Sunday, June 3, 2012 9:30 PM EDT

By Erica Schmitt Staff Writer

At their commencement ceremony Sunday, Charter Oak State College Class of 2012 graduates celebrated their non-traditional completion of degrees.

The schools online course degree programming is designed for students who at one time began college careers but were interrupted by some life event that made classroom learning impossible.

We live in an age where such quiet quests are not celebrated, said Charter Oak President Ed Klonoski. What we are here to celebrate today is a group of people who made a commitment to their education and stuck to that goal through family emergencies, computer problems, financial setbacks, and bad weather, he continued, before addressing the class, You are heroic because you refused to give up, refused to quit, refused to quietly abandon your dream. Like Odysseus, you may have taken a long time, but today you have made it home.

Of the 424 graduates, 65 percent are from Connecticut, while the rest hail from 39 different states and five countries, including Switzerland, Australia and Norway.

Some locals included Bristol residents Lori Wyrebeck and Krista Kozikowski, New Britain resident Marsha Michaud and Steve Minton, from Plantsville. The average student is age 39 the oldest is 68 and youngest is 19.

We have some military personnel graduates in Afghanistan that are tuned into the webcast of the ceremony right now, the schools Director of Academic Services Linda Larkin commented at Sundays event, held on the CCSU campus where Charter Oaks home base happens to be located.

Every graduate, wherever they happened to take online courses from, had a different story to share at the reception following the ceremony.

One man spoke of being diagnosed with cancer as a young CCSU student, but surviving and completing his degree online with Charter Oak.

Read the original here:
Charter Oak graduates, faculty praise online education