Wetzel to Serve as Honorary Grand Marshal; Gonyea to be Named Alumnus of Year
MONROE, Mich. – Monroe County Community College graduates will be recognized during the 52nd Annual Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 3 at 7 p.m. in the Gerald Welch Health Education Building, located at 1555 S. Raisinville Rd.
Student addresses will be made by graduation candidates Trisha Schuver and Aleija Rodriguez. Schuver will be introduced by faculty mentor Steve Mapes. Rodriguez will be introduced by faculty mentor Edmund La Clair.
Suzanne Wetzel, vice president of administration, has been awarded the position of honorary grand marshal for the ceremony. This traditional honor is peer-awarded and bestowed upon a full-time faculty member who is held in high academic and personal esteem for his or her contributions to the institution. She will carry a ceremonial mace that was created and donated to the college by River Raisin Wood Carvers.
Wetzel has been employed by the college for 32 years and has served in her current role for the last nine. Prior to that she served as director of institutional advancement and executive director of The Foundation at MCCC. As vice president of administration, Wetzel oversees the business, facilities, marketing and communications, and purchasing and auxiliary services operations at the college and also serves as treasurer. She plays a critical role in the strategy and day-to-day operations of MCCC, and among her duties are the yearly creation and oversight of the college’s $32 million operating budget, the weekly review and approval of all payables, keeping the college in line with board-approved policies and procedures and overseeing all contracts for outside consultants, contractors, vendors and tenants.
Wetzel played a key leadership role in the college’s 5-year maintenance and improvement millage information campaign and is now overseeing the implementation of all of the construction projects being completed with millage dollars. Her leadership has also been critical to the success of non-millage funded capital improvement projects; one example is the recently completed conversion by the college to a campus-wide geothermal heating, cooling and ventilation system. As past executive director of The Foundation at MCCC, Wetzel helped to guide it from its creation and infancy into a mature and robust organization that has and will continue to benefit MCCC for years to come.
Other ceremony officials will include Lisa Schaller, the 2018-19 Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award winner, as faculty marshal; Dr. Randell Daniels, vice president of student and information systems, as student marshal, and Dr. Grace Yackee, vice president of instruction, as platform party marshal and mistress of ceremonies.
At the ceremony, the 2018 Alumnus of the Year Award will be presented to Don Gonyea. To recognize and honor outstanding alumni who have made significant contributions to their career field, community and the college, the MCCC Board of Trustees established the Alumnus of the Year Award in 1996.
Gonyea, a native of Monroe, earned his associate of science degree from MCCC in 1976 and went on to graduate with honors from Michigan State University, where he studied telecommunications and advertising. He began his career in broadcasting with National Public Radio after getting his start at NPR reporting from Detroit on labor unions and the automobile industry, spending countless hours on picket lines and in union halls covering strikes. He also covered other pivotal stories in Detroit’s history for NPR, such as the development of alternative fuel and hybrid-powered automobiles, Dr. Jack Kevorkian's assisted-suicide crusade and the 1999 closing of Detroit's classic Tiger Stadium — the ballpark of his youth.
Gonyea has held the position of NPR national political correspondent since 2010, traveling across the U.S. covering campaigns, elections and the political climate throughout the U.S. His professional duties brought him back to his alma mater in 2010 to cover a debate at MCCC’s La-Z-Boy Center, Meyer Theater between the late Congressman John D. Dingell and candidate Dr. Robert Steele. He started as NPR’s White House Correspondent at the same time George W. Bush moved into the White House in 2001 and was at the White House on the morning of September 11, 2001, providing live reports following the evacuation of the building. During the 2004 campaign he traveled with President Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry, covered the Bush Administration’s prosecution of wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, served as the lead reporter covering the entire Obama presidential campaign for NPR, and continued covering the White House and President Barack Obama until 2010 when he moved into his current position.
Gonyea has filed stories from around the globe, including cities such as Moscow, Beijing, London, Islamabad and San Salvador and attended President Bush’s first ever meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin in Slovenia in 2001, as well as President Obama's first trip overseas as president, and has contributed to PBS's “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” the BBC, CBC, AP Radio and the Columbia Journalism Review. He periodically teaches college journalism courses and has won numerous national and state awards for his reporting, including a 2000 George Foster Peabody Award as a member of the team that produced the All Things Considered series “Lost & Found Sound.”
Degrees will be conferred by MCCC President Dr. Kojo A. Quartey as the candidates are presented by Yackee.
The Agora Chorale, conducted by Catherine Brodie, will perform “When the Mind is Without Fear,” by Vicki Tucker Courtney. The College/Community Symphony Band, conducted by Mark Felder, will open the ceremony with Edward Elgar’s “Fanfare and Processional” (also known as “Pomp and Circumstance”) and conclude the program with “Fanfare and Recessional” by James Ployhar.
MCCC’s Board of Trustees includes: Chair Lynette M. Dowler, Vice Chair Mary Kay Thayer, Secretary Aaron N. Mason, and trustees William T. Bruck, Florence Buchanan, Steven Hill and Krista Lambrix.