Chadron State College holds its Spring Commencement this Saturday morning at 10:00 in the Chicoine Center.
The school is scheduled to award 279 undergraduate degrees and 58 graduate degrees in ceremonies that will be shown on the Elliot Field/Don Beebe Stadium video board and streamed and archived.
The number of degrees is a little larger than normal because last December’s graduates have been invited to take part since their commencement ceremony was canceled by a severe snow storm.
Saturday’s ceremony will include Moments of Reflection by 2 of the graduates. Jace Demeranville completed a cross-country bike ride for a CSC course with Dr Kurt Kinbacher last summer while Jaqueline Buhr, a master’s degree recipient, has been a fixture at CSC the past 7 years.
Buhr worked for the school in various positions in Financial Aid, Academic Advising, and Project Strive/Trio, but is now self-employed as a licensed mental health practitioner with her CSC master’s degree in counseling..
The commencement ceremonies will also include the commissioning of ROTC cadet Chase Mestas as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U-S Army.
The Commencement Speaker is Chadron High School and Chadron State College graduate Michael Sandstrom, an award-winning history and civics teacher at Chadron High who was recently named the school’s new head football coach.
Sandstrom is a Chadron native with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from CSC, but who also has a master’s degree in American History from Pace University.
He is part of a legacy at CSC. His wife Sheyenne, his mother JoAnn Sandstrom, his mother-in-law and CSC Family and Consumer Sciences faculty member Lorie Hunn, and his brother Zach are all graduates while his sister Madison is a current CSC student.
Sandstrom has earned numerous honors, beginning in 2015 while teaching in Colorado. He was named the state’s James Madison Fellow and took part in a program designed to improve the teaching of the Constitution in American schools
Sandstrom says it was a tremendous opportunity. “I was ecstatic. The fellowship presents valuable opportunities to learn about the constitution and our founding era that many teachers only dream about.” It also brought him 6 graduate hours in constitutional study from Georgetown University.
After moving back to Chadron, Sandstrom was given the 2019 Nebraska History Teacher of the Year Award – making him the state’s finalist for the national award, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.
It also allowed him to participate in the Gilder Lehrman Teacher Seminar, a week-long program bringing teachers together with eminent historians along with visits to historic sites and hands-on work with primary sources.
Sandstrom said at the time he believes civic competence and historical knowledge should have a prominent role in education.
“Students believe that they possess all the required information at their fingertips, but the power unleashed by the study of history does not come from the memorization of dates and random facts. My goal, every day, is to make history both relevant and challenging in the hope that they are better prepared for the 21st Century.”
Last year, he was named the Outstanding Teacher for the 3rd District by the Nebraska State Council for Social Studies.
Sandstrom says history and social studies have interested him since middle school, and that teachers have played a pivotal role in the development of his career.
He explains “I believe the strength of my instructors at every level drove my interest, along with my own inquisitive nature.”