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Hello and welcome to Dateline Delta, I'm Paul Barbeau, Chair of the Delta College Foundation Board of Directors.

Today's show is all about celebration as we open with the most anticipated event of the year, the 64th annual Commencement Ceremony.

We'll also watch a special award ceremony recognizing some of Delta's best and brightest 2025 graduates.

Next, faculty and staff are also honored at their annual award ceremony.

And we will meet this year's Bergstein Award winners.

To conclude today's program, we'll hear how a student is finding their way the Delta way.

And meet Tim Light, who just celebrated 40 years of service at Delta College.

Delta College's annual commencement ceremony is always a special event for everyone involved.

Faculty, staff and loved ones join the celebration as graduates walk across the stage and are recognized for their amazing accomplishments.

Let's enjoy the sights and sounds of this year's ceremony.

One of my first classes at Delta was exceedingly difficult for me and I struggled with understanding one of the assignments.

I actively sought help from my teacher and regularly went to the tutoring center When I was struggling with the concept from class.

I remain so grateful for the TLC and all it does to help students like me.

What makes Delta College such a spectacular place, It is not only a community will you feel comfortable, continue to learn and find assistance to be successful, but it's also a place where you can engage in new opportunities.

I felt like I was more than just a student, that I mattered.

Delta is more than just a community college, and we don't talk about the community part enough because of the community investment at Delta College.

My third attempt at college was successful.

The third time was definitely the charm.

Because of the support that I receive from faculty and staff here at Delta.

I felt seen, heard and understood my professors who were more than just professors.

They were compassionate and understanding mentors.

Delta College supported me not only inside, but outside of the classroom, where my highest and hardest challenges arose.

Without their resources and support.

I would have not made it through.

So thank you, Delta College.

Congratulations and best of luck to the class of 2025.

Delta College also honored some of its best and brightest graduates at the annual Graduate Student Awards Ceremony.

This special event celebrates outstanding students for scholastic and academic achievement, superior citizenship, service, and leadership.

Let's pay tribute to these remarkable individuals.

In addition to recognizing outstanding students.

Delta College pays tribute to the invaluable work of its faculty and staff at their annual Employee Award Ceremony.

It's their opportunity to celebrate impactful contribution and years of service to the college.

Let's take a look at this year's honorees.

Sponsored by the Bergstein family of Midland since 1963, the Bergstein Award for Teaching Excellence is the highest honor a faculty member can receive at Delta College.

A vote by students and faculty identifies two recipients each year.

Leanne Govitz, director of marketing and public information, recently sat down with this year's winners.

Trent, Beth, welcome to Dateline Delta.

And congratulations on your award.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

Thank you.

Beth, could you tell us a little about your background?

Sure, I'm a Buckeye, so I migrated from Ohio and when my husband was downsized, we had the choice of moving back to Ohio or staying in Michigan.

We stayed in Michigan.

He went to Delta, actually, to begin his schooling as a nurse, and I came here to teach.

So I've been here for 21 years teaching at Delta.

Yes, I was born in Saginaw, but I grew up in Grand Rapids, so it's kind of like coming full circle.

When I started working here in 2011, and this will soon be my 14th year here at Delta.

I have had a long interest in history, but we can get to that soon.

Actually, that is my next question.

I'm wondering how you decided that you wanted to be a teacher.

I never planned on it all along.

Somehow it happened by accident.

My mom had always wanted me to be a teacher, so she planted the seed.

Really, When I started working, I wanted to work in TV and movies.

I thought about becoming a writer.

Maybe a director, a producer.

So that's where my interest in history started.

After I went to GRC for two years.

Then I transferred to USC.

University of Southern California, majored in film writing, and then after a year, I didn't qualify for any scholarships.

So I transferred to C son and pursued film writing there.

And then the earthquake happened and I couldn't handle it.

I had what you call maybe temporary PTSD.

So I moved back to Michigan and tried to figure out what I was going to do from there.

I thought about film and TV as far as a business, but I realized that would be a long journey.

It would require more sacrifice.

It would require more time, more energy.

And then I started thinking about what is truly my path.

And then I thought about my mom and what she had wanted me to do.

