Magna cum laude

We all had a very late night last night because we are now the proud parents of our first college graduate. M. graduated with her Bachelor of Arts degree from North Park University last night. The perk of having a father who works at the same institution is that at the last moment he was able to snag a few extra tickets, thus saving me extensive game plans as to how we would all get in and have a seat for the ceremony. But he did and we all got seats with very little drama... a lot of waiting, but I came prepared with a bag full of activities for the littles.

It was a very nice ceremony and because M. graduated magna cum laude, she was asked to carry the school banner. It was easy to pick her out in the processional. Well, she is also currently sporting bright blue hair, so we would have found her in any case, but it was still nice.  Here are some photos from the evening.

Here we are waiting for the ceremony to start. In order to get seats, we first got to the school 45 minutes before the doors opened and then had 45 minutes to wait for the ceremony. The small people did a remarkably good job with the waiting business.

I don't have any good pictures of M. walking in with the banner or of her getting her diploma. One of the nice things about North Park is that they have a tradition that if your parent teaches there (and it is not terribly uncommon for professor's children to attend), then your parent gets to step in and award the diploma. So M. got to receive her diploma from J. It was very sweet.

We (and by 'we' I mean B., because my camera battery died) did get some good photos afterwards.

M.

M. and A. (I love this picture!)

M. with her roommate of the past three years who was valedictorian.

As we were heading towards M.'s graduation, I did a little investigating. It turns out that M. is the fourth generation of women in our family to receive a college degree. That's pretty remarkable. My grandmother (M.'s great-grandmother) received her bachelor's degree in English with a classics minor from Northwestern at the time when they still had the women's college. She then went on to receive a master's degree in English from Columbia. My mother has a college degree and I have a bachelor's and master's degree. Not only this, but M.'s great-grandmother on J.'s side also received a bachelor's and a master's degree in classics.

So, congratulations to my wonderful daughter. We love you and are so proud of you!