Waubonsee commencement ceremony returns to campus

Waubonsee Community College's annual commencement ceremony returns to the Sugar Grove campus next month. It will be split into two ceremonies to accommodate growing numbers of graduates who participate.

The ceremonies will take place at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, May 14, in the college's Field House, which opened in March 2015.

Waubonsee officials expect a total of 352 graduates to participate in the ceremonies.

The college will award a total of 1,083 degrees, bringing the college to a total of 22,192 degrees conferred since their first graduation in 1968.

The ceremony will be broadcast live at www.waubonsee.edu for family and friends who cannot attend.

This year, Waubonsee alumnus and new Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman will deliver the commencement address. Ziman was appointed to her new role Jan. 12.

Born and raised on the west side of Aurora, Ziman is a graduate of West Aurora High School, and started as a police cadet at the Aurora Police Department in 1991. She joined the Aurora Police force in 1994 as a sworn officer and worked in patrol, field training, community policing and investigations as a domestic violence detective before being promoted to sergeant in 2003. She was promoted to lieutenant in 2008 and to commander in 2010 and was named police chief in 2016.

Ziman earned her associate degree from Waubonsee in 1994. She holds a bachelor's degree from Aurora University and a master's degree from Boston University. She is also a graduate of the FBI National Academy, completed the Kellogg Women's Senior Leadership Program at Northwestern University, Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Senior Management Institute for Police.