Commencement: A family affair

	Patti Brown, right, traveled more than 2,000 miles with family and friends for her graduation at Cole Field House May 19. Click on the image below for larger view.

The UMUC family never feels more like a family than on commencement day in Adelphi, Md., and this year was no exception. Even an early morning downpour couldn't stop almost 1,600 graduates from bringing more than 10,000 relatives and friends from near and far to pack the bleachers in Cole Field House, on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park.

"Given all the effort and expense of getting a bachelor's degree, this was an event worthy of coming across country," said Patti Brown, who traveled more than 2,000 miles from her home in Steilacoom, Wash., just south of Seattle — and brought half a dozen friends and family members along with her.

"We decided to make it a vacation," said Brown, who, like many other UMUC students, earned her degree without ever seeing the campus. "We're going to tour some of the national monuments, visit the Smithsonian, and that sort of thing."

UMUC President Gerald Heeger also called attention to the special role that family and friends played in the graduates' achievements.

"There is another group of special guests here today — the husbands, wives, children, parents, friends, and relatives of the graduates," Heeger said, as he invited graduates to point to their friends and family members in the stands and led them in a lengthy round of cheering and applause.

When South Africa's ambassador to the United States, Sheila Violet Makate Sisulu, stepped to the podium to present the commencement address, she asked the audience to return the favor.

"President Heeger upstaged me when he asked the graduates to stand up and identify their families," said Sisulu, who received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree from the university. "[So] I will . . . ask the families to stand up and honor the graduates." The applause that followed was even louder.

For some, this year's commencement ceremony was especially family-oriented. Seven husband-and-wife couples marched together, as did 19 men and women who graduated alongside a brother or sister. At least two parents and their children received degrees on the same day.

"This is the first time we've gone to school together," said Delora Koolick, who marched alongside her sister, Sandra Boyles. Both work in the defense industry and both earned bachelor's degrees in computer and information science.

"We both had babies — she had a set of twins and I had a little boy — and we decided that we wanted to go back to school and finish up the bachelor's degrees that we had started a long, long time ago. It was a great experience," said Koolick, who introduced her sister to UMUC.

"Most people didn't know we were sisters and we didn't tell anyone unless we were on campus. We look alike, so then people knew."

Even the rain played a part in making this year's commencement a family affair.

"They couldn't put us in alphabetical order because we couldn't line up outside," Boyles said, "so we were able to march in together."