 He's not going to talk in the mic for that. Please join me in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Welcome to NCSSM's 34th convocation. I have the pleasure of recognizing a dignitarious and distinguished guest. Please hold your applause until the end. NCSSM Chancellor Todd Roberts, convocation speaker Sharon Lessworth, class of 88. Please stand. Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs Steve Walshaw, President of Student Government Park Thacker, President of Student Senate David Troy, Chair NCSSM Board of Trustees Henry Quo, class of 82, Vice Chair NCSSM Board of Trustees Brian Bailey, class of 84, Board of Trustees members Steve Griffin, Tom Williams, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Robert Allen, Vice Chancellor for Institution of Development Brock Winslow, President of the NCSSM Foundation Katie Wagstaff. Thank you. Welcome to the 34th convocation for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Again, I want to thank our distinguished guests, our faculty and staff, all of our students for being here this evening. It's wonderful to have so many of Dr. Letchworth's family and friends here as well that are with us today here in the front row. So welcome and thank you for being here and to see your family, member, and friend. Also, again, thanks to our Board of Trustees members who are here. And I think for students, this is a great opportunity for you to see what kind of legacy you're becoming a part of at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, the fact that all of these folks are here for convocation at the start of the school year. Convocation does signal the start of our school year. And I hope that each of you has had a first day of classes and settling in for what I believe is going to be a wonderful school year here. We're happy that we have all 680 of you here with us this evening. I also want to take this opportunity to welcome our speaker, Dr. Sharon Letchworth, NCSSM's Class of 1988. We will hear more about Dr. Letchworth's resume in just a few minutes. But I believe you'll be very interested in all that she's accomplished since graduating from NCSSM as a scientist, a teacher, and an entrepreneur. I think it's wonderful when we have alumni come back to school to speak to current students, and we have it happen a few different times, no more important than this evening. It gives you a chance to see yourself in the possibilities before you in the next 10 to 20 years. To this point in your life, you've worked very hard to achieve success and lay the foundation for your future. Every student in this auditorium has a success story to tell, or you'd not be here this evening. Not all of your stories are the same. You come from all over North Carolina, representing 86 of our 100 counties in the Class of 2014 and 15. You bring with you a diversity of experiences that make you all different people, but you all share a common commitment to learning, to being successful in school, and to your desire to accept the greater challenge. That's why you're here. I know that you in the Class of 2015 have had a lot of information thrown at you in the past couple of days since you moved in on Saturday, and I bet you may be a little bit overwhelmed at this point, but hopefully excited for what lies ahead. Seniors, I know you're really glad you're not juniors, and that you here are closer to graduation than you think, but I'm sure you still have the same type of excitement for what lay ahead of you during the very busy next several months. The start of the school year is always filled with great excitement and with possibilities of what's to come, as with starting anything new. So as you experience, learn, wrestle with, and enjoy all that lies ahead of you this year, I want you to remember what got you here, and that's your commitment to learning, your motivation, and your drive to challenge yourself to your highest ability and beyond. NCSSM is not like other schools. You will have greater educational opportunities, greater challenges than ever before. Every one of you has the talent and ability to be successful here, as you have been in school, as successful here, as you have been in school all your previous years. Every member of our faculty and staff are here to help you succeed, and you'll find that there are no better and no more committed professionals anywhere than at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. However, it is your commitment to being successful that is most important, more so than any other single thing. So the 2013-14 school year is yours, yours for the challenge it presents, yours for the learning it offers, yours for the opportunities before you. So I look forward to working with you this year and to your great success for the 2013-14 school year. At this time, I'd like to invite Dr. Warshaw to come up and introduce our speaker, Dr. Lutchworth. So thank you, and have a great evening. Thank you, Dr. Roberts. It is a special pleasure to be able to introduce Dr. Lutchworth to you tonight. I'll explain why in a moment, but before I do that, I would like to introduce to you the special guests, members of her family who are here to share this moment with her and with you. They are her husband, Jeff Toll. Please stand as I call your name, Jeff. You can stand up. Jeff is also an alum of the school. Please stand up. Keep standing. Keep standing. We have their two daughters, Katie and Rebecca. We have Jeff's mother and father, Judy and Wayne Toll. We have Sharon's father, Wayne Lutchworth and her uncle, Jerry Lutchworth. And we have Sharon's mother and her husband, Judy and Benji Glover. Let's give them a hand. Again, welcome to the convocation tonight. I wanna tell you a little bit about Dr. Lutchworth. It's actually Dr. Lutchworth Toll, as you might imagine, since she and Jeff have been happily married for many years. She is the president presently of Lutchworth Pharma Consulting. She advises startup companies on scientific planning, corporate development and intellectual property strategies. That was based to a considerable extent on her previous experience with Targocept, which is a biopharmaceutical company that specializes in developing treatments for diseases and disorders of the central nervous system. She was therapeutic area leader for the Movement Disorders Program working on Parkinson's disease, pre-clinical program director for collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, overseeing drug discovery and research in smoking cessation and other addictions. She graduated from NCSSM in 1988, received a bachelor's degree in biology from Wake Forest University in 92 and a doctorate in neuroscience at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1997. And she did postdoctoral fellowships at the very esteemed Memorial Clone Kettering Cancer Center as well as at Wake Forest School of Medicine. She presently holds an adjunct faculty position in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. She has on several occasions come back to campus to give talks to our medical ethics and leadership class, so she's no stranger to the school, but I, like you, am looking forward to hearing her story tonight as she talks to you about her experiences at NCSSM and her pathway sense. Please welcome back to NCSSM, Dr. Sharon Letchworth-Toll. Good evening, everybody. Thank you very much to Dr. Roberts and Dr. Warshaw for the kind introductions. To the faculty administrators and board of NCSSM, as well as the classes of 2014 and 2015, I am thrilled to deliver this year's convocation speech. It is an honor and I truly appreciate the invitation to be your speaker today. As I look out on all of your faces, and this is a huge crowd, the school wasn't nearly as big when I was in school here, it brings back so many memories of my time here at NCSSM, which started over 25 years ago back in 1987. There must be a math error somewhere because I really don't feel that old. My experiences were probably similar to yours for juniors, the anticipation and nervousness of starting at a new school, perusing the course catalog and resisting the urge to sign up for every single class, hoping that hallmates would be cool and that we would all get along. And of course, wondering if there was any way to get out of that cafeteria work service. And for seniors, looking forward to being reunited with great friends, sharing new music discovered over the summer, playing a game of spades or hearts, or helping a junior figure out their class rotations. But there was something else, a palpable excitement to get started with the school year. The school was buzzing with energy as students compared course schedules to figure out if friends were in the same class. While there were good students at my previous school in Wilson, the culture there did not value advanced education and most kids just didn't have a love for learning. But at NCSSM, it was clear that I was with other students who wanted to soak it all in. There was a tacit understanding that we were all a little different, but those differences were embraced. And because of that acceptance, we had finally found a place where we all belonged. We were encouraged to think big, talk about what inspired us, and to follow our own interest. I remember walking through the Reynolds hallway and seeing the mural of the characters from the book where the wild things are and other iconic children's books. I don't think you would see that in many other high schools. In fact, it would probably be a subject of ridicule. But a group of students was inspired by those stories and they left their mark with that mural and it was awesome. It's my understanding that the artwork is still there today. The intellectual and creative freedom is what I truly appreciate about NCSSM. I tell people that my memories of high school involve hanging out with my friends on the front steps of Hill, actually, and discussing Tolstoy or a physics theory and they find that hard to believe, but that's what makes NCSSM special. 25 years ago, NCSSM was still considered an experiment in education and while it was off to a good start, we didn't yet know if it would succeed in the long term. Thanks to the vision of then Governor Jim Hunt and the North Carolina legislature, the experimental NCSSM opened its doors in 1980. The rationale was to invest in a select group of kids each year, provide them with a top-notch specialized education that was not found elsewhere in North Carolina and at the time was not found in many places outside of North Carolina either. In fact, it was the first school of its kind, a state-supported resident magnet school specializing in science and mathematics. The payoff for this investment was the hope that some of the bright, well-educated kids would stay in North Carolina and bring their talents to bear in the local workforce and boost the economy. But it would be years before they would know if the experiment worked. Fast forward a few decades. For our 20th reunion of the class of 1988, which was five years ago, there was an initiative to get everyone signed up on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to reconnect with classmates and encourage each other to attend the reunion. We had a great turnout and it was wonderful to see everyone. In catching up with my classmates, there was no doubt in my mind that the experiment not only worked but was wildly successful. My classmates have pursued careers in science, technology, engineering and math, STEM fields with dedication and determination and have gone on to be successful in the professions and are often on the cutting edge of their fields. According to Brock Winslow, the vice chancellor here of institutional advancement, about 60% of NCSSM graduates reside in North Carolina and contribute nearly $500 million each year to the North Carolina economy. To emphasize that point, that's a half a billion dollars annually. That's really substantial. More than 50% of NCSSM graduates have pursued a STEM career, which is three to five times the national average for high school graduates. Looking through their profiles on LinkedIn, my classmates have gone into medicine, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, environmental science, chemistry, nanotechnology, computer programming, lots of computer programmers, business and finance, applied mathematics and physics as well as educating the next generation. It is impressive how many have assumed leadership roles in directing people and managing large projects and how many have exhibited an entrepreneurial spirit by starting their own companies. I am always floored by their diverse talent and accomplishments in various technical fields. My classmates are living out the NCSSM vision and validating the experiment. Besides the economic impact, there's the cultural impact of NCSSM. There's just something about the people of the school that make it a very special place. There are so many examples of teachers, staff and administrators who have worked here for years and in the end have dedicated their professional lives to making NCSSM successful. The draw of the NCSSM culture lures people back to its campus. I am so impressed by former students who are now professors or administrators at the school. There are also students who return to serve on various boards and committees and volunteer their time. And amazingly, children of alumni have attended NCSSM and there are probably several of you with us today. The legacy is being passed on to the next generation. There are interpersonal connections from NCSSM that last a lifetime. I still keep up with friends from school and from time to time we get together to play spades, listen to some music and catch up with each other's lives. I hear there's a joke at graduation that instructs parents to introduce themselves to other parents because they may very well be meeting their future in-laws. Such has been my life as you've heard because several years after leaving NCSSM I married Jeff Toll, who was in the class ahead of me. Jeff and I have been married for over 13 years, which means we get to attend back-to-back reunions every five years. My parents and Jeff's parents did indeed meet when we were back in school. I don't know if they remember, but they did. And they are all here today as you know. NCSSM has a huge impact on the lives of parents as well and my family has been an enormous support to me as I know yours have been to you and will continue to be during the course of your careers. Jeff's sister Mary was one of my best friends and a hallmate and now she is my sister-in-law. So we have quite an extended NCSSM family. Jeff and I have two wonderful daughters as you've met, Becca who's gonna be in the fourth grade and Katie who's starting second grade. They both love reading Harry Potter books and they are our own little geeks in training. So after I graduated from NCSSM, I went to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem and majored in biology. Two classes there captured my imagination, neuroscience and neuropharmacology. The complexity of the human brain was fascinating. On the surface, the brain appears to be a big-grade gelatinous lump with a lot of neurons, but there are many highly specialized subtypes of neurons which serve as the master control panel for almost every aspect of our thoughts and bodily functions. Especially interesting to me was the fact that neurons use chemicals in the form of neurotransmitters to communicate with each other and man-made chemicals can mimic or block the actions of neurotransmitters to alter how the brain works, which can produce changes in thought patterns, behaviors and basic operations of the entire body. Neuroscience is highly interdisciplinary, which means it involves research on many levels. Chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, electrophysiology, genetics and behavior all combined. At that time, so much was known about other systems like the heart, the lungs, the digestive system, but what was known about the brain was really the tip of the iceberg. It seemed like the last frontier of the human body. I was really attracted by the potential for discovery and decided that I wanted to further study this emerging field. I enrolled in graduate school at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where I worked toward a PhD in neuroscience. At that time, the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology where I studied was one of the strongest of its kind in the country in terms of grant funding. In other words, grant money meant support for novel research and support for graduate students. In the 1980s and the 1990s, there was a large push by the US government to better understand the effects of drugs of abuse on the brain. And the FIS farm department had a number of grants that made that department a center for drug and alcohol addiction. It was a very collaborative environment and the scientists there worked together to solve problems related to these issues. It was a great training ground for studying neuropharmacology, the effects of chemicals on the brain. I did leave North Carolina for a couple of years for a postdoctoral fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, but then returned to our great state. Within a year, I landed a job at Targasset, a small pharmaceutical company in Winston-Salem. At the time, Targasset was focused on discovering and developing small molecules, targeting a family of acetylcholine receptors to treat cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and attentional disorders. Professionally, it was the experience that most closely mirrored my experience of NCSSM. I was surrounded by a group of brilliant people working together for a common goal. About half of the company had advanced degrees in biology or chemistry and were highly specialized in their fields. It was a high-risk environment that offered me the opportunity for incredible career growth. When I started there in the year 2000, I was doing experiments in the lab. Along the way, I gained experience in managing people, running