Two Grads Went to Great Lengths for CLU Honors

Piru resident Antoanella Ismanescu came a long way to claim a top academic honor at Cal Lutheran University’s commencement exercises Saturday--from Romania, originally.

Simi Valley resident Darlene Wallace also journeyed from afar to receive her special recognition at the graduation ceremony--across 40 years. She started working on her degree in 1956.

The pair were among the top students of the 661 receiving graduate and undergraduate degrees at the college’s Mount Clef Stadium. About 6,000 people sweated through the steamy outdoor event, including author Ray Bradbury, on hand to receive an honorary degree.

Four years ago Ismanescu, 25, came thousands of miles to Ventura County from Romania, unable to speak English. On Saturday the biochemistry major became one of two students to receive the Dean’s Award with a 3.99 grade point average, highest in the graduating class.

Wallace, a 57-year-old grandmother and business administration major, was one of two students to earn an Outstanding Adult Degree Evening Program Award. Her 3.96 GPA was second highest among such part-time students.

For the Rocketdyne secretary, the academic triumph was the fulfillment of a long-delayed personal goal. “This certainly is a highlight of my life, graduating,” Wallace said after the ceremony, which saw her take an impromptu bow at the urging of the college’s president as she walked across the stage.

“It’s a wonderful feeling; you feel like you’ve really accomplished something. . . . It’s been a long road.”

For Ismanescu, the degree meant something else--a reaffirmation of her lifelong desire to live up to the ideals of the United States.

“I expected it, but I’m proud of it,” she said in fluent English of her academic honor. “People here leave you alone if you’re [academically] good or bad. . . . In Romania, if you’re different they try to bring you back to the level of most people. You can’t be too good.”

But Saturday’s ceremony was a celebration of being good. And neither Ismanescu nor Wallace wore a cap adorned with the words “Not Quite Laude” or “C-L-U Less,” as at least two graduates did.

The self-assured Ismanescu appears to excel at everything she does.

Despite never picking up a tennis racket before leaving Romania, she made the varsity team at Cal Lutheran.

“She does everything she’s asked to do, does more than she’s asked to do and does it earlier than she’s asked to do it,” chemistry professor Michael Wiley said of Ismanescu. “She doesn’t want to just get an A, she wants to be the best person in the class.”

Ismanescu, who was married in March to her Romanian high school sweetheart, has an internship at biotechnology company Amgen this summer and a job interview there in two weeks.

“I was meant to do research,” she said. “I think people can only be happy if they like what they’re doing, and I definitely like what I’m doing.”

Wallace’s course has been a bit more quixotic. After a self-described “fairly dismal” early academic career, Wallace returned to school in the late 1980s after getting married and raising a family.

She took one class at a time, allowing her to focus on each subject. College improved her writing ability, analytical thinking and helped her gain self-confidence, she told Mike Doyle, director of the school’s evening program.

“She represents, as far as I’m concerned, the kind of motivation which brings people of her age back to finish a degree,” Doyle said. “It’s a personal commitment they’ve made to themselves to finish a degree as opposed to being credentialed in the corporate world. . . . The liberal arts education helps them make informed decisions in what’s often a very complex world.”

Ismanescu hopes eventually to go to UCLA medical school. Wallace, when she retires after more than 30 years from Rocketdyne, is considering a master’s degree that would allow her to become a career counselor. “I’d like to help younger people find their path--it took me a long time,” she said. “[But] it’s never too late.”