East Stroudsburg University Announces Speakers for 2023 Commencement

East Stroudsburg University will hold its commencement exercises on Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6 in Koehler Fieldhouse. The graduate commencement ceremony will take place Friday at 6:45 p.m. Mickayla Grow ’21 M’23 will be the student commencement speaker. Undergraduate ceremonies will take place on Saturday. The ceremony awarding bachelor’s degrees from ESU’s College of Health Sciences and College of Business and Management will begin at 8:45 a.m. Jorge Rojas ’23 will be the student speaker. The ceremony awarding bachelor’s degrees from ESU’s College of Arts and Sciences and College of Education will begin at 1:45 p.m. Piper Langan ’23 will be the student speaker. Randy Detrick ’00, president of Blue Ridge Estate Vineyard & Winery, will be the keynote speaker for the ceremonies. Susan Dillmuth-Miller, Au.D., University Senate president, will be the grand marshal for the ceremonies, which will honor ESU’s December 2022 and May 2023 graduates.

Mickayla Grow, a communication sciences and disorders graduate student from Lykens, Pa., has been an active member of the ESU campus community for six years. As an undergraduate student, Grow was a student-athlete on ESU’s softball team. She also enrolled in the university’s ROTC program. Upon graduation she earned a bachelor’s degree in communication sciences and disorders and commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant as a Medical Services Corps officer in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. She attended her Basic Officer Leadership Course at Fort Sam in Houston, Texas while balancing the requirements graduate school. Grow has assisted with speech, language, and hearing screenings at the Head Start classes, hearing screenings in the local area, and provided treatment in the university speech and hearing clinic. She has acted as an ambassador for the communication sciences and disorders graduate program, providing tours for interested students, participating in open houses, mentoring new graduate students, and participating in health fairs in the community.

Jorge Rojas, a sport management student from Bethlehem, Pa., took an untraditional path the commencement speaker podium. After more than a decade in the workforce, Rojas found himself back in the classroom at Northampton Community College where he worked hard and found his path. He transferred to ESU and majored in sport management. He got involved in campus activities, and became the president of the sport management club. Rojas found a way balancing school, family, and full-time work. As a first-generation college student, fulfilling not only his dream but the dream of his parents, Rojas believes in the power of education and encourages his peers to never stop learning.

Piper Langan, a middle level education student from Cresco, Pa., is a natural leader and a committed ESU Warrior. She worked as a facility manager at the Mattioli Recreation Center and in the Writing Studio, she served as a resident advisor and was a peer mentor during her time at ESU. Langan, a member of ESU’s honors program, has been a member of the Kappa Delta Pi Education Honor Fraternity and was initiated to the Order of Omega Greek Honors Society in Fall 2021. She is a member of the Alpha Sigma Tau Sorority where she has served as the Director of Philanthropy. In this role, Langan has been responsible for raising money for Relay for Life, hosting food drives for local women’s shelters and annual collection drives for Dress for Success, and raised money to send teddy bears to The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Finally, she has helped to host other collections for female hygiene products to benefit those who may otherwise be without these necessary items.

Randy Detrick ’00 lives his life by these words: You can have anything in life that you want, if you’re willing to help enough other people get what they want. His mission is to add value to others. To fulfill this mission, Randy presents on topics of hope, trust, and enthusiasm for life. Detrick has had the honor to race the World Cup in ski racing, be the president of his own medical equipment business, and now is the president of the 13th-top-ranked winery in the nation, Blue Ridge Estate Vineyard & Winery. He created The Underground Experience, a consistently sold-out presentation pairing wine with the most powerful topics of life. Detrick’s passions all started with his mom, giving him the advice to “pursue all your dreams with all your imagination and to never let the false sense of fear interfere with your life.” Every day he strives to add value to the world through a message of hope, trust, and excitement for life. Detrick lives on the farm at Blue Ridge Winery with his wife, Tiffany, and their three children.

Dr. Susan Dillmuth-Miller is an associate professor of communication sciences and disorders. She is ESU’s clinic audiologist and is president of the University Senate. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. She has presented internationally on the effects of rheumatic disease and hearing manifestations. Scholarly endeavors include examining knowledge and attitudes of excessive noise levels and hearing protection in young adults and concussion and audiological characteristics. She advises the ESU Sign Language Club.

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