 NCSSM would like to welcome you to the 42nd annual convocation. We'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the diverse backgrounds of our NCSSM community. We want to recognize that inclusivity is something that our school celebrates and strives to maintain. So I'd like to ask you to take a moment to think about your role in supporting all members of our school community. Thank you. Please keep this in mind as we embark on this coming school year. And now the National Anthem and Pledge of Allegiance will be performed by Graham Aughton. Please stand and join in the National Anthem. O say can you see by the dawn's-earth What so proudly at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave And join in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I now welcome Chancellor Todd Roberts. Good afternoon, everyone. And I want to welcome everyone who's here as well as on the livestream to our 42nd Convocation for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. Convocation signals the beginning of our school year, and we're very happy to have everyone in the classes of 2022 and 2023 and our residential and online classes here with us today to begin what is going to be, again, another unique year in our school's history. I'm so excited to have all of our residential students on campus and look forward to seeing many of our online students at the first residential weekend. I'm looking forward to working with all of you as we together navigate the challenges we will face this school year and seize the many opportunities that we have to make this a fantastic year. I not only want to thank all of our students for being here this afternoon, but I also thank our faculty and staff and our families and guests who have joined us for this virtual portion of our Convocation. I want to take this opportunity to welcome and thank our alumni Convocation speaker, Ms. Gina Lofton. Ms. Lofton is a member of NCSSM's class of 1983, our second graduating class. Her story is such an amazing example of what NCSSM is all about. Opportunity. She came to NCSSM from a town of approximately 500 people, and after NCSSM she earned her degree in electrical engineering and has gone on to an amazing career where she has been one of the top leaders in business and technology in our country. Gina exemplifies what is possible when one has talent, motivation, opportunity, and care for others. Just as you're here today, she was at NCSSM's third and fourth Convocations. She was just like you today, and each of you can imagine what's possible for you and your future. I'm pleased that we start each year with an address from an outstanding alumnus. One of the things that I've found so special about NCSSM is the fond memories alumni have of their school and their willingness to give back to it. I'm looking forward to Gina sharing her story and insights with us today and providing all of you with that chance to dream about the possibilities that are yours to achieve in the years that lie ahead. Each school year we have a chance to write the next chapter in the NCSSM story. We can all look forward to the many possibilities a new year brings just as the many classes before you have. Here we are, all of us, more than 1,000 students in the classes, more than 1,100 students in the classes of 2022 and 2023 will be about to embark on a year where your story in many ways will be like no other. There's no question that last year was an extremely difficult one for all of us, whether at NCSSM or in your high schools across our state. I know that at NCSSM we have managed to live and learn through these challenges because of the amazing work of everyone in our community. All of our seniors in the class of 2022, you did an amazing job last year along with your classmates in the class of 2021 to help keep our community safe. You did everything we ask of you and more. And more importantly, you did everything we needed you to do because you wanted to keep each other and our entire campus community safe and allow us to have the best school year possible in spite of the tremendous challenges posed by the pandemic. Equally as important are our amazing staff and faculty who reinvented just about everything last year and again this year and adjusted as needed to provide a living and learning environment that I believe was as good or better than any place in our country last year. I wish we were all here together in person for convocation because all of you deserve a standing ovation. As we write the chapter for this year, it will thankfully be different than the last. We've planned for and feel really good that this school year will be more normal than not. The past few days have been a joy having all of our residential students back on campus together and over the next weeks and months juniors will be meeting new friends from all across our state and our seniors will be meeting not only friends in the junior class but some new friends in your own class in person for the first time. And let me tell you that makes me really happy. And while this year will be more like a normal school year at NCSSM we all know that it is not completely normal. The reason we can all be here together with confidence is because based on last year's experience we know that all of you will do the right thing for each other and for others in the community. You continue to prove this to us. The fact