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|School Of Nursing and College Of Education Commencement
August 13, 2004
Texas Hall
Dean Poster, Dean Gerlach, members of the Class of 2004. I am delighted and honored to be here today to join in celebrating your graduation from UTA.
You've worked hard to be here today, harder than probably even you realize. But suddenly, the long nights of studying don't seem so long now. Those one-ton backpacks don't seem so heavy. The Bluebooks, the Scantrons-which most of you will never use again-don't seem so obnoxious. Congratulations on reaching this moment. It's truly an achievement, and one which I doubt you can appreciate in real time. But looking back ... you will.
You've worked as hard to be here today as any generation of college students. Gone are the days of zipping in and out of class with no worries. Today's college student understands the multi-tasking of education, career, and family; stress and the coffeehouse; the workplace one minute, the library the next. Homework is seldom done at home anymore, because you're seldom at home anymore. As such, you're also as ready for tomorrow as any generation of college students. You understand forging your own way, finding your own solutions, the value of self-sufficiency and hard work.
But don't for one minute think that you've made it here alone. And don't think that you don't own a debt to others. Hard work and self-sacrifice, no matter how dogged, hardly excuse anyone from giving back more than they've received. It's the circle of life. You're here of your own accord, but so many others paved the way for you. A parent who supported your childhood curiosities. A teacher who planted the "need to know" in you. An employer who set your schedule around your schoolwork. You owe them all a great deal, and I'm happy that you've chosen to pursue a profession that allows you to give back in kind. As tomorrow's nurses, teachers, and coaches, you'll assuage pain and influence young minds. But more than being that, you're tomorrow's role models. You've chosen to pursue a profession of great responsibility, and so you must be individuals of great character and commitment.
My message tonight is taken from one of the best graduation speeches ever delivered. I wish I had written it, but I read about it recently. Here it is: "The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up." Let me say it again: "The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up."
That's it. That's the whole speech. Simple but profound. It speaks to our hearts and calls us to action. The best thing you can do as teachers, as nurses, as people, is to comfort the uncomfortable and to be a friend for the friendless. If you stop, bend down, and pull others up with you, you've accomplished what can't be measured in health charts or test scores. You have touched the life of another person in a meaningful way.
I'd like to illustrate this life principle with some real life UTA examples. Take your own Dean Poster. Fort Worth Business Press readers named her someone who has "gone beyond the norm to do wondrous things." She has received recognition as a one of the best 100 nurses in the Metroplex, one of Arlington's top 17 community leaders, and one of the most influential women in education. Most recently, she was awarded the International Society of Psychiatric Nurses, Child and Adolescent Division Award for her achievements in psychiatric nursing practice, education, research and overall leadership.
Why has Dean Poster earned all these honors? Not because she knows how to tie a tourniquet or administer a booster shot-important though they are. It's because she cares. It's because throughout her career, she has reached down and picked others up. She's just one example.
Jami Fundenberg enrolled in the School of Nursing so she could reach down and pick others up, too. Jami had a passion for treating sick kids, which comes from the fact that she's a mother herself. Her goal for nursing school wasn't top honors-with which she graduated two years ago-or a dream job. It was to make her grandfather proud. One of Jami's former professors describes her with the ultimate compliment: "If I'm ever in the hospital," the professor said, "Jami is the kind of nurse I want to take care of me." That's not because Jami carried a 3.8 GPA through college. It's because what she does best is care for others, and that's something GPA can't measure. And it's the very definition of what I'm talking about.
Earline Miller, an assistant clinical professor in nursing, spent her winter break at a Zimbabwe orphanage for children who have lost both parents to AIDS. She educated the children on nutrition and hygiene and helped them plant gardens and buy supplies. All on the fuel of donations from her colleagues here, from clothes and books to packaging tape. Now, Earline hopes to start an international clinical site for UTA students.
Ellen Palmer, also an assistant clinical professor, travels to Haiti and the Dominican Republic three or four times a year-at her own expense-to provide education workshops for healthcare providers. She also heads a team of nurses who travel to India each year to offer continuing education courses and donate aid.
Those of you who think Texas schools are in trouble should consider the new teachers we're graduating.
Rowena Freeman earned a master's degree in education last summer and now teaches English in the Grand Prairie ISD. Because she never received much support on the home front, Rowena gives back in the form of $50 savings bonds to students who make good grades.
By age 16, Julie Konas was a mother and a high school dropout. She'd bounced from foster home to foster home as a young student, which made settling into to school difficult. When Julie's husband abandoned her with their five children, Julie suddenly felt alone without marketable skills. She earned a GED, an associate's degree, and enrolled in the College of Education. She sat right here in December 2002. Why was Julie determined to teach? "I know children," she says. "And I'd like to be the kind of teacher I wish I'd had while I was growing up." The kind of teacher who could reach out to an at-risk child. The kind who can make a difference in someone's life that's headed nowhere. Though Julie was offered jobs at upper-echelon schools, she turned them down. She wanted to teach under-privileged kids.
Doug Klingman isn't a teacher, but he understands the best exercise of the human heart as well as anyone. He's a receptionist in the College of Education, but you can't always find him in the office. More likely, he's out on campus leading lost students in the right direction, delivering mail and good will, or attending a graduation like this one-helping students and their guests get to the right spot. No matter where he's going or what he's up to, Doug stops people to ask how they're doing, if they need anything.
Julie, Rowena, and Doug's record of compassion and success shouldn't be surprising. Dean Gerlach has provided a great example for the College of Education. She's won numerous outstanding service awards, was named an emerging leader in higher education, has served on excellence forums, and has been a career long advocate for women in education. She's won more teacher-of-the-year awards than I have time to count. All that means she's an excellent administrator. But, more importantly, it proves she's long fulfilled "the greatest exercise of the human heart."
I want to close with these words. Every story I've shared today is an example of someone moving to great heights by reaching down. I urge you to do the same. But don't be like them, no. Find the place you can help, the place you can reach down and pick someone else up, even in some small way ... in your own way. It might be the comfort you provide the family of an Alzheimer's patient to ease their feelings of guilt, grief, and abandonment. It may be the child whose grades are plummeting because his home life's a wreck, but you intervened. Or it may be your son or your daughter, your husband or your wife, who needs to spend time with you more than you need to spend time saving the world.
Find excellence in all you do. I'd also like you to remember this. "Excellence is the result of caring more than others think wise, risking more than others think safe, dreaming more than others think practical, and expecting more than others think possible." Remember what you've learned here, in and out of the classroom, from yourself and from others. Appreciate what's around you, but never accept anyone's perceived notion about how much you can accomplish-including your own. And no matter where you go from here, remember the greatest graduation speech ever given, and a great lesson for life:
"The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up."
As teachers and nurses, it's your calling. As human beings, it's your duty to perform the greatest exercise of the human heart.
Thank you.
