Honors College Recognition Ceremony Speech

David Wingfield

As many of you know, our former Assistant Director, David Wingfield, passed away in August of last year.

David was present at the founding of the SAU Honors College in 2003 and served it loyally until his end.

In many ways he inspired students, faculty, and staff during his long tenure at SAU. Soon, a memorial bench will be installed and unveiled on campus to remember him.

He is the inspiration for the theme of my talk today: transitions.

But, before I launch into it, let me first thank and acknowledge the many who have made today possible.

Thanks

First, let’s have a hand for our graduates. While this year there were only eight, they are a weighty eight as you will soon see.

Let’s have a hand for their families and friends too.

We cannot forget to thank ARAMARK and Gigi Baucum either.

Numbers

Now, let me share some numbers.

Donations

Look at the table tents at each of your tables. There are 12 of them.

Each tent represents a minimum donation to the HC of $100. One is $500, another is $250. The total pledged or donated is $1750! That is a new record.

We have received donations from local businesses:

the Peoples Bank, Albemarle, and Southern Aluminum

From SAU former and current administrators:
David Rankin, Trey Berry, David Lanoue, Donna Allen, Robin Sronce, Connie Wilson, and Abdel Bachri

From the two directors of the Honors College:
Drs. Odendaal and myself

These monies supplement and enhance our state funding and enable the Honors College to fund travel, purchase supplies, and house and  feed students when they attend professional meetings. THANK YOU
Let’s give our donors a hand!

GPAs

Four of the graduates are holding a 4.00 GPA (and hopefully will not lose it during their last semester)

The lowest GPA is 3.64. So, the other three are bracketed from there to 4.00.

The AVERAGE was 3.91. Also a new record.

Guess what, time for some more applause, right?

Need I remind you that 3.25 is the minimum GPA to remain in the Honors College

and

Arkansas will award undergraduate degrees to all students who exceed a 2.00 GPA

Transitions

Let me now transition to that topic

We all experience many transitions in life, we don’t remember the warm, wet, womb we were expelled from or cut out of, do we? Probably just as well.

We exited into a cold, well lit room, most likely. Not long ago we might have been born at home. My mother in law and her three sisters were each born at home a couple of generations ago.

I don’t plan to review every transition we experience, but I’d like to highlight a few.

Nowadays, many children, and perhaps some of you, ended up early on in a daycare. While that may have been scary most children soon adapt. They learn circle time, lining up by height, and holding hands when the class crosses streets.

Kindergarten teachers can easily tell which of their students did not go to daycare. When little Johnny is wandering around the room after “circle time” is called and all the others are sitting in front of the teacher, that’s the tell.

The first day of high school. I’ve always said that teens survive high school, how could I have known how real that word, “survive,” has become.

I began videoing students in Honors Seminar in 2010. I wanted them to see how far they had come from then till now.

Nearly all of you saw your Honors Seminar selves on the video. Chance, I regret that Covid deprived you of that embarrassment. You see, Chance was in the Honors Seminar class that met, for the only time ever, online. Sorry.

Truli was in the next Honors Seminar class. You noticed that she removed her mask before speaking. I had all of the students that year start with their masks on. I did that for posterity. We tend to forget all too soon.
As you saw, these grads did very well academically. Soon, all will transition to graduate education or to a career. As they will soon hear, their lives will commence at commencement. That’s probably a misnomer, if I ever heard one. It’s also a little bold of a college to say their students’s lives just began at graduation. They were living long before they stepped foot on a campus.

Despite their high GPAs, their college years were historically unusual thanks to Covid. They lived through a college experience unlike any other. Just a few days ago, the president declared the Covid emergency over and we hope he’s right.

Recall the fear Covid caused and the changes it made to all levels of society. I can count on one hand the few movies I have seen in a theatre since March 2020. Only now, do I no longer put a mask in my left pocket. I still keep 6’ between myself and the person in front of me in a line.

Let’s remember the victims of Covid too. Let’s give thanks to the many doctors, nurses, researchers, undertakers, janitors, retail employees, and other critical workers who had to, literally put their lives on the line.

