 Firstly, I must thank the American College of Dentists and its leadership for this opportunity to offer the convocation addressed today. To the College Executive Committee, our Regents, as well as our incoming Regents and Officers, it is my sincere honor to have the esteemed privilege of standing in such a hallowed place. Most certainly to our Executive Director, Dr. Teresa Gonzalez, the amazing College staff members and team, I honor and recognize your dedication, diligence, and passion in advancing the mission of the American College. To Dr. Leo Rouse, our current ACD President, who personally extended this invitation to me today, I thank you for your leadership, not only of ACD, but as a stalwart exemplar spanning dental practice, military service, dental education, and organized dentistry. From my earliest days as a dental student nearly 20 years ago at the University of Michigan, you were then and remain a national role model for so many, and I am the better for your mentorship. And lastly, but certainly not least, to the women and men of the hour, our inductees, our new fellows. To you I offer a heartfelt welcome. In addition to welcoming our new fellows, convocation is a time for renewed commitment to our shared mission, to advance excellence, ethics, professionalism, and leadership in dentistry. The American College of Dentists is comprised of dentists who have exemplified excellence through their outstanding leadership and exceptional contributions to dentistry and society. By many regards, your inclusion within the ranks of our invitation-only membership shows your depth of commitment and action as a true standout within our profession. You have likely lived life in a manner congruent with the words of noted scholar, philosopher, and theologian, Dr. Howard Thurman, who stated, don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. For each of you, some aspect of our dental profession has indeed made you come alive. While your accomplishments are many, your service commitments numerous, your patient relationships likely enviable, your new status as a fellow isn't simply an honor. It is truly much more than that. Your adjoining with the mission of the American College of Dentists is actually an invitation. An invitation to pick up the mantle of our mission, to further cultivate our pillars of excellence, ethics, professionalism, and leadership in both your personal and professional lives. I'm an avid track and field fan, and especially love an Olympic year where we have access to so many beautiful world athletics competitions. My favorite events happen to be hurdles and the relays. In the relay, of course, each participant is handed the baton, and they must execute their portion of the race. Think of your induction today as two-fold. The honor, yes. But also the passing of the baton to keep going, to excel further, to expand on your ethical and professional foundation, to lead with more empathy and compassion, to keep running the proverbial race. As you are undoubtedly, intimately familiar with it, this juncture, as a professional, our lives have ceased to solely be centered upon our needs and wants. Our professional obligations call us to think of others and their needs, our patients most aptly, before thinking of our own. But what about the needs of those beyond our patients? Our colleagues, the needs of the various oral health care team members, the public at large, it certainly isn't a new concept to think of how we center others. What we are able to provide, our talents, our dental expertise. But what do we profit in exchange? There is great personal fulfillment that we receive as a result of the giving of our professional expertise. It speaks to the duality of the altruistic sensibilities within all of us. The late Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. Bonhoeffer is known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of Jews. He paid a dear price for his moral convictions, ultimately being hanged in 1945 just as the Nazi regime was collapsing. His words can serve to guide us here. In normal life, we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give. And life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with that, with what we owe to the help of others. It is both in our giving and receiving by which we are enriched. Our giving and receiving is perhaps no better understood than with the college's commitment to leadership. Over to the practice of a profession, such as dentistry. Leadership is something one actually practices. Inherent within this is the notion that one may practice leadership well, or conversely one may practice leadership poorly, which some may denote as not true leadership at all. An area that begs greater emphasis is the need to clarify the actual practice of leadership from merely holding a leadership position. While positional leadership certainly has its place and is something most strive for, the reality is that one can assume a leadership position or role but not perform or actually lead well in the role. A positive of leadership as not simply tethered to position is the fact that almost everyone in nearly any role has the capacity for practicing leadership well. This is affirming in principle within both dentistry and dental education because there are so many players on the proverbial team, faculty, staff, students, prospective applicants, alumni, corporate partners, community stakeholders, donors, and of course our patients. Each of these individuals can practice leadership from their perspectives and roles. Each and every member of the dental team has the ability to ask of themselves, am I leading well? The correlations of leadership practice to professionalism and ethics is quite clear. Leadership success in whatever way you choose to measure it can ultimately be traced to the choices made by an individual or leader. If leadership good or bad boils down to the quality of choices made and it is widely understood that ethics is grounded in one's choices, then how well one practices leadership is inextricably linked to one's ethical sensibilities and foundation. How do those who practice leadership well make the choices that they do? Leaders make better choices when they are mindful about their own thought processes and actions. Leadership requires a deliberate process of shifting perspectives to see situations in multiple ways and through different lenses. Leadership practice well requires moving beyond one's comfort zone and current preferences to embrace more complicated intellectual and ethical reasoning. The habitual nature of being completely unaware or insensitive to varying perspectives and other viewpoints leaves many leaders blind to available alternatives or even gaps and biases in their own knowledge. Even more troublesome is that the unawareness or at times downright refusal to see through the lens of others leaves those leaders with little incentive to question their interpretations, retrace any of their steps from data selection through their actions. The ability to see the perspective of others, to see the value in a lens or viewpoint different from one's own requires key elements such as courage and emotional intelligence. Leadership practice well and practice ethically requires personal courage to break out of one's comfort zone and step away from crowds and seeking new options, proposing new explanations or even testing alternative responses. Emotional intelligence brings together the fields of emotions and intelligence by viewing emotions as useful sources