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“I am a carpenter for Belknap and Athletics facilities,” Elliott said. “As a carpenter, I do everything from installing TVs, repair doors, repair windows, drywall, metal stud framing and flooring. I learn new things every day at UofL.”

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And not just in his daily work.

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On Dec. 16, after Elliott helps the crew that sets up the stage for the 2022 December Commencement ceremonies in the KFC Yum! Center, he will walk across that very same stage and graduate with a��

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When the ceremony concludes, he will help the crew take it down.

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“I have been working UofL commencement for eight years now and I love it.  I love seeing the kids at that moment of their lives and what they have accomplished to get to that one moment,” he said. “I will be working the December Commencement and then at 7 p.m., I will take my seat and receive my diploma with the other graduates.  After commencement, I will finish the job with my coworkers and go home to my family to celebrate! ”

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Absent from the celebration but always in his heart will be his 19-year-old daughter Halle, a UofL freshman who was in her second semester when she died in an automobile accident in February.

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“I struggled with no longer seeing her on campus, no longer taking her to lunch, no longer being able to enjoy having her on campus with me at such a turning point in her young life.  Not a lot of parents have that opportunity and I never took it for granted,” said Elliott, 48. “ Even though she is no longer here, I wasn’t going to give up everything I have worked so hard for.  She would be so proud of me!  Daddy did it Halle!”��

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Elliott enrolled in UofL in 2017 and, using the employee tuition remission benefit, took two classes a semester while working full time. He had previously earned an associate’s degree in science from Sullivan College in 1997.�� ��

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“Working for the university and having this amazing opportunity to further my education was an opportunity I could not pass up,” he said. “ With this degree, I hope to have more opportunities open up and advance my career with UofL. I tell everyone you are never too old to go back to school. Having that degree is a huge accomplishment.  No one can ever take that away from you!  I feel so blessed to be able to accomplish my goals and I want to inspire others to do the same.”

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Lori Stewart Gonzalez, interim UofL president, will preside at the event, and College of Medicine outstanding Ph.D. student Mariam R. Habil is the student speaker.��

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The ceremony will be broadcast live at��.

In addition to commencement at KFC Yum! Center, the UofL Graduate School will host a doctoral hooding and graduation ceremony at 2 p.m. on the same day. About 55 graduates are expected at the ceremony, which will be on Belknap Campus in the Swain Student Activities Center Ballroom, second floor.

UofL’s U.S. Army ROTC cadre, Cardinal Battalion, will hold a commissioning ceremony at 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, in Ekstrom Library’s Chao Auditorium. Cadet Charlie Chen, who is graduating with a bachelor of science in chemistry from the College of Arts & Sciences, will be commissioned a second lieutenant at that time.

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One is filled with sunflowers that remind her to always look toward the light and be grateful.

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The other is a tribute to her late father, Andre Yeager, a pizza chef who died of cancer-related complications when she was just 4 years old. She remembers vividly the day he traveled miles to be there on her first day of preschool and help her get on the bus.

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“There’s a photo of my first day of preschool … he was sick and he made the trip to get on the school bus on the first day of preschool and I remember I had my little backpack and my little dress and he was helping me up the steps and that’s a memory that I will never forget, I will never forget that,” she said.

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The message from Andre, a diehard UofL sports fan who never finished high school, is etched on her heart and soul: Get an education. If she forgets, their last name, written in his handwriting from a nametag used the day she was born, is tattooed on her arm.

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The first-generation college student (her mother graduated high school but did not pursue higher education) grew up in the Pleasure Ridge Park area of Louisville, sharing a small apartment with her two younger half-brothers, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend.��

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“We were on food stamps, the government insurance, all those things. Clothes at Goodwill, hand-me-downs, nothing new,” she said. “There was weeks where we really didn’t have a lot to eat so it was really ramen noodles, cereal, water. … Dry cereal, sometimes not even some milk to go with it.”��

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Yeager knew she wanted a different life, that she needed to break the cycle of “generational poverty” before she even knew what that meant.��

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“What’s interesting is that I’ve always had that feeling deep-down, but here at the University of Louisville I’ve taken so many courses on social stratification and problems and things like that and that’s what they reiterate, is that if you don’t make that change, you’re going to be in that same situation,” she said. “So it’s interesting that I knew that even before I was educated on the issue.”

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Graduating from PRP high school in 2019, Yeager earned a full-tuition scholarship to the University of Kentucky and set off for Lexington. She was already ahead of the game, having taken AP and dual-credit classes.��

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When the Covid-19 pandemic forced her to return to Louisville the following spring, she realized she didn’t want to leave.��

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“Even before I started my college career I had connections here at the University of Louisville, so it just felt like home to me,” she said.

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She transferred, but a lack of financial resources and the pandemic stress had taken its toll. Yeager withdrew, took a semester off to work and save money, then started again, encouraged by her boyfriend, Jacob Sams, and his family.

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This semester, she was president of the Sociology Student Association. She credits and thanks professors and fellow students in the sociology and political science departments (she minored in political science) for always supporting her.

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“The people around you, they want you to succeed and they make that known at all, at all times,” she said.

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Additionally, UofL recognizes the struggles of low-income students, she said.

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“If you are low income like I grew up, there’s great resources for you here like the����— you can go get food that you need no questions asked. There’s also the����if you can’t afford clothes, you can go and get what you need,” she said.

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She took as many classes as she could every semester, determined to finish as soon as she could. Despite taking time off, she’s graduating a semester earlier than originally scheduled.

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Perhaps most important, she didn’t limit her education to the classroom. Of mixed race descent, she joined the UofL Black Student Union and explored a part of her heritage that had been lost to her when her father died.

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“As a woman of color, I didn’t really grow up around people who looked like me,” said Yeager, 21, who identified as white as a child.��

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The friendships she made helped her educate herself about … herself.

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“The main thing is that I am who I am, and I should be proud of who I am,” she said, “regardless of whether or not people look at me or perceive me as ‘oh, she’s white’ or ‘oh, she’s Black’ or ‘oh, she’s mixed.’ I’m just who I am and I can be both at the same time and be equally as inclusive and important in each role.”

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Yeager plans to work in the human resources field following graduation and hopes to then pursue a master’s degree. Her 18-year-old half-brother, William White, earned a full-tuition scholarship to UofL and began this fall. Her youngest half-brother, Ben White, 12, has also set his sights high and wants to be a meteorologist at NASA. “We are trying to help him the best that we can to get him to that,” she said.

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