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Hello and welcome to Dateline Delta, I'm Diane Middleton, a member of the Delta College Board of Trustees.

On today's show, we wrap up the academic year with highlights from some of Delta's biggest events and achievements.

First, we'll look back at our commencement ceremonies, one of the college's most celebrated annual traditions.

Then we'll recognize outstanding student and employee award recipients and meet this year's Bergstein Award winners.

And finally, we'll meet Veronica Bond, the latest employee to reach the remarkable 40 year milestone at Delta.

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.

During my time here at Delta, I've been a nontraditional student in every sense of the word.

This came with its own set of challenges.

However, most importantly, it came with its own rewards because I wouldn't have met the amazing people along my journey that made overcoming these hardships worth every second.

Many times I was the only woman in the shop or print lab, but I wouldn't change it for the world because I got to learn under so many wonderful professors in the CAD and manufacturing department who saw potential in me, I could always see in myself.

As I conclude the speech this evening, I just have one last thing to say.

Congratulations, Delta College, class of 2026, we did it!

Personally, alongside working academics, I had the privilege of serving with the nonprofit organization teaching drug prevention to juveniles.

Individuals and halfway houses and residents in homeless shelters.

Through those experiences, I learned something powerful.

Everyone you see is carrying something.

Every person you see is finding a battle.

You may never fully understand.

That perspective changed me.

It reminded me that success is not about having a perfect path.

It's about persistent.

It's about showing up again, even after disappointment.

It's about choosing progress over excuses and discipline over comfort.

And that's what this degree represents to me.

It does not represent perfection.

It represents resilience.

So as we move forward, remember this setbacks are not stopping points.

They are starting lines.

They are opportunities to begin again with a greater purpose and a stronger resolve.

The class of 2026, wherever life takes you next, carry that resilience with you.

Continue learning.

Continue building.

Continue pushing forward even when the path is unclear.

We are in this moment not because the journey was easy, but because we refuse to quit.

Congratulations and thank you.

Congratulations to each of you, graduates, please move your tassels to the left.

Congratulations and best of luck to all of this year's graduates.

Each year, Delta College honors graduate student award winners.

These awards recognize outstanding students for their academic achievement, superior citizenship, service, and leadership.

Let's take a moment to honor these remarkable students and celebrate their accomplishments.

In addition to commending our outstanding students Delta College also honored faculty and staff at this year's Employee Awards ceremony.

The event celebrates the dedication, excellence, and years of service of some of our most accomplished team members.

Let's take a look at those who were recognized.

As you just saw Denise Beasecker and Barbara Syed are this year's recipients of the Bergstein Award, the highest honor a Delta College faculty member can receive.

Chosen through a vote by Delta College students and faculty, the award recognizes excellence in teaching and service.

Leanne Govitz, Director of Marketing & Public Information sat down with this year's honorees.

Denise, Barb welcome to Dateline Delta.

Thank you.

Let's let's jump in, Denice can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure, so I've been to the Delta here.

I've been a little over 12 years, but, my education is from Saginaw Valley Nursing.

And I did get a Master's of Arts from Central Michigan also.

And I teach the third level nursing students here.

They're not quite graduating yet.

And Barb.

Yeah, so I'm a hometown girl, born and raised in mid Michigan my whole life.

Graduated from Davenport with my Bachelor's, and my Master's is from Capella.

I've been at Delta since 2014, and I have been the medical office program coordinator since I started at Delta, which I actually love because I get to teach my students through eight courses the entire time they're here, from their capstone and, you know, from the intro to the capstone.

So I really get to know my students before they graduate.

That's great.

When did you know that you wanted this to be your career?

Well, I actually feel blessed to be here at Delta because I have no formal teaching experience.

Before I came to Delta, I had no adjunct experience, but I had done education at the hospital, so I had done patient education and, you know, student, you know, taught the providers there.

So when I applied at Delta, the ladies saw something in me that I guess I didn't know I had.

And I just feel blessed that I was hired in.

Fantastic.

What about you, Denise?

I toyed with this question a little bit, thinking like, was there a special moment?

But I think being a nurse, we teach all the time anyways and patients in that.

But I remember when I started getting students, and new aunties and I started sharing my knowledge that that's when it all happened.

I thought, yep, I have to do education.

I have to continue this path.

And what does that mean to you to win this award?

