Elizabeth Román ’03
The year: 2001. The aimless high school graduate: Me.
The eldest daughter of Puerto Rican migrants, I understood the value of education. I grew up hearing my dad start the car every morning at 4:30 a.m. to leave for a factory job. Rain, sleet, snow. Every day for 38 years he got up early for work to provide for our family. My mom also spent 26 years of her life working a factory job.
There was never any shame associated with hard work and long days at a factory job, but I knew they wanted me to have other options. Maybe something that required less physical labor. An office job. Maybe a teacher.
I grew up in a home filled with books and music and a love of learning. For years my father would take me and my brother to the public library to pick out stories that would expand our worldview. Though they assumed I would go on to college, my parents had no knowledge of how to get me there, and I was too shy to ask for help.
In the spring of my senior year, I started secretly freaking out because I had not applied anywhere. Fortunately, I had several nosy teachers who asked about my plans. They reached out to their college contacts, and I ended up at HCC.
I was both nervous and excited to attend, but I’m ashamed to say I was a little embarrassed. Because, back then, I believed community college was not as good as all the prestigious private schools my friends had been accepted into.
Little did I know that HCC would define the course of my life, both personally and professionally.
Starting out, I had no idea what I wanted to be, but I knew I loved to write. I took a journalism course and discovered that my natural inclination for bochinche, that is to say, my curiosity for other people’s business, fit perfectly for a career in journalism.
I met professors like Tom Shea (journalism) and Joanne Kostides (communications), both of whom I still keep in touch with. They believed in my skills and taught me to be confident in them. That first journalism class led to a position on the college newspaper, The Phoenix, and an internship at The Republican newspaper.
That internship turned into a 20-year career as a bilingual reporter covering education, politics, health care, human interest, and communities of color in western Massachusetts.
Just over two years ago, I took another leap in my career, accepting a job as the managing editor for news at New England Public Media, a local affiliate of National Public Radio based here in my hometown of Springfield, where I have a say in what stories air on the radio and can help amplify the voices of people who are often forgotten about in media.
Through all those life and career changes, my alumni family at HCC has been a constant, offering me encouragement and support, inviting me to be a mentor to new HCC students, and believing in me even when I sometimes doubted myself.
I went from an aimless high school kid who was a little embarrassed to go to community college, to the woman who stands before you today eternally grateful for the path that led me to HCC.
I am a proud graduate of this school that had such a large part in shaping my life — and it’s a pretty good life.”
Elizabeth Román is vice president of the HCC Alumni Council. This column is adapted from remarks she delivered June 1 in a Commencement address to the class of 2024.