And I thought, why not teach in a way that would be the similar idea of just basically communicating.

So communication is involved.

In you tell a story in a movie that is similar to a classroom.

So I decided to major in education, and that's what started my journey.

Thank you Beth.

Well, it's similar the influence of our parents.

My father was an English teacher, and in the summers he would let us play with the extra pages in the grade book.

And so it was great fun for in school, but I actually actually loved building things and was interested even at a young age in designing homes and blueprint reading and all that.

So that was my path going towards architecture.

But just as it was time to transfer to the three plus two school for architecture, I thought, I really don't want to deal with the the physical parts of architecture.

I want to deal with people.

And then I came back to, I really want to build people up.

I need to be teaching.

So that's when I switched to teaching math.

And as, as a major, and went from there.

Can you tell us what it means to you to win this award?

It's very prestigious.

It really is an amazing feeling because I look at my colleagues, I know how incredible they are, how, exceptional they are.

And I think between the students and faculty choosing me, it just is very humbling and such an honor.

And when I think of the Bergstein family, just the ripple of their generosity extends to me, because now I want to be an even better teacher and also to the students that I'm going to to be able to reach with even more, more skills.

So, it's just an incredible feeling.

And I'm very grateful.

As I thought about it, I could think of hundreds of people who have have touched my life to bring me to this point.

And so it was an exercise in deep gratitude as well.

So I'm thankful for that.

Trent, how do you feel about it?

When you consider all of those skill sets.

I believe there's 175 full time faculty here, and it is a humble honor because I believe many of them could have gotten the award as well as I, because they equally deserve it.

And I think and somehow I receive this award and recognition of my work.

And so there is value in my work in the community.

And even more honored that I am mentioned with Beth, which I have a lot of respect for.

And at the same time, it shows what I can do and that what it actually has validated, what I have done all my work all these years.

So it has not all been in vain.

Beth, can you tell us about a recent encounter with a student where you thought to yourself, this is why I do this?

Well yeah, just a couple weeks ago, it was the last class and the last student finishing the final.

And he turned it in, and I said, I really appreciate your tenacity and your perseverance, because this was an hour after everyone else had left.

I said, you have really done good work.

Your effort has really paid off.

And he said to me, looking me straight in the eye, he said, I couldn't have done it without you.

And that made me realize that learning really is a partnership.

It's me giving 100%, doing my best for my students, but also the student responding with their effort and their best And as a result, people learn and people move to the next step in their in their, schooling or in their career.

Trent, can you think of a time, with a student that you thought, this is really, really worth it to me?

Yes, I have seen several old students that have come up to me and they're telling me what they're doing at this time.

And one works with autistic children.

One works with non-verbal students.

And that shows me the impact of my work on them.

It's not about what I do in the classroom, but what the students will do afterwards.

And that shows that there's a legacy.

And I get reminded of that every day through my students.

I always see each student in each of their values and their skills that they have, and how they can apply it to the different professions, such as nursing or criminal justice or education, child development.

So, like Beth was just saying, it's about seeing the ripple effect ripple of the water from my efforts and over the years.

And you can see through clarity how it impacts people.

It's loud.

It's a loud impact.

And I see that through my students every day.

And the award reminds me of the value that I have.

I've really enjoyed talking to you both today.

And congratulations again on this prestigious award.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us here.

The next student feature is on Eliana Muhaxhiri, inspired by her own challenges dressing with pain from inflammatory arthritis and watching her younger brothers struggle to find sensory friendly clothing.

Eliana hopes to create adaptive fashion that accommodates disabilities without compromising style.

With the support and and encouragement of Delta faculty, Eliana is on a mission to design a better future.

I have a little brother who's on the autism spectrum, and when he was little, he had a lot of struggles with like, fabrics.

I'd love to work in adaptive fashion, like designing Polish for people with disabilities, because it's a very underrepresented group.

Everyone deserves clothing.

I mean, that fits them.

But there's also something to be said for something that feels like, you know, you wear it and you feel like yourself in it.

It feels like an expression of yourself and having to use a wheelchair or having like, you know, like a limb deficiency or even just having like, chronic pain that makes it harder to put on your pants or your socks or your shirt or anything.

