ROSEWOOD – On 16 December, King Adam graduated from Western Washington University magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in History, in a ceremony conferring more than 740 undergraduate and 40 postgraduate degrees. His parents were in attendance.
While at the university, the King earned numerous honors. He became a member of three honor societies, appeared three times of the President’s List for perfect quarterly grade point averages, and by faculty invitation, presented during the university’s Scholars Week honoring undergraduate research. He also delivered a paper at this year’s Northwest regional conference of Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society in the United States. His senior thesis, “Joining the ‘Empire of the Whites’: Fort Nisqually’s Families and American Colonization, 1846-1860,” received a grade of A and was praised by the curator of Fort Nisqually Living History Museum, who added the paper to the museum’s research collection. In his final quarter of studies, he completed and received an A in a graduate history and methods course, taken by faculty invitation. He completed an academic minor in political science with a perfect grade point average. By a quirk of grade calculation, his graduation honors were announced at the commencement ceremony as cum laude, but upgraded after final scores for this quarter were tallied.
As a student, the King was involved in various extracurricular activities. He served one academic year as secretary, and another as president, of an environmental education club, and spent two years on the university’s Model United Nations team. In this latter capacity, he attended eight Model United Nations conferences and crisis simulations, winning several awards. He began staffing conferences this past spring. Additionally, he taught an adult Sunday school class for over a year and participated in political campaigns on campus and in the surrounding community.
The King began attending Western Washington as a junior in January 2016, after completing general education requirements at a Washington state community college in June 2014 and working in food service, academic tutoring, and political campaigning until resuming his studies. Measured in credits earned, he completed a quarter of his postsecondary education while in high school, having attended the community college part-time his final two years of compulsory schooling.
The Occidental Chronicle 