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The Passport started over a decade ago and has been a valued asset to the College, first as a newsletter for the History and Political Science Division with ties to foreign language programs. The prospective broadened when the fine arts were added to the division mix. The real innovation occurred when we decided to expand the scope of the Passport beyond the History, Political Science, and the Arts Division and the connection to the foreign languages to include the wider mission of the college community.

In the past few years we have achieved a comfortable association among the programs in the division. That comfort has come with the realization that we have parallel goals and objectives. Our students continue to be the realization of the success of our programs. They continue to reach and surpass the bar that is set at the highest levels of excellence within the variety of programs that are offered. If students are the ultimate measure of success, then our programs are top shelf. More and more students from all of the programs we offer are going on beyond Ferrum College to be successful graduate students and professionals who command the respect of their peers and those they serve in the greater community.

The Passport is fast becoming the link for our students, alumni and those of the periphery of the programs that we offer. We are often kept abreast of academic achievements of our students and faculty that are happening as we speak. We cannot help but get a sense of accomplishment from the many and varied efforts that reveal Ferrum students to be among the best and brightest.

Our students continue to identify themselves as leaders in the academic community as they are inducted into the honor societies that have consistently grown in numbers. The tradition of Phi Alpha Theta that honors History achievement goes back many years and chronicles individual growth among the community of scholars. Though the Art honor fraternity, Kappa Pi, is relatively new, it has boasted growing ranks in the area of aesthetic achievement since it began three years ago. In the tradition of honoring excellence, the Political Science department is the latest to inaugurate a chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha. We cannot help but take pride in the academic excellence.

It is a pleasure to look back over the year and be able to see the intellectual and aesthetic growth among our students. That is the signal that they have embraced critical thinking as the fabric of the process of the life long learning that we prize so highly. As we look forward to graduation, we can see the proofs of what we have accomplished in the culture of learning that is at the heart of the mission of Ferrum College.

Professor H. Wayne Bowman, M.F.A
Chair, Division of History, Political Science, and the Arts