On behalf of Ferrum College’s entire faculty, staff and administration, I welcome each of you on this cold and blustery evening to the Dean’s List Dinner! I am Leslie Lambert, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College and we are delighted you are here.

This is a very special celebration in the life of Ferrum College as we join those of you among us this evening being recognized for academic achievement for the Fall 2005. The Dean’s List designation is awarded to all full-time students whose GPA for the semester was 3.4 or higher.

Ferrum College takes seriously its mission to provide an excellent academic and co-curricular learning program in a community based on the principles of service, access and support. We strive to create opportunities for your success and achievement.

Our hand is extended steadfastly toward that end. And, you -- each of you -- has likewise extended your hand in this mutual covenant. You have excelled academically this past semester and we celebrate you as we offer our most sincere congratulations for your hard work and achievement.

We hope, however, that you will not be complacent with this achievement. Rather, we hope that you will seek to understand the important and distinctive difference between the successful achievement of an outcome (in this case, 3.4 gpa or higher) and finding your own personal way to a wise and world changing sense of your own potential for greatness.
I’d like to share just a few thoughts about what that means to me. Traveling this pathway can be very hard. It takes a commitment to think deeply about who you are. It requires you to live wisely and lovingly and honestly. It requires you to act with intention as you use your minds, bodies, spirits, and hearts to make a difference in the world.

To travel this path, it takes choosing to demonstrate remarkable ability AND a true quality of character as we grow and learn to confront ourselves, be it our bad habits or our narrow, often cruel viewpoints. It is about thinking critically about the real issues of our time and choosing to engage in discussions about them as we seek to solve them in peaceful, human and whole ways. It is about being able and being altruistic with our abilities, mustering the courage to struggle for our own unique voices and for far more democratic and free societies than exist today.

Success, in an academic sense, can imply that we only know information -- that we do well on tests. Being great, however, implies that we understand the need to use our knowledge and abilities to make a difference, to act, and to take stand – even if the stand is unpopular or even risky.

It is about each of us enacting within ourselves the heroic, lifelong journey to make and remake ourselves in dynamic and empathic ways – not once, not twice, but across our entire lifetimes. Yes, success is good and important and to be celebrated, but to really find your way from success to greatness involves understanding and acting with intellectual humility and personal compassion.

So tonight, we join hands to acknowledge and celebrate this step along your pathway to success. We also challenge you to consider how you will choose to transform your success into the greatness – and that, only you can determine.

Tonight’s program will not be long. Let’s enjoy this wonderful meal together and then end our program with some important information about the College’s new focus on helping you understand fellowship and scholarship opportunities that may await you as you seek to continue your academic journey into graduate or professional schools and with some information about the Fall 2005 Dean’s List cohort.

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Fall 2005 Dean’s List cohort: