Freshman Convocation is right around the corner and WTAMU students, faculty and alumni are preparing for a night of opportunities and inspiration.
The event will take place Oct. 4 at the First United Bank Center at 5 p.m. According to Kendra Campbell, director of First Year Experience at WT, this year’s guest speaker will be Eric Greitens, author of the 2012 WT Readership book “The Heart and The Fist.
Greitens is the founder and CEO of The Mission Continues, a program dedicated to getting veterans back into service by working and volunteering in their communities. Greitens was a Rhodes Scholar who earned his Ph.D. at Oxford University, and deployed four times as a Navy SEAL and awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.
“I think they will take away the opportunity to see an actual author that has done something that we all know about, becoming a Navy SEAL, and yet he has helped people in a way that most of us take for granted,” Barbara Petty, assistant vice president for Academic Affairs, said.
The event will exhibit WT alumni in full graduation regalia.
“The reason we have convocation is because we want students to visualize what graduation will be like in four years,” Petty said. “It’s to give students the feeling of ‘I want to be here in four years and graduate.’”
Some students also hope to take away from the convocation an inspiration and determination to endure through school until graduation.
“I think students will take away a pre-commitment to stick it through to graduation,” Daniel Bonds, sophomore Sports and Exercise Science major, said.