projects, developing programs, and collaborating with multiple big-farm companies working to discover medicines for Parkinson's disease, pain, and addictions. Drug discovery and development is a tough business, however, with a low probability of success. On average, for every 10,000 compounds that are made, only one of those makes it to the market. Drug development in neuroscience is especially difficult because of the complexity of the brain. Overall, the pharmaceutical industry is faltering now, and target was no exception. After several late-stage clinical trial failures, the company made the difficult decision last year to focus on advancing its clinical stage assets and divest of its discovery capabilities by laying off two-thirds of the company, which included my position. But when one door closes, another opens. I now own my own consulting business and advise other companies on compound testing, intellectual property strategy, and market research related to the pharmaceutical industry. I am really enjoying the opportunity to work in new scientific areas and focus on new challenges. I really don't know where I would have ended up, whether I would have ended up in a career in science if it had not been for NCSSM. I don't know what type of work I would have done, but the chances are small, I would have had a career in science without coming to school here. NCSSM was a life-changing experience for me, and it provided a solid foundation upon which I was able to build my career. Over the years, class after class has matriculated to and graduated from NCSSM. Thousands of students have left their mark on the school. Scores of pictures hang on the walls of Watts Hall as a testament to the success and longevity of NCSSM. So the experiment is now an institution. Not only has the school itself succeeded, it was visionary, and the school's model has been replicated in many other states. Recently, Newsweek ranked NCSSM as the top 23rd high school in the nation for 2013, so congratulations to all of you for that. And now the good state of North Carolina is investing in all of you. The admissions faculty have reviewed thousands of applications and interviewed hundreds of students, and they saw great potential in each and every one of you, which is why you're all here. So what are your responsibilities for repaying this investment? There are few, and most of you will fulfill these responsibilities without thinking twice, just by being yourselves and pursuing your own interests. But since I'm here, I'll give you my own suggestions. Your first obligation is to make as much of your experience here at NCSSM as you can. You have a learning opportunity available to very few. Study hard, of course, and don't be afraid to ask for help. Each of you comes from a different educational background, and each of you has a different learning style. In all probability, you will succeed in some areas and struggle in others, and that's okay. Your teachers have a vested interest in helping you do your best, and they are more than willing to ask, willing to help, but they won't know you need help unless you ask, so reach out to them. Take every opportunity you can to hone your writing, communication, and leadership skills. The most successful scientists effectively communicate their ideas and findings to secure funding for their projects, and they are able to lead teams of technicians, students, and scientists in their discovery efforts. Take advantage of the creative synergy that occurs when you put a group of brilliant students together. Dream up cool projects for many term, collaborate with fellow students, and make great friends. And work your way through work service, cafeteria or grounds, that'll be over soon enough, and then you can focus on a work service term that's more suited to your needs, and gain some life skills and work skills by doing so. Second, be an advocate for NCSSM in your adult life. This can take many forms. You may recommend the school to your neighbor who is a high school sophomore. You may mentor an NCSSM student in your professional life. You may help an NCSSM graduate network to find a job. You may make a donation to the alumni fund, and hopefully that'll be an annual tradition for you. Get involved with the school at some level. Be an advocate for the fields of science and math in your lives. If past statistics are predictive of the future, more than half of you will go into STEM fields. Even if you don't, a strong background in science and mathematics is a huge asset today in our highly technical culture. The study of STEM encourages critical thinking and build skills necessary for problem solving, no matter what the application is. It'll be your responsibility to help others understand the importance of this. Get involved in local schools to emphasize the need for STEM education. Get involved in policy to help local, state, and federal government make better decisions about investing in technology, because without the encouragement, they won't spend the money where it's needed. Just get involved and stay involved. And most of all, good luck. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I just wanna thank Dr. Leshworth once again for that address, because it really embodies a lot of what, it embodies the ambitions that a lot of us have after graduating from the school. And I think it really represents a great success story of what we can aspire to achieve. So, it is my privilege to address you all today as we celebrate the start of another exciting year at NCSSM. This moment marks a new beginning for us all. For faculty and staff, it is another chance to educate and support some of the best students in North Carolina. For us seniors, it is a bittersweet beginning of an end, with less than one year remaining to conclude more than 12 years of school and nearly two extraordinary years here at Science and Math. Most important today, however, are the juniors, because for you, this marks the beginning of the most challenging yet memorable times of your lives. The