The 91Ï㽶ÊÓƵ College of Education held an end-of-semester Fall Senior Recognition and Pinning Ceremony on December 3rd, 2025 in the UC Ballroom. Before the ceremony began, students presented their Action Plans on posters outside the ballroom. College leadership, faculty, and others boasted about the professional, confident, competent students that were graduating this semester. Many potential employers attended the event, and exchanged contact information with students.
As the event began, excited students, proud faculty, staff, families and friends packed the ballroom. Dr. Jim Detweiler, Deputy Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer of Boone County Schools was the keynote speaker of the evening, inviting students to accept their role in changing the world, and helping them understand the impact they will have on their students.
Dean Ginni Fair then presented the Friend of the College Award to R.A Jones Middle School and Mr. Brent Anstaett of Ockerman Middle School.
The presentation of Outstanding student and mentor awards began. Over the next hour, professors talked about their outstanding students, students spoke about their mentors, and families stood up from the crowd to take photos and videos of their students accepting their awards. Looking around the room, many were shedding tears, and grinning ear-to-ear as their student walked up to the front of the room to accept their award or certificate and pin. Students embraced one another and proudly clapped for their peers, a true showing of the community built in the 91Ï㽶ÊÓƵ College of Education.
This ceremony emphasized the incredible variety of College of Education programs – the Outstanding award in each program ranged from Secondary Education to the ASL and Deaf Studies Minor to the Education, Culture and Society program.
At the end of the ceremony, Dr. Ginni Fair, Dean of the College of Education invited all of the seniors to stand and be recognized. She asked them to repeat after her, and the room filled with an echo of “I am supported. I am equipped. I am ready.â€
The evening marked a pivotal moment for our seniors; one that they surely will look back on fondly. It was an evening of deep gratitude for the college, for their faculty, for their peers, their friends, and their families. It was an evening of pride, reminding everyone in attendance how hard these students have worked to get to this point.
We cannot wait to see our seniors walk across the graduation stage on December 13th in Truist Arena.
Our Outstanding Student Awards by program are:
- Emily Carey: Elementary
- Niah Drayton: Middle/Secondary
- Alyssa Adams: PK-12
- Morgan Thompson: Education, Culture & Society
- Paige Presnell: Special Education
- Marcus Shelmidine: Master’s of Arts in Teaching
Our Outstanding University Supervisor award went to Dr. Shawn Faulkner. The Outstanding Mentor Teacher awards went to Mrs. Kim Wedding for Elementary, and Dr. Amy Kennedy for Middle/Secondary/PK-12.
A special thank you to our faculty, staff, partner school districts, and all who helped make this event a success for our students.
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