EDITORIAL: Making different matter

There’s something about new beginnings and the opportunities and potential they present.
It’s a new year at Coker College with new leadership at the helm, and the outlook is exciting.

Dr. Robert L. Wyatt has assumed the presidency of the college, the 16th president in the history of the private, four-year, liberal arts institution as it embarks on its 102nd academic year. He succeeds Dr. B. James Dawson, who guided Coker to significant growth and development during his tenure and who clearly left Hartsville a better place than he found it.

Dr. Wyatt has already spoken to some extent about his desire to provide more academic opportunities to students at Coker.

He has also said he wants to increase Coker’s contributions to the greater Hartsville community, the region and the state. The community should welcome that.

“Discuss the needs in our community,” he implored students and faculty in his remarks during the college’s annual convocation last week.

“Point out the obvious: the double-digit unemployment rate. The illiteracy rate in South Carolina. Rampant health issues in our region: 61 percent of adults overweight; and 26 percent obese; 9 percent have diabetes; and almost 30 percent have high blood pressure. And show them – really show them – the glaring difference between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’

“In our community, talk about ways that Coker College can make a difference in the community and then lead them in making that difference.”

As president of the college, Dr. Wyatt takes on a key role in the community. Coker College has been enriching Hartsville and making a positive difference in the life of this community for 100 years. As Coker prospers so does Hartsville.

“Later this year, we will use the inauguration of a new president as an opportunity to celebrate our community of scholars and to lift Coker up as a shining example of how education can, and does, make a difference,” Dr. Wyatt said.

“As you will hear much more over the next weeks and months, we also will use this year to construct a plan, a plan that will allow us to continue to excel far into the next decade and beyond.”

Being different, Dr. Wyatt said, matters. “I want us to make different truly matter,” he said.

Too often, he said, talent and ability are not enough to make a person stand out from his or her contemporaries. The same is true of institutions.

“I fear that the ‘field of dreams’ mentality is no longer true,” Dr. Wyatt said. “‘If you build it, they will come’ does not reflect the field of education today. We must continually strive to provide something that is not only worthwhile in itself, but is viewed by others as worthwhile to them.”

Then he offered this admonition: “Do not ever doubt your ability to make a difference. Millions of people are doing it every day. It is time for you to join them. It is time for Coker College to join them in a larger and more significant way.”

Let’s embrace that. One person making a difference in the life of one other person one day at a time. That’s how communities thrive.