DURHAM -- On Sunday morning, thousands of Duke University students - capped, gowned and ready to graduate - sat in chairs under cloudy skies at Wallace Wade Stadium to celebrate the end of all the hard work that goes into getting a degree.
Many took one step closer to the working world; some will stay in academia. Their supporters filled half the 35,000-seat stadium, snapping photos, yelling congratulations, or just searching for that one special student in the crowd.
THE CEREMONY: 10 a.m., Wallace Wade Stadium
NUMBER OF GRADUATES: 3,578, including 1,505 bachelor's degrees, 1,537 master's degrees and 536 Ph.D.s and professional degrees.
MAIN SPEAKER: Muhammad Yunus, a 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Bangladeshi banker who is considered the father of microfinance, a concept he developed of providing small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
WHAT HE SAID: Yunus asked graduates if they would use their skills and resources to make the world a better place for those who don't have the same advantages.
Instead of focusing on making money, Yunus suggested that students seek a "social business" that focuses on helping those who are less fortunate by fixing flawed systems.
"Whatever problem you see, you can create a social business. That is creativity you all have as an individual," he said. "Each human being has the power, enormous power, to change the world, and you have it. Are you going to use that to change the world? Just a question I raise with you."
After college and a brief teaching stint in Tennessee, Yunus returned to Bangladesh to head the economics department at Chittagong University. However, the area's terrible famine spurred him to help those around him by creating a banking system that caters to the poor. His efforts eventually helped thousands of families pull themselves out of poverty, and educate and send their children to universities.
"I just looked at it with my bare eyes to see what was there and tried to respond to those problems that I saw," he said.
Yunus brought his banking philosophy to New York City in 2008, the year the financial crisis hit the world. While the larger banks were collapsing, his model was flourishing, he said.
"These big banks told me back in 1976 that banks cannot lend money to the poor because they are not creditworthy," he said. "So I started asking people in New York, 'Can you tell me who are creditworthy now?'"
GOOSE PIMPLES: Abhilash Jindal, 31, of India, said when he came to Duke he wasn't much of a basketball fan. But he is leaving infected with Blue Devils basketball fever, which he caught while watching Duke earn an NCAA championship this year. A highlight on his quest to receive his master's in business administration? Watching Duke basketball players return to Cameron Indoor Stadium after winning the championship.
"I had goose pimples all over my body," Jindal said.
ADVICE FROM A PROUD PARENT: Janice Threadcraft, a single mother who works in public relations for a nonprofit company, came to Durham from Phenix City, Ala., to see her 22-year-old daughter, Chastity, receive her undergraduate degree in political science. Her eldest daughter, Tiffaney, graduated from Harvard University in 2007.
Her advice to other parents: Get children involved in activities early and often. Her advice to students: Don't let anyone get in your way, and compete with yourself.
