A dean’s list student who served as Miss UMES during her senior year will deliver the student commentary at the university’s 2022 spring commencement exercises May 20.
Princess Sarah Bentil, a marketing major from Laurel, Md., was selected by a panel of judges during auditions held the last week in April.
Bentil said she applied “to deliver the student commentary because I want to encourage my class to continue to go beyond their limits and strive for greatness.”
The student commentary is a decades-old commencement-day tradition at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore where a graduating senior delivers remarks to and on behalf of classmates.
“I believe in my class and I know that our journey has just begun,” Bentil said, “so I want to help them reflect (on the meaning of the day) and understand how great they are, and what a great accomplishment they have made for themselves.”
“I truly appreciate the honor to serve,” she said when notified of her selection.
A member of the Richard A. Henson Honors Program, Bentil is one of 10 United Negro College Fund recipients of a post-graduate internship, which will enable her to do field-marketing for engineers with Oracle Corp., the Austin, Texas-based computer software giant. She’s hopeful that experience will further burnish her considerable undergraduate credentials and improve her job-hunting prospects.
In addition to being the 53rd Miss UMES, she was president of the campus chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, a Hawk Ambassador, one of two Frederick Douglass Fellow Scholarship recipients at UMES, a member of the National Association of Black Accountants and president of the African Student Association, an organization she was instrumental in restarting as a native of Ghana. She was also Miss Sophomore in 2019-20 and mentored young girls in Salisbury.
During the spring 2022 honors convocation in early April, Bentil made a point of meeting and posing for archive-worthy photos with alumna Krystin J. Richardson, Miss UMES 2002 and a Maryland district court judge who was that event’s featured speaker.
Since her sophomore year, Bentil also worked for the university’s office of residence life, where she was a student liaison responsible for oversight and management of day-to-day activities at her assigned residence hall.
“I believe that during my time at UMES I encouraged and motivated people to see that they are more than able and capable,” she said. “I want my class to leave the nest knowing that they are worthy and successful.”
- Mandatory COVID testing for all 277 degree candidates on Thursday, May 19.
- Commencement guests must submit a COVID vaccine card prior to obtaining tickets for the event in the William P. Hytche Athletic Center and will be asked to symptom-screen the morning of graduation.
- Each graduate will be allotted four tickets for guests.
- Limited faculty attendance.
- All guests will be asked to symptom-check and wear masks indoors.
