A Day to Remember

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This past weekend, the Witemeyer clan traveled to College Station, Texas for a momentous occasion. My daughter, Bethany, graduated from Texas A&M with her PhD in Computer Science! WooHoo! We officially have a doctor in the family. 🙂

I’m so incredibly proud of her. Six years of hard work has paid off. Even better, she’s starting this week as a new faculty member at Abilene Christian University, her undergraduate alma mater, which means she’s back home. Hooray!

She is renting a house near campus and will likely be unpacking for a while, but she has her own space and is excited to make it her own.

Interestingly enough, when we attended the commencement ceremony, I learned that Texas A&M is celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. They opened their doors in 1876 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and graduated their first class in 1880. In the early years, they were a military school and required all students to join the Corps of Cadets. Due to the military aspect, women were not allowed to enroll for the first 17 years. Occasionally, the daughters of faculty members could sit in on classes, but they could not enroll or seek degrees. The first female – Rachel Hook – matriculated in 1893, but there were still a lot of restrictions in place. It wasn’t until 1963 that women were admitted on a limited basis, and 1969 that all restrictions were removed for female students.

Texas A&M 1876

I actually have a hero in an upcoming novel who attended the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas back in the early days. The Cadet Corps gave him some weapons training that will come in handy for him as the story progresses. It was fun to incorporate this piece of Texas history in a writing project, especially since the school is connected to my daughter.

I’m so thankful that Texas A&M grew to accept women and expanded their areas of expertise beyond agriculture and mechanical pursuits. As a top-ranked school, they provided a wonderful place for my daughter to grow and flourish in her field.

Do you have a family member you’d like to brag on?
Feel free to share in the comments. I’d love to hear about it!

24 thoughts on “A Day to Remember”

  1. Congratulations!

    Next week, I take my youngest to LSU for his senior year. 4.3 GPA.

    Oldest is our doctor, with a DPT. Middle graduated with a Masters and three Bachelor’s degrees in four years. He works in finance.

  2. Congrats to your daughter Karen! A special time! My daughter went to UF(University of Florida). She decided on Building Construction. She worked part time with an electrical company in Gainesville and ended up being the supervisor of building the new plant at GRU in Gainesville. While working, she supervised a crew at a prison. One of our deacon’s from church who worked for a local REA was looking for the supervisor. Out from the trailer came my daughter and said,”Hey Mr. Larry!” He was happy to see her and then asked for the supervisor. She asked how she could help him. He paused and said,”You are the supervisor Myssi?” She laughed and said yes. It blew him away! He told that story for years to everyone he saw.

    We have come a long way baby! Huh, Karen?

  3. Congrats to your daughter. I have three daughters. One works for the EPA which is quite challenging right now with so many people lost. My second is disabled but keeps going no matter what is thrown at her. My youngest is a dietician and now teaches classes as an adjunct in three colleges. Not sure how she will keep it all straight.

  4. WOW congratulations to your daughter and the rest of the family. Such a wonderful time. Prayers for your daughter. She is stepping into a new season of her life.

  6. Wow! Wow! Congratulations to you and hubby, too! And, she’s renting a house and at such a young age. Love it, Karen! Thanks for all the pictures and excitement.

  7. Congratulations to your daughter and to you , your husband and your whole Family! That is Awesome and something to be Very Proud of!

  8. Congratulations to your daughter and you. What an achievement! I was surprised at how recently Texas A&M became co-ed. As the land Grant university it still has to teach military science in the form of ROTC. The year I was a sophomore in college was the last year ROTC was mandatory for all male students for two years at Cornell University. It was the Vietnam era and after that there were protests to eliminate the military presence on campus. A lot of students didn’t seem to know that as a land grant institution they would lose a lot of federal support without military education. Unfortunately, a lot of the protesters didn’t understand that Cornell was a land grant institution mandated to teach Agriculture, Mechanical and Military science. Cornell was co-ed from its beginning in 1865. That is one of it’s biggest differences from the other Ivy League colleges , that and that it is a land grant institution.

  9. Congratulations to your daughter. I know how much hard work goes into what she has accomplished.
    Our oldest daughter took an indirect road to her degree. She got her BS and Masters and worked as the Director of Student Services at ABTech in Asheville, NC for about 15 years, holding several jobs before that one. After having a job she was up for go to a young man with no experience (She was told to train him because he was making so many mistakes), she decided to go to law school which had been something she had always been interested in. The move wasn’t easy. She was old enough to be the mother of all but one of her classmates. When they were trying to plan out a joint project, one of the male students snapped “You’re not my mother and can’t tell me what to do.” She was often mistaken for the parent of students she was with. She had a daughter in elementary school who did not adjust well to the move which made things even more difficult. Her second year she took over the interim job of Director of Foreign Students when that person retired. The extra income helped but it was more work to contend with. COVID hit her last year of law school, so she finished that year studying on line as well as working with her daughter to finish 6th grade on line in addition to keeping the foreign student office going. She finished her degree, but sadly never got to walk the stage for her degree since COVID canceled graduation ceremonies. All the students who worked for their degrees during that time were robbed of that important moment of completion, celebration, and recognition. She passed the bar and is still working at the Law School at Chapel Hill as the permanent Director of Foreign Students. She also does pro bono work for the Women’s Cancer Center and is active with a few other groups. She is 6 hours away, so we don’t see enough of them. We do try to schedule vacations with them so we get to spend some quality time together, although she usually ends up working on line no matter where she is.

  10. Congratulations to your daughter. Thanks for the article about TexasA&M $ it was very interesting.

  11. Congratulations to your daughter–you are rightfully proud! Our proud moment was when Son became Dr. Reinhardt at Stanford, receiving his PhD in Decision and Risk Analysis, one very warm June day in 2018. He is now a leading expert in the application of quantitative risk assessment, decision analytics, operations research, and game theory. He advises policy makers and teaches risk and strategy analysis both domestically and abroad, in universities and workshops.

  12. Congratulations to your daughter on her mighty achievements and to your entire family for supporting her to help her reach her goals!

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