ODU sends grads into the future with task to harness their potential

NORFOLK

"Think," Leonard Pitts Jr. urged Old Dominion University graduates Saturday morning.

"Ask," said Chris Matthews to a second set of ODU graduates Saturday afternoon.

That boiled-down advice for life was received by more than 2,000 taking part in the split ceremonies at the Ted Constant Convocation Center. Overall, the school awarded almost 3,200 students their bachelor's, master's or doctoral degrees.

Honorary degrees went to Pitts, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald - his syndicated work appears in The Virginian-Pilot - and Matthews, writer, TV commentator and host of MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

Also receiving one was Deborah DiCroce, 10-year president of Tidewater Community College and twice an ODU alumn a. Little more than a year ago, she and ODU officials engaged in a long-running public disagreement over the way the four-year school expanded class offerings at its Virginia Beach site next door to a TCC campus.

Others receiving honorary degrees were Ethel Grandy, an 86-year-old Chesapeake great-grandmother and community activist known as "Mother Grandy"; Richard Barry III, vice chairman of Landmark Communications, which publishes The Pilot; Frank Reidy, a businessman from Virginia Beach; and Charles Taylor, president of Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton.

Speaking to graduates of the colleges of Business and Public Administration, Education and Sciences, Pitts stressed "evergreen truths" that survive fashionable trends, such as remaining flexible about plans, having faith in something, and thinking critically rather than blindly believing.

"Class of twenty-oh-eight, the sad truth of the matter is, we are about to turn you loose into a world filled with stupid," he said to laughs and applause.

That includes "mean" and "ugly" stupid from those who don't think for themselves, he said.

"Whatever your take on a given topic, you should be able to explain how you got there, what reasoning or logic brought you to that conclusion," he said. "It is less important to me what you think than that you think."

They should know why they believe what they do about issues such as gay rights, race relations and terrorism, he said. The world will rely on them to make things different - the protest-filled 1960s showed the impact young people can have, even if only armed with rotary phones, he joked.

"What are you going to be?" he asked. "How are you going to change the world? Class of twenty-oh-eight, we need you to think. And then, having thought, we need you to act."

Addressing the colleges of Arts and Letters, Engineering and Technology and Health Sciences, Matthews called this "the most exciting time in the political history of this country," praised the three remaining presidential candidates as resilient and classified Americans as optimists.

The big tip he got from years of interviewing ambitious, successful people, he said, was to ask - don't go it alone, don't give up, because it's not only about talent.

"If you want something, you're going to have to go out and ask for it. And that's the hard part," he said. "When a job opens up somewhere, it goes to the person standing there.... You want to be the person standing there."

Don't hold yourself back, he said. If you want to be a lawyer, keep looking until you find a school that will take you.

"You don't need that many 'yeses' to make it in this world," Matthews said. "But you need a lot of asks to get those yeses."

Graduations also are about families, such as those that twice filled the Constant Center on Saturday.

Among them were members of Phillip Allen's family - parents, three siblings and a brother-in-law - who drove 22 hours from Dallas to celebrate his twin bachelor's degrees in electrical and computer engineering.

"It's inspirational for me," said older sister Paula Allen, who's also in college. "His finishing school - it took him six years to finish, but he never gave up. If he can do, I can do it."

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-3893, matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com