SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — At Notre Dame College, down a fourth floor hallway and up the steps in the administration building, students are seeing a side campus—and of their college president—they've never known.
"My best side, I'm sure!" Dr. Mike Pressimone jokes.
After climbing down from the viewing area inside the building's 110-foot-tall spire, Pressimore explains the Tower tradition.
"As they graduate, their privilege is to go up the tower for the first time to see the world in front of them," he said. "This is a culminating event of senior week."
It takes some effort to get to the top, but the views are spectacular. Mother and daughter Kellie and Trinity Sullivan found it to be an emotional experience, and Trinity couldn't hold back the tears.
"I'm crying because it's, like, a really special moment to be able to go up into the tower with my mom, who is also an alum," she told us.
Her mom Kellie didn't climb the ladder when she graduated because she was too afraid. Sharing the moment with her daughter all these years later was special.
"Oh, it was fantastic," she said. "It felt like a rite of passage, like a crossing over, finishing it."
A trip up the ladder to see the world that's in front of them. Kellie summed up what every graduate is thinking.
"We made it!"
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