Oh gosh, and still can make tears in my eyes.

It's amazing.

But it's not really like me.

This is really the students, the experiences that they've encountered.

The, it's my classroom, that's my focus right then.

And I'm creating this and it.

I watch them gain knowledge.

I get to see them get confidence to take control of their education.

But I also see this award as like, it's not just mine, it's all educators.

I mean, this is proof that what we're doing in the classroom really is working.

You know, when the students recognize you that, it's not just getting them to pass, right.

It's I'm trying to get them to grow as adults and to walk out of here for their future.

What do you think about winning the award?

I was shocked.

I never expected in my time at Delta to receive this, and I was so honored.

Like Denice said this is all about the students, and that's the reason why we're here.

So I just was so honored when when they came in and gave me this award.

Very shocked.

And what do you think are some good attributes of a Delta College instructor?

For what I teach, it's definitely staying current in your field.

You have to be on top of what you're teaching your students.

I have a lot of students who work in the field, so I don't know what I'm teaching.

They'll tell me, you know, because they're seeing it day by day.

And so I think you definitely have to stay current in your trends in the health care.

I totally agree with Barbara on that one.

I think as a new person coming in, what I would say to them is be flexible and not come in with this very rigid plan because it's probably going to blow up for you.

You have to be you.

And we are about, meeting the students, right?

And not the students necessarily meeting me.

And I think that's definitely staying current on top of it.

Oh, yeah.

And do you think that your, like, teaching philosophy has changed over the years?

And if so, how?

Oh, man, has it changed?

Yeah.

You know, you do you come in, with rose colored glasses and, I expected them to learn these concepts.

I put up these great PowerPoints, and they all sat there like, I don't know, like, what is she talking about?

And I'm like, yes, I'm doing great.

And then you soon realize that you do not have their attention.

And yeah, I have totally changed that.

It's more active environment.

I have less slides.

They have to talk.

And that's some of the challenges to get them to be comfortable, to talk.

Once they leave my classroom to talk, for patients to talk up, speak out.

And so that's my goals totally different to be more active, I guess.

What do you think about that?

I think that's great.

And I think my philosophy has always been to be the instructor.

I would want to have.

So, you know, having gone through college, as we all have, we've had those instructors that just we're like, oh man, I can't believe I got past that class.

You know, you had to work so hard.

I've always just wanted to.

That was always my philosophy to be the instructor that you would want to have, as you know, as a student.

And so I think and Covid really changed a lot for us as instructors.

You know, we had to put a lot of classes online, which definitely changed our teaching philosophy.

So yeah, I think mine has changed over the years for sure.

Could you tell us about our recent encounter with a student where afterwards you thought, yes, this is why I do this.

I actually have a lot of encounters with my students.

I have a lot of students who work in offices around the area, and just I have one recently where my mom was at a health care provider, and she was like, I had, you know, your daughter was my teacher, and that my mom was so happy.

And that made me happy, because when mom is happy, that makes you proud.

So yeah.

Denise, what do you think about that?

Gosh, there's so many.

Because I could do clinical out there.

So I see them every time I'm there.

And they're texting me going, hey, what do you think?

What do you think about this patient?

What do you know?

And so it makes me so proud that they're growing and they're asking these questions.

And.

But the big thing I thought, you know, it's probably not just one student.

It's always my little group of clinical.

Every semester that we start out really rough.

And I'm like, oh no, how am I getting them to the end into the last day of clinical?

They're like, I'm like, can I help you with this?

Can I do that?

Nope.

We got it.

We got it.

And I'm like, they are ready to move on.

They don't need my reassurance at all.

So that's kind of, you know, all of them, I guess, to, yeah.

Denise, can you tell us from your perspective why Delta is a good choice for nurses or anyone?

I think why not?

It's in your backyard to begin with, right.

But we have this environment here of being a community college, which I think is definitely, a benefit.

We have smaller class sizes, definitely 15-20 in a classroom.

I learn all their names pretty much the first day.

And that we have resources for them to grow from.

We're not just getting them here to enroll.

We want them to be successful and to graduate and be able to get their career down, yeah.

Barb, what do you think?

I think what's great about Delta is you're going to get instructors who are active in the community.

We like Denise and I, we are still out there.

We are doing, you know, we are meeting physicians.

We are meeting providers.

We're staying current in trends.

So we are you're going to get you know, you're going to get your instructors.

