Local Educator to speak at Adult Basic Skills Commencement

Vance-Granville Community College will hold special commencement exercises dedicated exclusively to new graduates of Adult Basic Skills programs on Thursday, May 13. The ceremony will begin at 6 p.m. in the Civic Center on the college’s main campus in Vance County.

Those being honored will include more than 85 students who completed either the Adult High School program or the General Education Development (GED) High School Equivalency program. In recent years, VGCC has ranked as the third-largest North Carolina community college in the number of GED and Adult High School graduates.

Dr. Priscilla Chavis-Lockley (pictured above) of Creedmoor, a VGCC graduate, will be the principal commencement speaker. Chavis-Lockley is currently the head counselor and college/career counseling coordinator at Eaton-Johnson Middle School in Henderson. A J.F. Webb High School graduate, Chavis-Lockley earned an early childhood education degree at VGCC in 1977. While working as a teacher’s aide, she earned an associate in arts at VGCC and transferred credits to N.C. Central University. Chavis-Lockley eventually earned five more college degrees, including a doctorate from N.C. State University. During a varied career in education, she has been a teacher and counselor in elementary, middle, and high schools in Granville, Warren and Vance counties. In her current role at Eaton-Johnson Middle School, Chavis-Lockley has established a partnership with VGCC in order to expose her students to a variety of educational and occupational possibilities. She also started an ambassador program for outstanding middle school students, modeled after the VGCC ambassador program. Vance-Granville gave Chavis-Lockley its first College Transfer Alumna Award in 1992. She is married to Cecil E. Lockley, a retired lieutenant colonel in the North Carolina State Highway Patrol.