I would like to thank Dr. Braaten, Dr. Lambert, and members of the Faculty for arranging this night to celebrate another great academic semester at Ferrum….

    My name is Wilson Paine and I’m a Junior here at Ferrum with a major in History and a minor in Political Science and Philosophy, I would like to personally thank Dr. Lambert for giving me the opportunity to address the importance of academic success.

    I told a few of my friends from back home that I had been asked to talk about academic excellence and based on their reactions I’m pretty sure I’m going to be the center of their jokes for the next few weeks. But in a sense they’re right, because it wasn’t until I came to Ferrum that I began to understand the importance of academic success

    To tell a quick story, “once upon a time” when I was a first semester freshman here and didn’t know the difference between Beckham and Britt and still called “the Caf” the Cafeteria, I got an email about a possible scholarship to study the presidential election. I reluctantly filled out the application and a few weeks later found out that I had been accepted along with 15 other students from nearby ACA schools to take part in this 3-part program conducted by The Washington Center. The first of the 3 programs was in January 2004 where I went to Washington D.C. and for 2-weeks attended seminars that held such speakers as Sam Donaldson, Ted Koppel, the President of Fox News, and so forth to talk about the upcoming Democratic Primary elections. The other two parts of the program was a 2-week stay in Boston to attend the Democratic National Convention and finally a 2-week stay back in Washington D.C. in January 2005 for the Presidential Inauguration. However, the first of the three programs was the important one.

    Although there were only 15 ACA students, there were a total of around 300 students all over the U.S., and I was the only freshman out of the entire group. Now I find it important to remind you all that I only applied for this because Dr. Howell had basically handed me the application, but as for the rest of the students they had to go through a very competitive, cut-throat, political type process; so their application experience to even be accepted into this program was completely different than mine.

    In fact, upon arriving in January, I had no clue who any of the Democratic candidates were. For those two weeks I literally didn’t jump into a single argument or debate because I was so intrigued and dazzled with the knowledge and brilliance of these students. I spent those two weeks taking in as much as I could, because it was honestly embarrassing that I knew so little about something that everybody else seemed to know so much about. It was that experience and those two weeks that I told myself that I was no longer going to be content with an unchallenged life. I wanted to know just how far I could go and what I could accomplish when I pushed aside apathy for ambition.

    Many people, people that we know, people that go to this school, use the excuse that school just isn’t for them and they just aren’t “book smart.” Unfortunately, this excuse does not apply to us. We are all in this room tonight to celebrate the complete opposite. To celebrate the fact that we all understand the importance of academic excellence and that we are capable of achieving it. And because of that, it is now on each and every one of us to ask ourselves what is it that’s stopping us, what’s holding us back from being the next Senator from VA, the next Billy Graham, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr, Helen Keller, or Ghandi, because its definitely not that we lack the intelligence. We are not given the luxury to hide behind the excuse that we are not smart enough.

    It’s been two years since that time in D.C. and something more astonishing to me than how fast it all went by is to look at myself now in comparison to who I was two years ago. To look at all the opportunities that have been given to me since then just blows me away, and something that is very important and I hope you can all believe me is that I don’t say all this stuff because I lack the ability to be humble, but rather to show to you all that if a guy like me, whose friends laugh at him when they hear that I’m speaking about academic excellence, can do it, than anybody can, but they must have the desire and the ambition to do so. They have to tell themselves that they are curious at how big of a difference they can make in their lifetime…………That’s the key.

    I am supposed to end by detailing what my future plans are, but if I do that, then I would have to end right now because I have no clue what my future plans are.

    But I do know one thing, and if for nothing else, it is because of this one thing that makes academic excellence so important… that right now I have no restrictions on my future.
That’s why academic excellence is so important, not because it guarantees you a great future, but because it doesn’t constrain you from one! Academic excellence allows you to keep all the doors open, and with the ambition to make a difference and the idea that our future isn’t restricted we all have the option, or the possibility, to be just as great and influential as the historical figures I mentioned earlier.

    I end with a quote, “A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Everyday sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.” I ask you all to have the courage to make that first effort… not because you know exactly what you want to do in life, but because you don’t want the decisions you make (or don’t make) today to limit you from opportunities that you may have 10 years from now, because all of us here in this room have the opportunity to make a difference. THANK YOU.
-Wilson Paine