Paralegal Diann Prince recently graduated from the Paralegal Program at South Coast College. Her son, Daniel Prince, is a student at 180 wpm in the Court Reporting Program.
Congratulations to you, Diann, for your accomplishment and to Daniel for his accomplishment. (Diane is here in this picture with her twins and son, Daniel.)
South Coast College honored the high achievers at its February 21, 2009 Winter Commencement.
Left to right bottom row: Holly Caban, Medical Assisting Certificate (High Honors); Miriam Saez, Legal Administrative Assistant Certificate; Reyna Ayala, A.A. degree in Paralegal Studies (Honors).
Left to right second row: Catherine Ellison, Medical Assistant, Certificate; Rocio Higareda, Certificate (Honors); Candace Bellino, A.A.S. degree in Paralegal Studies (High Honors/Special Recognition).
Left to right third row: Jamie Matlock, Certificate in Court Reporting (High Honors/Special Recognition); Tracy Brown, Certificate in Court Reporting (Honors/Special Recognition); Kaleigh Sargeant, A.A.S. degree in Court Reporting (High Honors/Special Recognition); Pamela Wilson, A.A.S. degree in Paralegal (Honors).
Left to right top row: Andrea Rinker, A.A.S. degree in Court Reporting (High Honors/Special Recognition — Shortest Completion Time); Debra Gail Turner, A.A. degee in Paralegal Studies (High Honors/Special Recognition); Jose Navarro, Medical Assisting Certificate (Honors/Special Recognition).
Toni O’Neill, CSR, RPR, an alumna of South Coast College was appointed to the Court Reporters Board (CRB) by Governor Swartzenegger. In July 2007, she was elected as Chair. Ms. O’Neill, a speaker at the February 2008 Commencement Exercises at South Coast College, indicated that as Chair of the Court Reporters Board, she would be the one signing the CSR licenses of the new CSR licensees.
At the recent commencement exercises at South Coast College, President Gonzalez pointed out that four of the individuals graduating and receiving honors had family members who are also CSRs – Kyle Miller (father), Jamie Ply (mother), Kamryn Valadez (sister), Marsha Bell (aunt).
Thank you. I would like to welcome all the family and friends of the graduates who are here today, to welcome and thank our speakers for participating in this occasion, to thank the faculty and staff of South Coast College for being the great, dedicated faculty and staff that they are, and to thank the people who worked right up to the last minute to make today’s commencement exercise possible. Today is a special day because it is our opportunity as faculty and staff to experience with our graduating class the fruits of our combined effort.
Over the years, South Coast College has developed a reputation for excellence. And, you need only to peruse the faculty section of the commencement program to see why South Coast College has produced outstanding alumni. Why? It has an outstanding faculty who has outstanding credentials. And, many of these outstanding faculty are themselves South Coast College alumni – Yolanda Krieger, CSR, the director of the court reporting program and the court reporting instructors: Kathy Genevay, CSR; Kathy Hettick, CSR, RPR, official court reporter and part-time instructor; Rebecca Remsen, CSR, RPR full-time instructor; Kaleisha Straughter, CSR, RPR, part-time instructor; and Jaclyn Verkler, CSR, part-time instructor.
In the paralegal program, the director and instructors have Juris Doctorate degrees and are all accomplished legal practitioners. In the medical area, the director is a physician assistant and the instructors include a medical doctor and a health information records specialist. And many of these instructors such as our master of ceremonies today Marlin Branstetter who has been teaching law in the court reporting program at South Coast College since 1988 are the same instructors who have been instrumental in producing alumni who have distinguished themselves in many areas of the legal and medical professions. Some of these alumni have gone on to hold positions of official court reporters, deposition reporters, deposition agency owners, congressional reporters, steno-interpreters, owners of captioning firms, paralegals, medical transcriptionists, owners of paralegal and medical transcription firms, instructors, and outstanding legal and medical assistants and transcriptionists.
These same instructors and staff have helped South Coast College to distinguish itself in the court reporting field by helping it to produce the majority of court reporters in the state of California. The faculty and staff, with the outstanding alumni that they helped produce, have also enabled South Coast College to gain the recognition as having one of the nation’s leading court reporting programs. It is the reason that each year a number of our students come to our college from out of state to study court reporting. As in prior commencement exercises, some of these students from other states are graduating here today. For all these reasons, I think the faculty and staff deserve our sincere thanks and appreciation.
To the graduating class, I would like to personally express on behalf of the faculty and staff how proud we are of your accomplishments. We have a great, dedicated, caring faculty and staff. And, for many of us, this day is bittersweet. We have come to know and love you. You have become members of our South Coast College family.
