Introduction by Ron Leatherbarrow, Executive Dean of Instruction at BCC

It is my pleasure to introduce our faculty speaker for this evening. We are fortunate to have an excellent corps of part-time faculty who bring an invaluable range of interest and expertise to our classrooms. This year, Gwyneth Jones, a faculty member in our Geology program, is the recipient of the Margin of Excellence Award for meritorious teaching, and the award is richly deserved.

Gwyneth was born in Manhattan and grew up on the east coast in Connecticut and in Philadelphia. She holds a Bachelors Degree in Physics from Denison University in Ohio, and she earned a Masters of Science in Geology from the University of Washington. She has extensive teaching experience in the Seattle area; in addition to our college, she teaches at the University of Puget Sound, and North Seattle and Highline Community Colleges, and reports on her teaching from her students and her colleagues consistently praise her knowledge of her subject matter and her excellent abilities to communicate it effectively to her students.

Gwyneth is a fine teacher, and her resume reflects her extraordinary commitment to service. Notably, she served as an instructor and mentor in the Rural Girls in Science program, and she taught in the Expanding Your Horizons program for Shoreline Community College, providing workshops on forensic geology for 30 middle-school and high-school girls. She serves on numerous advisory boards and in partnerships providing advocacy for women and diversity in education, and especially in the fields of science.

Gwyneth exemplifies the dedication and wonderful capabilities of the part-time faculty we are fortunate to have teaching for us. Please join me in welcoming one of Bellevue Community College’s finest faculty members, Gwyneth Jones.

Gwyneth Jones's graduation speech, Bellevue Community College, June 17, 2005

Thank you, Ron.

Through the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know some of you – in my geology and oceanography classes, or just around campus – and I know that you have invested a lot of time, and energy, and income, to get to this very place today. So first and foremost, before I plunge forward: On behalf of ALL of the faculty and staff of BCC, and from the bottom of my heart, CONGRATULATIONS, GRADUATES!

Ever since being asked to talk to you today, I’ve been asking myself, “Is there any way I can talk about geology?” Because as anyone who knows me at all knows, I live and breathe geology and oceanography. I love them, am passionate about them. So the petrified-to-be-standing-at-a-podium side of me (which, to be frank, is about 99-point-something percent of me) has wanted to do that – To talk about something familiar, comfortable, and (at least to me) interesting. Fortunately for you, my allotted time is too short to do justice to the topic of Mt St Helens, or Washington earthquakes, or tsunamis, or marine biology – Though if you’re going to the reception in the cafeteria after this ceremony, I’d be more than happy to chat with you there! Or take my online class, just for fun! (Just kidding…sort of!)*

One of the joys of teaching at a community college is the diversity of the student body – You range in age from high-school Running Start students, to grandparents, and everyone in between. From first-generation college students, to people whose families have gone to college for generations. People with disabilities. People of all backgrounds and cultures. And you are all UNIQUE. So it’s actually quite difficult to give advice to you all.

I’m sure you’ve been getting lots of advice lately on where to go from here, and how to get there. And plans and goals are good – very good. The advice of family, friends, and “experts” is good. But I’d like to suggest another, and perhaps radical (though not contradictory) notion – It’s a HOPE for you, rather than advice per se:

DO WHAT YOU LOVE.

This concept of DO WHAT YOU LOVE is something I’ve discovered quite by chance through the years. It’s not always the straightest path, or the most logical one – But it probably will be interesting and fulfilling.

My own life hasn’t taken a straight, logical path to teaching college earth science so I can say this from personal experience.

If you do try my notion of DO WHAT YOU LOVE, and thereby hear perplexed questions of friends and loved ones, here are a couple of quotations that might help to have on hand:

The first, from JRR Tolkien: “Not all who wander are lost.”

The second, from William Penn: “Rivers meander when they need to.” (You knew I had to get some geology in there somehow!)

So here’s my path:

When I was in high school, my math teacher said to me, and I quote: “GIRLS CAN’T DO MATH AND SCIENCE.” As astoundingly ridiculous as that sounds to me today, I didn’t challenge it at the time. I was too shy and unsure of myself – Even though I was doing moderately well in his calculus and physics courses, so he was factually incorrect as well as being a soul-crusher – So much for logic and evidence!

So onward I went for another couple of years, limiting myself by what he and the guidance counsellors said, until my freshman year of college, when – thank goodness! – I had a calculus professor named Dick Halverstadt, who showed me how wrong that idea actually was. He opened up whole new worlds to me. And much to my surprise, I ended up majoring in physics and geology – things that I discovered that I love.

Upon graduation, I still didn’t “know what I wanted to do when I grew up”. So I took a job in Philadelphia as a medical writer and editor – Interesting work, it turned out. I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. When colleagues had sparkly rocks in their offices, and I lit up and told them about how the rocks formed – Now that was fun. Or when the local kids dug up stones in their yards and asked me about them – That was fun.

So I kept on doing a good job, getting promotions, the whole bit. Until one day, when the universe spoke too loudly for me to ignore. My now-ex-boyfriend took me to a big roadcut in Sideling Hill, Maryland – where they cut through a big ridge of rock to put a highway in. The state of Maryland had put a rest stop there, but not just any rest stop – It had informational displays about the geology and natural history of the whole area! My goodness, THAT’S what I want to do! So I applied to graduate schools (lesson: GPA doesn’t make a huge difference, but it does help!), packed up my belongings and cats, and moved out here to Seattle to get my master’s. It was quite an adventure – one that sometimes I look back on and wonder how I ever had the courage to actually do. I was a teaching assistant in the geology department at UW, and it was there that I – the shy girl and daughter of two artists – discovered that I wanted to teach science.

So I guess when it comes down to it, bottom line: I HOPE that you will DO WHAT YOU LOVE – whether it be science, or art, or business, or nursing – the universe speaking to YOUR heart of hearts. As a paid job or as a hobby, if it’s YOU, then do it.

Of course, the only way to know whether you LOVE something is to TRY things, plunge in, and keep on learning. HOPE itself is a leap of faith. As Cornel West said:

“In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, hoping to land on something.”

(I hope you’ll land on something good and soft!)

And also I HOPE that you will be OPEN to what chance or fate throws at you – opportunities and paths that might not be the obvious next step, but that reveal themselves to you. When things are looking grim, I HOPE that the universe gives you your own Mr Halverstadt.

What bold new adventures will you be embarking on next?

Will you be going on for more schooling?
Starting a new job?
Or perhaps continuing on in your current role as parent or caregiver, employee or employer, but now with a college degree?
Or are you thinking, “Just let me get my diploma – I’ll worry about that later! I’m taking a break!”?

No matter what your next steps are, I HOPE that you will be open to possibilities and opportunities, take some leaps of faith, keep on learning, and DO WHAT YOU LOVE.

Finally, in closing, I’d like to leave you with a few words from Lee Ann Womack (if only I could sing!):

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder.
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger…
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens…
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance.
Never settle for the path of least resistance…
If you come close to selling out reconsider,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance,
I hope you dance.

 

*It looks like at least one new BCC graduate will be taking me up on this offer and taking my online class in Fall 2005! Wow!