Two hundred and fifty-three graduates participated in commencement at North Central State College on Friday evening. NCSC President Dr. Dorey Diab welcomed the graduates and guests.
Diab is a community college success story himself. An immigrant to the United States, he began his education at a community college, and then continued his education afterward, eventually attaining a doctoral degree. Now a college president, he is an example of the future success his students could also attain.
Many NCSC students do hope to follow a similar path, “I’m going to probably eventually get a double major. My degree is criminal justice, but I want to hook human services with that and then get my masters in something else. This is just the beginning, but it’s a beautiful, wonderful feeling,” said recent graduate Darrell Kelly.
“Many of you are the first of your family to graduate from college. You have the responsibility to carry that tradition on,” said Diab.
Board of Trustees Chair Dr. Dwight L. McElfresh, gave the opening remarks.
“Benjamin Franklin once said that an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. I encourage you to continue investing in yourself and always representing North Central State College well on your journey. On behalf of the board of trustees I would like to offer our sincere congratulations on a job well done and best wishes for the future,” said McElfresh.
2013-2014 Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year Bradley Wood gave the commencement address. An instructor in the Physical Therapist Assistant Program, Wood spoke about the importance of lifelong learning.
Wood’s speech utilized an object lesson to illustrate his message.
“Every graduate has a little yellow plastic piece on their chair. If you guys grab that little piece of plastic what I want you to do is look at it,” said Wood.
Students picked up the object, and with the exception of a few students closer in age to Wood, most had a puzzled expression on their faces.
“Now, by a show of hands, who knows what that is?” asked Wood.
A few hands went up and Wood said, “Alright, you guys probably Googled that on your phones, probably, am I right? If you do not know, it’s okay, but I want you to think about it. Is this a piece of plastic that was invented to hold socks together in the dryer? Or was it invented to hold kite string? What problem do you think this was invented to solve?”
Wood went on to talk about how excited he was when he graduated. He described the way that he danced around like Tom Cruise in “Risky Business” and celebrated to Cool and the Gang’s song “Celebration.” Until the music stopped, at which point he’d have to lift the needle and flip the record, or play another. He then held up an LP (33.5 rpm) record, followed by a single (45 rpm) record.
“Now look at that little piece of yellow plastic you hold in your hand. Alright, that was invented so I could listen to this record [holds up the 45] on a 33 rpm stereo. Now that little piece of plastic you hold in your hand is a nice piece of technology and an innovation from my time, however it is obsolete.”
“So, I wanna move to the present. In the present time we are living in an age of rapid change. We are hard pressed to keep up. Technology is moving so quickly that we seldom get used to one piece of technology before something else comes out to take it’s place,” said Wood.
He used his experiences as a professor to illustrate this point. In working with his students he learned that his own methods were dated. As he responded to the needs of his students he learned, but also decided to continue his own education.
“My wisdom to you today is this: Please don’t become as obsolete as a 45 adapter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/45_rpm_adapter, a cell phone that isn’t ‘smart,’ or an old song like ‘Celebration’ by Cool and the Gang. Use the lessons learned from the past and your information from the present to change your future. And today I challenge not only the graduates, but every single person in this room today, to be innovators of yourselves,” said Wood.
