Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger
Commencement season is in full swing! This weekend about 375 seniors at Whitman College will receive their bachelor’s degrees. Author and journalist Juan Williams, currently a correspondent for National Public Radio, will be the keynote speaker at the commencement ceremony Sunday.
The Whitman community also will get a visit from a high-flying alumna. Astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, a 1997 Whitman grad who was on the crew of a shuttle mission to the International Space Station in April, will give a talk at Saturday’s Baccalaureate.
Whitman will be the sixth of the 10 Independent College of Washington to hold commencement ceremonies. By the time the last students receive their sheepskins on June 13, about 8,500 students will have received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from our top-notch, academically rigorous colleges and universities. That’s nearly one in four of the baccalaureate and higher degrees conferred in the state.
Juan Williams
While opportunities for part-time study abound, about eighty percent of those bachelor’s degree recipients will have finished their course work in four years. That’s one of the strengths of private colleges, where students of all economic, social, and ethnic backgrounds are as likely to earn degrees in four years as are students at public baccalaureate institutions in six years.
Congratulations and best wishes to the Whitties this weekend!
