![\"Graduation](\"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Graduation-Cap_blue-500x500-e1586882554282.png\")
<\/a>CELEBRATING SUCCESS:<\/strong> UToledo recognizes the Class of 2021 with a series of stories featuring students receiving their degrees at\u00a0fall commencement<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n The elder McGilvery\u2019s lack of a college diploma has been eating at him for years. He joined the military at 17 and after testing was offered a full ride to the U.S. Military Academy (West Point). He turned it down. Mistake number one, he said.<\/p>\n After he left the military in 1989, he took advantage of the GI Bill and attended UToledo to pursue an engineering degree. Mistake number two, he said, was when he dropped out after a few years to join the family business, making machines to form corrugated boxes.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad was very disappointed when I quit,\u201d McGilvery said. \u201cI could see it on his face.\u201d<\/p>\n McGilvery will be the first one of his siblings to graduate with a four-year degree, and he said he knows his parents, who are deceased, would be proud.<\/p>\n \u201cMac embodies the ideal of working hard to accomplish a dream, while also setting an example for those around him,\u201d said Matt Reising, McGilvery\u2019s advisor in University College.<\/p>\n Working hard runs in the family. The younger McGilvery\u2019s work ethic in the classroom impressed one of his professors, Dr. Seamus Metress, who has taught anthropology at UToledo for 53 years.<\/p>\n \u201cWashington McGilvery is one of those students who stands out and will continue to do so in my mind,\u201d Metress said. \u201cWhenever I walked into a classroom to find Washington among the students, I was more than pleased. He is intellectually curious, serious about learning and becomes engaged with the material. He is a thinker.\u00a0The substance of any questions he asks or comments he makes is thought-provoking, adding to the course, and often to my own thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Washington Irving (Mac) McGilvery II, 54, and Washington Irving McGilvery III, 24, share a name, a passion for learning and, on Dec. 18, will share the title of ‘college graduate.’<\/p><\/div>\n Mac McGilvery began pondering a return to college when his wife, Karin, came back to UToledo and earned a degree in music in 2016. A health issue had derailed her college career 20 years earlier. She is now a public school teacher and \u201cloving every bit of it,\u201d McGilvery said.<\/p>\n After watching her fulfill her dream, he thought, \u201cI ought to go back and finish what I started.\u201d<\/p>\n After the family business folded in 2009, McGilvery said he was frightened about what the future held. He landed a job in maintenance at Amazon in 2020. He knew that a college degree would help him advance at the company.<\/p>\n Since he had been teaching classes in the skilled trades for seven years at Owens Community College, he decided to start there. He spent a year taking general education classes and then transferred to UToledo to finish his degree. While taking a full load of classes, McGilvery worked 60 hours a week at Amazon.<\/p>\n \u201cI am so thankful for the opportunity that UToledo gave me to finish,\u201d McGilvery said. \u201cThey took all those credits from back then. Matt Reising, my advisor, got me turned in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Setting an example for their children was important to him and his wife, McGilvery said. They would often tell their children that an education is not something you want to put off.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you think you\u2019re taking a six-month break, it could turn into 16 years,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to push through and finish.\u201d<\/p>\n Now both mom and dad have UToledo degrees, along with their oldest son. Their youngest, Maggie, is a third-year art education major. She and her brother commute to campus together from their home in Liberty Center.<\/p>\n Their brother, Tom, is in the Marines. When he gets out in July, he will probably start at UToledo, McGilvery said.<\/p>\n<\/a>