Celebrating the Class of 2022
Congratulations Graduates!
Convocation is an opportunity to mark a key milestone in our students’ social work journey and to welcome them into our alumni network. It is a convoking, or calling together of our community to recognize and celebrate our students’ completion of their studies with us and to confer upon them their degrees. It also marks a beginning, where graduates start the next step in their journeys as social work professionals. Even more so this year, we were excited to come together with families and loved ones at the magnificent United Palace in Washington Heights to honor and cheer for our Class of 2022.
Our 2022 Graduates
We have all made it here, and it truly is a moment of celebration and recognition of each and every one of our Silver School graduates.
Access the Class of 2022 Convocation Ceremony
Held on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, at the United Palace in Washington Heights
Class of 2022 Student Speakers
Christine Marie Cocchiola, a Coercive Control advocate, educator, researcher, and survivor, has been dedicated to the field of intimate partner violence since her late teens, beginning her career at a local umbrella agency where she continues to volunteer.
Cora de Leon is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program at NYU Silver. She has more than two decades of clinical and research experience and teaches in several subject domains at Silver.
Taelee Kawahinenanea Kimura is from the island of Kaua’i. While earning her BS in Social Work, she minored in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies. She will be pursuing a master’s degree in Social Work at NYU in the fall.
Abby McConnell minored in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and is a University Honors Scholar. She received the Changemaker Fellowship for her internship at the Syrian Community Network and the Foreign Language and Area Study Fellowship for her Arabic studies.
Sejal Mehta is a South-Asian daughter of immigrant parents whose journey to social work has been far from linear. She is excited to be a therapist to children and families and hopes to help transform mental health education in schools to be more inclusive and accessible.
Anderson Peguero II is a writer, artist, and academic. Dedicated to collective liberation in all its forms, he has worked in direct clinical practice for the past year and plans to continue pursuing intentional, healing practice after graduation.
From Leadership at Silver to Impact in the Profession
Students across our degree programs have made an extraordinary and positive impact among their peers, the University, and the wider society. We give special recognition to those graduates who have served on our Student Leadership Council or Silver Peer Leaders, been inducted to the Phi Alpha Honor Society, Pi Pi Chapter or received special University awards honors.
Voices from the Class of 2022
Thalia Aguiar
“My name is Thalia Alejandra Aguiar Salcedo. I was born in Quito, Ecuador but I grew up in a small town called Ambato. I have heard the phrase, ‘reach for the sky, the sky’s the limit’ and I am here to tell you that that is not the case. I am a believer that you can reach beyond the sky’s limit and accomplish anything you want if you put your mind and your heart into it. Sounds very cliché, but the reason I am telling this is because my entire life has been surrounded by barriers and limits. I immigrated to the U.S not knowing any English words and being undocumented in this country brings up a lot of hardships and challenges. But I learned to push through and overcome them.”
Robert Aviles
“[The COVID-19 pandemic] continues to both challenge and force each of us to look critically within ourselves (on all accounts) and at each other. We must choose to see those amongst us who’ve been historically excluded, erased, silenced, systematically disadvantaged, intentionally othered, and choose to amplify those whose stories and voices remain to be unheard. Through sustained oppression and injustice, the state of this world, and now understanding safety in a new way, and what these concepts mean in practice for today’s world, we must never lose sight of these things.”
Aadya Bhatia
“We at Silver can make anything happen. I witnessed community love and compassion for the first time in April 2021. Last year, we sprung into action using our privilege to serve our communities at home, for me in India, during a very devastating COVID crisis. Our friends at Silver rose to the occasion, opened their hearts and wallets, raised over $3,000 to procure life-saving oxygen tanks, and saved 24 lives. My first unforgettable lesson was that with this community of fellows, faculty and friends, living Angela Davis’ adage, we found reservoirs of hope and optimism in our collectivities. We can even make life happen.”
Welcoming Grads to the Alumni Network
Since NYU Silver’s founding, more than 20,000 alumni have elevated lives around the world, addressing the concerns of those who are most vulnerable. Many have also remained actively engaged with the School. At our 2022 Convocation ceremony, Anika Carter, MSW ’18, the Internship Director and Supervising Senior Psychotherapist at Union Settlement and Co-Founder of Rooted LLC welcomed our latest graduates into our alumni network.
We will continue to bring forward causes that need to be addressed, shifting the world on its axis as we support those who are oppressed.
NYU Silver Embraces the Core Values of the Social Work Profession
These core values, enumerated in the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics and embraced by social workers throughout the profession’s history, are the foundation of social work’s unique purpose and perspective:
• Service
• Social justice
• Dignity and worth of the person
• Importance of human relationships
• Integrity
• Competence
This constellation of core values reflects what is unique to the social work profession.
