Degrees and certificates were awarded to graduating students Sunday afternoon at the 2013 commencement for Southwest Colorado Community College.
“This is truly the beginning” of graduates’ futures, Norm Jones, SCCC’s executive dean told students. “You are following in the footsteps of excellence.”
The ceremony was held at Fort Lewis College’s Whalen Gymnasium. SCCC is a campus of Pueblo Community College.
Jones also said graduates were standing on the shoulders of others who encouraged them.
“I want you to think of that individual who supported you,” he said.
An example of that support was Mark Muller, this year’s Distinguished Scholar. Muller, who received his associate of applied science degree in nursing, had health issues that could have affected his education. But he said he had help from family, faculty and fellow students.
“The award goes as much to my family as to me,” he told the audience.
Muller is an example of what guest speaker Sue Mitchell said in an interview was “the beginning of something they didn’t have before.”
Mitchell is best known as the character Miss Sue, played by Kathy Bates, in the Sandra Bullock movie “The Blind Side.” The film depicts how Michael Oher, who eventually became an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens, was taken in and eventually adopted by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy.
Mitchell was a tutor who helped Oher rise from a failing 0.6 grade-point average to a 2.05 GPA in high school, and a 3.75 GPA and the Dean’s List at the University of Mississippi.
Like Oher, Sunday’s graduates got the chance to realize that “to finish something, to accomplish something is very rewarding,” Mitchell said in the interview.
“This simple piece of paper will give them the self-confidence they don’t have, or build on the their (current level) of self-confidence,” she said.
Mitchell is a longtime educator and said students such as Oher and some of the SCCC graduates sometimes need other ways to learn.
She gave the example of testing, which is usually in writing.
“How many tests in life are written?” she asked rhetorically. She said when she went back to earn her master’s degree, as a “B” student, she was very nervous the first time she sat down to take a test.
She then asked what effect taking written tests can have on more challenged students. Often, oral tests accomplish what exams are designed to do, which is to see how much students really know.
“If I know the material, what difference does it make ... how we give” the test? she again asked rhetorically.
Mitchell tutored 12 to 15 Ole Miss athletes every year. Her goal was to help them live normal lives and accomplish goals.
Students, such as Sunday’s graduates, need teaching that is “all about relationships,” she said. “If they don’t have motivation from family” it needs to come from elsewhere, such as teachers.
“Students,” Mitchell said, “learn to be accountable to somebody.”
rgalin@durangoherald.com