of information that help one to make sense of and navigate your environment. Emotional intelligence has been recommended as a critical tool in normalizing the individual perceptions of difference. The need for greater understanding of our differences as well as the philosophical stance to actually value and leverage our differences is paramount to optimal oral health for all. This last year and a half has made the need to examine our personal and professional roles in truly seeing and empathizing with the experiences of those who may be different from us like none other. The unrelenting effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic, whose effects were still enduring today, peeled away what was already a thinly veiled veneer of attempting to combat health inequities both globally and within our own borders. The fact that one's zip code is still yet the best predictor of health outcomes cannot be our resting place. Bonhoeffer again serves as a guide. He states, we are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself. For a group such as ours, the American College of Dentists, often holding itself out as the conscience of dentistry, combating health inequities and moreover racism within health care systems is not only a can of worms we can sit idly by refusing to open, it is truly a litmus test which we must ask of ourselves, who are we really? Are we indeed the conscience of dentistry? A conscience, an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to rightness or wrongness, a sense of consciousness of moral goodness examining one's own conduct, intentions or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good. Scholar Bell Hooks offers assistance here. She states, what we do is more important than what we say or what we say we believe. So what shall be our collective professional action? Are we simply full of words saddled with good and righteous intentions but moving the needle no further? Going again from Howard Thurman, he states, there are two questions that we have to ask of ourselves. The first is, where am I going? And the second is, who will go with me? If you ever get these questions in the wrong order, you're in trouble. My sincere hope is that as individuals and as a collective, we are concerned that we bring the least of these, the least of us, the least of humanity along with us. We have the potential to chart a new course, both with our expanding scope of practice and shaping the narrative of dental care as primary care, as well as combating health inequities and disparities in a real and meaningful way. Even when one thinks of potential, we limit ourselves to less seasoned colleagues, to more emerging voices as it were. But the truth of the matter is that each of us is consistently indwelled with potential. One may then ponder, what exactly is potential? Potential, having or showing the capacity to become or develop. Potential defined as talent and latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness, perhaps an additional ability currently lying dormant, an untapped strength, even an unused success, hidden talents not yet harnessed, new muscles or passions that have not been maximized to the fullest extent of their capabilities. You may be saying to yourself, Dr. Smith, are you legitimately challenging us, the new fellows, some of the best and brightest within our profession, with proven track records of success and service, with needing to unleash our untapped potential within? The answer is yes. That is precisely what I am charging each and every one of you with today. Let me offer you a story, a true story. My 102-year-old grandmother, who was born and raised in rural southeastern Alabama, whose family still owns over 600 acres of land on which her grandparents toiled as free chattel slave labor, she left the farm and field life with a husband and seven children in tow for life in New York, Long Island, Nassau County, the city of Freeport specifically. This was in the early 1960s and they became the first African-American family to own a home in what was then an all-Jewish enclave. Raising all seven of her children to become healthcare workers, military officers, policemen and several college graduates. She became a cosmetologist and a nurse's aide, career-wise, but her greatest impact was through her faith and church. Assault after lace speaker and preacher, she defied gender norms of the day. Some of my earliest childhood memories of this grandmother that was criss-crossing the country preaching, organizing prayer vigils and revivals would be her often dropping in on our Columbia, South Carolina home just in time to pick me up from elementary school. Never having had the opportunity to pursue education beyond her famed Rosenwald segregated high school, a rural boarding school in fact, in her late 60s she went back to school and obtained a certificate in religious studies. Despite her decades-long affiliation with a denomination who actually refused to ordain women, she was licensed and ordained in 1988 at the age of 70 years of age. To full Christian ministry by Bishop Carlton Pearson, one of the foremost Pentecostal pastors and scholars at that time. Even though we had to take her car keys away when she was 94 years old, she often today reminds us, given the expansive license renewal periods these days, that she is in fact still a licensed driver. So I'm sure you're thinking, well that's a great story Carlos, but what are you driving towards? I'm glad you asked. My grandmother has a colloquial saying, it goes like this, while you're still in the land of the living, there is work for you to do. If I can borrow from my grandmother today, my goal is to convey a similar message and charge to you this very day. No matter your age, your accolades, accomplishments, your experiences, failures, and successes, there is still an untapped potential within you. Something or perhaps even someone, you have the ability to influence for good, for the better. While undoubtedly you have accomplished much thus far in life, we must pause and ask, is there more that I can still do? Is there more where I can make a difference? What is the next act for you, even if it's a finale? If you haven't guessed by now, I'm a history buff. One of my favorite people to read about, learn from, and quote, is the late great Dr. Benjamin Elijah Maze, a native of Greenwood County, South Carolina, Dr. Maze was a pioneering educator, scholar, civil rights, and community leader who is most well known as a direct mentor and influencer on the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Maze served nearly three decades as the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, the undergraduate alma mater of Dr. King. During his tenure as president of Morehouse College, Maze constantly recited to his students this anonymous poem, I have only just a minute, only 60 seconds in it, forced upon me, can't refuse it, didn't seek it, didn't choose it. But it's up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it, give account if I abuse it. It's a tiny little minute, but eternity is in it. With this mantra, Dr. Maze consistently encouraged his students and future change agents to use time wisely because time is fleeting. For Maze, the nature of time requires that each person, each of us, be both deliberate and wise. So fellows and friends, my appeal to you today is simple. If all I have said today fails to be retained, remember this, your minute is not in fact up. The clock has not expired. What will you do with the time you have left?