 Please join me in 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 and God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Good evening. Welcome to NCSSM's 36th Convocation. I have the pleasure of introducing our dignitaries this evening. Please hold your applause until everyone has been introduced. As I call your name, please stand. NCSSM Chancellor Todd Roberts, Convocation Speaker Maria Trent, Class of 1987, Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs Katie O'Connor, President of Student Government Vikram Akat, President of Student Senate Adam Schmidt, Board of Trustees members Steve Griffin, Eric Hall, Hugh Holston, Colin Larson, Tom Looney, Minnie Matau, Tom Williams, Foundation Board members Murray Aberson, Class of 1983, Brad Ives, Class of 1982, former NCSSM Chancellors John Frederick, Chuck Elber. Thank you. Good evening again to everyone. I'm Chancellor Todd Roberts, and I want to welcome you to the 36th Convocation for the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. I want to thank our distinguished guests and our faculty and staff and our students for being here this evening. And it's also wonderful to have so many of Dr. Trent's family here with us this evening. It's a pleasure for you to be here, and we're happy you made the trip with Dr. Trent. I know you all are so proud of her accomplishments, much as we are at NCSSM, and we're proud to have her this evening as our commencement, I mean our Convocation Speaker. It's also wonderful to have members of our faculty here, our Meredith faculty, two of our former heads of school, our foundation board, and our board of trustees. And students, I hope you enjoy seeing all of these people here this evening. Many have traveled from afar to be here, and appreciate the type of legacy that you're a part of and how important the school is to so many different people. I hope, students, I hope each of you has had a wonderful first day of classes and that all of you are settling in for what I'm certain is going to be a wonderful school year. We're very happy that all 680 of you are here with us. I want to take this opportunity to welcome our speaker, Dr. Maria Trent, for being here this evening. Dr. Trent is a graduate of the class of 1987, and as you will hear in a few minutes, has had a remarkable career. I believe that you will all be very interested in what she has accomplished since graduating from NCSSM. I'm so pleased each year that we start 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 about the school and their willingness to give back to it. Whether it's through their financial support that allows us to provide you with many of the opportunities you have day in and day out over your two years at NCSSM, or whether it's by giving of their time and talent like Dr. Trent is doing tonight. Through her presence and story, she's providing you with a chance to dream about the possibilities that are yours to achieve in years ahead. 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 would not be here. Not all of your stories are the same. You come from all over the great state of North Carolina representing 87 of our 100 counties. And you bring with you a diversity of experiences that make you all different people. But you all share a commitment to learning, to being successful in school, and a desire to accept the greater challenge and to design your future. That's why you're all here, and that's why we are all here to help you succeed. Class of 2017, I know that you've been provided with a lot of information over the past few days, and I bet you're a little bit overwhelmed about now. But I hope you're excited for what lies ahead. Seniors? Well, one thing is for sure, you're probably glad you're not juniors at this point. But I am sure you still have the same excitement for what lay ahead of you during your very busy next several months. And seniors, come May, while you'll still be glad you're not a junior at that point. I bet you'll wish you had just a little bit more time here. So with that in mind, just how fast your two years at NCSSM will go, I hope each of you makes the most of and enjoys every minute of the year ahead. So at this time, I'd like to introduce Dr. Katie O'Connor to introduce our convocation speaker. Good evening, and let me add my greetings to our special guests, our excellent faculty and staff, parents, friends of NCSSM, and to our fantastic students, the class of 2016 and class of 2017. It's my distinct pleasure to introduce our convocation speaker to you. She's a very impressive and talented person who has degrees from Yale University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Harvard School of Public Health, and most importantly, NCSSM. On the back of your program, there's a wonderful summary you can see of our speaker. So instead of repeating those accolades tonight, I will supplement with a few numbers for you. So let's start with the number 208. 208. This is the number of invited talks and workshops she has presented or facilitated. 96. The number of junior faculty, medical residents, or research students she has mentored. 73. The number of peer-reviewed scientific articles, editorials, or book chapters she has published. 