On Monday, June 12, Monroe College held Commencement Exercises for its New Rochelle campus at the Westchester County Center in White Plains.

While the ceremony was used as backdrop for an upcoming movie “The Marconi Brothers” and actor Brandon Sexton III received a “virtual” degree from Executive Vice President Marc Jerome, the real stars of the day were the more than 700 Monroe College graduates who, along with more than 5,000 of their family members, filled the spacious hall with the spirit of extraordinary academic achievement and the promise of unbounded potential.

Commencement speaker Leslie Sanchez, the CEO and founder of the Impacto Group, encouraged the graduates to address some of the world’s most complex problems.

"Regardless of the color of your skin or the language that you speak or if you have an accent,” she said, “all of us, with the quality of education like Monroe can give us, are equal and up to the task.”