A billionaire gifted graduating college students at UMass Dartmouth with “envelopes full of money” totaling $1,000.
Robert Hale Jr., the CEO of Granite Telecommunications, made the announcement throughout the college’s graduation ceremony on Thursday. The varsity shared a video of the ceremony on-line, displaying the second Hale instructed the 1,200 graduates and their households.
“These attempting occasions have heightened the necessity for sharing, caring and giving,” Hale stated. “Our neighborhood wants you and your generosity greater than ever.”
A UMass Dartmouth press launch stated safety introduced onstage two giant duffle luggage “full of envelopes full of money.”
Hale instructed graduates that he had two envelopes to provide them: one studying “reward” and the opposite studying “give.”
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Hale defined that every scholar would obtain $1,000 however added there was a “stipulation.”
“The primary $500 is our reward to you,” Hale stated. “The second $500 is so that you can give to any individual else or one other group who might use it greater than you.”
If all 1,200 college students obtained the $1,000, Hale’s giveaway amounted to about $1.2 million.
Throughout the ceremony, Hale additionally obtained the UMass Dartmouth Chancellor’s Medal for his philanthropy work.
Representatives for UMass Dartmouth and Hale at Granite Telecommunications didn’t reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider.
School commencement season in america this 12 months has been rife with controversy, largely as a result of ongoing battle in Gaza. A number of faculties, together with Columbia College, have canceled school-wide graduation ceremonies, citing safety considerations. And several other faculties have known as within the police to disperse pro-Palestinian protest camps, a transfer that one knowledgeable on dissent instructed Enterprise Insider would in the end backfire.
College students at Duke College walked out throughout a graduation speech by comic Jerry Seinfeld final weekend. Seinfeld has change into a vocal supporter of Israel. Some college students held Palestinian flags as they left the ceremony.
A consultant for Duke College instructed BI that “we respect the correct of everybody at Duke to specific their views peacefully, with out stopping graduates and their households from celebrating their achievement.”
