Praising H.V.C.C.

I’ll tell you a secret.

There are some people who work in my field of journalism who snicker a bit when they hear I went to a community college. Most don’t care, but a few who went to schools with expensive tuition and fancier names, look down on any college that ends with the letters C.C.

Tell you another secret. It makes me laugh. To think someone who spent 300K on their education ended up sitting down the row in a different cubicle with a guy who dropped a grand total of 25K on his. Isn’t life funny?

It’s not random, me thinking about community colleges this Sunday. I just spent the day over at Hudson Valley Community College, helping out with this year’s graduation ceremony. Unlike last year, they are able to have some students walk the stage this time around and get a diploma, which is nice for the families.

I don’t hide the fact that I loved my time at H.V.C.C. some forty years ago. Anyone foolish enough to ask me about my favorite teachers, gets an earful of stories about my first journalism teacher, Joe Godson. I’ve mentioned Mr. Godson often and fondly in this column over the years along with my short story teacher Maureen Hood.

She inspired me to be a writer. Did you ever have a teacher who was so damn good that you were physically bothered if you couldn’t make it to every single class? That was Maureen Hood.

In prepping for this year’s graduation, the nice people at H.V.C.C. gather up some interesting bullet points for me to memorize. No matter how many times I do their graduation ceremony, I’m always surprised by what I see in those notes. For example, would you be surprised to know that Hudson Valley is giving degrees out to students who come from 37 countries, including Albania, Yemen and Vietnam?

I couldn’t find Yemen on a map if you gave me two flashlights and a million bucks but one of their citizens can certainly tell you how to find Troy, N.Y.

More than 15-hundred students are graduating in a couple of weeks and more than a fourth of them will leave here with honors. The oldest graduate in the class of 2021 is 72 years old. Can you imagine that? That means when they were 70, they looked across the kitchen table and said to someone they love, “You know what? I think I’m going to get myself a degree.”

Talk about impressive. Veterans are also well represented in this upcoming graduating class with 56 carrying the honor of that title. Many are active right now in our military but finding time to better themselves. Bravo.

Walking around the campus, you also quickly realize that H.V.C.C. has been much more than a place of learning. That college has stepped up and helped save lives in our battle with Covid. Not only have they been a busy vaccination and testing sight, but they also gave out PPE and that ice rink where you may have taken a child to skate on the weekend, was home to Homeland Security personnel putting together test kits.

And I’m not talking about a few dozen, more like 10 million. Current students have served as contact tracers and former students and very recent graduates have been on the front line of healthcare fighting this virus and saving lives. Think about that for a second, you’re a 20-year-old nursing student who graduates and you are immediately face to face with a life-ending disease. Talk about a baptism by fire.

The old newspaper I used to run on campus, the Hudsonian, moved their offices since I did a horrible job as editor, but the energy of the kids who work on it is still the same. So many good memories from that Campus Center building and so much learned from the long hours and bad vending machine food.

That is one area where every college has gotten better, the cafeteria selections. Every once in a while, if I get a stomach ache, I blame it on the filet of fish I used to buy out of a vending machine on campus.

If you’re waiting for me to make some grand point in this column, I suppose it is this. If a child in your family isn’t sure if college is right for them, give H.V.C.C. a look. If they definitely want a college degree but money is scarce, again, try the evergrowing campus up on the hill in the South End of Troy.

I’m not knocking four-year schools with more impressive trappings, if that’s what your child wants, go with God. Just know if your plans or economics force you to only consider SUNY schools and a local community college, trust me, you’ll do just fine.

I’m proud I went where I went and lucky, I had the teachers I did. If I learned one thing in life, it’s that a student who is eager to learn will do well wherever they land. And if you are lazy or disinterested and only picked a school because their basketball team plays on national television every March; well, that will come out in the wash as well.

Go Vikings.

John Gray is a news anchor on WXXA-Fox TV 23 and ABC’S WTEN News Channel 10. His column is published every Sunday. Email him at johngray@fox23news.com.