Video description
Fifteen years ago, Hillary Clinton received an honorary degree from the University of Illinois.
The University of Illinois holds a special place in the heart of Veronica Shenshin. Growing up in Finland with Russian ancestry, she felt the effects of old tensions between the two countries even though her family had lived in Helsinki for three generations. When she arrived in Urbana-Champaign to study, she says, for the first time in her life she felt equal.
It’s fitting, then, that her experience here ended in a graduation ceremony attended not only by good friends but also Hillary Clinton, who received an honorary doctorate in law at the 1994 commencement ceremonies. This was well before the days of camera phones and other ubiquitous hand-held video recorders, but friends of Shenshin did manage to catch it on film.
Shenshin had seen Hillary speak on campus in 1992 during Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, but the second time was even more memorable because Hillary was First Lady, and Shenshin, who was receiving her LAS doctorate in Slavic languages and literatures, got to shake her hand.
Though she doesn’t have the entire speech on film, Shenshin most clearly recalls that Hillary spoke about witnessing the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and the coinciding reconciliation among old foes.
“Oh, it was a wonderful experience. I couldn’t believe it was true that it happened,” Shenshin says. “Overall I can never forget it, and I was so happy.”
After graduation Shenshin returned to Finland and has worked on various projects, including a recent study of Finland’s Russian population for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (she is a specialist in Russian cultural studies). In April she received an honorary professorship at Moscow State University of Humanities by the name of M.A. Sholokhov, and she’s also chair of the Russian Nobility Society in Finland.
She was disappointed when Hillary lost the Democratic primary election in 2008, but happy to see the nomination go to another Illinois resident in Barack Obama. Still, Shenshin recalls the relaxed and inclusive style that Hillary brought to the ceremony.
Her memories of the visit remain clear partly because of a friend and student, Jane Holmes, and her boyfriend (now husband) Ron Burek, who attended the ceremony because Shenshin’s family back in Finland at the time were not able to come. The pair didn’t want Shenshin to be alone when she received her degree.
From their seats they taped the ceremony with a shoulder-mounted video camera. Afterward they presented Shenshin with the videotape, which she has since turned into a DVD.
“This,” Jane told her, “is for you to remember the University of Illinois and your time here.”
