Commencement 2008

By Laura Collins : The Herald-Sun
Jun 7, 2008

DURHAM -- Durham Academy celebrated not only the academic success of its students during commencement Friday morning, but also the student body's character education.

Valedictorian Sean Sketch spoke on the importance of good character that the academy has instilled in its students.

"As a graduate reflecting back on 14 years, I believe that DA is least concerned about scientific laws we seniors can recite, or the mathematical theorems we can prove," he said. "For the faculty, character development is paramount to this comparatively trivial knowledge. DA has only a few years to nourish our growth. On the other hand, we have the rest of our lives to memorize, recite and prove."

Though character was impressed on the graduates at Durham Academy, academics weren't lost on them; the class averaged a 3.44 grade point average. Ninety-four of the 95 seniors will attend colleges after graduation and one will attend a military service academy.

Guest speaker Tom Morris, who, besides studying at Durham Academy was also a Morehead Scholar, a doctoral student at Yale and a professor at Notre Dame, said the single greatest piece of wisdom he learned in all his time in a classroom came from his first-grade teacher.

"My teacher wrote a sentence across the board. I have no idea why, none of us could read," he told the students. "She wrote, then read, 'Life is not what you want it to be, it is what you make it.'"

Morris encouraged students to continue achieving their goals and gave them "The 7 Cs of Success," which he has written about in his books "True Success" and "The Art of Achievement."

He told the graduating seniors to have:

* A clear conception of what they want;

* A strong confidence that they can attain the goal;

* A focused concentration on what it takes to reach the goal;

* A stubborn consistency in pursuing their vision;

* An emotional commitment to the importance of what they are doing;

* A good character to guide them and keep them on a proper course;

* A capacity to enjoy that process along the way.

The ceremony briefly had the feel of a professional basketball game when Sketch launched T-shirts into the audience. Each shirt had one of the school's seven Principles of Community.

"Yep. I just threw that," Sketch said. "And I'd like to launch these other 'character clothes' in honor of the launching of both the class of 2008."