May 2, 2005

Cowley's largest class to graduate in Saturday ceremony

The number of graduates at Cowley College for the entire year has exceeded 700 for the first time in the 83-year history of the school.

According to the Registrar’s Office, 708 students are candidates for graduation and will be recognized during the 82nd Commencement exercises, to be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday inside W.S. Scott Auditorium. A reception for graduates, family members and friends will be held immediately following the ceremony in the Earle N. Wright Community Room inside the Brown Center.

More than 300 of the 708 students are expected to participate in Saturday’s ceremony. Along with the conferring of degrees, college alumnus Albert Bacastow Jr. will be presented with this year’s Outstanding Tiger Alumni Award. Bacastow, a member of the college’s Board of Trustees, is a 1965 graduate of Cowley. He is Winfield Postmaster and farms southeast of Arkansas City.

The featured speaker is Connie Donatelli, Cowley’s director of vocal music and the third recipient of the Endowed Chair for Teaching Excellence and Student Learning.

Members of Cowley’s faculty also will be recognized, including Chris Vollweider, who was presented the Paul Stirnaman Award, and Uwe Conrad and Mark Flickinger, who will be honored later this month as Excellence Award recipients at the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development in Austin, Texas.

Two members of Cowley’s Student Government Association also will address the class. Floyd Abang, a sophomore pre-engineering major from Stillwater, Okla., and Nigeria, served as SGA president during the 2004-2005 academic year. Andrea Iman, a sophomore business administration major from Elkhart, served as SGA vice president.

Students listed in the official Commencement program Saturday are candidates for the associate of arts degree, the associate degree of applied science, the associate degree of general studies, the associate degree of science, or the college certificate.

The more than 700 students include summer 2004 graduates, December 2004 graduates, and May 2005 graduates. Students who graduated last summer and last December have received their diplomas. May 2005 graduates will receive their diplomas in June.

The Sid Regnier Bookstore at 207 W. Fifth Ave. will be open until 1 p.m. Saturday.