Convocation 2015: Awards, Successes, and Highlights

Faculty & Staff Convocation 2015 marked the start of the new academic year. New and returning faculty and staff came together for PSU’s traditional acknowledgment and honoring of their accomplishments and to set the table for the coming year.

Let Us Talk Liberal Education
Gina Greco, professor of French and Presiding Officer of the Faculty Senate, opened the event and invited faculty to a campus conversation about liberal education.

As Gina stated, this is “an opportunity for us, as a campus, to launch a conversation about what it should mean to be a PSU graduate, and how we can best articulate that to our students, our community and ourselves.”

She continued, “I would like us to assess where are we succeeding, and where can we improve in our work to prepare students for success in the workplace, for meaningful participation in their communities, for personal growth, and for the pursuit of lifetime learning.” I encourage all faculty to participate in this important conversation and hope you will stay informed of the progress the Faculty Senate makes.

Celebrating Our 2015 Graduates…And Their Shoes

Eric Noll, Outgoing ASPSU President (left)
Rayleen McMillan, Outgoing Vice President (right)

 

On Sunday, June 14, PSU held its university-wide 2015 Spring Commencement Ceremonies. I attended ten ceremonies throughout the week, and witnessed great excitement, joy and recognition at each. The accomplishments of our students was evident in their speeches; faculty, family and friend recognitions; and plans for the future.

Highlights

• It was wonderful to see graduates at the Native American and Pacific Islander Ceremony wrapped in beautiful blankets by staff and faculty.
• In the same lecture hall I handed out chocolates to students at the fall opening of the Collaborative Life Sciences Building, I also got to address graduates in the Biology Department.
• It was impressive to see the great turnout for the Speech and Hearing Department’s first hooding ceremony.
• I enjoyed spending a good part of a day with the School of Social Work faculty at their two commencement ceremonies (undergraduates and graduates).
• It was an honor awarding the Kamelia Massih Outstanding Faculty Award in the Arts to Professor Corey Griffin and the Outstanding Student Award to Margaret Heath at the College of the Arts Ceremony.
• At the Lavender Graduation, there were warm and gracious individual thank-you’s from graduates to their faculty, partners, family, and friends.
• It was heart-touching when one of the student speakers at our Multicultural Graduation said to her fellow students:

“We all came to PSU as a grain of sand. PSU was our oyster and turned us into pearls.”