Trials, Triumphs and Thank You’s: Slovak Immigrant is
Named Valedictorian at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus

- Commencement will take place on Thursday, May 13, 10:15 a.m. -

Brooklyn, N.Y. — Long Island University Brooklyn Campus valedictorian Jana Hasprunarova was only four years old when her parents fled from communism in their native Czechoslovakia to the United States. They took with them their son but left Jana and her sister behind with their grandparents. The four-year gap till she saw them again left a deep hole inside.

"The absence of my parents during my childhood has had a great impact on making me a self-disciplined and introspective individual," says Jana, who excelled in college, with a double major in Media Arts and English and a 4.0 grade point average. She will give the valedictory address at the Brooklyn Campus Commencement Exercises on Thursday, May 13.

As a way to conquer the emptiness she felt inside, Jana began a gratitude journal, or what she calls her "radical" autobiography, at age 15. "A Book of Thank You’s," inspired by Oprah Winfrey, was not a traditional diary, but an attempt to find gratitude in her life and to be appreciative of the things she had. In the process, she encountered an unexpected journey from anger and loss to examining her relationship with the world.

As time went on, "my journal shifted from the materialistic to the more philosophical," says Jana. "In the end, I’ve learned not only to be thankful for what surrounds me, but to question the effect such exteriors have on the interior self." The entries in her book include being "thankful for mom buying me a toothbrush," "thankful for mirrors, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see myself" and "thankful for having the ability to learn about the history of yesterday."

In early April, she shared her journal experiences and development with participants of the prestigious Northeast National Collegiate Honors Council Conference in Hartford, Connecticut. "I was astounded by people’s reactions and how touched they were by it," she says.

Her interest in writing and media was ignited by her uncle making and sending videotapes of her sister and Jana growing up to her parents to America. "Family videos became the best way for us to communicate across the Atlantic," she says. "Video images have a powerful effect - especially at distance, video brings us closer."

Jana reunited with their parents in 1990, coming to live with them in Jersey City, New Jersey. She knew not a word of English. Her first words in the language, which she learned from the flight attendants, were ‘thank you.’

In her senior year of high school, she made a video of stories of the past, present and future of the graduating class and showed it at graduation to the families of her classmates. "That’s when I knew what I wanted to do."

She enrolled at Long Island University in a time of crisis: Her father passed away of cancer in summer 2000, right before her classes began at the Brooklyn Campus. As with other losses, she found a positive outlet. "The way I dealt with it was to dive into and excel in my school work," she says. She scripted and produced a video autobiography for the Campus’s Eastern European Diaspora Conference, called "Sweet Self," documenting her journey from Czechoslovakia to America. Along the way "I grew to love the written word and am addicted to developing myself as a writer," she says.

Jana channeled her energies not only into academics, but also into her internship experiences. She helped to produce a guidebook called "The New York Times Guide for New Immigrants," co-sponsored by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. She was a production intern at NBC’s The New Maury Show. "It was a hands-on experience - I learned a lot about real world experience of TV," she says. She has also interned at AOL Music and at Atlas Media Corp, a television production company for Discovery Channel, History Channel, Women’s Entertainment and others.

Among her honors are the Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship, a competitive award for promising undergraduates that provides paid internships, and membership in the national freshmen honor society and in the national honor society for English. She was president of the Progressive Network, a political organization at the Brooklyn Campus committed to increasing various perspectives on current events.

Jana’s short-term goals after graduation are to complete a summer internship at International Planned Parenthood in London. She also plans to visit Slovakia to see her family and to travel to Hawaii, before searching for a full-time job in television production. "I am so hands on, I’m ready to start applying what I’ve learned," she says.

Long Island University opened its Brooklyn Campus in 1926, welcoming a diverse population at a time when other major universities enforced quota systems against racial and ethnic minorities. Some 31,000 students currently are enrolled at the university’s three residential and three regional campuses, including more than 11,000 at the Brooklyn Campus. Located at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and DeKalb Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, the Campus is accessible to all major bus and subway routes and the Long Island Rail Road.