that 91% of our students are vaccinated and more than 90% of our employees are vaccinated shows that those in the NCSSM community understand and care about doing what's right for each other and what's needed to live and learn together safely in our community amidst of this terrible pandemic. For those of you who can but have not yet been vaccinated I would strongly encourage you to do so. Most importantly for your well-being but also for that of others. I am so very proud to be a part of the NCSSM community with all of you. Well, I cannot stand here and say that we will not have any cases of COVID-19 on campus this year nor can I say with any certainty that we will have less than we did last year but what I know I can say with certainty is that it will not be because of the lack of effort of all of us to do the things that will keep us the most safe. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you are doing and all you will do this school year to make sure we can be on campus together safely. What has been true for the classes at NCSSM pre-pandemic and now virtual or in person is that you're part of a community at NCSSM together with talented students from all over North Carolina. You'll be working with outstanding faculty and staff, you have the tremendous support of our state and the many friends of our school and although the people and the place may have changed throughout the years you will find that these are the key ingredients of which infinite possibilities are made. Just as was the case in those first classes where traditions were built that have been passed down over the decades since, over the past year we've had to do so many things differently and for the first time new traditions were started last year and I imagine that new ones will be created this year that will be a part of NCSSM decades hence. While we're again wearing masks this year I'm confident that this will not be something that exists forever but better utilizing our outdoor spaces will be something that we will continue to do and always try to improve upon. Thankfully we do not have the same physical distancing requirements in place this year in most cases but how we use technology to expand learning opportunities and break down the barriers that can exist between programs when they are totally based on space and place is something that we have done very effectively and will continue to look for new opportunities to do this. One thing I will say that I hope is here to stay is good hygiene and cleanliness. That's important not only for COVID, life in general. I hope that this is one of the things that we can all agree should be a part of our new normal and I look forward to this year to the many NCSSM traditions you will keep and those new ones that you will create. To this point in your life all of you have worked very hard to achieve success and lay the foundation for your future. Every student here today has a story to tell or you would not, a success story to tell or you would not be here. Not all of your stories are the same. You come from all over this great state representing 87 of our 100 counties and you bring with you a diversity of experiences that make you all different people and that's the beauty of this community. You're all different in many ways and you know so much from each other because of that but you also share much in common. You all share a commitment to learning being successful in school. You all have big dreams and a desire to accept the greater challenge. NCSSM is a place where each of you will write the next chapter in your story and collectively you will help us write the next chapter in the NCSSM story. The greatest thing about our school is the people. It's the community that we create together all of us that make this place special. However, community does not just happen we make it the way we want it to be what it needs to be. This year we have the ability to again create community on campus and virtually. I know the past year has been challenging with the inability to connect in person so I know that doing this this year may take some time for everyone to get comfortable being in person. I'm sure for many of you in our residential program the past few days you've been in this group you've been in an over a year so I'm impressed by your willingness to try and do. No matter what may come your way your resilience, effort and attitude inspires me and I look forward to being a part of the community you create on campus this year. For students in our online program I have always been amazed how you form such a close-knit community primarily virtually but I do know that the ability to connect on campus is a big part of you being a part of the NCSSM community and I'm thrilled that this year we will have residential weekends and the many other opportunities on campus for you to engage in person in the NCSSM community. I know that we have and will continue to talk about our community standards for safely navigating through the pandemic but we must also focus on our community values that make our school unique and special. The great strength of our school is its diversity. Our community brings students together from all across the state students of different races, ethnicities sexual orientation, genders and gender identities. Our diversity is both a great strength and a great opportunity. As I speak to alumni from across