LA GRANDE — Faculty, staff, family, friends and loved ones gathered at Community Stadium to celebrate Eastern Oregon University’s graduating class of 2023 during the school’s 93rd commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 17.

Eastern awarded 776 degrees and certifications to over 360 graduates for the academic year. The ceremony was the first time since 2017 that graduation was held on the field at Community Stadium.

Teaching Excellence Award recipient and professor of music Peter Wordelman provided the keynote address. He reminded students about the importance of perseverance, kindness, taking a chance and gratitude. Wordelman tasked the outgoing senior class with two assignments.

His first assignment for the class of 2023 was to say thank you to everyone in their lives who helped them get to this point. Secondly, he wanted everyone to perform an act of kindness within the next two weeks.

The professor of music could not resist the opportunity to lead nearly 3,000 people in a musical experience. He gave each portion of the crowd different tasks — adding in claps and stomps on four beats.

Wordelman revealed that each step was building up to the communal performance of the graduates’ number one song that they first purchased with their own money — often without the knowledge of their parents. The song in question — Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”