BCC Commencement Address

President Jean Floten

June 17, 2005

Honored graduates, distinguished guests, members of the board of trustees, faculty and staff, friends, and loved ones, I am Jean Floten, president of Bellevue Community College.

As president, it is one of my proudest honors to convene the 38th commencement of Bellevue Community College. Now, I need to ask all of you to be sure your cell phones are off. Please check them now.

Let's start this evening by asking our honored graduates to stand. Let's give our graduates a big round of applause.

After all of these years celebrating commencement, I am still moved by the ceremony and what it signifies. Commencement is the high point of our college's academic year. This occasion is at once solemn and joyous. Solemn because it is the symbolic march of students who have been in our care into the world beyond. Joyous because through this ceremony we release you, our graduates, to the next stage of your lives.

To the class of 2005, I extend a warm welcome and congratulations to you, your families, your instructors, and all of us. We are proud of your achievements. Tonight is dedicated to you. It is a time when your family, friends, loved ones, and the whole college community take pride in your accomplishments.

It is a time of hope and human renewal that we celebrate through this medieval ritual that marks the transference of knowledge and culture from our faculty to you, our students. The gowns, caps, and tassels are symbols that you, graduates, have answered the call to undertake uncommon responsibilities, a group of whom much will be asked and who will accomplish a great deal. Our purpose at the college has been to help you build a successful life, in all its dimensions, on the foundation of your own character and talents. And, in doing so, we call on you to build a better society for all.

We celebrate your accomplishments and we extend heartfelt congratulations. Many people are here to night to assist in the celebration. Graduates, you are joined this evening by several officials who are here to congratulate you. Please stand when I call your names and remain standing and audience, please hold your applause until they have all been introduced.

Senator Luke Esser from the 48th District,

Representative Judy Clibborn from the 41st District,

Don Grant , Board President, Bellevue Community College Foundation,

Don Gerend, Mayor, City of Sammamish, and

Pete Lewis, Mayor of Auburn.

Thank you for joining us on this most important evening.

I would now like to introduce the individuals who are part of this evening's ceremony. Please stand when I call your name and remain standing. Audience, please hold you applause until the end.

First are those individuals who have been entrusted by the state of Washington to confer your degrees, the Board of Trustees of Community College District 8:

• Chair Jim Dagnon from Medina ,

• Vice Chair Vijay Vashee from Mercer Island ,

• Lee Kraft from Mercer Island ,

• Ruthann Kurose from Mercer Island , and

• Paul Chiles from Bellevue .

This evening's distinguished speakers:

• Your commencement speaker, Barbara Earl Thomas, nationally acclaimed painter and writer, whom we will hear from soon.
  

• Representing the faculty is Gywneth Jones, geology instructor and this year's award winner for meritorious teaching.
  

• Representing the graduating class is Rudy Ziemba (Zim ba), student volunteer of the year who will receive his AAS this evening.

Your College Officers:

• Dr. Ron Leatherbarrow, Executive Dean, Instructional Services

• Dr. Jim Bennett , Dean of Instruction

• Tika Esler , Dean of Student Services

• Dr. Paula Boyum , Vice President Workforce Development

• Donald Bloom , Vice President of Administrative Services

• Michael Talbott , Dean of Information Resources, and

• Gaynor Hills, Vice President of Institutional Advancement

On your journey here this evening, many people at BCC have been instrumental to your accomplishments. Will the faculty, administrators and staff stand and be recognized—let's give all these people a round of applause.

Moreover, we must pay tribute to your family and loved ones—parents, spouses, children, grandchildren, and friends who have shared their support and sacrificed to provide the time required for you to be here tonight. These people deserve your appreciation.

I would like to turn my attentions now to you, our graduates. This year, Bellevue Community College will award 1,938 degrees and certificates. More than two-thirds of these degrees prepare students with the first two years of 4-year degrees. Where BCC students transfer after BCC with their AAS degrees, you may ask? The answer is anywhere they want. While most students who transfer attend the University of Washington-Seattle, students attend an amazing array of other universities such as Stanford, Berkley, Columbia, Brown, Moorehouse, Carnegie Mellon.

I was talking with the Vice President of Leadership from PTK, the college's honor society, Lauren Applegate, and learned she was accepted at all 8 of the colleges for which she applied—(private and out of state, with a full scholarship to University of Denver). She also applied for, was accepted, and studied at Magdelan College at Oxford for a term. She will attend the UW-Seattle.

Many of you, too, have earned Associate degrees or certificates from programs designed to help you immediately enter the workforce as nurses, sonographers, radiation therapist, radiologic technicians, managers, supervisors, application specialists, fire fighters, interior designers, among others.

Those of you in health care occupations have a very high success rate with national boards—Radiation therapy students this last year had 100 percent pass rate and 3 students in the top 5th percentile. Radiologic Technology was 100% with the average score in the top 10% nationally. 95 percent passed the nursing boards. DuTech—92 percent received national credentials.

You are as young as 17 and as old as 62.  Your average age is 27, indicating a large number of older students in addition to the “traditional” student who goes to college shortly after high school .  

A total of 574 of you are graduating with honors (a 3.5 grade point average or better), 21 with perfect 4.0 averages. Would you stand please?

Seventy-six of the graduates took part in the Running Start program, which gives high school students an opportunity to take college classes to get a head start on their college education. Many of you are earning a high school diploma at the same time you receive your associate's degree.