22. Although she looks 22, that's not her age. It's the number of sponsorships and grants she has completed or is actively working on for a total of over $3.5 million of funding. The number three, three treasures in her life who are sitting here in the front row. I'd like to recognize her husband, Dr. Gregory Hampton, a professor of Howard University, and her two children, Safi and Hadori, and we have a special gift for you. Thank you. You can wear these to remember the special evening honoring your mother, or each time you wear that shirt, try to talk to your parents and move back to North Carolina so you can come to NCSSM. And finally, the number one for one special memory. Our speaker told me that NCSSM was a place that encouraged her to build relationships, and she loved making friends from around North Carolina. She said NCSSM was a wonderful experience for her because of the family environment. So please help me welcome her back to her NCSSM family, Dr. Maria Trent. Good evening. I am absolutely excited to be here. I wanted to thank Dr. Warsaw and Dr. O'Connor for inviting me and Dr. Roberts for having me. I am absolutely grateful and overwhelmed with honor to have the opportunity to return to our school to participate in this important ceremony. I really feel, I have already felt welcome here. I was here a couple of hours ago, actually. We just rode into Durham and I was actually tearful, so I'm hoping that I can actually move this fort without becoming tearful because I wanted to be lovely for you. Some of the best experiences in my life occurred either while I was here or because I was here. It is my hope to give you a few words that not only inspire you to continue to do good work but think carefully about the decisions you make moving forward. You see, there have been just a few times in my life in which people saw me, I mean really saw me, and it is in those moments that I have been afforded great opportunity and the inspiration to believe in my own courage and act on my own ambition. My goal is to share with you a bit about those experiences and how they changed me. In this moment I will paraphrase a quote from Octavia Butler that my husband often uses in his writing and teaching about science fiction that all that you touch, you change and likewise it changes you. I grew up in Hertford, a small rural town on the east coast of North Carolina in Perquimans County. I am told that it's Native American name means land of beautiful women which I found promising as a child in terms of my ultimate development. I was recently described by my peers from that era as one of the smartest people they knew. I confessed that I was that kind of kid that rarely took a book home. I did all my homework before the end of the school day and leisurely spent the evenings in grossed and ballet, band or other extracurricular activities. I was cocky with my intellect scoring in the 99th percentile, standardized tests, challenging teachers about corrections to my work that seemed inaccurate from my perspective and my ego was intact. An important emotional protection for a lanky girl with glasses and braces who was coming of an age at a time in the life course when beauty and cogeniology were important. I was deeply religious and believed that as long as I did the right thing by myself and others that I would be blessed I was surrounded by peers in a community who used the raising resistors strategy to prepare youth with potential in a segregated community using a mix of love, support and honesty about the realities of the world. Instead of being shunned, which is sometimes the case, they came to respect me for my intellect and conviction and I wore it like a badge of honor and then I came here. Suddenly I wasn't the smartest person anymore. There were cool kids from the big cities who were already taking advanced placement classes that weren't even offered at my high school. There were those who could go home for dinner and after a hard day and get recharged by family and friends, it was also here that I finally faced the difficult subject and one to which I had no prior exposure, chemistry taught by Dr. Connect. It was here that a teacher first expressed doubt in my ability and it made me dig in. Perhaps it was his way of seeing me or challenging me. Even so, I knew I could not give up because well, that's not my personality and further, I'd always planned to be a physician and I knew mastery of chemistry and many iterations to come. General chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry were just a part of the package. I also felt that my local community was counting on me. It wasn't the blatant we're counting on you but a pride from friends who welcomed me back on long weekends in the way old ladies whispered affirmations of support and would press a few dollars in my hand so that I would have some spending money and that said, we believe in you. Moving from that segregated world in the late 80s also meant that being successful here was almost a political issue at home to prove what people like me could achieve. So it was here where the road got tough that I had to exert change over my situation. I had to recreate myself, identify my weaknesses, build on my strengths and to recover my ego where I had temporarily discarded it as inoperative. There were things, three things I had to do to do this. First, I had to actually learn how to study and to be more collaborative. Being smart here is not enough to be successful and being a part of being smart here was being collaborative relationships with peers for learning. While chemistry was not necessarily my thing I was quite good with math and biological sciences and rather than envy my peers who had prior chemistry exposures I valued them as we all worked together to achieve. I also learned in my longer career path that scientific discovery requires teamwork and collaboration by individuals with different skills and talents. Being creative, being able to be creative and to create effective research teams is now at the core of my ability to answer important clinical questions and develop meaningful solutions that translate into improved health innovation through innovation. My current team consists of people who are all very different but who bring different skills to the table. They range from bench scientists using novel basic science techniques to determine the presence of emerging patients in our participants. Using laboratory tests they're not even commercially available