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(Right: Commencement speaker Dr. David L. Greene has taught English at Piedmont for 37 years.) Graduation at Piedmont College is always a bittersweet affair as students say "goodbye" to their friends and professors and "hello" to their new lives of building families and careers. Saturday, May 5, was no exception as some 382 students from the Class of 2007 collected diplomas to the cheers of family members filling the college's Mize Athletic Center in Demorest. President W. Ray Cleere and Board Chairman Thomas "Gus" Arrendale presented diplomas to the 164 students receiving bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of science in nursing degrees. They also presented diplomas to 132 students receiving master's degrees in education and business, as well as 86 students who received education specialist degrees. Several students who were tops in their schools were singled out for recognition. They included Kimberly J. Freeman of Cleveland in the School of Arts and Sciences, Toni Algieri of Toccoa in the School of Business, Leigh Taylor Brooks of Lawrenceville in the School of Education, and Sonya Black of Rabun Gap in the School of Nursing. Walter H. Smith of Oakwood, who received a bachelor of science degree in biology, was the overall top graduate and earned this year's H.M. Stewart Sr. Award of Excellence from Community Bank and Trust. Saturday's ceremony was particularly poignant as the commencement speaker was Dr. David L. Greene, who is retiring this month after 37 years teaching English at Piedmont. Greene told the students that "the problems that face us today are myriad, but so are the opportunities to do something about them. One of the attributes that makes us human is that we make choices ... and focus on the future beyond the immediate gratification of basic needs and impulses. … But this power is dangerous. We have all been appalled by recent events at Virginia Tech. The shooter must have been mentally ill, but equally surely he made his horrible decisions according to the choices he thought he had. "What we also saw was the outpouring of compassion, generosity and heroism," Greene said. "I think of Liviu Librescu, the Israeli professor and holocaust survivor, a man 76 years old who blocked the classroom door with his body so his students could escape. He died, but it is hard to imagine a more noble act and a more noble death. He and others put the lie to those who think that heroism is a thing of the past." Greene told the students, "We want choices to be easy, we want good guys and bad guys, but we seldom find such absolutes. This is where critical thinking comes in. Higher education at its best, such as you have just received at Piedmont College, will make us tolerant in accepting of differences, and those qualities are of the highest importance in the world today. It will also help us to evaluate critically our own choices. It is far too easy to make a choice based on the whether we are a democrat or a republican, or upon our religious denomination … It is much harder but absolutely necessary for us to look at the issues and reach our own conclusions. This is not to say that we reject value judgments, but we need to be sure that we base our value judgments on real values," he said. "Being human is not easy. It is in fact the toughest job in the world," Greene said. "No other being has compassion, generosity, foresight, and the ability and obligation to choose. Perhaps most important, we also have the capacity to hope. All of you have been prepared for the choices ahead of you. Some of these choices, maybe most of them won't be easy, but I know, and your professors know, you will make wise ones." -30-
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Piedmont commencement focuses on 'choices'