A Pretty Good Life
"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." – Elizabeth Román '03
Elizabeth Roman is a member of the HCC Alumni Council. She offered these remarks June 1 at Commencement in her address to the class of 2024. This story also appears in the Fall 2024 issue of the HCC college magazine, The Connection. In February 2025 she was promoted to executive editor at New England Public Media.
By ELIZABETH ROMÁN '03
'I came to HCC in an act of desperation and obligation.
The year: 2001. The aimless high school graduate: Me.
The eldest daughter of Puerto Rican migrants, I understood the value of education. How could I not? 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.
They sacrificed to make it possible for me and my brother to have the things we wanted – in my case a portable CD player, an Orlando Magics Starter jacket, money for the Scholastic Book Fair, Lisa Frank stickers. My wants were endless.
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.
For years my father would take me and my brother to the library in Springfield every week to pick out stories that would expand our world view. I grew up in a home filled with books and music and a love of learning. It was assumed that I would go on to college. But my parents had no knowledge of how to get me there, and I was too shy to ask for help.
So, there I was in the spring of my senior year, secretly freaking out because I had not applied to any colleges – refer back to my desperation and knowing that my parents were expecting me to go. Queue the obligation. Luckily, I had several nosy teachers who asked about my plans, and, because they reached out to their contacts in admissions, I was able to apply to several schools and ultimately 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 quite literally define the course of my life, both professionally and, in some ways, personally. It’s where I took a world religion class that opened my eyes to faiths I had never heard of, having grown up a Pentecostal. It’s where I met the boy who gave me my first kiss and where I created some of my most enduring and meaningful friendships that endure to this day. We’ve supported each other through milestones: marriage, children, homeownership. And we’ve shared in each other’s joy and comforted each other through grief and loss.
As for my career, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I started my journey at HCC, but I knew I loved to write. So, 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."
PHOTOS: Elizabeth Román, at New England Public Media
