“Rooted in Love”: Get to Know Mehin Suleiman, the 2023 Commencement Speaker

Photo by Sean Elliot and courtesy of Mehin Suleiman ’23

Graduation is just a week and a half away, and seniors are preparing their caps and gowns for the big day. However, Mehin “Meggie” Suleiman is preparing something even grander: her commencement speech. Out of five finalists who submitted speech drafts and presented them to the commencement committee, comprised of student, faculty, and staff leaders, Suleiman was selected to represent the Class of 2023 on May 21, 2023. The Biochemistry Cellular Molecular Biology and Hispanic Studies double major and CISLA scholar spoke to The College Voice to tell us a bit about their background, interests, and themes that will be included in the speech. Suleiman’s quotes were edited and pulled for concision from the full-length interview.

TCV: Tell me about the selection process and what inspired you to submit a speech.

MS: “I’ve always loved writing, which is something I don’t talk about very much because I am a Biochemistry major. That’s, I think, a huge reason why I went the route of Hispanic Studies being a second major because I’ve always loved reading, I’ve loved writing; it was a huge coping mechanism for me when I first moved to the U.S. when I was having a hard time.”

“I think throughout college, I didn’t get that fix of being able to write as much as I wanted to. And I knew that I’m about to close out my senior year and this is something like being able to tap into my love for writing before I graduate. I felt like it would be a good homage to how multi-faceted my interests are.”

“I read All About Love by bell hooks, and it kind of formulated my outlook on life. I think with COVID and everything, I think a lot of us felt like we were lost in terms of our self-identity and terms of what our purpose is and what’s next. And that book really outlined how I want to live my life, and that’s through love.”

“I felt like this was the perfect opportunity to share such a simple but also such an important and guiding message to as many people as I could on such an important day and that is that love is an action. It is not a noun. Love is demonstrated by the things that you do, the things that you say, the way that you care for others, the way that you care after yourself. Those [create] a fundamental basis of how to live my life, and I feel like we need a little bit more of that in the world. 

“[I felt] like I need[ed] an outlet to write. And so I wrote [my speech]. And I was telling my friends, “I don’t even know if it’s going to get selected, and if it doesn’t, you know what, I’ll just read it out to my family over dinner the night of graduation. So it was very non-attached. So, I just sent it in, and then I get an email that I was selected for like the top five. And suddenly, I was like, “Oh my gosh, wait a second, I might actually be on stage in front of my parents [who] moved to this country 12 years ago and see their eldest daughter on the stage on the day of their graduation.”

“Every time I recited, even when I’m just practicing [the speech], I just feel it and I feel it because I stand behind it; It’s the kind of thing that I can look back on at any point in my life and I think I will agree with everything that I say, which is a really lovely feeling. It’s a timeless feeling.”

TCV: What are some themes you will address in your speech?

MS: “Love is something that’s worth fighting for, and […] I think love can be demonstrated in ways that oftentimes don’t directly read as love, and I think the protests are something that I really want to touch on because it was, I would say, a very pivotal moment during my time at Conn. Like just the moment where you feel a sense of belonging.”

“That was a moment where I felt genuine pride to be a part of the student body because I felt like there was a sense of like relatedness, like the way that I had been feeling for so long wasn’t an isolated feeling, that everyone around me felt the same way. And demonstration of that frustration comes from a place of love. I am 100% sure of that, and I think even just activism in general, although it might not seem like it from the outside, it’s a reflection of love. It’s love in its purest form because it is activism: you are acting on that love, and I felt so much love. Just standing outside Fanning and seeing all of the student body coming together to support one another; that is the purest form of love. I felt so much so much pride. So I think that’s what I want to say. Love is worth fighting for, and I think that’s what we fought for during the protests.

TCV: What are some of your favorite Conn memories?

MS: “There’s a couple of things, but it’s active service. I think any sort of acts of service that I have done during my time, and I think working at the Coffee Closet is a really big one. I remember my sophomore year, when I worked there, I would have really early morning shifts. It was a pain to wake up every morning, but I was just so excited to be working at this coffee shop that I loved so much, which now I manage, which is so funny. I just loved making people coffee in the morning and just like seeing them […I love coffee myself, and that first cup of coffee in the morning, it’s just so lovely, and it’s what gets me out of bed. And just seeing students on their way to class, grabbing a cup of coffee that I’ve made them, I love so much. I’m from Azerbaijan, and for Middle Eastern culture it’s a big part of my growing up. Making food for other people or making someone something to drink is just the most gratifying thing. And I just feel like I got to really express that by just like making yummy drinks for my, for my cohort. It was something that I love, and I love it to this day.”

TCV: What are your post-grad plans?

MS: “I’m pre-med, so med school is on the horizon for me. […] So my plan is [that] I’ll be working at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and I’m working in Peter, Kwong’s lab. He specializes in structural biology, and his lab is essentially trying to find a way to create a vaccine for HIV. I will be a post-bac researcher in their lab and [will] hopefully get some papers published and learn a lot in a high-intensity lab environment and really prep and get in gear for med school.”

TCV: Any sage words of wisdom to pass onto the next generation of camels?

“We don’t live in a perfect world. We we really don’t. Oftentimes, it’s very easy to run into situations where your ethics and your morals are going to be put to the test, and I think that as we get older, the more frequently that’s going to happen. I think at that point you have two options: You can succumb to the way that our societies are constructed because it’s easier, it’s the path of least resistance, right? Or you can choose a hard route, which is authenticity. I think it’s staying true to what is right in your heart and in your gut.”

“I think again the older you get, the more disillusioned we get, and the more we start to doubt our heart and our gut. But I think there’s a special sort of power that lies in entrusting it. Even in moments of doubt, entrusting that what you are doing is rooted in love, entrusting that what you are doing is rooted in love.”