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Simmons addresses Piedmont's first December graduates Photo right: (Dec. 10, 2006) The Johnny Mize Athletic Center in Demorest was full for the third time this year as Piedmont College held its first December commencement ceremony for 287 new graduates. Together with the 865 students who graduated in May and July, the Piedmont Class of 2006 swelled to 1,152 students, eclipsing the previous record of 1,021 students in the 2004-05 school year. Dr. Garen Simmons, a professor of history at Piedmont for 35 years, delivered the commencement address. Simmons, who was recently named president emeritus at the college for his service as president from 1983 to 1990, reminded the new graduates that "thinking critically and with imagination, thinking creatively, makes us dissenters. Don't get upset, this country was founded by dissenters. Some of the best known people in history were dissenters." Simmons said the poet Archibald MacLeish defined dissenters as "every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself." But isn't it, Simmons asked, "safer in the herd? Isn't it best to go along to get along? There is considerable risk in resigning from the herd. …Galileo risked excommunication and damnation for his own ideas of physics and astronomy." "Civil disobedience, now that is really resigning from the herd. That's industrial strength dissent," Simmons said. "Henry David Thoreau said 'Any fool can make a rule and any fool will mind it.' And probably the best known practitioner of nonviolent resistance, Mahatma Gandhi, said 'an error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation.' But when Thoreau and Gandhi left the herd to practice nonviolent civil disobedience, they spent time in jail," he said. "Is it worth it?" Simmons said the answer can be found in Proverbs: "Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy." Simmons, who during his long career at Piedmont once coached the baseball team, closed with the advice he said an old baseball coach used to give to his team each year. "You're not as good as you could be," he said. "You're not as good as you should be. You're not as good as you will be, but you're a whole lot better than you wuz." "You are wiser," Simmons said, "for each question answered and for each question asked. Braver for each challenge attempted or met, richer for each gift you've given, and stronger for each helping hand you’ve offered. Congratulations, and have a good season." -30-
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