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EDGEWOOD COLLEGE TODAY
MAY COMMENCEMENT
May Commencement 2015 saw nearly 300 undergraduates and 100 masters and doctoral candidates receive their degrees. V.P. for Student Development/Dean of Students Maggie Balistreri-Clarke, in one of her final official functions for the College, gave the address. “You do not yet know how smart you can be, how kind, how strong, how loving,” Balistreri-Clarke said in closing. “But you can commit to finding out. Thank you and bon courage!” One of those students receiving her degree is Karen Hall ’15. Ms. Hall began her college career twenty years ago,
FALL.15//EDGEWOOD COLLEGE MAGAZINE
but life’s twists, including her desire to be close to home during her father’s cancer fight, delayed her dream. Working fulltime as a Special Education Assistant at Aldo Leopold Elementary School in Madison, she began her degree at Edgewood College in 2011. “I love working in the Madison school district,” Hall said. “There are so many amazing teachers I’ve been able to work with over the years who have inspired me to be a teacher, and who have supported me as I’ve been working fulltime and going to school fulltime. I would love to continue to work in the Madison school district.” For Hall, the School of Education’s Dr. Joseph E. Schmiedicke Future Educator Award honoree for 2015,
that dream has come true. In September, she started a new career, as a teacher at Aldo Leopold. “It’s a gift. I am so lucky to be able to have this career and to be realizing my goal, twenty years later.” Karen Hall ’15 with Donovan, her husband, May 2015.