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The Washtenaw Community College Honorary Associate Degree in Community Service is designed to recognize individuals who support WCC and its students in an extraordinary fashion. It also recognizes a life of service that has benefited the entire community.

For those reasons, and many others, the college’s Board of Trustees honored Congresswoman Deborah “Debbie” Dingell with the special degree at the 2016 commencement ceremony.

Debbie Dingell quoteDingell was elected to Michigan’s 12th District in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2014.

“Congresswoman Dingell has been a friend of our college for many, many years,” said WCC board chair Richard J. Landau, J.D., Ph.D. “She is a familiar face here on campus and often takes time out of her busy schedule to attend our events — always making time to interact with our faculty, staff and most importantly, our students.”

Over her long career, Dingell’s civic and community work encompasses a breadth of passions, which always focus on humanitarian issues. She is a founder and past chair of the National Women’s Health Resource Center and the Children’s Inn at the National Institutes of Health.

Dingell’s acceptance remarks encouraged the graduates to become engaged in community activities early on in their lives. She also asked the graduates to remember the value and importance of interpersonal interaction.

“Listen to each other,” said Dingell. “It’s the little things you will do that speak the loudest in the big picture.”

She concluded her remarks by reminding the students that wherever they end up, they should always have the desire to make a difference in the world and make it a better place for future generations.