The Northern Marianas College graduated its largest class ever in its 35th commencement ceremony last Saturday afternoon at the Marianas High School Gymnasium.<\/p>\n
NMC\u2019s class of 2015, comprised of about 167 students, was made up of students graduating with associate\u2019s or bachelor\u2019s degrees, and sometimes both. About 35 of these students graduated with a bachelor\u2019s in education.<\/p>\n
College president Dr. Sharon Hart welcomed the graduates, their friends, and family in her remarks.<\/p>\n
Hart told the students that the college \u201cproa\u201d was sometimes shaken, rocked, and challenged during her times as president. But as someone with a couple of decades experience in higher education, she said her times here were her most enjoyable. She encouraged students to launch the sails of their proa \u201cfull speed ahead\u201d in their future endeavors.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs you leave this institution, know that you will joining a prestigious network of NMC alumni who are working in our community and in other parts of the world as business professional, educators, health providers, natural resource managers, community leaders, researchers, and officers of the law\u2026We look forward to hearing great things about you and your explorations,\u201d said Hart and NMC board chair Juan T. Lizama in their joint message.<\/p>\n
Keynote speaker Shirley Sablan shared lessons from \u201clife-changing\u201d experiences as recipient of the Maga-haga Award and the 2014 First Hawaiian Bank Guam Business Magazine Businesswomen of the Year.<\/p>\n
Sablan noted some \u201cinsecurities\u201d about giving the keynote speech that day, but otherwise rose to the task with a message of confidence and taking up life\u2019s challenges. She urged students not to get too caught up in the \u201crat race\u201d or the economic climb and give back and become players in their community.<\/p>\n
To celebrate their top students, the college also presented \u201cAcademic Excellence Awards\u201d and \u201cStudent Leadership Awards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jimin Cheon, with an associate in liberal arts degree, and Hyemin Lee, with her associate degree in hospitality management, won the \u201cAcademic Excellence\u201d awards.<\/p>\n
For the \u201cStudent Leadership Award,\u201d the college presented this to Guadalupe Adelbai Camacho, who graduated with an associate of arts degree with an emphasis in education, and Jolly Ann Cruz, who graduated with a bachelor\u2019s degree in education, and an associate\u2019s degree in natural resource management.<\/p>\n
The college graduation was witnessed by a packed crowd of families, friends, and local legislators, mayors, as well as Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP).<\/p>\n
The college\u2019s vision is to serve as the \u201cengine to drive the economic growth and the social and cultural vitality in the Commonwealth.\u201d Last Saturday\u2019s largest graduating class comes nearly a year after earning initial accreditation from the WASC Senior Commission last July 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Northern Marianas College graduated its largest class ever in its 35th commencement ceremony last…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[37,4821,190,69],"class_list":["post-202512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-education-2","tag-hyemin-lee","tag-natural","tag-nmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}