the decades I hear how living and learning and getting to know and be friends with people very different than they were was one of the most formative parts of their NCSSM experience. Being a diverse community provides the opportunity for meeting people from different backgrounds or perspectives but being an inclusive community provides the opportunity to really get to know one another through listening, learning seeking to understand and valuing one another. Being an inclusive community one where each member feels that they belong is core to who we are as a school community. I'm proud of the work on diversity, equity and inclusion our school is doing and look forward to what each of you brings to our community and how you will help in our continued efforts to best support each other this year. Community does not just happen we work to make it what we want it to be. Whether it's the great effort of so many to create the NCSSM experience in the midst of a pandemic or our work on diversity, equity and inclusion these are not isolated efforts but all are part of how we can create the living and learning environment that inspires each of us to be better no matter the circumstances and all of us together to be better than we would be otherwise. As has been the case for the past 41 years those in the NCSSM community have always worked to maintain the NCSSM experience that has been so formative for so many over the years. This has enabled students whether from the classes of 1982 1992 or 2022 to meet and talk about their shared NCSSM experience even though it was not the same exact experience and for all of you that will be more true than most any previous class. But the great thing about this community over the years has been our ability to understand what about the NCSSM experience is special and hold true to that while also understanding how to meet the needs of students in the time that they're here. So while elements of the NCSSM experience are timeless and shared among and across classes what makes it is not. That it's up to you what you and we will all do together this year will help define your NCSSM experience and add to the rich history of our school. Understanding this and how it exists and evolves over time is not only important for how you will all help make your experiences this year next but also for how we will continue to establish what this experience will be for students faculty and staff on our campus in Morganton. This time next year the first class of students on our Morganton campus will be a part of convocation. As we continue hiring new faculty and staff for the NCSSM Morganton and taking the next steps in planning the program for living and learning on that campus we have the unique and exciting opportunity to continue the NCSSM story by writing the very first chapter in the NCSSM Morganton story. Members of the class of 2022 and 2023 we're so excited that you can all be together on campus this year and all of us at NCSSM are excited for the year ahead. I know that over the past few days you've been provided with a lot of information and may be overwhelmed at this point but I hope that you're enjoying the start of the school year and looking forward to what's ahead. There is no way we would be here on campus prepared for this school year without the amazing job on everyone on team NCSSM who works here. I cannot name everyone but let me assure you it has taken everyone for us to be here and well-prepared for a fantastic school year. Despite the challenges, uncertainty, anxiety, fear and ever-changing conditions everyone on team NCSSM has been truly extraordinary in their efforts to get us to where we are today as we begin the academic year. I'm so grateful and thankful to their work and commitment and I know that all of you in the classes of 2022 and 2023 join me in saying thank you. So as we begin this year we must remember that flexibility, grace and understanding as it was last year will continue to be so important to our success this year but it will be the personal responsibility that each of us takes for doing the right things that will be most important to our success. We are ours as a community that inspires each other to be our best no matter the circumstance and all of us together to be better than we would be otherwise. At this time I'd like to introduce NCSSM Student Government Association President Bonnie Zhang to provide remarks. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Welcome to NCSSM and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you here today. My name is Bonnie Zhang and I have the honor of serving as your student body president. Thank you again to Chancellor Roberts for all the contributions you have made to this school. It's amazing how your leadership and hard work has inspired countless others to use your lessons to advance our institution. Last but not least, thank you again to the audience for being here today. There are so many words and feelings each of us could use to describe the present atmosphere but here I want you to know you are not alone in any of your sentiments. First joining us, I'd like to welcome you again. I hope this is a day you have all been eagerly waiting for. For seniors like me, it's a day that many of us may have worried would not come. It's also a day that we have thought about since the minute we first started high school, the beginning