In a sign of the impact of new technology on education, more than half of you have taken at least a portion of your studies online—an increasingly popular option that offers access to education from remote locations and allows students to arrange their class schedule around work and other commitments.

This year's students earned a number of awards: I will mention just a few. Our Mathletes placed second in the nation and first in the Northwest in the 2005 American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges Student Math League competition. It was the second year in a row that BCC students placed second in the nation and the sixth in a row that they placed first in the region—which includes Washington , Idaho , and Oregon .

Two students in the nuclear medicine technology certificate program won elite Paul Cole Scholarships from the Society of Nuclear Medicine. Katherine Clarke and Deanne Peterson won two of only 10 scholarships given nationally for students in certificate programs. Having two winners in one program is quite unusual.

Jibsheet Editor-in-Chief Robert Baldino won a first place Mark of Excellence Award for best feature writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He also won a $1,000 scholarship from the Western Washington Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Celebration! BCC's Jazz Choir, placed second at the 2005 Reno Jazz Festival, missing ‘three-peating' their first place showing of the past two years by just one point.

Right-handed BCC pitcher Bradley Clapp signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who drafted him in the 19th round last year. He received a $350,000 signing bonus in addition to tuition payments for three years of education at any public Washington college or university.

And, our students continue to receive honors and awards as they leave BCC. Just last Saturday, o ne of your colleagues graduated from UW as one of two students who received the President's medal for the highest academic accomplishment. Ima-Jin LaPlante.

These are just a few of the accolades awarded to BCC students this past year.

There are also many personal stories of persistence, courage, and success among you. Many of you are the first member in your families to obtain a college education. Many of you have sacrificed a lot for your degree or certificate—working long hours, raising families, and still finding time for classes. Many of you have worked many, many years to get to this point, taking only one or two classes per quarter, so that you could make a livelihood and afford your education. Some of you have overcome incredible obstacles –such as disabilities, loss of employment, challenging family situations—to get your credential this evening. To all of you, I extend my profound appreciation for your perseverance, determination and dedication in obtaining your education.

To sum it all up, you are a very gratifying and accomplished class. We are honored to have been a part of your accomplishments. Congratulations! Please give our graduates a resounding applause for these honors and their personal attainment.

And, now, it is my pleasure to introduce this evening's commencement speaker, Barbara Earl Thomas. We are thrilled to have her join us tonight. Ms. Thomas is a nationally acclaimed artist and writer from Seattle .

At the forefront of a group of leading African American artists currently working in this country, Ms. Thomas is an acclaimed painter and writer whose art expresses her heritage and her life. The granddaughter of Southern sharecroppers who migrated to Seattle in the 1940s, she translates her vision of southern roots and culture into the Northwest landscape of growing up in Seattle . She attended the University of Washington where she studied with Jacob Lawrence and received her MFA in 1977. Her paintings have been included in exhibitions for twenty-five years and collected by regional arts commissions, the Seattle Art Museum , and local corporations. She has been represented by the Francine Seders (Said-ers) Gallery since 1984.

In addition to her abundant talent in painting Ms. Thomas also has a true gift of storytelling, radiating warmth, enthusiasm and incisive observations in her work. Her essays have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including Raven Chronicles, Aorta, Gathering Ground, A Single Mother's Companion, Calyx, and Storm Watch, a book she wrote in 1989. She is a lecturer on art and culture and its importance to a civil society. She is ls also the curator of the Northwest African American Museum . Since 1989, she has worked as advertising manager at The Elliott Bay Book Co.

We are blessed to have such a talented artist right here in our own region. Please join me in providing a warm welcome to artist, writer, lecturer, and raconteur, Barbara Earl Thomas.

Presentation of Degrees

We will now present the class to the Trustees who will award their degrees. Jim Dagnon , chair of the board of trustees, and Vijay Vashee , vice-chair, please join me at the podium. Graduating class of 2005 please rise:

Board of Trustees of Community College District 8, it is my privilege to present to you Bellevue Community College's candidates for graduation for 2005, whom the faculty has judged to have met creditably the requirements of their several programs and to be entitled to their appropriate credentials, and who have come here tonight to receive from you, under the authority granted you by the state of Washington, their proper degrees, certificates, and diplomas and to accept from the college, their families, and the whole community, the congratulations they richly deserve.

Graduates, would the first row of graduates please approach the stage? Others may be seated until your row is called.

Recessional

Congratulations graduates. I charge you to use the skills and knowledge which you have attained to your benefit and to that of your community which has made your education possible. Your education will benefit you in incalculable ways in the years to come. No matter what field you have studied, your education at BCC has strengthened for you the ability to learn and to go on learning all your lives. Now is the time to turn your tassels graduates, as the sign of your graduation.

Many people worked hard to make this celebration possible: Special thanks to our keynote speaker, Barbara Earl Thomas; student speaker, Rudy Ziemba; faculty speaker, Gwyneth Jones; the commencement committee; the Bellevue Community Band; Michael Gelotte, the bag piper; Celebration, and director, Tom Almli; and to readers Vicki Artimovich and Tammi Doyle.

We invite all of you to a special reception that will follow the recessional that will be held in the Student Union Building .

Now, we will begin the recessional. The order will be those on the stage; followed by faculty, then graduates. Please, audience, hold your seats until the recessional is over in deference to our graduates. At that time, please exit through the rear doors (point) and meet your graduate in the R building courtyard.

It has been a fabulous evening. Congratulations, graduates. Here's to a great life!

Now everyone, stand for the recessional.

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