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Emily Merrill graduates Magna Cum Laude from Smith College
Posted by Adam Reed on 5/21, 8:11pm
Last weekend my step-daughter Emily Merrill, daughter of the late Ron Merrill and of Yoon Merrill, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Smith College. She is, at 19, one of the youngest graduates in her class. There has been some debate in this forum about growing young people in Randian families, and since Emily is a case in point, I am posting the news of her graduation here.

In April, Emily Merrill presented her paper, "Harold Ure Cyng: Anglo-Saxon Nationalism in 1066," (with Prof. Craig Davis) at the annual Smith College "Celebrating Collaborations" conference. At graduation, she received the Vera Lee Brown Prize for excellence in History, together with one other student. Emily is staying at Smith for the summer, doing research on Old English.

I became Emily's step-father when she was 13. As is traditional in my culture, I treat young people between 13 and 18 as adults in training, responsible for their own decisions and lives. Emily deserves full credit for her success. My function was to inform her of the available alternatives and their potential advantages and disadvantages; I am proud of her choosing well, although many of her choices differed from my recommendations. I also spent a good deal of energy dealing with various bureaucracies on her behalf, getting school and government administrators to go along with her choices, and of course driving her carpool to the University here until she transferred to Smith College.

In a few months I may write on the Parenting forum about the details. For the moment, I just wanted to share the good news with SOLO. We old folk do grumble sometimes, but the kids are OK.
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