My boss at the ECC has been out sick all week so he tapped me to take his place at Celebration 2005, an awards banquet for EOP students here at UW. It was a pretty hoity-toity affair with the president of the school in attendance and hundreds of university staff wearing suits, waiters serving wine and fish with ginger sauce served for dinner. The last two parts were especially nice. I’ve gotta make it a habit to eat more fish.
But this Celebration was about the students. Pretty amazing students, at that. Dozens of them were also in attendance…easily identifiable by virtue of wearing casual clothing amongst all of the lipstick and cuff links. Twelve students were being honored and given scholarships for their research and academic achievement. Listening to the stories of these students…from tough backgrounds, first in family to attend college, divorced with two children makes one sympathetic and awestruck at the same time. How it is that the young woman who has worked since age 15 is the Phi Beta Kappa-qualifier and also has completed four undergraduate research projects? How is it that the C-student in high school whom the university rejected, raised his GPA in community college, then raised it to Dean’s List-level upon his transfer to UW, then became the head of the Student Senate Judiciary Committee for two years and has already been accepted to a Master’s program at Columbia? It’s the kind of thing that reminds me that I’ve got to take advantage of the opportunity…and so does everyone here. It shouldn’t take a life of adversity for students to dawn on the fact that they are capable of, and somewhat obligated to, doing great things. Sometimes it just takes a reminder like tonight and so I congratulate all 12 scholarship recipients for grabbing life by the horns and, in doing so, reminding us that we can do the same.
The $ynchronizer 2: All Due Respect 