Maria's Calvin graduation

My sister is a college graduate! Maria completed all her undergraduate and student teaching requirements for Calvin College, and we celebrated with a huge graduation ceremony at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Saturday. When I saw there were over 800 graduates, I got a little nervous about how long it would take. Thankfully, Calvin has graduation down to a science: two moderators read off the names immediately after each other, while the president met them in the middle to shake each person's hand. There were a few pranksters who did things like adding the word "rules" to the end of their name. (my name would have been read as "Eric De Boer Rules", for example) Some others--all of whom were male, I might add--decided to have some fun by kissing the president on the cheek, a few more than once. While it wasn't Hope College, I thought the graduation ceremony was well done.

Maria was excited to be done. She says that it feels like her time at Calvin is done, and she's looking forward to beginning work at Holland Public Schools this fall as a full time elementary Spanish teacher.

Here are some pictures of her graduating, along with the new graduate with her Bushhouse grandparents, brothers, and parents. *sigh* She's getting all grown up!



Friday Calvin had a special commencement address for its education students. My parents, Maria, and I went there directly after picking me up from the airport. It was neat that they celebrated their education students specifically through that! They called each one up by name and gave them a nice "Calvin College Education Department" keychain. None of the few guys who were there were elementary education, which was kind of sad. I used some of my spare time at the graduation ceremony itself to check, and five of Calvin's 68 elementary education graduating students are male. While that trend continues to make finding a job for me a bit easier, that also reflects an unfortunate reality for students growing up in a home without a positive male influence.

Before the education ceremony began, my parents took Maria and me up to where my dad proposed to my mom during her senior year (his sophomore). Thankfully for me and my sibs, she said yes! Here they are, nearly 30 years after his proposal.