FAYETTEVILLE -- On a day for new University of Arkansas at Fayetteville graduates to strut their stuff, the pride extended far beyond those wearing black robes and mortarboards.
Marilyn McCloud's eyes brimmed with tears while she described her daughter-in-law, Michelle Sherwin, a full-time special-education teacher in Mountainburg who walked across the stage at Bud Walton Arena on Saturday to receive her master's degree.
"I know how hard she's worked to get here," said McCloud, praising Sherwin's commitment to teaching those with special needs while finding time to earn an advanced degree in special education.
Higher-education campuses across Arkansas filled with happy students and proud parents at commencement exercises, including at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia and Hendrix College in Conway.
In Little Rock, Chancellor Joel Anderson -- who is retiring next month -- saw about 1,000 students graduating from UALR, the school where he started out as a political science professor.
The graduate class included some "so young" that it would be years before they would draw Social Security benefits and some who had been drawing the benefits for years, said Anderson, the chancellor for the past 13 years.
Anderson lauded the new graduates on their significant achievement and implored them to be difference-makers in the lives of others.
Men's basketball player Josh Hagins, who helped lead the Trojans to a double-overtime win in the team's first-round NCAA Tournament game this year, was among the UALR graduates.
Minutes before the ceremony, students and administrators were primping and polishing themselves, a last touch before they walked out of the tunnels -- which sported the signage "#LittleRocksTeam" -- that led to the Jack Stephens Center.
As they lined up, the students looked out at the audience, looking for friends and family in the bleachers.
UALR graduate LaSheena Gordon, 39, of Little Rock earned her master's degree in education with an emphasis on voice. She teaches choir with a provisional license at Dunbar Middle School in the Little Rock School District.
Gordon left her hometown in 1996 after getting married and spending one year at UALR. She lived in California for eight years and returned to Little Rock after a divorce.
She had started working to get certified to teach early-childhood education in California. When she returned home, the 30-year-old single mother of four enrolled at UALR to earn a bachelor's degree in music education.
With help from teachers formerly of the Metropolitan Opera and Juilliard School, Gordon persisted in making her dreams come true. But she also wanted to teach music, prompting her to pursue the master's degree.
This time, her biggest motivators were her children. Her oldest, Derrick Tyler Jr., 18, just finished his freshman year at UALR. He's studying computer science.
Gordon said she rushed to earn her master's degree to be able to inspire her children and her Dunbar students.
"I can now say, 'Since I did it, you have to do it, too,'" she said.
Just before her graduation ceremony, Gordon sang the national anthem at the American Heart Association walk. One of her sons rushed her to the Jack Stephens Center -- and on time.
"It's been a lot of hard work," Gordon said as she began tearing up. "For me, it means to never give up. It's never too late to go back and complete your dreams."
Around the state
In Conway, main commencement speaker Scott Shirey -- KIPP Delta Public Schools founder and executive director -- talked to 281 Hendrix College graduates about his charter school campuses, which have overcome the poverty of the Arkansas Delta by graduating students who in many cases are the first in their families to attend college and graduate.
"Optimism alone is not enough," he said in remarks released by the college after Saturday's commencement. "It must be paired with humility and deep grit ... love and knowledge. So be humble and be gritty."
The Hendrix graduates included KIPP alumna Jessica Amos, a politics major and anthropology minor from Helena-West Helena.
She plans to join the Teach for America program, according to Hendrix College. After her two-year commitment -- during which she intends to teach English at a secondary school in Arkansas -- she would like to pursue a Ph.D. in education with an emphasis on diversity and educational leadership, the college said in a news release.
"I found this band of educators to be one of the most phenomenal groups of people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting," Amos said in the news release issued last month, referring to her Teach for America teachers at KIPP. "Four years after graduating from KIPP, I am now committing myself to doing my part in the fight to eradicate educational inequality. Through Teach for America, I hope to give back to my native Arkansas Delta community and educate the next generation of young leaders."
In Arkadelphia, Ouachita Baptist University graduated 331 students, officials said in a news release. They included recipients of the first Associate of Arts degrees awarded to graduates of the university's new Ouachita at New Life Church program.
OBU said that 142 students were honor graduates: 21 who graduated summa cum laude with a grade point average of 3.95 or higher, 54 who graduated magna cum laude (3.75 GPA) and 67 who graduated cum laude (3.5 GPA).
Officials also noted the forthcoming end of Charles Wright's presidency. For 10 months, he has served as the university's interim president. Ben Sells will become Ouachita president June 1.
In his remarks, Wright cited the history and sense of family at OBU. He recognized that one of the graduates, Nathan Lowman, a history major from Little Rock, is a fourth-generation OBU graduate whose great-grandfather's graduation was 95 years ago, in 1921.
In Jonesboro, more than 2,000 students participated in commencement at ASU on Saturday, the university said in a news release.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., urged the students to use what they learned at the university "to help others. There are two kinds of people -- givers and takers. Be a giver."
At UA-Fayetteville
About 4,200 students participated in UA's commencement exercises, which are spread out over three days to accommodate the numbers of students, family and friends gathering in Fayetteville.
McCloud, who watched her daughter-in-law graduate, stood and waved with both arms at Sherwin, while Seth Mitchell, Sherwin's son, used a steady camera hand to record the special moment.
Elsewhere on the Fayetteville campus, in Barnhill Arena, Cecil Barton, 22, posed for a classmate's selfie while waiting in line before the start of a commencement ceremony for UA's Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.
"The hard work that I put in really paid off," said Barton, who earned a bachelor's degree in horticultural science.
Earlier in the day, soon-to-be graduates filing into Bud Walton Arena for UA's All-University Commencement flashed broad smiles, especially for a video camera that beamed their images onto the arena's scoreboard.
This year's honorary degree recipient, Richard Davies, offered folksy nuggets of advice drawn from his more than 40-year career in the state's Parks and Tourism Department. He retired last year after a 25-year run as the department's executive director.
"Life is full of unexpected changes and unless you like ulcers, I suggest you roll with it," said Davies, who served under five governors.
Davies earned a journalism degree from UA in 1972. He spoke about the importance of making adjustments.
"You have to adjust to the boss. The boss does not have to adjust to you. You're looking at a guy who went from Bill Clinton to Mike Huckabee," Davies said, a line that drew some laughter from a crowd familiar with the differences between Clinton, a Democrat, and Huckabee, a Republican.
The ceremony marked the first for Chancellor Joe Steinmetz, UA's top administrator since Jan. 1.
His remarks referenced a scene from the movie Awakenings, in which a research scientist, Malcolm Sayer -- modeled after real-life neurologist Oliver Sacks -- interviews for a job and talks about his earlier work.
A person interviewing him replies skeptically after Sayer describes an unsuccessful project, telling the scientist, in effect, that it never had a chance.
"'Well, now I know that,' Sayer says with a bit of pride. 'I proved it,'" said Steinmetz, whose academic background is in psychology and neurobiology.
Steinmetz went on to explain that rather than being a failure as implied by the job interviewer, Sayer's project "walled off a bad path," thereby helping other scientists.
"It's not for other people to define success or failure for you; that's up to you alone," Steinmetz said.
Metro on 05/15/2016