A Night of Celebration

The sun shone, the bagpipes sounded, and the members of Clark College’s 79th graduating class gathered together—more than 730 of them, making the 2015 Commencement ceremony the college’s largest yet.

The Clark County Event Center was filled with friends, family members, and other well-wishers at the event, which took place during the evening of June 18.

Approximately 20 members of the crowd were there to cheer on David Scott, 22, who was receiving his Associate of Arts degree. “I’m the first one in my family to graduate from college,” said Scott, whose neck was adorned with multiple leis, a traditional Hawaiian token of celebration. “They’re pretty stoked.”

Scott, who is transferring to Washington State University Vancouver in the fall and hopes to become an elementary school teacher, said he was impressed by the caring nature of his professors at Clark. “They genuinely want you to be successful,” he said as he waited in line to enter the ceremony.

Scott said he also appreciated the flexibility of Clark’s online courses. “I’ve been working fulltime as an overnight stocker at Winco Foods,” he explained. “It’s really good that they have online classes because I get off work at 7:30 a.m. and need to sleep.”

In total, some 2,000 degrees and certificates were conferred upon the Class of 2015. This year’s graduating class included 278 Running Start graduates—a new record for the college, which has the largest Running Start program in the state.

Adeline Dinehart stood with five friends at the head of the line of graduates. All six young women were Woodland High School students who had attended Clark through Running Start. Dinehart had thrived at Clark, where she became president of the popular N.E.R.D. (Not Even Remotely Dorky) Girls Club and a member of the Clark Aeronautics Club, which successfully participated in a NASA rocketry competition in Huntsville, Alabama, this spring.

“We were the only community college in the maxi competition,” she said proudly. “The atmosphere there was great—really competitive, but also really encouraging of one another.”

Dinehart said she appreciated the faculty’s promotion of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, citing engineering professors Carol Hsu and Tina Barsotti in particular. “Tina and Carol are amazing,” she said. “They have taught me so much over the past two years.”

Dinehart will be attending University of Washington in the fall. Two of her friends, Jamie Kitchen and Shianne Burhop, are also college-bound, but headed to George Fox University, where they will be roommates.

“The credits from Clark transfer really well,” said Kitchen. “That’s part of why I chose to come to Clark.”

“Going to Woodland, you have the choice as a Running Start student between Lower Columbia College and Clark,” explained Burhop, who had adorned her cap with the Bilbo Baggins quote, “I think I am quite ready for another adventure.”

This year’s ceremony saw an explosion in cap decoration, and as students filed into the ceremony, the westering sun glinted off of messages outlined in glitter and rhinestones.

The ceremony itself held many highlights. Student speaker and ASCC president Emmah Ferguson shared how Clark had developed an unrealized love of science within her.

“We have all had obstacles,” she said. “For me, my biggest obstacle was probably myself and my ideas about what I could and couldn’t do. … It is our resilience and persistence that has gotten us this far, and it will take us where we want to go next.”

Former Seattle Seahawks running back and businessman Curt Warner gave the keynote address. Noting that he had grown up in West Virginia’s coal mining country, where career options were limited, he urged graduates to aspire toward their goals, even if others tried to dissuade them.

“If people say you can’t succeed, you don’t have time to listen to that,” he said. “Dedicate yourselves to your goals. Never give up. People who make goals get slapped down at least once. Everyone loses sometime. It’s how you handle the losing that makes you a winner.”

The ceremony also served as the announcement of the 2015 Exceptional Faculty Awards. The 2015 awardees are Steven Clark, professor of biology; Alison Dolder, instructor of baking; Matthew Gallaher, instructor of English; and Michiyo Okuhara, professor of Japanese. President Robert K. Knight also announced the recipient of the 2015-2016 Community College President’s Award, Kathleen Fockler.

New this year, students who earned GEDs or High School Diplomas through the college’s Transitional Studies program were invited to participate in the ceremony. Approximately 25 of these students participated in the ceremony, and High School Diploma recipient Leeann Hodge was one of two student speakers to address the crowd.

Before the ceremony began, these students had stood in a line adjacent to the line for associate degree and certificate recipients. One of them, Amanda Halbert, said she decided to pursue her GED once her youngest child was getting ready to start kindergarten. She is beginning college-level classes at Clark now, with the goal of earning a degree in graphic design.

“It’s a little nerve-wracking, looking across at the people in that line, getting their associate degrees,” she admitted. “But I’m proud of myself for being here. And I know I’ll be in that line one day.”

Photos: Clark College/Jenny Shadley

To see more photos from Commencement, visit Clark’s Flickr album.