Area college students, with their friends and families, will celebrate Commencement 2016 for Eastern WV Community and Technical College Saturday May 14, at the Moorefield Middle School, 303 Caledonia Heights Drive. The ceremony starts at 10:00 am.
The college will hold its traditional Nurse Pinning the prior evening, Friday May 13, where, as a formal welcome into the nursing profession, faculty will present dedicatory pins to the 14 newly-graduating nursing students. That event starts at 7:00 pm, at the Moorefield High School.
Student speakers at Saturday’s Commencement will include AnnaMarie See, a fall 2015 graduate, and Matthew Persinger, a spring 2016 graduate. Chris Wood, a serial entrepreneur and an instructor of entrepreneurship at Eastern, will offer the Keynote address. He currently serves as the executive director and co-founder of the LGBT Technology Partnership & Institute, a national nonprofit based in Washington, DC.
Wood has built 3 businesses of his own, including Wardensville’s Redwood & Co., which he started with his partner through Eastern’s New Biz Launch Pad. The Redwood & Co. brand offers various home décor items and its own line of artisan bath products. Over the past year, Wood and his partner have built a major online presence and have placed their products in 21 locations across 8 states — and they’re still growing.
Wood emphasizes that his journey did not succeed immediately. Often riddled with challenges, moments of uncertainty, and literal life and death situations, he drove himself “purposely from a place of complacency to a place of action and empowerment.” He feels honored, he said, to share a few of those moments and lessons learned with Eastern’s new graduates.
Deanna Chirchirillo, a private music and early childhood educator in Winchester, VA, will play special music as the graduates and their guests assemble prior to the ceremony.
Friday evening, Eleanor Berg, MS, RN, NP, Eastern’s director of nursing education, will open the pinning ceremony, and Micaela VanMeter, president of Eastern’s Student Nurses Association, will address the nurse graduates. Nurse faculty Heather Barger, MS, RN, will keynote.
At both events, nurse faculty Jill Landis, MS, RN, will sing the national anthem.
For more information about Eastern’s financial aid opportunities, programs of study, workforce training and community education and events, call 304-434-8000, or toll-free: 877-982-2322; or check the College’s website: “www.easternwv.edu”.
Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College is a comprehensive and equal opportunity community and technical college that makes educational resources accessible to the families, communities, and employers of Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Mineral, Pendleton and Tucker counties. Eastern is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