for general use and computer programmers who have made my vision of automated interactive person-based communication using cell phone technology come alive. Administrators who create audio computerized assisted interviews using my voice to interview patients for impure quality of data collection. Engineers and biostatisticians who help analyze complicated relationships between biological behavioral and raw text messaging data as a window for understanding clinical outcomes and patients. There are also nurses and outreach workers who deliver the intervention and help keep vulnerable patients and hard to reach youth engaged in the study. Their roles are all very different but important parts of the scientific process require to execute just one randomized controlled trial. My first foray into creating collaborative scientific networks was here. Second, I had to find something outside of schoolwork to grounding. My roommates and new best friend Felicia was the star basketball player. Even though I spent 12 years extensively studying ballet, I thought I'm tall. People are always asking me if I play basketball how hard can this be? It was hard. Let's just say every tall person should not attempt playing basketball no matter how graceful they think they are. I later heard about the track team and started running with a senior, Melissa, a few times a week to the reservoir to get ready for the spring season. I remember the first practice as if it was yesterday. Science and math did not have a track nor does it have a track now. So we ran down to Duke's East Campus around campus, had a talk of some sort and stretched and then ran back. It was the longest run about five miles. As I rolled into campus about to hurl, I was encouraged by Emmanuel Waddell, another senior member of the team. I was certain that my display of weakness would mean my elimination. But as it turns out, I was one of the few people, new people to make it back. Mark Adams was knowledgeable, experienced and committed to seeing us through. There was also the story of him being an Olympian during the 1980s boycott and that his specialty was the Olympic meters and that solidified my trust in his ability as a coach. Simply put, he had athletic cred. We, on the other hand, had old t-shirts with faded unicorns on them and wore used spikes from supplies he'd accumulated over time. But somehow we became a really respectable team and that surprised people. We ate and traveled together as a team. Track, like my other new experiences, required that I work hard, collaborate and learn strategically to be successful. It also became my outlet. People sometimes describe my attaining as a state record in my junior year in the 800 meters and two in the 800 and 1600 meters in my senior year as a huge accomplishment, particularly since I did not run track at my local high school. Perquimus County did not actually have a girls track team. Note that I really consider myself an athlete. In retrospect, the reality was that I had used the years of conditioning and training in the field of ballet to shape my body and mind towards competing and was able to use that to compete in a new sport. I needed to transform prior experiences into something useful. I also had peer mentors like Amy Bingham who was an amazing long distance runner and the quiet star of our team. I realized now that Coach Adams purposefully paired me with her. She gave me something to aspire to, exuded leadership and sportsmanship by example, and taught me how to both pace myself and challenge myself. Athletics was extracurricular, but in academic exercise, nonetheless. Finally, I had to hold true to the things that allowed me to maintain my peace. I stumbled onto a small church across the street from our campus that was on the way to the mall when you go through the back way, not along the main street. Cutting through the local neighborhood and on Sundays, I would sit there by myself and it would remind me of my small country church that my great-grandfather founded and to participate in the altar prayer as I had been taught growing up, having faith that everything would work out. For two years I went there, never engaging anyone or changing my pattern. However, on the Sunday before graduation, one of the members who I had not met stood up to introduce me to the congregation. He was an assistant coach for another local track team. I had come in graduation, my acceptance to Yale, the details of my track awards and acknowledged my dedication to my education and my faith. While caught off guard and a bit embarrassed, he saw me and I realized that by staying focused on my work, being true to my new and old friends and falling in love with sport, someone saw me and it was just what I needed and each of these experiences I describe an adult saw me. It wasn't always a comfortable feeling but a good thing nonetheless. Edith Driver, the biology teacher of Perquimance County, who nominated me for this program, she saw me. Dr. Connect and Mark Adams challenged me. Their styles were different but the results similar. Ron Maxwell let me sing in the gospel choir even though my singing is on par with my basketball skills. Dr. Warren Baskett gave me my first real summer job after graduation so I could earn money before I went to Yale. My cousin Sharita, a graduate student at Duke, let me sleep on her couch that summer and was my connection to home and my NCSS friends from that time. Felicia, Robbie, Jerry, Helen, Leon, Oscar and Ray, they accepted me for who I was. My local community saw me and provided a safety net beneath me. The parishioners in that little church in this neighborhood saw me and afforded me the space I needed never moving me out of my comfort zone but looking out for me nonetheless. The state of North Carolina this place, this community both on campus and off campus is doing something