The end of another era

I taught my last class of the semester today (Friday) and next Friday, many of my students who came to campus two years ago not really knowing what to expect will be walking across the stage at True Hall to receive their diplomas and move on to either a career or the second stage of the higher education process. Some of them I didn't get to know at all, some I did, and some became not only my students but also my friends and I always hope those relationships will last for a long time. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but each of the students I get to know always makes an impression on my life and leaves behind memories of them with me.

Some of the transformations that take place are truly remarkable. Some were so shy two years ago they would have never considered speaking up in class and it was sometimes difficult to even get them to speak out of class. Two years later some of them went from shrinking violets to assertive, knowledgeable and aware young adults who now won't shut up. A young man whose home is 60 or so miles east of here was the straightest of straight arrows when he came and now he has pierced ears, diamond earrings, and a half-beard. Of course, he tells me the earrings will come out and the beard will come off as soon as he goes back home.

These transformations are not uncommon at the college level. They come out of an atmosphere where they were classmates with people they had known their entire lives and then, overnight, they're thrown in with people they don't know at all. Some of them learn more outside of class than they do in class. They do things they haven't done before, hang out and become friends with people they wouldn't have before, and learn things about the world they never knew before. And yet, most of them survive and prosper, emotionally and intellectually and, in the process of getting an academic education, they get an education in life too.

Our faculty at MCC feel both honored and privileged that we're given an opportunity to make a difference in some of these young lives as they transition from childhood to adulthood and we always hope that we have taught them something in the two short years they've been here that will make a difference in their lives.

I always tell my students that the primary objective of a college education is to learn HOW to think, not necessarily WHAT to think; to develop reasoning skills and abilities that will allow them to think about the problems we face in the world critically and analytically rather than constantly having to depend on other peoples' opinions and interpretations for their own individual "truths." I encourage them to explode their own circles, to chart their own course, and to have enough faith in their own ability to separate the wheat from the chaff so that they won't ever again have to depend on someone else's take on the world because it is almost always a poor substitute for our own.

So to the 2008 graduates of McCook Community College, I wish you Godspeed and good fortune in everything you do and everything you become and I hope with all my heart that your hopes, wishes, and dreams come true.

I will miss you.