We still know what's going on We still know what's going on and are still active and staying current on trends in the area.

You know... we keep in contact with our local providers so that if there's a need, they're letting us know.

We try to meet the needs of those as well, so that our students are employable when they leave Delta Thank you both so much for joining us today and congratulations on this award.

Thanks so much.

Delta College employees are deeply committed to student success and work every day to create an exceptional educational experience.

Recently, we had the opportunity to sit down with Veronica Bond as she celebrates 40 years with the college.

We ask Veronica to reflect on her time and share some memories from her years on campus.

Hi, Veronica.

Hello.

So, first off I just want to congratulate you on 40 years at Delta College.

Thank you.

I'm curious what was the initial draw to come to Delta College?

School, I came here right after high school.

This was...I didn't want to go out of state, so Delta College was the next choice.

And over the years, what roles have you been in or how has your position changed?

I started out as a student worker on the switchboard and that was great.

And as that time evolved under business services, they started me doing work in the purchasing department, so I became the person that type purchase orders things like that.

And then as people were retired and moved on I advanced into the role that I'm in now, the accounts payable piece, yeah.

So what do you think it means to have employees stay for 40 years at one institution?

Stability, definitely stability.

You don't have a lot of turnover that way.

You don't have to reteach and re, redo things.

You just.

It's just a constant build.

So how is working at Delta College kind of informed your personal goals or moral standings here?

Personal goals to keep a job?

No.

But it's always been a constant learning.

Learning something new.

Experiencing different things.

Loyalty, support.

I think I'm a very supportive person.

So that has come through my, experiences here at Delta College to how to be stable, how to support.

And in what ways has that kind of changed the way you approach life or even coming to work every day?

It's made me, it's taught me dependability, how to be dependable, and that's very important.

People can count on you if no one can count on you.

Kind of like useless.

But I would say, that's it's shaped me into being a dependable person.

To be loyal, to be, supportive as I would be for someone you can count on.

So that's carried over into my personal life.

I'm the same at work as I am at home.

and I want to piggyback off that.

How do you think that kind of builds connections in the area?

Because people know who you are.

So if they know who you are, they tend to trust you.

If they've seen you in the same space they know this is someone I've seen, I know them, I can trust them.

It's hard to trust someone you don't know.

So if you're there and they see you, they can depend on you.

They can trust you.

And so that in our area where we are, it's kind of like a family.

I would say the Tri-City area is everybody kind of knows everybody.

It kind of falls over from Saginaw, Bay City to Midland.

There's a connection.

There's the whole circle there.

And then lastly, what is your favorite memory from working at Delta College?

Working on the switchboard.

It was, I think my favorite memo was just in the fall when everybody would come back and they would have the big gathering.

That would be that's the most fun.

That was kind of fun times.

so spending 40 years here.

How was your interaction been with other employees or your peers?

Great.

I would say it's been very good.

I always tell everyone I grew up here because I started right out of high school, so I had, kind of like a mother figure with my colleague, Diane Zelinsky that worked here.

She's retired now.

Al Dezal he worked here years ago, and so he was kind of like a father figure at home.

Different ones.

They they all kind of parent to me.

Growing up.

So there was Mike, and Dr.

Carlyon was the awesomes.

He was great.

He used to keep chocolate back in his office.

And so a lot of times that's where I would just go get my little snacks from.

Because he had chocolate out there all the time.

And he knew your name.

He knew me?

It was just great.

It was a family.

What do you love about working at Delta College?

The people, their different people.

You learn a lot, and it's fun.

I enjoy the interaction with people.

Everybody's different, you know?

And when we embrace the differences, it's just.

It's kind of like uncle Bill over there in the corner or, you know, it's just family.

I'd like to extend my personal thanks to Veronica, and to all Delta College employees who work so diligently each day to support student success.

Now, let's take a look at what's coming up 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.

Delta College will be hosting a volleyball camp on June 8th through the 10th.

The camp will be open to eighth, ninth, and 10th grade girls.

Delta College will be hosting Camp Health and Wellness on June 16th through the 18th.

Campers will attend Delta's main campus from 9am til 2:30pm each day.

Camp is for students entering grades nine through 12.

Registration deadline is June 1st at 4pm.

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 show.

Please join us again in September when we 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 Diane Middleton.

Thanks for watching.

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

Thank you.