A Belated Graduation 2009

Since I've been away from blog-land for so long, I'm going to try to do some catching up, and thought I'd start with some pics from graduation last May. I love graduation, as it not only means summer's coming (yay!), but it's incredibly fun and rewarding to see our students complete their degrees and celebrate with their families.

Festivities always start on Friday with a graduation ceremony just for our college -- the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology. And the AgOne Foundation always sponsors a nice breakfast for graduates, their families, and faculty just prior to the ceremony. Our department faculty always turns out in full-force to support our students, and here our Department Administrative Assistant, Cheryl Jackson, enjoys the celebration with lecturers Alma Major and Gary Malone.
Nicole Jensen is one of my students who graduated. She took one of my classes while she was pregnant with her first daughter -- she now has two daughters, and I keep track of their adventures through Facebook.
On Saturday, we attend the University Graduation, which is held in the SaveMart Center on campus. Here, faculty from our department are in line in the "innards" of the SaveMart Center, waiting for the show to begin. (l to r: Katie Dyer, Gary Malone, Alma Major, Sean Seepersad, and Kabeljit Atwal)
Cheryl does such a great job getting us all organized that we decided to give her a mortar board like the graduates!
We love posing for group pics...(l to r, back to front: Ronna Crews, Sean, Marianne Jones, Gary, Kabeljit, Katie, Rich Berrett, Alma, and me)
Another one of my students who graduated, Taryn Porter. She is now a graduate student on campus, and I'm confident she's going places! I talked her into being a student representative on our Student Success Task Force, a university committee I sit on, and look forward to seeing her there.
Eboney Pearson was one of my students last year for the first time, and she's terrific. She's still on campus taking a few classes to finish up her degree.
Marquis Matson was our "Outstanding Student," and she is an exceptional student. She worked on research with Katie and me, and went to the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development last April to help us present it. She is now at USC (please forgive her) working on her master's degree.
Kabeljit, Alma, and Sean get in one last Kodak moment before heading into the ceremonies.
So, a bit belated, but fun to see now as I start a new academic year, as knowing another one of these is at the end will make it easier to get through the challenges!