With pomp and pageantry, the 2014 SUNY Oswego Honors Convocation was convened in the Campus Center arena April 11, when awards for academic achievement were presented to 121 students. Christina Lynch ’14, president of Vega, Oswego’s women’s honor society and sponsor of the ceremony, gave opening remarks.
Awards were granted by academic departments, the Oswego Alumni Association, Oswego College Foundation and Division of Extended Learning, and included the Chancellor’s Awards for Student Excellence and recognition of the first SUNY Oswego Possibility Scholars. In addition to having excelled in scholarship, recipients qualified by distinguishing themselves through research, the creative arts or volunteer service.
Keynote speaker Tracy Chamberlain Higginbotham ’86, a business administration graduate and an award-winning businesswoman, encouraged students to find careers that match their passions. She is founder and president of Women TIES (Together Inspiring Entrepreneurial Success), a group of more than 300 women entrepreneurs working together to forge strong economic networks and foster small business success. She said she routinely encourages people to create a personal mission statement and to make sure it unifies their personal and professional lives.
“I believe developing and being guided by a personal mission statement is about living an authentic life that brings joy, purpose and direction,” Higginbotham said.
Higginbotham traced her career from marketing to event planning to advocacy, urging her audience to be open to possibilities that develop when they follow their own principles.
“Go forth,” she concluded, “and live with purpose and a deep personal mission.”
–Linda Loomis ’90 M’97