Cal Lutheran Graduates Recall Hard Work, Good Times

The last time she graduated--with an associate’s degree from Moorpark College--Andrea Potts skipped the ceremony.

On Saturday, however, Potts proudly soaked up the pomp and circumstance on the campus of Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, posing for pictures with her parents, brother, husband and her two children as she joined 600 others receiving diplomas.

“We’re making a big production of this,” said Potts, 32, who has earned an A in every class at the three colleges she has attended since returning to school in 1986.

Few of the other graduates had taken care of two children while attending school, and none of the others had straight-A averages. But as they milled about the Cal Lutheran campus Saturday in black caps and gowns and purple-and-gold hoods, graduates shared common memories of hard work and good times.

“It’s sad to see it end,” said Jim Williams, 21, recalling a trip to North Carolina with the golf team for the NCAA Division III tournament, and hours spent overhauling the student government constitution.

Christina Hessler, 22, of Simi Valley remembered the challenge of creating an advertising campaign for Rainforest Confections, “an upscale line of boxed chocolates that used fruits and nuts from the rain forest,” a product she invented for a marketing class.

Hessler, half of a mother-daughter team graduating together Saturday, said she and her mother sometimes tutored each other.

“I think it brought us closer together,” she said, noting that since she went to school during the day and her mother attended evening classes, the two never had to compete head-to-head.

Christina’s mother, Erika Hessler, said she too skipped an earlier ceremony, when she graduated in 1988 from Oxnard College with an associate’s degree.

This time around, however, Erika was planning a “big bash” for 40 people in her back yard.

“This is the greatest Mother’s Day present I could ever get,” said Hessler, an administrative clerk in the human resources department of GTE. She hopes her newly minted bachelor’s degree in business will help her transfer to a job in sales or marketing.

But at the outdoor ceremony in Mount Clef Stadium, the rhetorical focus of speakers was less on the career-boosting value of the degrees than on their symbolic meaning.

“This is a momentous day,” said Williams, the student commencement speaker. “In a world of ethical decay, we are the leaders who can change it. . . . California Lutheran has molded you into a mature leader.”

University President Luther S. Luedtke told the students to think of their education as a deep root, while simultaneously urging them to “catch the wave” of the exploding revolution in information technology.

In addition to students who attended classes, three others received degrees Saturday in recognition of their lifetime achievements. They were Katie Yang, an opera singer regarded as the most popular movie star in Hong Kong during the 1950s; Paul C. Petersen, a housing developer and philanthropist who gave Cal Lutheran the pipe organ in its chapel, and Maria Lee, a businesswoman who parlayed a Hong Kong cooking school into an international food and media empire. Petersen was honored posthumously.

Former Thousand Oaks Mayor Alex Fiore was also honored, with a “distinguished service award.”

Holding their mortarboards to their heads in the gusting wind, students filed on stage for handshakes and diplomas--a few leaning toward the microphone to shout greetings to family members and friends.

For the most part, however, it was left to the official speakers to offer a few final words in return for the years of long lectures and late-night conversations.

Lee was polite, even gracious.

“This honor comes from a small university with a big heart. I accept it with great joy and appreciation,” she said.

Williams, speaking for the students, was more blunt. “Congratulations, graduates, and the best of luck. We’re out of here!”