I give a lot of talks and presentations around campus.  Although I can feel the reaction of the audience to my remarks, I don’t often get direct confirmation of what I am sensing as a reaction.  Take my “Honoring the Authentic Self” presentation to students in the Univesity Honors Program at their Convocation (see previous post).  During my presentation, I felt the audience was with me; understanding and appreciating.  After, I got more of that feeling from the students who came down and stood around to get a chance to talk with me.  I got even more of that feeling when a student said to me, “thank you sir… that was helpful.”

    Helpful?  As I drove home I thought about that comment.  I thought about where these young people were in life; at the real begining of being an adult.  Helpful made sense as a comment because these young people are for the first time in a situation where they have to grapple with the hardest question in life; who am I?  And I had talked about developing an authentic self and not settling on being someone else.  So helpful made sense as a reaction.

   So sometimes I know that what I have done has made a difference.  But I don’t always see it in writing.  Lovely though that in the case of my presentation to the Honors Convocation, I found it in writing.  On the University Honors Program webblog I found this summary of the evening:

    For the 2012 UHP convocation, NC State students and faculty alike crowded into an auditorium to hear Dr. Rupert Nacoste address “The Aims of Education.”

    Following a brief introduction by UHP Director Dr. Larry Blanton, honors students listened attentively as Dr. Nacoste gave a moving speech on his interpretation of education as a means of self-discovery. His exhortation to the students was that they should not want “to be” anyone else; in fact to be another person, one would have to share all of the same life experiences. Dr. Nacoste reflected on his personal achievements by emphasizing the obstacles he was forced to face over the course of his lifetime. In doing so the primary objective of his convocation speech was not the generic or prescribed expectation, but rather to encourage the students to discover and better understand themselves as individuals. In addition to captivating oration technique, his stories, so unique to Dr. Nacoste’s life, seemed to strike a chord with the audience.

    Hearing Dr. Nacoste speak and share his own experiences left students with a desire to go forth, pursue, achieve, and possibly fail with grace and a better understanding of themselves from having experienced that failure. By doing so, they can gain not only knowledge about their fields of study, but also become more well-rounded by learning about themselves in the process.

    Good Luck to the UHP students in their studies of both themselves and the world around them.

    I like that summary.  Indeed, I am honored by it.