special for adolescents with potential. The fact that you all hail a church in small rural urban coastal and Appalachian wealthy middle class and poor bringing nothing but your potential provides an opportunity to begin a new trajectory that will allow you to effect change through scientific discovery. The fact that the school was designed just this way to find potential and talent from across the state makes it even more special. The return on the investment for the state has been significant. Further, scientists and mathematicians will solve many of the problems currently facing our society. However, we must be careful not to just use science to generate new economies or articles that no one reads. Understanding the public investment in our development means that we must also produce work that benefits society. I see that commitment of students in my molecule, Kristen Lee, who graduated here many years after me. The multiple graduates of NCSSFM who have reached out to me over the last week or so from the Hopkins campus after receiving the most recent newsletter and even in my two colleagues who graduated from replica schools in South Carolina and Illinois. Coming back here has challenged me to think about adolescents and what adolescents and adults need today. Over the last two years, I have struggled as a pediatrician and mother in the divestment and urban minority youth when being hurt and unheard erupted in violence in Baltimore this year. I realized that we have to be more creative and committed to change. A few weeks ago when coming from a meeting at the Baltimore City Health Department, I stood at the corner of Pennsylvania and North Avenues, a part of Baltimore that was at the heart of the violence. I was overwhelmed by the thickness of urban poverty and the despair almost feeling guilty for the gifts that I have been given. Many of those gifts came from the state of North Carolina caring teachers at my local high school the exceptional opportunity offered to me by science and math some opportunities during college an institute of government internship and a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. In Maryland, we must now model the people of the state of North Carolina but also figure out strategies to not only invest like you who have obvious potential but also those who feel unheard and unseen in our society. It is why I have and will continue to climb my own career ladder with one hand reaching back to bring someone else along. As a physician and researcher specializing in adolescent medicine I understand adolescent development and how my brain was wired in 1985. Coming here from the safety of my small town was a huge risk no parents to guide my every decision or rescue me from every little crisis to make me study or to determine how I spent my time no texting no FaceTiming either but I didn't hesitate to accept the challenge and neither did my parents they understood that it was a critical step in my path to becoming a successful and independent adult. As I leave you I want to reassure you and your parents that this decision this risk that you are taking is the right one. Data show that the tension created by allowing young people to manage their own futures while providing them with a safety net results in stronger more resilient adults. This place allowed me to see who I was and to glimpse a brighter future than I had previously envisioned for myself. After dropping my daughter off at her first overnight camp a couple of weeks ago I understand how hard it is for parents to just get in their car and leave how hard it was for my mother to send both of her daughters away to go on this journey. I know that this is the first time I've ever seen a child who is financially one for college at UNC and the other for NCSSM but even as you shed a tear and this is to the parents who might be listening even if you share a tear when you tear on the ride home you'll be proud that your son and daughter is willing to go on this journey. Even as you change use science and mathematics for the public good and when you have the chance be prepared to pass on this gift by bringing someone else along. Congratulations and welcome to the club. Thank you Dr. Trent for sharing with us your inspiring story and advice. First off I would like to formally welcome everyone to the 36th Convocation of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. To my fellow seniors out there congratulations on reaching this point. We've completed what has probably been one of the most challenging and yet most rewarding years that any high school in North Carolina will ever have to face. And even though graduation is only nine months and nine days away we have to make sure that we enjoy every moment that we have left here. Enter the juniors out there welcome to what will be probably the most life changing experience of your academic tenure. Now as Dr. Roberts put every single one of us comes here with a different story, a different background and from crazy different places across North Carolina yet when we step here to add NCSSM we're all suddenly connected. You can talk to someone that came to NCSSM from two years ago or even 20 years ago but yet you're able to connect with them and talk with them on the same level. This is because when we put on our cap and gown and sit on Watts lawn for graduation every single one of us will have spent those crazy nights cramming for Amsterdam essays, hours doing mini-term following our favorite passions and begrudgingly doing our housekeeping because our RLAs are screaming at us. And even though NCSSM provides us with a common ground it's important to always be true to yourself and stay the amazing individual you are. A great childhood professor of mine, Dr. Seuss once said be who you are and say who you feel because those who mine don't matter and those