For most students, the semester leading into graduation is frantic with coursework, graduation plans, and the job search. So when Aeriel Halstead took the stage as the undergraduate speaker for the 2015 Winter Commencement, she advised the nearly 2,000 new graduates to stop, breathe, and “make this brief moment ours.”
“Every person who learned I was graduating would immediately ask, ‘What are you doing next?’” 22-year-old Halstead said after the ceremony. “That question subtly dismisses all the work we’ve put in, as if earning our degrees isn’t an accomplishment worth celebrating on its own. I wanted to help everyone actually appreciate what we already have in our hands, if only for a few seconds, without grasping for the next thing.”
Halstead has certainly earned the right to catch her breath.
An Honors student double majoring in communication studies and psychology, Halstead seemed to be everywhere on campus. She cofounded the first chapter of the National Society of Leadership & Success in Nevada, now UNLV’s largest student organization; served as the vice president of Psi Chi and class president for the Latter-Day Saint Institute; and taught her own section of the Honors College First-Year Seminar as a peer-instructor.
Halstead served the wider Las Vegas community through volunteering with Relay for Life, the Junior Diabetes Research Foundation, Nevada’s Big Give, and the Fulfillment Fund. She also worked as a communications specialist for Professionals in Philanthropy, a consulting firm led by fellow Honors College/Greenspun College of Urban Affairs alumna Stacey Wedding aimed at helping nonprofit organizations maximize their impact in the community.
And she accomplished all this while maintaining a near-perfect GPA of 3.966.
The commencement ceremony was not the first time Halstead dazzled an audience at UNLV. She delivered an electrifying speech during the 2013 UNLV Foundation Annual Dinner at the Bellagio, where she earned an extended standing ovation from a crowd of more than 800 donors. She would go on to serve as an ambassador to for Honors College recruitment events and keynote all of UNLV’s new student orientations in 2014.
Given her record in Honors College, Greenspun College of Urban Affairs, and College of Liberal Arts, it is no surprise the commencement-speaker committee would select Halstead for the honor of addressing her peers. At the ceremony, she followed graduate student speaker Cyndy Anang, M.Ed. in Special Education, who emphatically proclaimed that “every second and penny invested here at UNLV was worth it.”
Halstead and Anang were joined on stage by the three Winter 2015 Outstanding Graduates Kiran Mathew, Kayla Shim, and Ludwing Vaca.
This group of students-turned-alumni do in fact have good answers for the “what’s next?” question. For Halstead, it includes pursuing her Ph.D. in Industrial Organizational Psychology in order to help non-profit organizations expand their reach and impact in Southern Nevada.
But she mentioned none of this from the podium. Instead, she ended on a note that gave everyone in attendance – graduates, faculty, staff, families, and friends – a chance to claim the present accomplishment: “This is a moment that took a long time to make, and there aren’t many moments this big to take. So before we become the Atlas using grit to move the earth towards the stars, let’s stand in awe of ourselves and just make this moment ours.”
