2020 Graduates Celebrated at Postbac Premed Program Class Day

The Columbia University Postbac Premed Program celebrated Postbac Class Day on Friday, May 15 via a pre-recorded virtual ceremony. Faculty, administrators, fellow students, friends, and family honored the graduates for completing this important step on their journey to medical school and beyond.

May 22, 2020

The Columbia University Postbac Premed Program celebrated Postbac Class Day on Friday, May 15 via a pre-recorded virtual ceremony.

Faculty, administrators, fellow students, friends, and family honored the graduates for completing this important step on their journey to medical school and beyond.

Lisa Rosen-Metsch, Dean of the School of General Studies and Professor of Sociomedial Sciences, welcomed the graduates and introduced the Class Day keynote speaker, Dr. Alwyn Cohall, Professor of Public Health and Pediatrics at the Columbia Irving Medical Center and the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Cohall also serves as the Director of the Harlem Health Promotion Center.

Dr. Cohall detailed how his medical background relates to the current COVID-19 pandemic. He also expressed that graduates will be tested for the next four years during medical school.

"To endure and survive, you have to hold tight to your dreams and your values and also your past lives. We hear a lot about work-life balance and you will talk to your patients about this, but you also have to make sure you walk the walk."

James Colgrove, Dean of the Postbaccalaureate Premedical Program and Professor of Sociomedical Sciences then offered congratulatory remarks, saying, "You should all feel especially proud of the resilience, determination, and courage you have shown this spring. To have reached this milestone in the midst of the most severe global pandemic in a century is all the more reason to feel a deep sense of personal satisfaction and accomplishment. You’ve done incredible work, not just this semester but over your entire time in the program."

The student address was then delivered by Christopher DeVita. In his speech to fellow graduates, Chris spoke on how the world of medicine will be forever altered because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I encourage my fellow graduates to recall that we are all shining examples of how people have great capacity to change and adapt. From a struggling student to a Biology rock star, from an artist (or journalist, or athlete, or banker) to a science student, from observer to participant, from participant to leader. Postbacs are change experts. Each of us completing this program today has already transformed in ways that we could not have anticipated when we started. The same courage we each conjured to take our first steps in this marathon to the unknown must be conjured again as we face the uncertainties of our changing world."

Before entering the Postbac Premed Program, Chirs toured the country in contemporary ballet companies and went on to found a dance company in New York called I AM A BOYS CHOIR, which has achieved notable success. The interdisciplinary collective’s work incorporates performance, video, music, and installation to inspire serious conversations about personal politics, gender, community, and otherness.

During his time in the Postbac Premed Program, Chris served as an Orientation Leader and campus tour guide, the president of the Queer Health Alliance, the GS Alliance Postbac Representative, and the Vice President of Social Events for the PMA. Chris was recently accepted to the Icahn School of Medicine through linkage and will be starting medical school there this fall.

The School of General Studies is committed to plans for a future in-person Class Day when it is safe to do so.