美国毕业生被敦促有目标、正直地生活

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发布于2024年5月4日

米歇尔·马修斯

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Dr. 约翰W. 史密斯, who overcame childhood poverty to earn a track scholarship, a doctoral degree and executive leadership positions at two universities, urged University of 南 Alabama graduates Saturday to be a positive influence on others and pursue lives 的完整性. 

“I really should not be standing here today giving this Commencement address, and as you hear a little bit about my life, I think most of you all will agree with me,” 史密斯说.

史密斯, who twice served as USA’s interim president and also held leadership roles at the University of Central Arkansas, gave the Commencement speech at the USA Mitchell Center during two ceremonies honoring more than 2,000 spring and summer degree candidates.

Graduates who began four years earlier started at 南 in 2020, during the first fall of the COVID-19 global pandemic, when the pandemic limited in-person teaching 还有课外活动. 周六的毕业典礼是第一次面对面的毕业典礼 校长乔·邦纳(Jo Bonner)指出，这对许多学生来说都是如此. 

“你r being here today, graduates, says a lot about your resolve, about your perseverance, your resiliency and your resourcefulness,” Bonner said in his opening remarks. “当 到了紧要关头，没有人知道如何像捷豹一样团结起来.”

史密斯 spent 14 years at the University, including in roles as vice president for student affairs, special assistant to the president and executive vice president. 在他 在任职期间，他领导了重新开放校园全面运作的努力.

He shared his own remarkable story, beginning with his upbringing as one of seven children in rural 南 Carolina, with a three-point message to challenge the graduates 在生活和事业上取得成功. 

“In my early years, we hoed and picked cotton for the person who owned our house,” 他说. 

房子里有一间浴室和一辆可容纳九个人的汽车. “我们家里只有一部电话， 它被固定在墙上. 这是党的路线，”史密斯在解释之前说 what a party line was for an audience who grew up with phones in their pockets and 用一种完全不同的方式来定义“派对”. “党的路线意味着我们 shared a phone with other people who lived on our road, and they could pick up their 打电话听听我们的对话.”

史密斯 reminded graduates they will not always have control over their circumstances. “但你可以控制自己的反应，”他说. “做一个战胜者.”

Next, he implored graduates to make a difference, as his high school track coach did 给他买他需要的东西，比如跑鞋和维他命.

“He knew my family did not have the means to do that, and he understood that at 5 feet, 11 inches and 120 pounds, I was probably not getting the nutrition I needed,” 史密斯说. “他介入并改变了我的生活.”

Another teacher sent clippings of his running success, without his knowledge, to her 他是佐治亚州贝瑞山贝瑞学院的田径教练. 她知道他不是 being encouraged to apply to college, planning instead to work full-time at a grocery 商店. “She saw something in me that I did not, and stepped into my life and became 他是一个与众不同的人。.

The track coach at Berry contacted him, and 史密斯 ended up graduating from Berry College 四年后.

Then another mentor, the dean of students, asked him to stay and help start Berry’s first student housing office – the beginning of an almost 50-year 职业生涯 in higher 教育.

And his boss at Mississippi State University mentored him throughout his professional 职业生涯. “He encouraged me and supported me to get my doctorate at Mississippi State, 他成了我的导师，不仅在工作上，而且在生活中，”他说.

All of those people in his past “took a chance on me and changed the trajectory of 我的生活，”他说. 他要求学生们为别人做同样的事情.

The last thing 史密斯 asked the graduates to do was to be “a person 的完整性,” which he defined as doing the right thing even when no one else is watching. 史密斯 spoke of his father, who worked in a cotton mill inspecting rolls of cloth as they 加速了. 这工作很乏味，但他父亲却以此为荣.

“I will forever be indebted to my dad, who only had an elementary school 教育, but taught me a strong work ethic and to be a person 的完整性,” 史密斯说. “你 will have many opportunities throughout the rest of your life to cut corners, to do less than you promised to do, and to be focused on only what is best for you. 它将 often be easy in your own mind to justify your actions: ‘No one will ever know; everyone else does it; it will not hurt anyone’ …

“但你会知道的. 你不是所有人，也许有人正在 被你的行为伤害. 你只是当时不知道而已. 如果你想成功 在生活中，做一个正直的人.”

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