Anson C. Smith, Public Relations Coordinator
Housatonic Community College
900 Lafayette Blvd.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
Tel: 203-332-5229, Fax: 203-332-5247
E-mail: asmith@hcc.commnet.edu
HCC graduation a family affair: Mother, daughter receive degrees at Arena ceremony
LINDA CONNER LAMBECK lclambeck@ctpost.com
BRIDGEPORT — Mariann Ziembroski of Shelton had a front-and-center view
of her daughter Christine's graduation from Housatonic Community College on
Thursday.
The cost: earning an associate's degree of her own.
The pair both walked across the stage at the Arena at Harbor Yard where Christine, 22, earned an associate's degree in fine arts and Mariann earned an associate's degree in business office technology.
"It's kind of exciting," said Mariann Ziembroski, whose one-class-at-a-time route to a degree started out six years ago as a quest to acquire some computer skills.
"I had been a stay-at-home mom for many years and wanted to re-enter the workforce," she said. "I took a few computer courses, then kept on going."
Not once did the mother of three — Christine's in the middle — feel out of place.
"Community college has such a diverse group of non-traditional students, in a lot of classes I took there were probably as many students my age as there were right out of high school," she said.
Christine, who graduated from Shelton High School in 2001, plans to eventually continue her education at a four-year college. The pair also works at Housatonic — mom in the day-care center, daughter in the bookstore.
In all, the community college awarded 373 diplomas and certificates — the fourth largest graduating class in the school's 39 years. Eleven members of the Class of 2006 were eligible to walk to the podium twice, receiving multiple degrees and/or certificates.
Adam Kindilien, a graduate from Milford with a 4.0 grade-point average in business administration, called the experience a good one.
"The teachers, helping the students out, I don't think I'd get that at UConn so much," he said.
Jomel Collins-DelValle, 22, of Derby, graduating with an associate's degree in business administration, wants to go further with her education, but first she has to give birth to her second child.
"Any time," she said patting her stomach. "I was hoping I'd make it to this ceremony We all went to college."
Allister Ferguson, 21, of Bridgeport, received an associate's degree in finance. She now plans to help out with her mom's florist shop.
"I think if I had gone to a bigger school I might have gotten distracted," she said. "I learned a lot."
For Vanessa Marshall, 70, of Trumbull, the ceremony was a familiar experience.
Marshall, a retired army nurse, has a doctorate in public health from Harvard and was a professor at Yale before retiring to take up art.
"I enjoyed it very much. So totally different than anything I've done before," Marshall said. The commencement speaker was Walter Clark, an author and community college administrator in Massachusetts who excited the crowd by threatening to tear up his speech and let the graduates rush the stage for their diplomas.
Instead, he talked about his experiences growing up in the Bronx, N.Y. His African-American father, in the Army, met his Japanese mom while he was serving overseas. His father moved his family to the South Bronx, then left the family, leaving his mom to fend alone in a strange land.
Now director of admissions at Roxbury Community College in Massachusetts, Clark told the students he grew up on a diet of mayonnaise sandwiches, fights and failing grades. Not until his mother tried to commit suicide did he decide to shape up.
"If he could make it anyone could," he said of himself, urging graduates to be self-disciplined, have goals and take risks.
The ceremony was also HCC President Janis Hadley's last at Housatonic. She retires Sept 1. She called the ceremony bittersweet. "Both you and I are about to embark on a new adventure Make sure you do good stuff," she told the graduates.