University celebrates historic inauguration together

Large crowds gathered around University Park and Biscayne Bay Campus to witness the swearing-in of the country’s first African-American president.

By Karen Cochrane

On a day when the 44^th president of the United States encouraged all Americans to embrace responsibility and “[give] our all to a difficult task,” FIU students, faculty and staff gathered at University Park and Biscayne Bay Campus to witness the historic occasion.

Presidential Inauguration – FIU – University Park from Florida International University on Vimeo.

“This is an important day in our history,” said sophomore Michael Davies, an environmental science major, in explaining why he went to the Pit in University Park’s Graham Center. “I supported Barack. [The inauguration is] something I want to be able to tell my kids I witnessed.”

For senior Gregory Saint-Jean, a computer science major, the enormity of the moment left him speechless.

“There are a number of things I can think of to say,” he explained when asked what he was feeling, “but they would all come out sounding corny and cheap. I can’t find the words to express how important this day is.”

Nearly 350 people gathered at the Mary Ann Wolfe Theater at Biscayne Bay Campus to watch the inauguration.

Faculty member Nan Van Den Bergh of social work went to the GC Pit to watch the inauguration because she wanted to experience the historic moment with the students.

“This was their election, really. I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.”

Van Den Bergh said the sense of hope and opportunity that Obama brings to the highest office in the land reminded her of a young Pres. John F. Kennedy Jr.

Indeed, in his speech Obama urged Americans to embrace a “new era of responsibility.” An excerpt of his speech reads: “Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship.”

Observed Van Den Bergh, “President Obama touched upon some of the same themes that Kennedy did although he presented them in a new light. In a sense, it’s about returning power to the people. It’s a continuation of that ethos.”