Office of the Chancellor
Commencement Remarks
Pam Shockley-Zalabak
December 14, 2007
(Word Doc)
Members of the regents, faculty, staff, distinguished guests, friends and loving families and, most importantly, the August and December 2007 graduates, thank you for coming today to celebrate success.
Celebrating success doesn’t always come naturally. It is often easier to criticize than it is to celebrate.
Today is about success. It is about your commitment, creativity and courage, qualities that lead to success and deserve to be celebrated.
As I look around this morning, I see much that is right.
I see what is right in the faces of the graduates, brimming with a sense of accomplishment that comes when a once seemingly impossible goal is in hand.
I see it in the families and loved ones who have endured late nights, frustrations, and, yes,
financial hardship, on the way to this celebration.
Before I begin my remarks, graduates, please rise, look for your own personal supporters, and
give them a round of applause as your thanks.
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
I would like to talk to you about what it means to be first and putting others first in your lives.
Today is the first August and December graduate ceremony for UCCS and the first ceremony the university has held at the Pikes Peak Center.
Many of you are the first in your family to attend college or to graduate from college. Others are the first in their families to embark on a chosen career – education, engineering, nursing or dozens of other fields of endeavor.
For some of you, it is your first visit to the Pikes Peak Center, though I hope it is not your last.
Still others today are the first to have the words “cum laude” summa cum laude or magna cum laude attached to your names.
By the way, I hope everyone knows these are Latin honors with roots as deep as academia itself to recognize outstanding achievement.
While today is about firsts – the first in your family to graduate, the first to enter a particular profession and – before you know it – the first student loan repayment --, it is also about another type of first, putting others first.
You, like our mascot the Mountain Lion, demonstrate tenacity, diligence, a bit of cunning and quite possibly the most important quality of all – focus.
While I believe your UCCS degree will help open doors, these Mountain Lion qualities are what will propel you to different types of firsts.
First job in your field. First promotion. First home. First new car. First child.
It’s not my desire – or my place – to tell you how you define success now or how you will define success later. Being first is one measure of success, but not the only one.
Success consists of doing the common things of life uncommonly well.
A world-class athlete of the 1960s and 70s, the first African American to play on the Davis Cup team, the first African American to win a Grand Slam Professional tournament, and someone who was also first in his high school graduating class, said
“Success is journey, not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.”
That athlete – and that social leader – was Arthur Ashe.
Today, you are first. But tomorrow I ask that you think of a different type of first.
Let me explain, using the words of Artistotle, to assist me.
Aristotle said: The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society.
Putting the needs of others before your own is a noble calling that many of you will be asked to do daily and many of you have already had considerable practice.
This, I would argue is our role as educated members of society, to help those who are less fortunate -- those who will never finish first – and those who with a little help or guidance can realize their full potential.
Teachers and nurses, of course. But also engineers, accountants, psychologists, sociologists, marketers and every other major and profession represented in this room today.
This is the role of being an educated member of our society, someone who understands that true success is measured not in “I” but in “We.”
Jessica Jerrold (GER-OLD), a communication graduate from Kiowa, understands.
Jessie, as she prefers to be called, is the first person in her family to go to college. Her path to UCCS was like many of yours. She became a member of the Chancellor’s Leadership Class, held an on-campus job to make ends meet, and also worked for a local non-profit dedicated to helping those with physical disabilities achieve their goals.
Jessie believes integrity is the cornerstone of scholarship. She says that helping those with physical disabilities linked for her the classroom to the workplace and to her future.
In his speech on campus this fall, Author David McCullough reminded us
There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man – or woman. We are made up of thousands of others. History has shaped our present. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.
Ruth Corfah (KOR-FUH) understands the role that others – have played in her success.
The daughter of a Liberian immigrant, Ruth joined the Army at 16 and at 17 was a combat medic, where she was trained to put the lives of others first.
Later, as a parent, she learned another side of responsibility, working, as she says, “about 50 different jobs” to try to make ends meet, failing, and being homeless. But Ruth persevered.
Today, she earns a master’s degree in forensic science, her second master’s from UCCS.
Tomorrow, she accepts a commission as a first lieutenant in the US Army Medical Service Corp.
Jay Lee, who is in the audience with his fellow engineers, understands what it means to feel the pride of achieving the goal of a college degree.
Jay also understands what it means to put the needs of others first while not losing sight of a personal goal.
Jay holds what I believe to be a record in length of time to degree.
Thirty years.
Disco was still in when Jay began his UCCS career, taking one class at a time while balancing a job at HP, marriage and eventually family.
For 10 years after his son, Ryan, was born, he didn’t take any classes.
He admits it was daunting to return after such a long break.
But he did, taking a class or a lab each semester and applying what he learned to his work and serving as a role model for that son.
Today, at age 55, Jay earns a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He also points out with considerable pride a 34 year marriage to Nancy and a son who now studies at a sister CU campus.
On Monday, he’ll be back at HP.
Nothing will have changed.
Or will it?
As you transition from student to alumnus of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, you have the opportunity to create change, to create opportunity not only for yourself but for others in this community.
Today, you are first. Tomorrow you have the opportunity for another type of first. Share what you have learned at UCCS and in life with others, help them to understand that success comes from inside, from achieving goals, and from putting others first.
Thank you. Congratulations graduates.