Community College of Rhode Island graduating students applaud as faculty and dignitaries make their way to the stage during yesterday’s commencement exercises.

The Providence Journal Glenn Osmundson

WARWICK — When she was 16, Karen Finn dropped out of Classical High School.

“I had a baby,” she explained yesterday, and ended up working at clerical jobs including a 10-year stint at the Internal Revenue Service.

She described what happened after that as she was joining the commencement procession yesterday to receive a degree, with highest honors, from the Community College of Rhode Island.

Thanks to CCRI, she said, she has found her life’s work, early intervention in the lives of handicapped children.

While at CCRI, she did an internship at Warwick’s Trudeau Center, going from the home of one client to another.

“I just loved it,” she said. “I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ ”

When she got her degree yesterday, she had already transferred to the University of Rhode Island to complete her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education.

Finn, now 56, was one of the success stories CCRI President Ray Di Pasquale focused on as 1,489 students received associate degrees. The biggest concentrations were in general studies, business and nursing, but the college also conferred degrees in everything from accounting to physical therapy and telecommunications technology.

Chosen as the student speaker for the Class of 2008, Finn heaped praise on CCRI, a school she says she loves, for faculty that supported her and for the convenience of four campuses and day, evening and weekend classes that she could fit into her life.

With more than 16,000 students, CCRI says it is New England’s largest two-year institution of higher education. It offers programs aimed at students who want to transfer to four-year colleges, and numerous technical courses teaching skills needed for jobs in specific fields in business, health care and industry.

The graduates, faculty, friends and family filled the field house at CCRI’s Warwick campus. A parade of the state’s top officials told them to be particularly proud of themselves for going an extra mile to get a college education while juggling jobs and family responsibilities.

“You didn’t go to a nice suburban campus” for undisturbed years of college, Jack R. Warner, the state’s commissioner of higher education, told the graduates.

“This is a two-year college,” he said. “How many of you took more than two years to graduate?” Many, if not most, of the graduates’ hands went up.

How many took more than five years? Fewer hands went up, but still a lot.

Paul Gazin’s 20-year-old daughter Jessica graduated with a degree in early childhood education and development. He said she has been holding down a part-time job at a health club while taking courses at CCRI. Next, she heads to Ithaca College, in Ithaca, N.Y. to complete a bachelor’s degree.

“She’s very proud of herself, and I’m very proud of her,” Gazin said.

College spokeswoman Kristen Cyr said the college holds an event for “superlative” students the night before commencement. The superlatives point out the way CCRI caters to the non-traditional students who have a great deal more than college going on in their lives and who often don’t graduate in two years. For example:

•The longest-attending member of the student body, Cheryl Beaulieu of North Providence, received associate in arts in general studies with honors after attending college for more than 20 years.

•The oldest class member, Lucila R. Cahill of East Greenwich, received a certificate in health-care interpreting at age 60.

•The class member with the most children was George Garcia of Cumberland, with seven children. He received an associate degree in arts with honors, focusing on psychology

The winners, Cyr said, got CCRI sweatshirts for prizes.

One of the graduates, however, collapsed during the commencement ceremony. Cyr said he was taken by ambulance to Kent County Hospital and was being treated in the emergency room last night. She said Warwick rescue staff told her that the graduate “was sitting up and talking” in the ambulance and seemed not to be seriously ill. The college did not identify him because of privacy rules.

Cyr said that although the diplomas hadn’t been handed out at that point, the ill student got his early. “They conferred his diploma before he left in the rescue,” she said.

For a list of graduates, visit www.ccri.edu/web/commencement/2008/info.shtml

blandis@projo.com