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The following is the commencement address delivered at UPAEP's 2026 graduation ceremony by Fatima Baños Teruggi, a Tepeyac Leader and newly graduated pedagogue and educational researcher. At TLI, we love commencement speeches because they capture our hopes, aspirations, and sense of mission. We are grateful to Fatima for allowing us to share her remarks.
It is an honor to have the opportunity to address you today on behalf of all the graduates. Thank you, thank you for being here, for accompanying us, and for celebrating with us.
Dear fellow graduates and friends, congratulations on this great achievement. Without a doubt, it was a difficult path, but today you can feel satisfied with your effort. It has all been worth it because today you are here.
On a personal note, I am grateful for the opportunity to stand here and speak to you from the heart.
Today is a day of celebration; we have lived through a great journey that comes to an end today. And while an important stage of our lives concludes, other equally exciting ones are beginning. However, reaching the finish line of this race naturally makes us turn around to reflect on the path we have traveled.
This allows us to recognize that all ups and downs, every stumble and comeback, shaped us and guided us here. Today marks the end of a chapter in our lives that was not only about academic training but also about personal growth and learning.
I would like to summarize what I want to share with you today in three words that translate into actions: gratitude, remembrance, and dreaming. Let us delve deeper into each one of them.
Gratitude
As in every moment of achievement and celebration, it is necessary to recognize that we did not get here alone; nobody walks alone. It would be naive to think that we achieve things solely through our own merits without remembering all those who sacrificed so much to make something like this possible; we stand on the shoulders of giants.
Gratitude is a virtue that expands and ennobles our hearts. The habit of being grateful makes us increasingly sensitive to what happens around us and teaches us never to take anything for granted. Because in the blink of an eye, we enter college, we graduate, we work, and life passes by and by without anyone pressing pause. In that hustle and bustle of activities and responsibilities, in that passing of life, we can easily get used to moving with the inertia and forgetting the small, important things. We forget to thank, to remember, and to see the world differently—to learn to remember with the heart.
There is no better time than this to thank all the people who have accompanied us and from whom we have learned so much.
● First, to our families, especially our parents. Thank you for your support and affection, for believing in us, and for holding us up. Thank you for your unconditional love, for taking an interest in what we were learning, and for being a refuge and comfort when things perhaps became difficult. Above all, thank you for believing in us, even when we didn't believe in ourselves. You are the unconditional support that drives our dreams.
● Second, to our professors. Thank you because it was your vocation and passion in every single class that filled our backpacks with expectations and hope. You have molded us and planted the desire to make the world a better place through each of our professions. You have illuminated the academic and formative path we were meant to follow. Thank you for the patience with which you answered our every question and for your character, which shaped people rather than just professionals. Thank you for your work; you have undoubtedly left a mark on our hearts.
● To our friends and classmates. Those who accompanied us on this path, whom we met day by day as we ventured together into this new, so different, and special stage. Thank you for your unwavering friendship, for sharing, and for making us better people every day.
● And finally, I want to thank God. Because He is the one who makes it possible for us to even exist and breathe. Thank you for those small details of love, for placing within us that dream that guided us here. Because it is thanks to the gift of life and His mercy that we have achieved what we have accomplished.
The merit we celebrate today has been possible only because of the accompaniment of each one of you. Fellow graduates, I leave you with a somewhat permanent task: always show gratitude to all these people.
Remembrance
I believe this moment is filled with many emotions: sadness and nostalgia for what was; excitement, nerves, and expectation for what is to come; joy and satisfaction for what has been fulfilled. College is a whole stage in our lives that is worth thanking all over again but also knowing how to remember and treasure every moment, what we lived and learned in these years. Even though our gaze is already fixed ahead, thinking about the next steps, an occasion like this always provides an opportunity to reflect and look back in retrospect at the time that has passed.
To think that just a few years ago (some more, some less), we were in a similar position: graduating from high school with emotions resembling those we feel now, perhaps now with a bit more clarity and maturity about what we want to do.
Therefore, I would like us to begin remembering what marked us during our time at the university. We lived through historical events: a pandemic that reminded us of human frailty and in which we learned how resilient we can become, in addition to managing to adapt to online and hybrid modalities.
