Mentor

I heard someone say today, "Man, is it hard to Graduate." I empathized with that statement when I heard it, and even after completing my final class period of my undergrad career, I still feel like I havn't finished it all. I think I walk across the stage, I still will not feel completion. Do we ever feel that?

i have never had a professor have such a profound effect on me as I had this semester. At the end of each semester, we as students are asked to evaluate our professors with basic questions and a scantron. In most cases, you have compliants about professors, thier ideosyncricies, their approach to thing, or just how they treat you. This year I met a man who was what he taught, down to the very scripture that he quoted. Not in all of my education have i come across a man who embodied everything that he taught. Moreover, he challenged me to look at things on a personal level such as my temperment, my charcter, my faith, my approach to work and life.

The definiton of mentor is "advisor, guide, guru, counsel...". The definition of teacher is "educator, tutor, instructor. The term professor is a teach that is tenured, and a scholar. This man would not call himself a professor per this definition, and he is too humble, though blunt, to tell you he is a mentor, but the word teacher is an insult I feel. This man is a mentor to his students, not becuase they choose him to be one, but because he embodies what that word means.

While his class challeged me academically, his character challenged me personally, and through this I have been able to pass along to those who work for me his wisdom, experience, service to our school and nation, and hopefully someday his example that he showed to me.

This is what college is about. Great mentors bestowing upon those who pay absorbadant amounts of money, much of which these mentors never see, in order to perhaps absorb an iota of this wisdom these great people hae worked a lifetime to craft and pass along.

Wish there were more like this man at Liberty. Sadly he is one of a couple that I can count on one hand.

Thank you for all that you have done.