SOUTHEAST PROF KEYNOTES LAST SUMMER COMMENCEMENT

Christina Lee Frazier, speaker at Southeast Missouri State University summer commencement ceremonies Friday, urged graduates to continue their pursuit of knowledge, look forward to tomorrow with a vision of hope, and lead their communities in a "celebration of diversity."

Frazier, a professor of biology at the university, encouraged the graduates to take an active role in confronting the myriad of challenges facing their generation and those to come.

A step toward that end, said Frazier, is accessing current information in a time when it changes daily.

Commencement exercises were held at the Show Me Center, where 181 undergraduate and 77 graduate students received diplomas. Seven undergraduate and two graduate student members of Phi Kappa Phi were also recognized.

"The most practical plans and wisest decisions will lie idle or unravel if they are not communicated effectively to the individuals who must guide their implementation as well as those who will be affected," said Frazier. "You have developed skills in many forms of written and oral communications. If you will bring these critical-thinking, knowledge-integration and communication skills to bear on the issues facing your communities, you will be a positive agent for change."

Frazier told the graduates that a community can't effectively grapple with the complex issues of today like educational reform, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, AIDS, and the environment, and tend to its most vulnerable citizens unless all members have a stake in the community.

"It is simplistic to say we can solve all of society's problems by returning to a single set of old-fashioned values, which seems to some to mean recreating the 1950s," she said. "Yet shared values are a unifying force."

Frazier said: "If your destiny is to change the world, go for it. We'll be cheering you on. But I urge you to make a commitment to strengthen your families and communities and change your own little corner of the world by employing the skills you have developed at Southeast. If we do all this we will create a vibrant society and collectively change the world."

In asking the graduates to provide their families and communities a substantial return on their investment in their education, Frazier emphasized that is the vision of "hope for tomorrow."