of the home stretch. But to remind us of a quote by Ernest Hemingway, it is good to have an end to journey toward but it is the journey that matters in the end. Personally, it wasn't until after this past year that I started to see a bit of truth in the same. It wasn't until I noticed all the lessons I had learned from the pandemic in a half density hybrid school year that I started to believe, truly, that it is the journey that matters more than the end. I know that these past two semesters have challenged us to our core. The class of 22 was unwittingly tasked with one of the greatest trials. We were to build a community amongst us from up to 500 miles away. But even with this distance between us, we were able to not only make it through, we began to blaze our own path. I am so proud to be able to tell my family and friends what the students have done here at this school. From organizing our own virtual and in-person events to chartering clubs that promote self-care and mental health awareness to students here and in the NC community to creating petitions and advocating for our very own academic relief here at this very school. We were able to take our education and the needs of the entire student body into our own hands. Furthermore, we were able to build the strongest student community I have ever seen. What we have been able to accomplish this past year gives me the hope that we will continue to make the change that we want to see in our lives. For all the juniors here today, you took this same challenge on by applying to NCSM in the midst of this arduous time. Even with the limited resources and support you may have had during a pandemic year, you had the initiative to take the rockier path to choose an even greater challenge to the circumstances given to you. Now, I would like to shift our focus to the other half of Hemingway's quote to the end of this so-called journey. It feels a bit odd that we begin with the second half of this phrase before addressing the first, but on the contrary, I believe it is a very distinct example of how it is also okay to begin a journey without first knowing about the end. Some of us came here to NCSM with specific goals, while some of us came here with reasons that appear more abstract. My reasons for coming here were curiosity, passion, drive, but really what I wanted was independence. Your story will be different from mine, and that's one of many things I admire here about the people at NCSM. We have people here from different backgrounds, with different interests and different hobbies, but one thing I've noticed that brings us all together is our independence. Our independence is what drives us to discover and learn, and I hope that, especially to the new juniors, you will take this opportunity to explore new interests. I know that when I first arrived here, the awe I experienced during my first few weeks was the most prominent feeling, something that I learned along the way many of us share. The feeling of being surrounded by people with a sense of drive, of passion, from STEM to the humanities to the myriad of arts, sports, and clubs we have here at NCSM. The sense of being belong here was overwhelming. The shocking and foreign-feeling belonging of being immersed in such an active community, it hit me the very first days I was here. Sometime during my junior year, I realized that a key part of my journey occurred outside the classroom. In the streets or around campus, through my interactions with the diverse array of people around me, I learned that each individual was a plethora of new stories and information, each shaped by their own unique experiences in life. Here, we have the opportunity to try new things, to learn about different backgrounds and experience different cultures as we continue down the path we make for ourselves. In many ways, this year is unlike any other. The road we will tread started out more unpaved than any before us. But with the struggles of the past pandemic year, also came a time for our school to restart its long life. Sadly, it provided the conditions for many of our traditions to disappear, but nevertheless, it left room for the new generation, us, to create our own. That's why I encourage each and every single one of you here today to get involved, to try something new, and to speak out for both your ideas and yourself. I urge you to keep your curiosity and to also learn the very history of the ground you stand on today. NCCSM provides us with an opportunity to get a head start on curating our individuality and learning in an environment where everybody else seeks to do the same. In all these ways, I discovered that each one of us here is unique, and it's our individual differences that make us the school we are today. This year, let's do our very best to make the school welcome to each and every person so that NCCSM can truly be at its best and brightest. Now speaking of best and brightest, please join me in welcoming our next speaker, our very own Vice Chancellor of Academic Programs, Katie O'Connor. Good afternoon. On behalf of academic programs, I'd like to welcome all of our residential and online students, our faculty, staff, families, and NCCSM friends. Gina Lofton is a graduate of the class of 1983. So exactly 40 years ago, she arrived as a junior in 1981 and listened to her convocation speaker on a similar day in August. And now I have the great