Northwest confers record number of degrees during spring commencement ceremonies

Northwest confers record number of degrees during spring commencement ceremonies

Northwest Missouri State University honored its spring graduates during four commencement ceremonies Friday and Saturday, awarding a record 1,659 degrees while celebrating students' journeys and the unknowns ahead.

During his opening remarks, University President Dr. Lance Tatum noted the graduates join a community of Northwest alumni numbering more than 85,000 people living throughout the world. He encouraged the graduates to serve positively in their professions and communities.

"You will quickly learn that the value of your Northwest degree will not remain stagnant," Tatum said. "It will increase or decrease in value over time. We ask for your help to ensure your degree continues to grow in value."

Dr. Matt Baker, who began work in March as the president of Emporia State University after decades of work in student affairs at Northwest, returned to deliver the weekend's commencement addresses. Baker called the opportunity a special honor and a homecoming, having known and worked alongside many of the graduating students. Northwest, he noted, also is where he met his wife, Jill, an alumna and long-time faculty member in the School of Education, and where the couple raised their family.

During Saturday morning's ceremony, he was on stage to congratulate his daughter, Avery, as she was honored for completing a bachelor's degree in applied health science with a sports medicine emphasis.

"You've worked hard, you've sacrificed, you've adapted and you've persevered to reach this milestone," Baker told graduates. "Some of you arrived here with a clear plan. Others discovered your path along the way, and many of you had to navigate challenges you never expected - academic, personal and global. Yet, here you are. That matters, and you should be proud of it."

While reflecting on his 30-plus years in Maryville and at Northwest, Baker offered three life lessons for graduates to carry with them. He encouraged graduates to be thankful for their journeys and the people who supported them, to look forward and embrace life's adventures and unknowns, and to choose joy.

"When I look back on my own journey, the moments that shaped me most were not the ones where everything went according to my plan," Baker said. "They were the moments that forced me to adapt, to rethink and to grow. So pursue your ambitions but also pursue your curiosity. Travel if you can. Serve others. Try things that are new. Invest in relationships. Build a life that is not only successful but meaningful and rich with experience. Your career will be important, but your life - your full, complex, unpredictable life - is what will truly matters."

Graduates by the numbers

The commencement ceremonies celebrated 1,659 students, ranging in age from 19 to 66. Northwest awarded 801 bachelor's degrees, 660 master's degrees and 198 education specialist degrees.

Business management, elementary education and psychology were the most common bachelor's degrees among the graduates, and educational leadership for K-12 was the most common master's degree.

Northwest awarded posthumous degrees to the families of two students who were on track to complete degrees but died unexpectedly during the spring semester. Joseph Huber, a senior from St. Joseph, Missouri, who was studying a mass media major with a broadcast production emphasis, passed away Jan. 6 from an unexpected illness; Kristina Thomas, also of St. Joseph, was completing her Master of Business Administration degree with a human resource management emphasis and had planned to participate in commencement ceremonies but lost her battle with cancer on April 21.

Geographically, the graduates represented 45 states with about 63 percent of them hailing from locations in Missouri; another 25 percent were from the surrounding states of Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and Nebraska. Northwest celebrated 69 international graduates representing 23 different countries.