Samford University graduate and former U.S. presidential assistant Eric L. Motley urged graduating seniors to remain alert through “the new tidal wave of technology, politics and economics of the 21st century” during their post-university years.
“The great challenge facing every individual graduating today is to remain awake through this, the most enormous transformation in human history,” Motley said, speaking to 683 seniors and more than 5,000 others at Samford commencement May 26.
Motley, managing director of the Henry Crown Fellowship Program at the Aspen Institute in Washington, was a presidential appointments assistant in the Bush White House from 2002 until 2005.
Motley mentioned writer Washington Irving’s story of Rip Van Winkle, who slept for 20 years during which America won its independence from England.
“The most striking fact about the story,” he said, is not that Van Winkle slept for 20 years “but that he slept through a revolution.”
Motley said that to remain awake through today’s revolution, “[w]e are challenged to achieve a world perspective.”
The commencement program included the awarding of top student awards. Kyle Joseph Rudemiller of Huntsville received the President’s Cup for the highest academic average. James Patrick Weaver of Orange Park, Fla., received the Velma Wright Irons Award for the second highest average. Claire Elizabeth Kimberly of Muscle Shoals received the John C. Pittman Spirit Award.
The commencement was Samford’s last at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Arena, where graduation has been held since 1990. Next year, commencement will be held in the new Pete Hanna Arena, scheduled to be completed on campus this fall. At baccalaureate the evening preceding commencement, longtime Alabama Baptist pastor Charles T. Carter told the seniors to seek the will of God in their lives.
“You’re standing at a juncture. In your better moments you want to do the will of God, but first you must understand what it is,” he said, basing his remarks on Ephesians 5:17.
God’s will can best be known by living in daily fellowship with Him through prayer, said Carter, James H. Chapman Fellow of Pastoral Ministry at Beeson Divinity School and pastor emeritus of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills.
In an earlier ceremony May 19, 158 Cumberland School of Law students received juris doctor degrees. Samford President Andrew Westmoreland urged the graduates to “leave time for editing” in their lives as he encouraged them to always strive for the best.
Law graduate Bains Fleming of Wellington, Fla., received the law school’s new Daniel Austin Brewer Professionalism Award. The award, endowed by retired Cumberland professor and former Alabama Gov. Albert Brewer in honor of his father, recognizes the third-year law student “who best exemplifies the high standards of ethics and professionalism expected of members of the legal profession.” (SU)
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