privilege of introducing Gina to you as our 42nd convocation speaker. Brian Faircloth wrote a wonderful profile about Gina, and I hope you take the opportunity to read it on our NCCSM home page. I wanted to highlight a few parts of Gina's journey. It was Gina's guidance counselor at West Craven High School who told her about NCCSM. For a motivated and curious student like Gina, applying to NCCSM was a natural next step. She found out she was accepted when a positive decision letter arrived in the mail. She actually hid the letter for a few days. This opportunity had just become a reality and she had to pause because this was a very big decision. Gina's guidance counselor also received the notification. So hiding the letter did not make her acceptance a secret for very long. Gina mentioned it was hard to leave grandparents who were filling you with nothing but love. Not only did her grandparents love her, but they gave her the best advice. Advice that our juniors and seniors can benefit from today. They said to her, you're ready, you're okay. Gina realized that having such a loving and supporting family means they don't need to be with you all the time for you to still feel their love and support. Gina knew she had everything she needed to be successful at NCCSM, so she said yes and went on to be fearless. Gina spent 30 years in the tech industry and is best known for her ability to bring people together to achieve results. During her time at IBM, she lived and worked in the United States, England, France, Australia, Japan, China, Brazil, and Singapore. Gina was a researcher, a developer, a consultant, and even accepted projects she wasn't sure she'd be successful at because she never let fear stop her. She went on to lead thousands as an IBM executive and recently retired as the Chief Technology Officer for Microsoft. Gina published works addressing topics of how artificial intelligence can help mental health among veterans, the true value of data for government, and how open source can bring agencies to the cloud. She continues to live a life with the values set forth by her family, the values of integrity, courage, respect, being responsible, writing an example, and giving to others. Gina has never stopped giving back to others. She is on the board of the Museum of Life and Science in Durham and previously served on the boards of the George Mason Research Foundation and Rise Against Hunger, and we are fortunate to have her on our NCSSM Foundation Board of Directors as well. Her grandparents were absolutely correct. She was okay, and she was more than ready. Please help me in welcoming your convocation speaker, Gina Lofton. Wow, thank you for that. Well, wow, 40 years amazing. I don't know if I was ready for them to tell you all about the dude and the numbers. But thank you, Todd and Katie and Bonnie. And good afternoon, Science and Math Family. I'm just excited to be back home on campus and to be able to celebrate the start of a new academic year. I can hardly believe 40 years ago I was a junior here. It's wonderful to see how the campus changed and how the vision was realized because many of these buildings were just artist renderings on the wall when I was here. To the juniors, welcome to the experience of a lifetime and to the seniors, welcome back. You get to serve as a symbol of what's possible for their journey. And the juniors will be looking to you to set the tone on the campus about our traditions, especially about our tradition of service. I was a part of a great experiment. When I was here, there was, we were a part of the vision and the hope of what some amazing leaders believed that STEM education in North Carolina could be. It's so wonderful to see that they were right. In addition to a world-class STEM curriculum, we had arts and programs. I remember art and photography with Jolyle's African Dance with Madame Chabaz, writing short stories and poetry. I was encouraged to not only figure out how to be the great next scientist or the next generation of scientists, but who I was as a person and who I was as a creative. And we, they knew that we would be global leaders. They knew that we would be humanitarians and they knew that we would also be philanthropists. I came to an NCSSM from a small town, if you've heard, outside of Newburn, North Carolina called Cove City. I felt awkward when I arrived here. I didn't know what to expect. I struggled a bit to find my way, so you might also be feeling like that in your junior year. But I found some interest. I had played softball back at home and so I pitched and played third base. I found some friends. I found some other interests. And we were on this journey together, a unique journey together. We all came from different backgrounds, but we were just 15 and 16-year-olds who had been number one and two at our home schools. And now we were surrounded by nothing but excellence. And I would learn the greatness of surrounding yourself by excellence and the passion that you have when you're finally challenged. It's a great experience. My curiosity was encouraged. My confidence was built. And by the senior year, unlucky for some, I had also found my voice. You have the opportunity to work with some of the most amazing professors in the world. And you're going to be surrounded by great talent who are going to be, like you, the next generation of scientists and engineers and