Submitted photo / Meridian Community CollegeGetting ready – Edinburg resident Tanya Hamilton, right, gets a helping hand with her mortarboard from Meridian Community College Dean of Student Services Soraya Welden. Hamilton, 27, will be receiving her associate degree in nursing diploma when the college hosts its Fall Commencement at 3 p.m. Friday at the Temple Theatre.

More than 230 students will receive their degrees and certificates when Meridian Community College holds its annual fall term commencement program at 3 p.m. Friday in the Temple Theatre.

The program will be under the direction of MCC Dean of Students Soraya Welden, who described the graduating class as “not an all-time record, but a typical number for a December graduation program.” Welden explained that MCC holds three commencement programs each school year in August, December, and May with the latter being “by far the biggest number.”

MCC holds three commencement programs each year in August, December, and May with the latter being “by far the biggest number,” Welden said.

Dana Arender, an associate degree nursing graduate, will open the program by offering an invocation to be followed by an official welcome by Wayne King, a practical nursing honoree. A musical selection will be performed by Jackson Kercheval, a member of the MCC chorus.

“A college degree is a pretty nice Christmas present to give yourself and the loved ones who supported you along the way,” MCC President Scott Elliott said in a statement. “It’s a proud and happy time for all concerned. Of course, a college degree is not a license to stop learning. Rather, it’s hopefully a launching pad toward the attainment of increasingly higher personal and professional goals.”

Elliott said that a degree is as much a validation of self-discipline as it is the actual field of study.

“When a person achieves a college degree, it demonstrates that he or she possessed the perseverance to adhere to a prescribed regimen of activities demanded of the curriculum,” Elliott said. “It tells an employer and others that the individual holding that piece of paper was willing to do things – to make sacrifices – that others are not. That, in itself, is a very worthy distinction.”

Following the awarding of the diplomas, eight “Circle of Excellence” students will be recognized by the MCC faculty for their academic achievement and community service. The program will close with a benediction by Bettye Crenshaw, a university transfer student.

In addition to the commencement program, MCC will hold pinning ceremonies for its practical nursing and associate degree  graduates at 9 and 11 a.m., also at the Temple Theatre.