’s Winter Commencement 2025:

Look around you. This sea of caps and gowns isn’t just a collection of individuals. It’s a collective story of late-night sessions fueled by too much caffeine and not enough sleep. It is the story of triumphs, setbacks and a journey that has fundamentally changed each one of you.

Before looking forward, look back. The faculty and staff, whose passion shaped minds, deserve thanks. Your parents, families and friends believed in you, even though some days you didn’t believe in yourself. Their support is the foundation of success!

Today you stand at the threshold of a new beginning. You’re ready to take on the world, armed with your diploma. But as you prepare to enter the next chapter, I want to pose a question — not from a potential employer, but from a perspective far more critical: your own. Frame it as a deep, personal reflection on character, values and growth. An honest and maybe a little uncomfortable question: “Would you hire you?”

These questions will be posed to you in interviews, in performance reviews, and in quiet moments of self-reflection. It’s the ultimate test of our readiness for the real world. Its questions are not just about our skills, but about our character, our consistency, our kindness, our confidence and our leadership.

Would you hire the you who pulled an all-nighter for a project that wasn’t even your own, just to help a friend out? Would you hire the you who felt completely lost but kept showing up to class anyway, because you understood that showing up was half the battle? Would you hire the you who knows how to recover from a mistake – not by deleting the evidence, but by learning from it?

This part of your journey can’t be put on a resume. The late-night struggles, the moments of self-doubt, the collaborative failures and the personal victories. The real lesson wasn’t in the textbooks, it was in the group projects with the students who never respond to texts, teaching us patience. It was in late-night conversations that taught you how to listen, how to argue respectfully, and how to find common ground with people who saw the world completely differently.

These are the moments that truly built your resumes, even if they aren’t on paper. They are the character references. The late nights you spent helping a friend cram for a test? That’s your teamwork. The part-time job you held down while taking 18 credits? That’s your work ethic. The club you led that almost went under? That’s your crisis management experience.

Let’s break down the job description for this new, real-world role.

First, would you hire you based on your curiosity? College taught you how to learn, but the real work will challenge you to keep learning. The smartest people aren’t just the ones who know all the answers, they’re the ones who keep adapting, who embrace change and have a growth mindset!

Second, the real measure of a candidate is not that they never fail, but that they always get back up. Would you hire the version of you that gets knocked down, learns from the mistake and comes back wiser and stronger?

Third, would you hire you based on your ability to work with others? A lot of companies ask about your “culture fit” for a reason. Throughout your time here at UND, you’ve had to compromise, collaborate, and communicate with people who think differently than you do. Will you be the person who fosters a collaborative environment or the one who creates friction? Can you check your ego at the door and lift up your team? Will you treat your colleagues with kindness and empathy? Would you hire you based on how you treat the people around you, from the top of the ladder to the bottom?

Fourth, would you hire you based on your integrity? We all learned something about this when we swore we would never copy-paste from Wikipedia again after that one close call. But in the years ahead, the tests will be less about plagiarism and more about living with your values. Can you stand by your convictions even when it’s difficult? As graduates, you must live your values, not just list them. Your reputation is built on your integrity. It’s what defines you when no one is watching. Would you hire someone whose integrity you could trust completely?

I love and try to live by this motivational message by Denzel Washington.

Success requires eight key things:

• Hard work: Don’t believe in luck, believe in hard work.
• Patience: If you are losing patience, then you are losing the battle.
• Sacrifice: If you don’t sacrifice for what you want, then what you want becomes the sacrifice.
• Consistency: Consistency is what transforms average into excellence.
• Discipline: Motivation gets you going but discipline keeps you growing.
• Self-confidence: Confidence is not like “they will like me.” Confidence is “I’ll be fine if they don’t like me.”
• Positive attitude: A positive attitude won’t solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
• Focus: Focus on your goals, not on your obstacles. When you concentrate on what truly matters, the rest becomes irrelevant, allowing you to move forward with clarity and determination.

Finally, these are the qualities I feel are necessary to become and stay successful, not only in your position, but in life!

I have seen countless people in positions of authority who were not true leaders. And I have seen countless others without official titles who were the most powerful and influential people in the room.

The first is the willingness to listen. In our noisy, divided world it’s easy to mistake talking for communicating. We are often more focused on crafting our next brilliant point than on truly hearing the person speaking to us. But true leaders understand that the best way to gain trust and build consensus is to first seek understanding.

I urge you to become active listeners. Practice it in your relationships, in your communities and in your future workplaces. It’s the leader who sees a teammate struggling and asks, “How can I help?” When we listen with genuine curiosity, we don’t just gather information, we show respect. We open ourselves up to new perspectives and discover solutions we never would have found on our own. Remember: The most impactful leaders often listen more than they speak.

The second is the courage to be vulnerable. Leadership is often mistakenly associated with a facade of strength and certainty. A leader who admits they don’t have all the answers creates an environment where others feel safe to contribute their own ideas. A leader who shares a story of failure or struggle shows that resilience is more important than perfection. Vulnerability is not a weakness: it is the most powerful tool for building trust and authentic relationships with people you lead. It takes guts to say, “I messed up,” or “I need help.” And that’s what real leadership is all about.

The third and most important quality is to embrace servitude. The greatest leaders throughout history were not those who demanded to be served, but those who saw their role as the one of service to others.

We’re told that a degree is a ticket to a higher place, a chance to get ahead. And it is, but not in the way one might think. Your education has equipped you with skills and knowledge that have the power to lift up others. The real value of your degree lies in what you do with it to improve the lives of your colleagues, your community and the world!

So don’t just focus on climbing the ladder. Focus on how you can help those around you climb up the ladder as well. Champion the success of others. Mentor those who come after you. Use your privilege and your position not for personal gain, but for the collective good.

Graduates, you are entering a world hungry for genuine, purpose-driven leadership. A world where you don’t need a fancy title to make a difference. You have all the tools you need right here, in your intellect and your character.

Never overlook how far you’ve already come, because you’re not the same person you were four years ago. You’ve grown. You’ve put in the work. Now it’s about trusting yourself to keep going, even when fear or doubt shows up!

The question, “Would you hire you?” is a compass. It will guide you toward integrity, growth and excellence. It will push you to seek feedback and become a lifelong learner. It will ensure every step you take builds the kind of person you truly want to be the kind of person everyone would be lucky to have on their team!

Go make choices that will answer the question with a resounding, “Yes, I would hire me!”