moment you clicked the words, I accept, you didn't enroll in just any old school full of smart kids, you accepted to be a part of a larger community that together strives to go above and beyond all expectations. You accepted to join the ranks of many aspiring surgeons, scientists, entrepreneurs, mathematicians, a tradition of success in some of the world's most prestigious competitions and a culture that fosters a commitment and curiosity to a wide variety of academic fields. Of course, this is not very surprising for a school that prides itself on academics, but then again, this is not a complete picture. Students here also include stellar athletes, writers, musicians, artists, and other talented individuals from around the state who have all accepted the greater challenge to live and learn together. Now, you are also extremely lucky to have some of the most accomplished and dedicated teachers in the nation, teachers who work hard to help you achieve at a higher level than many of, what many of you might be used to and who try to spark your interest in all subjects from chemistry to the classics. However, here, no teacher, no advisor, no counselor or coach is gonna take you by the hand and guide you through all your difficulties. Sure, they'll provide advice, they'll provide support for as long as you need it, but here, you must begin to take responsibility for your own actions. From day one, you should strive to participate actively in your classes to discover your passions, both academic and not, and to form lifelong relationships with peers who come from many different backgrounds. Treat this experience as a tedious challenge as simply a means to an end and you'll probably burn yourself out before even starting college. Treat this experience as a really long summer camp and you might make some great friends and be good at ping pong, but not much else. Instead, this year, I challenge you to find a happy medium between these extremes that leaves you academically, physically, and emotionally satisfied, that lives up to your expectations of what you imagine the school to be. I challenge you to try and apply for every opportunity you can handle before narrowing them down to those two or three things that really mean a lot to you, that you wanna pursue later in life. I challenge you to strive to be the best that you can in every endeavor, but accept defeat gracefully with the knowledge that you are already a student at North Carolina's greatest high school and you don't have anything to prove to anyone, except for yourself. And even though most beginnings can seem scary, especially when you're unsure of what's to come, don't let that keep you from trying new things that you didn't have the opportunity to try before. Don't be afraid to run for a student government election or to join Science Olympiad or Speech and Debate or even our brand new competitive twerk team, which I recently found out about. Regardless of whether or not you've tried these things before, you could very well be the next Obama, Einstein, Beethoven, but simply you haven't had the chance to take advantage of such opportunities. And even if you're not, your efforts and hard work will always stay with you and will help you make better decisions in the future while others are still contemplating what to do. So in conclusion, make the best of this amazing opportunity that you have. Do not squander it, but do not be intimidated by it either. Your experience here will only be as great as you make it and even when the going gets rough and work starts becoming synonymous with long sleepless nights, I challenge you to keep trying new things, to keep meeting new people, to keep up your character and your personality and to keep learning at this school in every way possible. Such an attitude will make it easy for you to accept the greater challenge, as we all know, and will undoubtedly lead to a year of unprecedented success. Welcome back, seniors, and welcome to our school juniors. Good luck to you all for this year and beyond. Well, again, I'd like to thank Dr. Letchworth for your inspiring words and helping us all and our students here think about what's possible when you leave science and math, and thank you, Parth, for your words and helping people think about how to take advantage of the time that they're here at Science and Math. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the members of our Convocation Planning Committee that helped make tonight possible and appreciate all that you did to organize this. And again, thanks to all of our faculty and staff for being here, and I know I saw as well a number of our emeritus faculty and staff here, so thank you for coming and helping us get the 2013-14 year off to a great start. And finally, I'd like to thank the classes of 2014 and 15 for accepting the greater challenge and beginning what I know is gonna be an outstanding and wonderful school year, and for thank you for being a great audience tonight. It's a great start to the school year. I look forward to the opportunity to get to know those of you that I don't get to know you and those that I do know get to know you better and look forward to a great school year. After we finish tonight here, which we're about to do, we will recess and because of some impending shock rain that we will be having the reception tonight in the PEC. So that's where we'll be set up. And so again, I'd like to thank everyone. Dr. Letchworth, thank you so much. And at this point, we will be adjourned and recess to the reception. Thank you. Somebody hit the house lights back there. We would like to thank you for all the support. Yeah. Need to watch. Just a few minutes. Yeah. There are more people. Yeah, you have to do it. Yeah. You have to do it. I'm not. I don't even know what I'm saying. You can't believe it. I don't see it. What do you guys like? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Gosh, now I'm getting out of here. I don't know. It looks good for every crank, there's really somebody saying thank you.