Spring 2007

UNCG Winter Graduates Treated To Pizza With All the Trimmings

Dr. Vidyaranya B. Gargeya, professor of Information Systems and Operations Management and director of the MBA program, was honored as the featured speaker at UNCG’s winter commencement held on Dec. 14 at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Gargeya, recipient of the Alumni Teaching Excellence Award, served up a commencement speech that featured references to “mouth-watering pizza” for the more than 1,400 students who were awarded diplomas during the exercises.

Joking with the crowd that included 192 Bryan School graduates along with his family, Gargeya said that Dr. Ken Snowden, associate professor of Economics, urged him to adhere to the “KISS” principle─ “Keep it short and simple, Socrates”─ when addressing the new graduates. He also thanked his father-in-law for giving him a book titled “Take This Advice: The Most Nakedly Honest Graduation Speeches Ever Given.”

“Keep it short and they will like it. A stroke here and a stroke there…. And that is enough. Like a Picasso,” Gargeya said.

“Whether it is the pizza you ate last night, a painting by Picasso in the last century, or the pyramids of Egypt that have stood the test of time for several millennia, the journey to excellence has continued all along and [is] ever widening,” Gargeya continued.

Robert Michael Kelly, a December MBA graduate who finished his degree after serving in Iraq, was cited by Gargeya as an example of the diversity of students at UNCG who embody excellence.

Gargeya urged the new graduates to “never say never” in their journey towards achievement.

“It’s not where you are at a given moment in time. It is how you have metamorphosed yourself over time,” noted Gargeya. “Enhancing quality and striving for excellence is not for the weak or the meek-hearted.”