Valedictory Speaker: Daria Rae Baer, College of Liberal Arts

From Spokane, Washington, Daria Rae Baer, became a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society of two-year colleges upon receiving her Associate of Arts degree through the Running Start Program. After graduating with honors from Lewis and Clark High School in 2019, Rae, as her friends and professors know her, chose to study History at Hawai'i Pacific University. In her second semester at HPU, Baer was offered the internship position of assistant student archivist at Washington Place, the former home of Queen Lili'uokalani. At HPU, she was an inductee to the Alpha Chi Honors Society, co-president of the university's History Club, and the 2021 recipient of the "Best Undergraduate Paper" prize at the Hawai‘i Regional Phi Alpha Theta Conference. Baer has worked as a campus tour guide at HPU and fell in love with the history, land, and community of Hawai'i. After graduation, she plans to obtain her master's and a doctorate in Art History and hopes to pursue her true passion of creative writing.