And like proud parents, we are happy that you have reached your goals and look forward to your future successes, but we will miss seeing you when you leave your South Coast College home. We will miss sharing in the daily ups and downs of your academic life and miss celebrating your continued accomplishments. And though you will be replaced by other students who will follow, you are all special people who have left an indelible mark upon South Coast College.
On behalf of the entire faculty and staff, we want you to know that you are the pride of South Coast College, that we wish you the very best, and welcome you as our future alumni.
Today South Coast College is honored to have a distinguished court reporter as a speaker for our court reporting program. Our speaker, a South Coast College Alumna, is well known for her contributions to the court reporting field. Her latest accomplishment is being appointed by the Governor of the state to the Court Reporters Board, the licensing body for court reporters in the state, and being elected as Board Chair in July of 2007.
She has extensive experience as both a court and a deposition reporter. Her experience includes serving as an official court reporter for the Riverside County Superior Court since 1995 and previously serving as an official court reporter for the State of Wyoming District Court. She has also been a staff reporter for Gillespie Reporting Service.
As I have known her for many years and she has always been totally supportive of South Coast College and helpful to South Coast College students, I was especially proud of her accomplishment of being appointed to the Court Reporters Board and was delighted to find out that she would be a speaker at our commencement exercise. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you – Tony O’Neill, CSR, RPR, South Coast College Alumna, and Court Reporters Board Chair.
In her speech, Ms. O’Neill told the CSR candidates that as Court Reporters Board Chair, she would be the one signing their CSR licenses.
Awards are presented to a number of graduates in court reporting. President Gonzalez indicated that it is a difficult decision as to whether or not to present awards to court reporting graduates because the attainment of the designation of passing a qualifying examination and the rigorous academic program that is involved in court reporting is quite special in itself and only a select number of people achieve this level of competence. So everyone here today graduating with a certificate or AAS degree in court reporting is exceptional.
However, it is only fitting that we recognize those people who attained academic excellence while developing this exceptionally challenging skill or who developed this skill in an inordinately short period of time. For this reason, we would like to recognize the following people.
The students who are graduating with honors — a GPA of 3.0 or above are the following: Marsha Bell, Melissa Tressen, Dustin Huffer, Adra Pittman, Veronica Parker, Jamie Ply, Angela Carithers, Kyle Miller, Marlene Duron.
The students who are graduating with high honors – 3.5 or above. As I call your name, please come up to receive your award. Angela Carithers, Adra Pittman, Dustin Huffer.
The students who have completed the program in less than two years: Dustin Huffer, Angela Carithers, Adra Pittman, Jamie Ply.
We have special awards for three people who have accomplished extraordinary feats in court reporting. One of these people was able to complete the court reporting program in less than two years with a perfect 4.0 average, and she spoke a different language. She was from New York. I would like to present this award to Ms. Angela Carithers.
The next award goes to an individual who is every teachers ideal student – a person who does everything he is told to do, never questions anything, has a smile on his face all the time, does his homework, comes to class every day, studies, practices. I used to tell new students that the ideal role model for them in court reporting was Tiger Woods because of his focus and dedication to developing his skill. I now tell them, their role model should be this person. I would like to present this award for this year’s graduate who qualified to take the CSR in the shortest period of time (15 months) to Dustin Huffer.
The final award goes to someone who was on a mission to complete the court reporting program in a shorter period of time than his father, who is a court reporter. I think he got a little carried away. Not only did he pass the skill and academic portion of the CSR on his first attempt contributing to South Coast College having a 100 percent pass rate last time on the CSR examination, but he passed with a record-setting low error rate -14 on the machine skill portion. Even though he never heard of Paul McCartney’s song “The Long and Winding Road†(inside joke), I would like to present this award for outstanding performance on the CSR examination to Kyle Miller, CSR.
After all the students have received their diplomas, an honorary A.A.S. degree was presented to Tony O’Neill. At the time she graduated from South Coast College, the college was not degree granting.
As a token of our appreciation for your dedication to the field of court reporting, I would like to present this honorary A.A.S. degree in court reporting to Tony O’Neill.
Mr. Dixon then presented an award to the outstanding paralegal graduate – Stephanie Langley.
Stephanie, you were so quiet and shy when I first met you. I would never have guessed your secret life as a karate student. You worked very hard at South Coast College to earn high honors – a perfect 4.0 Grade Point Average. Well-done! Your family and especially your lovely daughter must be bursting with pride today.