philosophers. And that's an opportunity to hear different views. An opportunity to talk about complex and sensitive topics. An opportunity to have healthy debate and discourse around important topics. And many of those important topics you've seen that we've had to have over the last couple of years for sure. We still have some important conversations to have, and they can be uncomfortable around the digital divide still exists, although we've made some progress. Access to education and healthcare and financing and opportunity isn't equally distributed still. There's important conversations about race and gender that we all still have to have, and I know you will lean into. There's been progress. But coming, the graduating class of NCSSM comes with that privilege and a platform, and I'm hoping that all of you will use that. In my two years, I found courage. I found I was willing to leap into the unknown and belief that I could figure it out. Of everything I learned and experience at science and math being a risk taker would serve me best throughout my life. After leaving science and math, I went to North Carolina A&T State University and majored in electrical engineering. It was actually a chance meeting with Dr. Ronald McNair, one of the first black astronauts who led me to my time at A&T. My physics teacher was Dr. Manring. He had made physics come to life, and he also talked about electrical engineering. So listen to your teachers. They know a little something about what you can do in the future. They have some insights. So I was off to A&T, and I was off to some new traditions. Building on my science and math traditions, the traditions of A&T and changing the world, and I followed my passion. I leaned into every opportunity, some of which were research as an undergraduate, or co-op assignments, or internships at TRW and IBM. I studied things and worked on projects like satellites and submarines and conversational speech technologies, all areas that I would continue to explore when I left college. After college, I went off to IBM, and I leaned into international assignments early in my career. I had the opportunity, as you heard, to go to other countries to work. I had roles in research and engineering, and corporate technology and sales and consulting and mergers and acquisitions. It wasn't that I couldn't keep a job. I just like to do a lot of things. That critical thinking skill that I learned at science and math and at A&T underpinned my success in all of those roles. My engineering degree had quite literally taken me around the world. I kept a journal in my time at science and math, something that I would advise you to do. I would be interested to look back over the years. In that journal, I had written down 20 places that I wanted to visit once I left high school. My time at IBM took me to over 40. Sometimes I had the opportunity to live there, sometimes just long assignments, sometimes just long visits. I had reminded myself when I looked at that journal that that little girl who arrived here 40 years ago wanted to do science that changed the world. In order to do that, she had to go see the world. I had a great career at IBM, and then another amazing place came calling. You may have heard of it, Microsoft. I joined Microsoft in 2019, and I was the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. business. I was drawing to the mission of empowering people and enterprises to achieve more. I also knew the importance of representation. I was not just a corporate executive. I was a woman in tech, and I was a black woman in tech. And that was an important representation to be a person in a Chief Technology Officer role in those representations. Over the last two years that I experienced, over the last two years in Microsoft, they've experienced historic growth. You might be reading about it. We set revenue records. We set records for the valuation in the company. It's not a coincidence that aligns with my time there. I'm just saying. Well, I'm proud of my career. It's not the titles or the promotions or the global teams that I led that make me most proud. Some of the things that I'm most proud of are the ways that I did get to change the world. Unfortunately, I lost my mom to breast cancer in 1999, and today that would be a form of cancer that could be treated. And so for the last 20 years, I've been helping organizations, especially healthcare organizations, work on solutions that would help with early diagnosis and personalized treatment plans to serve as an assistant or advisor to doctors and oncologists so somebody else's mom could get to come home. Using AI to help those struggling, especially our men and women in service with PTSD and mental health, to be able to use apps and bots to help them understand how to manage their depression. Or the work that I got to do with building cognitive toys so children with developmental or learning delays could advance. To give them the joy of achievement that all of us have experienced and probably have taken for granted for so long. Or being a diversity, equity, and inclusion leader and a sponsor using my voice in my platform to improve access to health care and financing and technology to help bridge the digital divide, to create programs around financial literacy so people could get digital skills and move to having generational wealth. Or to create opportunities and helping