Graduation, End of Year Happenings

There's been quite a bit happening lately, and I've been slow to post, so this will be a combination of events that I'll lump into this one post.

First of all, we say farewell, but not goodbye to our seniors.  I missed Piper at Graduation, but I did manage to say farewell to Lizzy and her family, as well as Olivia and her mom--although we still get to have the Kolodka family thanks to Emily!  I've heard that there may be a great photo coming of our "Crew dads" as well, so stay tuned for that!  Kathryn was on hand to watch Graduation, as was her fan club, and they were all loudly cheering for our three graduates as their names were called to receive their diplomas.

In the weeks leading up to Graduation, we had a few very nice events, also.  Piper rocked her thesis presentation, and not only was impressive to those of us in attendance, but apparently completely impressed her professors as well, so congrats Piper!  That's no easy feat, as you mentioned that they'd already evoked some tears from a couple classmates. You really made your technical work easily understandable for the rest of us, so thank you, and well done! 











And, Kathryn received the Peter Kohn Service Award for outstanding community service by a student-athlete.  She's been very actively involved with community service, and in particular has taken a leadership role with our local Special Olympics chapter and the United Way of Addison County, just to name a couple.  Well done, Kathryn, and keep up the great work!  (She was unable to make the awards ceremony due to an evening class, so she came by my office to accept her award.)

Lastly, but certainly lot least, we held our Athletic Department Awards Ceremony in the couple of days leading up to Graduation.  It's a nice lead-in to Graduation, and although they've stopped doing all of the Departmental Awards together, most departments have their own, and then these special awards are read as the seniors cross the stage during graduation.  It was great to have Pat join us for that ceremony as our Faculty Affiliate, too!  Congrats to our seniors, and we hope to see them often back on campus, and look forward to keeping in touch with them as they head off in different directions on their next adventures in life!  Congratulations Seniors!!