2007 Commencement Speech
Georgia Baptist College of Nursing

By Kerry H. Gough
Member, Georgia Baptist College of Nursing Board of Visitors
District Manager (retired), Travelers Insurance Company

Honored graduates, President Underwood, Dean Gunby, Lynn Jackson, faculty, staff, family, friends, guests, Alumni and members of the Board of Visitors.  It is a tremendous honor today to address the May 2007 graduating class of the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing at Mercer University.  I do not know of any other place I would rather be at this very moment than to be on this campus with such a happy gathering of distinguished representatives, guests, supporters and new graduates of this deeply meaningful, historic and spiritual-based institution of higher learning.

Last Saturday morning, close to this same time, I was sitting in the airport at Dallas-Fort Worth waiting to board a flight to Atlanta.  I was reviewing my notes of comments that I would make to you today and putting together additional thoughts. As I sat there in a vacant Delta holding area all alone, and giving thought to how wonderful a day this would be for you in your life, I began to reflect on the day of my own college graduation in May 1962 and thinking about how richly God had blessed me through so many wonderful years.  Reflections of past years gave me peace of mind and a feeling of solitude in my heart.

My thoughts were then led to today and thinking of you, our newest graduates.  You will always remember this day as one of the most important days in your life.  It is a time for you to look back and yet, at the same time, to look ahead at a world that awaits your valuable contributions.  It is a time for heartfelt reflections as you think of family, friends, special times, personal study and dedicated educators who helped lead you to this appointed hour of graduation.  You no doubt have been much encouraged and supported by many folks who unfailingly loved you, who cautiously guided you, who thoughtfully advised you and who fervently prayed for you during the early years of your life and while you have been on your college journey.  The knowledge you sensed that others strongly believed in you probably strengthened the belief that you were able to have in yourself.  So, here you are today at one of the greatest moments of your life and looking toward your future and, in a sense, toward the unknown.  Don’t be afraid to dream as good dreams can turn to reality through determined self application.

Some of you will depart this momentous high noon occasion today to pursue additional education opportunities.  Other of you will be leaving the confines of the classrooms and the learning environment of clinicals to begin your journey serving others through hands on care to “heal the needy sick.”  “Heal the needy Sick.” That was the vision of the Tabernacle Infirmary and Training School for Christian nurses when it began in downtown Atlanta in 1901. 

It later became known as the Georgia Baptist School of Nursing.  Dr. Susan S. Gunby, the beloved Dean of the now College of Nursing, has stated, “When you become a student at Georgia Baptist College of Nursing at Mercer University, you become a living legacy.”  That is so true!  Now today, this is your stepping stone to the legacy that you will yourself build and leave as you reach out and touch lives through healing ministries all over the world just as many former graduates of this great institution are doing at this very moment.

Dr. Len Broughton was the visionary who opened the Tabernacle Infirmary and Training School for Christian Nurses.  It was opened on Thanksgiving Day with only five rooms, five nurses and one doctor.  When asked “Why a Hospital?” Dr. Broughton firmly replied, “Because people are sick and because of the command of Christ.”

That meaningful thought has been foremost in mind in excess of one hundred years as the combination of divinely inspired spiritual values and learned medial professionals, such as each of you have become, have reached out and will continue to reach out with hands that heal and hearts that love.  When you depart from the Mercer campus and the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing, you will carry forward a time-honored and rich religious heritage.

Today, you will leave this beautiful campus with a diploma in your hand, a well-earned academic degree proudly linked with your name, love in you heart for the excellent education you have received and excitement in your mind as you concentrate on the days ahead.  As you begin your longed for journey in the world of nursing and healthcare, keep in mind that you have not learned all there is to know.

Rather, you must purposely create a desire in your heart and thoughts in your mind to keep on learning and to keep on growing.  Take courses that will increase your knowledge of your own area of expertise as well as those areas that might compliment what you do in the field of nursing. Study as much as you possibly can and strive to progressively move to higher levels of service and greater responsibilities.

Seek out and plan to attend conferences and lectures available to you that can bring you enlightenment and encouragement and maintain your up-to-date knowledge of important innovations in the changing scene of health care alternatives. I encourage you to persistently read highly recommended career related books and well respected weekly and monthly periodicals that will broaden your understanding of healthcare issues and treatment.

Become familiar and stay abreast of the developments of the Internet and the digital world for communication avenues and styles are changing almost daily.  Computer knowledge, data resources and information technology are all extremely imperative commodities in areas of educational pursuits, daily business plans, important statistical information and measurement parameters of job performance.  You should develop a well thought out, continuously managed and a conscientiously applied personal learning plan to foster development in your work responsibilities. 

Mark Twain, a great author of the past, gave to us a good example of the impact of perspectives in life.  Twain in purported to have said, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in just seven years.”  His father had not really changed that much.  Mark Twain simply had a different perspective of his father at age twenty one than he had at age fourteen.

I would suspect that your personal perspective of life is different for you here on graduation day than it was the day you began your college studies. As you have moved through your courses of study and interacted with fellow students, faculty, staff, physicians and needy patients, you have most likely sensed the increased urgency and demand for excellence in healthcare practices.  That is why you must give fully of yourself to become the best you can be at what you will do from an employment and/or career perspective.

I share with you two definitions that meant a lot to me in my career.  One definition is that of a Leader.  “A Leader is a person that people will follow to places where they would not otherwise go by themselves.” The second definition is that of a Friend.  “A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.”  Two admonitions I give you.  One, strive to become an effective leader.  Two, never under estimate the value and reward of meaningful friendship.

It was in 1963 during the Civil War that General Ulysses Grant marched into Port Gibson, Mississippi.  He took a look at that small, picturesque city on the banks of the Mississippi River.  He simply said, “It is a city too beautiful to burn.”  The Presbyterian Church, a stately white edifice and focal point of that quaint village, had an unusual steeple constructed around 1859.  It is the only church known that has on the very top of the steeple a large hand with the index finger pointing straight up to God.

You will be entering the active world of the healthcare environment.  You will work to effect physical healing and to relieve pain.  As you do, I urge you to perform your duties so that the patients you serve with a loving touch, and who also experience the healing touch of a physician, might strongly feel, too, the tender touch of the hand of the Master of us all pointed to by the beautiful steeple in Fort Gibson.

As you leave this room today to go to places you may be called, needed or personally desire to go, may you go in peace and may God abundantly bless each of you in the work you do in your noble profession.  You go with our prayers. You go with our love.  Congratulations and God bless!