Online Education

Many of you have heard me say in the past that I would never teach online. Well, guess what? Covid took care of that too.

Earlier this week, I wrote the following to a colleague:

“Not quite Paul on the road to Damascus, but I became a convert to online education and have spread that gospel since.”

But, God willing and the creek don’t rise, I plan to always meet the Honors Seminar face to face. As all of you will recall that is not how we first met, but it was where we first got to know each other.

The rest of you might not realize that honors students and I don’t really see much of each other following Honors Seminar. In a way, today is a kind of class reunion for us. I hope never to have to teach that course online ever again. It is too important to all of us that honors students receive a worthwhile introduction to the Honors College and the university experience.

Having said that, I was at Backyard BBQ a few months ago and handed my credit card to the cashier. She exclaimed, “I took your course!” I asked her right away what her grade had been and she said she had earned an A. By the way, if you have never dined there, do so, order the ribs!

The Future

Let me share with you some transitions our soon to be graduates  will likely experience after they commence in May.

I’ll start at the end so as not to end this speech on a depressing note.

When I explain the word “prognosis” in class I tell the class, here is your prognosis:

We are all going to die.

I quickly follow that up by saying that a better prognosis would include the words: When and How.

Right now, my father in law, John, is in a hospice hospital in Texarkana. He’ll likely not reach his 87th birthday in May.

On our first date (36 years ago), Julie, my wife, told me that her father had bad heart disease and was likely to die soon. Well, she was not much of a prognosticator, was she?

None of us know when we will take our last breath. None of us knows the future.

But, I know, retrospectively, some of the transitions that I have lived through. You, too, will share some of these transitions.

Decisions

For example, you will soon make many decisions: life partner, career, children, and many others.

I met Julie at a VHS video parlor (I know some of you have no idea what that is). Less than a year later we were married and we will celebrate our 35 anniversary on July 3. That was, for me at least, a fortunate decision.

Julie and I are now grandparents. Our oldest, Christian and his wife Susie, are the proud parents of John Edward Kardas. They named him John after his great grandfather. I don’t know where his middle name came from however. (That’s not true, obviously, and it gives me great pride and brings a tear of happiness to my eye.)

Let me conclude by repeating something you should have heard before. That is, at college we cannot teach you everything you need to know. But, we can teach you how to solve those unforeseen problems that arise from time to time.

Hardly anyone was prepared for Covid. But, eventually, we adapted but at a tremendous cost.

On December 6, 1941, the day before Pearl Harbor, most Americans wanted nothing to do with Hitler and his designs to take over Europe. Americans were even more unprepared for the Sunday morning surprise attack by Japan on Hawaii than we were for Covid. Overnight, public opinion changed and Americans were suddenly ready for war against Japan. Again, a tremendous cost was paid worldwide by all sides in World War II.

What else did that war do? Basically, everything changed. For one thing, it made my life possible. I would not be here except for World War II. It took my father from Philadelphia to Cairo. There, he met my mother (and the rest is history).

So, the most important transition you will face is the one that has not happened yet, the unpredictable one. But, because of the transitions you have already conquered you will be ready for that one too.

Many of the decisions you will make will be important and some will be life changing. Nevertheless I know you will be ready to make them. Use what you have learned when the time comes.

Maybe that theme of commencement is not so bad after all.

Thank you.

Poem: Monet Coppersmith

Monet Coppersmith recently won second place in the 2023 Southern Arkansas University for her poem:

Encephalon Empyrean

The ether of the sky and mind are one and the
same,

Toying with the firmament and capricious
brain,

The stygian sky rises when the clock hits 1,2,

And the ardor of the soul fills with colors of
every hue.

At zero hours the encephalon fills with
blossoming flowers.

Then when a chronograph anxiously strikes
three,

The cerebrum at last is truly free.

Lost in the landscapes of places never
traveled,

Fathomless fears vigorously come unraveled.

The spirit yearns for a chance to take flight,

Soaring into the empyrean of twilight.

