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The Montgomery College Board of Trustees selected Grossman, an alumni assistant at the college, as one of three recipients of honorary Associate of Arts degrees in public service.

As she walked across the stage to receive her degree at the commencement ceremony Friday morning, her smile never left her face.

Grossman told the crowd of more than 4,000 people that receiving her honorary degree is her fourth most exciting thing in her life.

‘‘The first was getting married, then having my daughter, then having my son, and now this,” Grossman said.

David Sears, vice president of the college’s Office of Institutional Advancement, made the case to include Grossman in the list of candidates for the award, citing her years of service in the community from her work with the Rockville Chamber of Commerce to her time at Montgomery College, and all the volunteer work in between.

‘‘She’s a person that’s been really involved in the community and really represents what Montgomery College is about,” Sears said. ‘‘At 83, she’s just inspirational to our students to our alumni workers.”

As an alumni assistant, Grossman can usually be found under the Alumni Association tent selling frames on commencement day. But not this year.

‘‘This is the first time I’ve seen the size of this tent,” she said, looking at it from a much different vantage point. ‘‘This is so exciting!”

Grossman never got the chance to attend college. She graduated from high school in Baltimore in 1942 in the midst of World War II and had to go straight to work.

For her high school graduation, she had to make her own clothes and never got to wear a cap and gown.

Five years later, she moved to Rockville and has lived there for 61 years.

‘‘I came to Rockville as a bride and just fell in love with the town,” Grossman said in an interview on Thursday. ‘‘The reason I’m so happy here is because I’m happy in Rockville.”

Grossman has had to work all of her life, mostly out of necessity, but now she does it because she likes it. She said it allows her to save enough money to do a lot of traveling.

‘‘Last year, my dream came true when I went to Israel,” she said.

This year, she is taking a Mediterranean cruise to Rome.

‘‘There isn’t anything more enlightening than traveling,” she said.

She is also active in the community as a member of the Rockville Kiwanis Club, Community Ministries of Rockville and the Montgomery County Business and Professional Women.

Grossman is well known in the community for her work with the Rockville Chamber of Commerce as its executive director for 25 years before going to Montgomery College.

‘‘Every change is a challenge and the chamber was a challenge,” Grossman said.

When she started at the chamber, there were 200 members; by the time she left in 1994, there were about 750 members.

‘‘I was going to retire after the chamber, but after four weeks, my husband told me to go back to work,” Grossman said laughing.

So she got a job at Montgomery College, first in the Office of Institutional Advancement, then in the Alumni Association.

‘‘It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me,” Grossman said.

A couple years later, tragedy struck and Grossman lost her husband, Louis, and son, Robert, within five months of each other. At that time, she was grateful to have the support from her Montgomery College ‘‘family.”

‘‘The good Lord saw fit that I come here,” Grossman said. ‘‘The people here are unbelievable.”

She has been with the college for 13 years and in that time she created and organized an annual trip to New York City, acted as advisor to the Montgomery Student Ambassadors, and established the Louis and Robert Grossman Memorial Endowed Scholarship in memory of her late husband and son.

‘‘People ask me, ‘Why are you still working at 83?’” she said. ‘‘It’s my salvation, it saved my life.”

Grossman’s daughter Eileen Celich came to Rockville from Thurmont to watch her mother receive her honorary degree.

‘‘I can’t even express ... It’s just unbelievable,” Celich said. ‘‘She loves the college and this is them showing the love back.”

At the end of her speech on Friday, Grossman congratulated the graduates and wished them luck.

‘‘And I’m one of you,” she said excitedly before returning to her seat with her new college diploma.