Wednesday, May 19, 2021
My Students: Ryan Todd
I'm devoting Wednesdays to profiling my former students, alternating between Baylor and St. Thomas.
Ryan Todd has only been a "former" student for a few days-- he just graduated this past Sunday, on a glorious sunny afternoon on the St. Thomas football field.
At UST, Ryan was in some of my regular classes and also in my clinic this past year. His background is a little different than some of my other students, giving him a special empathy for the people we work with in the clinic. I loved having him in class-- he was the person who would sometimes ask exactly the right question at just the right time, or make a point no one else had thought of. He's a Texan-- he completed this last year remotely from San Antonio-- and that was some common ground for us, as well.
As I wrote on Sunday, commencements are emotional for us teachers. It is also a joy. Part of that is getting to meet the other people in our students' lives: the parents and siblings and children and spouses and fiance's. Sometimes meeting someone's family answers a lot of questions!
I don't know where Ryan will go from here, but his resilience and intelligence will do him well, and the rest of us, too.
