Jacksonville State University - Mimosa Yearbook (Jacksonville, AL)

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As Ihe minutes tick away before the ceremony. it seems like an eternity in graduating seniom. Honor students proudly accept- ed the diploma: that mpresent- ad their four years oi hard work. 1k - 1.39.9 I ! . . Mh- - J . Many of The teachers and de- President Harold McGee and partmenl heads were on hand to speaker James S. V063 congratu- wilness their students' gradn- late three spacial honor stul ation. dents. 18 CAMPUS LIFE

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lAim high' Kribel advises t his first commencement at A ISU, Dri Robert Kribel, the vice president of academic al- lairs, was the honored speaker. l'The good tcommencementl addresses all seemed to have one common Charac- teristic - they were all short. he not- ed drily, In keeping with that, he gave a good - and short - commence- ment speech: I want to use this opportunity to otter some advice to today's gradu- ates, As students, you received advice lrom many sources whether you want ed it or not. That won't change when you leave this campus. There will al- ways be people telling you what you should or should not do, Your task will be to separate the good advice from the rest. That will not always be easy. Each of you today leaves ISU with a solid academic loundation. In estab- lishing that lounda n, we have caused you to wondei, to investigate, to discover, to analyze, to compre- hend. and to develop self-discipline. Hopefully, we have also taught you to read critically, think quantitatively and write effectively. You must now maintain that loundation; otherwise it will gradually erode away. Knowls edge and skills are lost it not utilized. But mere maintenance is not enough. We have provided you with a loundation. but you have to com- plete the rest of the house yourselves. The job is not finished. The sheer vol ume of what must be learned is too large to absorb in the tew years that you spend at EU I hope that you all realize that in tour or live years we were not able to teach you every- thing. The realization that you don't have all ol the answers is itself one ol the objectives of education. It is important that you keep build- ing on your loundation by continuing the educational process throughout your entire lite. You must never feel that you are finished. Education is not a vaccine that prevents ignorance throughout one's life. It is more like vitamins which must be ingested reg- ularly to be effective Litelong learn- ing is not just desirable, it is absolutely essential. The body of knowledge is constantly changing and expanding. Some knowledge becomes obsolete while new knowledge is added. Con- tinuous education is necessary to keep pace. The next few decades will proVide you with an abundance of challenges - energy. environment, defense. world food supplies, the widening gap between rich and poor nations. human rights, and the list goes on. Changes today occur more rapidly than they did a generation ago, From all indications that trend will continue into the next generation, and Changes then will occur even more rapidly. As you enter the next century, just over 1 1 years from now, you will be forced to deal with issues, ideas. technol- ogies and problems that may not even exist today. I point out these things not to triqhten your or cause you to de- spair, but rather to encourage you to prepare for the opportunities that they present. Aim high. Don't be atraid to pur- sue lotty objectives, Have laith in your abilities. You can do more than you think. In tact you can do almost any- thing if you want to do it bad enough Decide what it is that you want to do. Lay out a plan establishing some inter- mediate goals, and start working to- wards those goals as soon as possible. It has been said that there are three groups of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who won- der What happened. Make sure that you are in the right group.

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Grads should set goals 9t goats and work hard to dct'ttevc them. That was astronaut James: Voss's advice to Jacksonville State graduates at the Sprmg Commend.l ment. Voss, 40, an Auburn graduate awaiting dsstgnmeut as d mtssmn spe- cmhst on d tuture Shuttle tltqht, told an audience at about 4,000 that goatvsvtr ting will brmg about the United States' Space Station Freedom, moon- bdsed laboratories and human expe- ditions to Mars. V055 said goal-setting helped him make It through the nqorous astro- naut selectton program. HFor me, accomphshmq mater hfei ttme goats meant dchmvement through 6. process of growth and de velopmcnt 7 a series at sucresses at dctueving intermedlate goats. For ex- ample, I spent nine years preparmq to be setected as an Amertcdn astronaut. I worked very hard and with great determination , A . . In retrospect, I re- ahzed that it was a serles OI successes m the- dchlevemcnt of shorter-rdnqe goals whtch endbted me to compete successfully. Now that he's an astronaut, Voss said he has new goals. He Will work rm Shuttle science and engineering 15- sues while studqu spacet'tratt oper- ations and Shuttle maintenance. In October he plans to Complete tram- inq requirements that will allow him to be dsstgned to d future Shuttle mis- 51cm. Speakar for the spring ceremo- ny was Tamas S. V033. an astro- Mut for NASA and a major in the US. Army. COMIMENCEMENT 1 9