It seems so distant to remember that many of us started college that way: clicking a link, turning on the camera and microphone. To think that those faces we saw on the screen would later become our great friends. Not to mention the days we spent longing to start walking the streets and buildings of the university; building A, B, D, E, J, and even Y…
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Of course, more exciting moments followed, like the celebration of the 50th anniversary, where the university itself taught us the importance of continuing to build and adapting to the challenges of the present. We witnessed the launch of the second satellite, which showed us that our work can transcend this world. Or also the beautiful traditions that accompanied our time at UPAEP.
Who won't fondly remember the night of the university encounter? Where surely the first few times you participated without knowing what it was and went hungry (because you didn't know it didn't include food), exhausted from so many hours of playing, and dealing with the discomfort of the rain—all of which you forgot thanks to the presence of that team of friends and professors with whom you had such a great time. Or who won't be permanently marked by the feeling of giving it their all during a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe? Those who have lived it know what it means to let the spirit overcome the limitations of the body. Who won't remember with excitement and passion a game like the Clásico or a victory in the Ocho Grandes? Or the creativity and dedication when experiencing a Noche Mexicana, the Day of the Dead altars contest, the performances at the CREA, and the events organized by student groups and leadership boards.
But we must also remember that amid all these achievements and shared experiences, there were moments of frustration and high demands, of intense studying and sleepless nights. Periods when we wanted to give up, when we felt the pressure was overwhelming. But it was those times of adversity that, had they not happened, we would have never discovered the hidden talents we possess. These were moments necessary to make us uncomfortable and push us out of our comfort zones.
This stage was full of events that challenged us, forged us, and tested us, both inside and outside the university, transforming into opportunities to discover ourselves and others. In them, we realized what we are truly capable of doing.
We learned to test our limits, to put on our best face and attitude in the face of difficulty, to curb passions and build character; to defend what we believe in, break paradigms, and build greater judgment. We learned to work with others, to listen and welcome, to recognize the talents and gifts of others, so we could combine them and move a project forward. We learned to coexist with those who are our friends today and will be future colleagues tomorrow (worry or rejoice!). We learned to be autonomous and increasingly responsible, and above all, we learned to fail, to fall, but not to stay down, rather to rise stronger than before.
I hope you carry each of these moments in your hearts, and so many more that I couldn't detail in just a few pages. Herein lies the importance of remembering; in its etymology, "to remember" means "to pass through the heart again."
I invite you to carry out a second, equally permanent task: in the future, when you are immersed in work, responsibilities, and your new life, pass these moments that have filled these years through your heart again. I am sure they will fulfill you once more to keep going, giving meaning and motivation to your actions.
Dreaming
I don't know if you remember what made you decide on the major you studied, deep down, what was that yearning, that inspiration, that dream?
I hope you dared to dream, because the first step to achieving it might have been the decision of where and what to study.
Now it becomes real. I hope you are leaving the university transformed, ready to achieve your dreams. Do not settle for little! Because you are made for great things. You decide what direction you want your life to take and how you are going to guide it, along with your values and beliefs, toward that dream that has so heavily motivated your actions.
You have realized that you are not alone, that you need people around you to push you. You have also recognized what you have lived through, the joys and adversities, and the talents and gifts that have emerged from them. Now it is time to reap what was sown and transform the world around you.
Live generously, leave your mark, be authentic. Dare to discover that you have a mission and a calling that no one else will fulfill; that this dream I have, and the one you are thinking of right now, belongs to no one else, and the world needs you to fulfill it. Prove what St. Josemaría Escrivá used to say:
"Dream, and you will fall short."
Take advantage of that youthful energy that the protagonists of great adventure stories talk so much about. They say that great projects arise in the youth; they say that the youth are hope, the future. They say that the youth fight for their ideals, that young people have initiative, that they possess a fire that ignites other fires. Do not burn out! Do not let the harsh wind of reality extinguish your dreams when you step out!
Mexico needs young people like us, with adrenaline, with dreams, with initiative. Let us ignite this world plunged into darkness and indifference; let us be the light that awakens other hearts, let us be the generation that makes a difference and has something to contribute. Let us be authentic and put those unique talents at the service of others. Because it is not worth having so many gifts if we keep them to ourselves, or if we just settle for imitating others.
Pass that energy and light on to others. Let the world shine brighter because of you, because of your smile, your words of encouragement, your gentle gaze. As St. Catherine of Siena would say:
"If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire."
May we succeed in doing so, remembering the words of Jimmy Johnson:
"The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra."
Let us not be afraid. Let us live with gratitude. Let us remember. And let us dream.
Congratulations, Class of 2026!
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