Shouldn't have to like, stop you from wearing clothing that expresses you.

Delta has been really wonderful because I have.

When I tell people that like either excited about it, no one's been like, that's a stupid idea.

I feel like every class that I've had at Delta so far, like, not only have I learned things and like done well on assignments or, you know, worked hard to take test or things like that, but like, I've learned things about myself or about, you know, like life or like I've had these really meaningful experiences with people.

So it's nice to be able to focus on, like, what I'd like to transfer to, you know, and what I'd like to focus on in the future right now and do experience in it.

Even though Delta doesn't have like a fashion technically, like a fashion program.

I still learned a lot because my professors, like, will give me any knowledge that they have about things, and they let me like, you know, research what I want to research or write about what I want to write about.

Delta College employees truly believe in student success and works tirelessly to provide the best educational experience possible.

Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with an individual who has reached his 40th year here with the college.

Let's listen in as he reflects on his favorite memories throughout his time here on campus.

Well, I started school here in the fall of 1980.

After I graduated from high school.

And, I was a couple years in and I changed my curriculum to a program called Electronics Engineering Technology.

And I got a student job, working down here and broadcasting.

And I kept that job for about two years until I graduated in 1984 with an associates.

And then, I worked at a couple radio stations down in Flint, on the engineering side.

I was only gone about six months.

I heard about an opening at Delta, and, which was for a broadcast engineer position and, and what was then called channel 19.

And, I applied for it, and, I was hired in I started in August of 1985.

And so my title was broadcast engineer and worked primarily in the the control room, operated the various, at the time of the two inch, videotape machines, primarily and three quarter inch decks.

And then we went to, one inch format.

And so I was in that job for, 14 years.

And, then there was an opening in telecommunications.

And I applied for that.

And I've been kind of working in telecommunications primarily since then.

Then in 2014, I was brought into the, facilities management department, and there my role kind of expanded.

My primarily duties were, the telephone system and all the telecommunications wiring and working with the, the, the service providers.

And then it kind of expanded into including, security camera systems, clock systems, if they were networked, and then various other facilities projects along the way.

Probably one of my, best job satisfactions is, receiving appreciation for my work, and people are, definitely, appreciative of, when you fix something for them or set something up for them that, it works to their benefit.

One of my, most memorable situations at working at Delta was when, Vice President Biden, visited Delta in 2010.

It kind of turned into a, like a week long experience because, the Saturday prior to that and the afternoon out of the blue, I received a call from a gentleman.

He says, we're going to have the vice president, do a presentation.

And, Delta Colleges L Wing, And so I'm kind of thinking to myself, okay, it's one of the the college vice presidents, until I got to the point where he says we're going to be ordering about ten phone lines and we're going to need a dedicated internet service from AT&T.

And, we're going to have that need to have that extended to L wing.

And I my response back to him was, which vice president is this?

And he says, well, the the United States vice president, of course.

So from that point on, kind of, that's pretty much, busy, for the next four days or so.

You know, it's a it's a great place to work.

I seen a lot of students pass through over the years.

Faculty and staff come and go, but so I got I got to know a lot of interesting people from all walks of life here at Delta College.

And I think that's one of the primary reasons I. I have stayed here.

Thank you, Tim, for sharing all those cherished experiences with us.

And thank you for 40 years of dedicated service.

Now let's see what's on the Dateline Delta Calendar of Events.

The Delta College Planetarium will be hosting a series of shows during the month of June.

For more information about these shows and events happening at the planetarium, visit their website at delta.edu/planetarium.

Camp Health and Wellness will be held on June 10th through the 12th.

Campers will attend the Delta College main campus from 9 a.m. to 2:30 each day.

Camp is for students entering grades 9 - 12 this fall.

For further information on these events or other campus activities, contact the Office of Marketing and Public Information at (989)686-9490, or visit our website at www.delta.edu.

Well, that wraps up our season.

Please rejoin us this fall when we again highlight what's happening here at Delta College, one of America's leading community colleges.

Now, I leave you with the sights and sounds of Delta College.

For Dateline Delta, I'm Paul Barbeau.

Thanks for watching.

Local production scene on Delta College Public Media are made possible with support from viewers like you.

Thank you.