Michael Lindblad, Oregon Teacher of the Year and 1994 Linfield graduate, will be the commencement speaker at this year’s graduation ceremony.

Lindblad has been a high school bilingual teacher and coach for 20 years.

He developed Gresham High’s International Baccalaureate (IB) program in history and stressed outreach efforts aimed at minority students.

Lindblad also engineered a special IB history class for those learning English as a second language that coupled the rigorous high standards of the IB program with an admiration and respect for the student’s own language and culture.

Oregon State Teacher of the Year in 2015 and the 2013 Oregon Social Studies Teacher of the Year rank among his many accolades.

Lindblad graduated from Linfield with majors in history and mass communication. He was on the baseball team and found the time to study abroad in Nottingham, England.

Studying abroad exposed Lindblad to diverse cultures, “I learned more than I ever imagined and I realized I wanted to work with Latino students, increase awareness of different cultures and use my Spanish to create more equity in the schools,” he said in an interview with the Linfield Magazine in 2015.

Wanting his students to have a more engaging history course than he had as a high school student, Lindblad fashioned games like history Jeopardy, had students sing songs, and create collages.

He said, “I swore that if I ever taught, I would make it fun through projects, debates, and discussions.”

His teaching philosophy centers on allowing students to form and voice their own opinions without much interference.

Commencement will be Sunday, May 29, at the 10 a.m. in the Oak Grove.