others to successfully navigate a corporate career. My wish for you. I know what it's like to sit in that seat and have big dreams. I know what it's like to have those dreams come true. I know what it's like to be that awkward kid who blossoms into a global leader. I know what it's like to build other leaders. My wish for you is that you get to know that too. You are a part of a powerful networking community that is active and influential in business circles and in communities almost everywhere your career path will take you. When you graduate, you will be among alumni that are successful and sought after because of the high quality education and integrity. I look forward to welcoming you as an active member of that community. Enjoy all that lies ahead. Your time here will enrich your life for years to come in ways that you won't know until you've left this amazing campus. In closing, I leave you with this. Be curious. This is an exciting time in your life, a time when you have opportunity to meet new people, have new experiences, learn new things, embrace the exploration of new ideas, challenge beliefs, ask very hard questions about life, about technology, about people, always thinking about what's next and how you can make it better. This will serve you well. Be courageous. Take on challenges that might change you or the world. Use your privilege and your platform to help others. Don't ever miss the chance to hold a door of opportunity open or to speak for those who might feel invisible or underserved. Have the courage to lead and serve with respect and empathy and integrity. Be a critical thinker. Challenge ideas and assumptions and always be open to the fact that what you see or believe may not be the entire picture. There is always a layer deeper that can be better, that can better inform your understanding. Look for it. But most importantly, have some fun. This journey we call life is not just about the accolades of the promotions or the titles or even the money. It's about the joy along the journey. It's about the moments that are going to make you laugh and going to make you cry. It's about the lives that you're going to touch along the way and it's about the friends that you're going to make here and along the way that are going to become like family. So class of 2022 and 2023, welcome to the NCSSM family. I look forward to seeing how all of you go out and change the world. We want to share with you. So happy that you mentioned you had a class with Joe Lyles. We wanted to share with you. This is a Joe Lyles print that he's done. And so we want to give this to you. And again, thank you so much for speaking with us today and sharing your story. We very much appreciate that. And so just for everybody to see. So as we close our 42nd Convocation, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who planned our event today. And a special thanks to Evan Rowe, Joyce Ventimiglia, Jeff Hattley, for your fantastic tech support. Thank you to our Corral, Mr. Seigan, and Ms. Perez, Rebecca and Graham, for your music today. And thank you to our student leaders, Bonnie and Caroline, for your remarks. You guys were great. And I really appreciate you doing that. And then a huge thank you to Dr. O'Connor, Dr. Tici, Ms. Miller, and Ms. Garrison for all of your work in planning today's events. Thank you all. And once again, I want to thank our faculty and staff for your amazing work and dedication to providing the very best for our students and each other, no matter the circumstance. So as we start the school year, it's always filled with excitement with the possibilities that come starting anything new. And for me, the start of this year will be most rewarding understanding what so many people have done to make it possible to have our students back on campus and to try and provide the most normal year possible and times that are certainly far from normal. So students, as you experience, learn, struggle, 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 in your resilience in the face of adversity. Every school year brings with it challenges and opportunities, and we certainly know that this will be no different. And this year we'll present you with different ones. It'll also present you with those new and different opportunities. What you make of them will both not only define your year, but will help you grow and learn as you prepare for next year and the many years ahead of you. Every member of our faculty and staff are here to help you succeed, and you will find that there are no more amazing and committed professionals anywhere. It is your commitment, however, more so than any other thing. I encourage you to take advantage of the many opportunities you'll find here at NCSSM. Explore your interests, grow your passions, strive for your best by helping those around you be better. This year will be unique, and have its challenges no doubt, but it's also filled with the possibilities of what you and we will make of it together. And I look forward to you to the year ahead with you. After convocation Ms. Lofton will be available in the ETC Lobby for those who want to come meet her and hear more about her amazing life and career. And now we will close convocation with our chorale led by Mr. Seigan and Ms. Perez singing our Alma Mater. So thank you all again for being here this afternoon, and let's make this year fantastic, and go Unis!