SAINTS PERSPECTIVE, SCCC President Brad Bennett
Last week, I attended my fourth graduation ceremony at Seward County Community College. It was the commencement for the SCCC Adult Education students who earned their Kansas State High School diplomas, English language arts certificates, and their Accelerated Opportunity Kansas credentials. Though this group is much smaller than the 300-plus graduates in our certificate and Associates degree programs, its members embody the spirit of the college in a unique and powerful way.
As graduation speaker Julie Clark described in her speech to the graduates, they are infused with grit and resilience. Many of them attended classes after working full-time, physically grueling jobs. After they finished their household duties and took care of loved ones, they got out their materials to study. They made sacrifices to set aside time and resources for education, and prevailed when learning a new language, English, was difficult.
In her own speech, which she presented sentence by sentence in Spanish and then English, Clark applauded our students for putting in the work for their own success. I couldn’t agree more. Julie confessed that she knows her Spanish pronunciation leaves something to be desired, and that she practiced for two weeks to come to Liberal for our ceremony. It was a great example of the lifelong learning we encourage in our students and in one another.
I speak only one language — English — I am so impressed by people who have mastered two. It’s a kind of superpower, and one that our students should be proud of. I’m also proud of them for modeling the importance of learning for their friends and family. At all our graduation ceremonies, I saw so many children who were there to cheer for their own parents, or for older siblings, cousins, and friends. We even had audience members who had come to support their grandparents, who were proving the value of education for all the generations to follow.
I have often said that community colleges specialize in second chances. We are often the place where people come to start afresh, to give themselves another try at success in the classroom or in the hands-on labs that are so plentiful in our Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. At SCCC, we don’t expect students to be perfect, or to come to us with carefully calibrated plans. We believe in learning, constantly learning, trying hard, and improving each day.
Don’t get me wrong, we have many highly motivated, high-performing students, as our bumper crop of honor society inductees each year demonstrates. A quick look at our commencement programs reveals a high percentage of students who graduated with honors. So too our Adult Education learners, who excel in the classroom and aim to go on to enroll in regular coursework at SCCC. No matter what age you are, no matter what your background or educational history, our goal is to make education available to you, and to make success possible.
Now that the graduates of 2025 have collected their diplomas, completed their finals and left the classroom for now, we continue to marvel at what they accomplished at SCCC. We’re excited to see what’s next, for them, and for us. Summer classes are already in session, with four more opportunities to enroll in classes starting in June and even July.
But even as we move into summer, I am still replaying the moments of victory I saw on the faces of our graduates.
There was the grandfather who earned his GED, and gave a beautiful opening benediction at the Adult Education ceremony. There was a woman who completed the highest level of ELA after working to raise a family as a single mother. There were more than 35 high school students who simultaneously earned a high school diploma and a college degree.
There were too many parents to count who couldn’t stop clapping, and spouses who showed up with giant flower bouquets. And there was our own faculty and staff getting teary-eyed as they watched the graduates march out into the world … this is what we do, and the rewards are endless.
Congratulations to all our Saints!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR — Brad Bennett is the president of Seward County Community College, and a community college graduate himself. From his first teaching job in a kindergarten classroom to his role on stage at graduation ceremonies, he still says students are the best part of what he does. You can reach him at 620-655-4077.
