July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
It was a good day
"I think I speak for all of you," said the president of Ball State University, "when I say..."
I turned to Sally and finished the sentence, muttering, "These seats are really hard."
Okay, maybe that was a little unfair to president Gora, but witnessing commencement at a large university is a bit like being a parent watching a swim meet.
You watch for your kid, grin like a maniac for awhile, then endure the achievements of all the other kids.
In this case, on Saturday, our "kid" was my wife, Connie, a fact that added a whole new dimension to the day.
It was about six years ago when, still working for Meshberger Brothers Stone Corp., she stuck her toe into graduate school waters.
She wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to pursue, but she knew she wanted to pursue something.
Part of it was my fault, I assume. I'd stumbled into an accidental second career after 50, and she saw no reason she couldn't do the same, or better.
That first class, taken while she was still working full-time, was in landscape architecture.
It went well, with her fellow students accommodating a classmate as old or older than their parents.
Trouble is, it didn't seem to lead anywhere that made sense. It was only after looking at her career - with work for the air pollution control division of the State Board of Health before IDEM was born, with the city of Portland's wastewater treatment utility, and with Meshberger where she handled air and water pollution permitting - that things came together.
She decided to pursue a master's of science degree in natural resources and environmental management.
The folks at Meshberger's were tremendous, allowing her to work an abbreviated schedule during the school year and full-time during the summer. They simply could not have been more supportive or more flexible.
And so, it began in earnest.
Like hundreds of Jay County students, she started clocking miles on Ind. 67 to and from campus.
My job, it seemed, was primarily to listen. After a good or frustrating or challenging day at class, I listened. I nodded about things I did not understand. I struggled to keep track of the names of classmates and professors. But mostly, I just listened.
The good news was that she loved the classes and was delighted by what she was learning. The bad news was that it seemed the process would go on forever.
A couple of years ago, we hit a turning point. Connie had been awarded an assistantship, which was great. But it meant ending her employment with Meshberger; she would continue to do permitting work for them on a contract basis but was no longer an employee.
But that was okay, we figured, because it meant the end was in sight.
Boy, were we wrong about that.
Last April, with her coursework done and her thesis drafted, she set off to defend the document to her faculty committee.
I read it the night before she took it to BSU that spring and thought it was terrific. I wouldn't have changed a word.
Little did I know that the thesis process is simply another stage of education. Think of it as education by editing. And it had just begun.
The committee's job was to make the thesis better by constantly raising the bar, offering new questions, and demanding more scientific context.
About 14 months after the original draft, I read the final revision. It was light years beyond the original, truly a solid piece of scientific scholarship, the kind that humbles an English major like me.
The topic, in case you have read this far and are interested, involves assessing wetlands in Jay County using the Ohio Rapid Assessment Method.
But on Saturday, none of that really mattered.
All that mattered was that happy families were gathered together. We ran into Jim and Krista Jenney of Jay County as we entered Worthen Arena; they were there to see their daughter Lindsay receive her master's degree.
No one cared about the hard seats or the long speeches.
That's not why we were there.
We were there for the smiles and the tears, for the recognition of all that hard work and for relief that it is finally over.
It was a great day.
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I turned to Sally and finished the sentence, muttering, "These seats are really hard."
Okay, maybe that was a little unfair to president Gora, but witnessing commencement at a large university is a bit like being a parent watching a swim meet.
You watch for your kid, grin like a maniac for awhile, then endure the achievements of all the other kids.
In this case, on Saturday, our "kid" was my wife, Connie, a fact that added a whole new dimension to the day.
It was about six years ago when, still working for Meshberger Brothers Stone Corp., she stuck her toe into graduate school waters.
She wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to pursue, but she knew she wanted to pursue something.
Part of it was my fault, I assume. I'd stumbled into an accidental second career after 50, and she saw no reason she couldn't do the same, or better.
That first class, taken while she was still working full-time, was in landscape architecture.
It went well, with her fellow students accommodating a classmate as old or older than their parents.
Trouble is, it didn't seem to lead anywhere that made sense. It was only after looking at her career - with work for the air pollution control division of the State Board of Health before IDEM was born, with the city of Portland's wastewater treatment utility, and with Meshberger where she handled air and water pollution permitting - that things came together.
She decided to pursue a master's of science degree in natural resources and environmental management.
The folks at Meshberger's were tremendous, allowing her to work an abbreviated schedule during the school year and full-time during the summer. They simply could not have been more supportive or more flexible.
And so, it began in earnest.
Like hundreds of Jay County students, she started clocking miles on Ind. 67 to and from campus.
My job, it seemed, was primarily to listen. After a good or frustrating or challenging day at class, I listened. I nodded about things I did not understand. I struggled to keep track of the names of classmates and professors. But mostly, I just listened.
The good news was that she loved the classes and was delighted by what she was learning. The bad news was that it seemed the process would go on forever.
A couple of years ago, we hit a turning point. Connie had been awarded an assistantship, which was great. But it meant ending her employment with Meshberger; she would continue to do permitting work for them on a contract basis but was no longer an employee.
But that was okay, we figured, because it meant the end was in sight.
Boy, were we wrong about that.
Last April, with her coursework done and her thesis drafted, she set off to defend the document to her faculty committee.
I read it the night before she took it to BSU that spring and thought it was terrific. I wouldn't have changed a word.
Little did I know that the thesis process is simply another stage of education. Think of it as education by editing. And it had just begun.
The committee's job was to make the thesis better by constantly raising the bar, offering new questions, and demanding more scientific context.
About 14 months after the original draft, I read the final revision. It was light years beyond the original, truly a solid piece of scientific scholarship, the kind that humbles an English major like me.
The topic, in case you have read this far and are interested, involves assessing wetlands in Jay County using the Ohio Rapid Assessment Method.
But on Saturday, none of that really mattered.
All that mattered was that happy families were gathered together. We ran into Jim and Krista Jenney of Jay County as we entered Worthen Arena; they were there to see their daughter Lindsay receive her master's degree.
No one cared about the hard seats or the long speeches.
That's not why we were there.
We were there for the smiles and the tears, for the recognition of all that hard work and for relief that it is finally over.
It was a great day.
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