May is both the best of times and the worst of times in the community college world. This lovely spring month ushers in final exam week with its usual rush to grade papers and submit final grades along with some of the best reasons to celebrate any community college professional could hope for. So all that stress translates into a metaphoric photo finish: an incredible array of celebratory events leads the way to Commencement. Our days and nights are spent reveling in the athletic prowess, scholarship, leadership and service of our students. Lucky we are for the chance to stop and acknowledge the scholars and leaders who make our colleges strong and dynamic institutions.
Community colleges do not just talk about “student success;” we live it! We celebrate thousands of students in Honors and Awards Ceremonies, Athletic functions, Phi Theta Kappa inductions, Nursing and Allied Health Care pinning ceremonies, and everything else as joyous and proud families, faculty and staff applaud. We are right to savor these moments as powerful reflections of our students’ talent, our community’s strength and the pride we take in the work we do every day. As I often say to faculty and staff, the only reason we have a job to do is because we have students to serve. Without them there is no need for a faculty member, an advisor or a college president. Their success is our success, and gauging success by that measure, we can look back at this time of year and know we have done well. None of these wins comes easily… not for them, not for us. There is much truth to the phrase “It takes a village.”
Education is the great leveler and lifter. Thanks to the talent of faculty and staff, across the country, community college students surpass the challenges of the 21st century workforce. They represent the best our institutions have to offer in a particular area or field from liberal arts to social sciences, from HVAC to plumbing and so on. They all have their own special story and celebrating them is a tribute rightly paid to resilience, resourcefulness, hard work and talent… both theirs and ours.
For these last few weeks before Summer begins, we will be imbued with the joy and the energy that only student achievement can bring. The work of the year is over, and the results are good! This is our season of celebration, when the mission and the heart of the community college shines brightest. From academic honors to service awards, these moments are proof that when talent is nurtured, it flourishes. On behalf of more than 1,000 community colleges across the country, we can all say with pride: we are honored that our students chose us as part of their journey toward greatness.