2017 Honors Convocation Delivers More Than 100 Awards
With the Floyd L Robinson Auditorium packed students family members faculty and staff looked on as the Elizabeth City State University 2017 Honors Convocation ceremony awarded 111 honors to students for outstanding achievement on Tuesday April 25.
The ceremony featured a performance by the University Choir and honors from academic departments across the university including the presentation of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Emblem Award Scholar’s Blazer presented to Nigel Pugh and Jefferson Ridgeway.
The keynote speaker was Coast Guard Cmdr. Warren Judge the executive officer for Coast Guard Base Elizabeth City and a 1997 graduate of ECSU. Judge who attended ECSU as an enlisted member of the Coast Guard would go on to become a communications officer for Pres. Barak Obama’s White House and for Air Force One.
Judge encouraged students to seek humility in their lives and to have faith as they make their journey. He offered “two key points” of wisdom.
First “Use the airline oxygen mask method.” Put your mask on first he said before helping others.
“When you assist someone else before you’re ready you miss important lessons” he said.
And along the way Judge said to “be honest have integrity be noble be understanding” and to learn from your mistakes.
“There is no easy way out of a mistake besides meeting it head on” he said.
The second point Judge made to students is “Having the will to dream and ask ‘why not me?’”
“Where do you see yourself in the next five-to-10 years? Better put what do you want your legacy to be?”
Judge emphasized the need to be humble.
“The day you believe you know it all is the day you begin to fail” he said.
The ceremony continued with numerous awards presented to more than 100 students. The ECSU Honors Program is directed by Dr. Kenneth E. Jones.