who matter don't mind. You'll find success in a supporting group of friends here at NCSSM by being the same amazing individual that got into this school earlier this year. But don't get me wrong there will be times where you doubt yourself are unsure of where you're going or don't really know what to do and when times like this happen I want you to remember that you were accepted to the school for a reason because you are truly the best and brightest that North Carolina has to offer and it's during this that I want you to look around and see that throughout your journey you'll be surrounded by the wonderful people in this auditorium and they'll always be there to help you. Your classmates will become your family your support group and the people who will help you achieve the success that you'll be able to do. I wouldn't be where I am today without any of my friends and there will be points at which we experience a failure that we probably would have never had to see at our old schools where we probably did things very easily and didn't have to look behind us but as the year goes on and some things might not go your way you might fail your first test and might not get into the program that you really wanted to Oprah Winfrey told the Harvard class of 2013 that there is no such thing as failure that failure is simply life's way of leading you in a better direction and that statement embodies the NCSM experience NCSM is a place where you'll find a plethora of opportunities at every step you go when it seems like one door is closing on you you only have to look around to see all the other doors just waiting for you to step through and NCSM is a place where every result you have will be the work of your dedication so from cutthroat spoon holding competitions to majestic cultural performances on this very stage NCSM holds so much both inside and outside of the classroom NCSM offers a unique learning experience that will change all those who walk through these halls in a way that no textbook ever will the reason that this school is the heavy way it is today is because of every single teacher faculty student and administrator in this building who works day in and day out to achieve the success that we all came here to obtain and so my last piece of advice to you is this is to make sure that you slow down and take the moment to enjoy yourself here if you come to NCSM and view as solely a catalyst for college you'll never be able to have the fun that NCSM has I want you to take the time to traverse every inch of Durham NC to meet new people who are wildly different than yourself and to finally pick up a book to read and with that my fellow classmates I'd like to wish you good luck and what will probably be the best year that NCSM has had yet thank you thank you Vikram and again thank you to Dr. Trent for your inspiring words and for being with us this evening well as we close our 36th convocation at NCSM I want to thank the members of our convocation committee who and everyone else who made this evening possible again I want to thank Dr. Trent for being such an inspiring speaker and role model for all of our students and all of us in the words that she gave us I'd also like to take an opportunity to thank Mr. Laird and our orchestra here for playing this evening, thank you for that again thank you to all of our honored guests for being here this evening and your great support of NCSM and as I said when I started I think you can appreciate the legacy that you're joining by the fact that so many are here tonight to honor you and to our faculty and staff thank you for all your work in helping us get the 2015-16 school year off to a great start the start of the school year is always filled with great excitement and with possibilities that come with starting anything new so students 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 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'll have greater opportunities and greater challenges than ever before every one of you has the talent and ability to be as successful here as you have been in school all these years prior every member of our faculty and staff were here to help you succeed and you will find that there are no better and more committed professionals anywhere that you will go to school easily or after however it is your commitment to being successful that is most important more so than any other thing we spent a great deal of time over the past couple of years asking alumni and students how they would describe what their experience at NCSSM meant to them and how they believe we should best articulate that experience one of the common threads of what we heard was that NCSSM provided them the opportunity to design their future this opportunity this is your opportunity to design your future whether in the classroom, research labs on campus or off on playing fields or on stage out in the community providing service to others or on hall make the most of your time here explore your interests, grow your passions strive for your best and strive to make those those around you better NCSSM is a place that has an outstanding 35 year tradition of challenging and inspiring students it's also a place where we look forward each year focused on the future your future which is rich with possibility Unicorns the 2015-16 school year is yours yours for the challenge it presents yours for the learning it offers and yours for the opportunities before you I look forward to working with you this year into your great success so again congratulations to the start of the 2015-16 school year so after we recess from the auditorium there is a reception planned on the lawn for each of us to be there so I look forward to getting a chance to talk to all of you out on the lawn as we recess and again thank you for this evening and thank you for being at NCSSM good evening