Emotions themselves mourn, filled with
forlorn,

As the body shivers with vehemence that’s
freshly born.

The welkin begins to fill up with light,

Scarlet, carmine, and vermillion take over the
night.

Swirling shades pulled from the recollection
with a hush,

And gifted to the sky so it may once again
blush.

The consciousness rises and stirs with gelid
somber,

As it tries to recall memories that it can never
ponder.
 

6th Floor Museum Visit

 I told several students on the trip that I was in the ninth grade in Kensington Junior High School in Maryland on November 22, 1963. I was in Civics class when the announcement came to each class, "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas."

When his body lay in state at the Capitol days later my parents drove the 15 miles into Washington DC to briefly pass by his casket.

Since then, memory of those days has faded but the 6th Floor Museum keeps them alive. The museum preserves a dark day in American history, one that had major effects on the country.

Here is a photo of what the Textbook Depository Building's 6th floor looked like that day

 The following two photos show the Kennedy's and the Connaly's before Oswald began to shoot.

The next photo shows Jackie Kennedy trying to leave the limousine. Secret Service agents stopped her.

Here is the view Lee Harvey Oswald had from the 6th floor

Dallas Trip: Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum

 The Honors College took its first trip since 2020 with 11 students, 3 staffers, and one guest. We traveled nearly 500 miles (round trip) in an SAU bus. Our first stop was the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. It hosts a positive exhibit spanning the worst to the best of human nature.

Above is the door latch on a cattle car used to transports victims to Nazi concentration camps

 These are the actual uniforms worn by survivors

The Museum emphasized the role of "upstanders" or people who actively worked against the Nazi Holocaust. Also emphasized was the positive response after World War II evinced by the UN's Declaration of Universal Rights (below)

 

We also saw the interactive hologram where Israel (Izzy) Starck answered live questions from the audience. Here is a video (below) of another survivor who made a hologram through Shoah, Pinchas Gutter.

Pinchas Gutter's hologram

Future blog entries will cover our visits to the 6th Floor Museum and the Perot Science Museum

December 2022 Honors College Grads

 December Graduation

Southern Arkansas Honors College

 

Left to right: Stephanie Tabor, McKenzie Brown, Kayla Hawkins

 

Left to right: Blake Barber, Kofoworola Afolabi, Gillian Wells, David Gustafson

Opeyemi Miracle Daramola

The Honors College is proud to send off its latest class into the future. Congrats to all

Bucket List: Madison Carter

 I have several things I have always wanted to do. Some are more likely to happen than other, but these are the ones I want to do the most;

• Grow my small business and turn it into a store. I would like to get my products into stores and then also open a store front for them as well
• Continuing in my nursing career. Currently I'm a CNA, but I want to eventually get my RN/BSN and maybe go back to become an APRN.
• Travel to another country, especially to Costa Rica or Bali. I love nature and the beauty of these places.
• Have a family of my own. I am a family person, and it is one of my main dreams to become a mom one day. I love children and it is something that I have always wanted.
• Have a house of my own. Nothing says independence more to me than being able to support yourself and I have wanted to be financially independent enough to have my own place soon.
• Being comfortable enough in life to give back to the community that raised me. There are so many people I must thank for helping me get to where I am. If I could help even half of them in any way/ by any means, then I would do so. It would be an amazing place to be in life when I am able to finally do that.
• Graduating College. It is important I get through this part of my life the best I can. It is important to me that I give the next few years my full dedication so I can be comfortable and enjoy the rest of what my life has to offer me after giving school my time and everything I have to offer.

Bucket List: Evan Reel

 1. Creating my own successful video game, doesn’t need to be a smash hit, just recognized by at least a small niche group of people

2. Moving away from my home town of Texarkana

3. Make a career out of 3D modeling

4. Learn how to cook good

5. Learn how to play the piano

6. Get my own Keytar and learn how to play it

7. Start a Youtube Channel (doesn’t even have to be famous, just to have an outlet)

8. Get a home at Shreveport

9. Produce my own short film

10. Learn how to paint