Message to Students
As a very proud alumnus (class of ‘83) and long time administrator for Rocky Mountain College, I have had the very good fortune to play a small part in the extraordinary success of literally thousands of our graduates. Our alumni own small businesses, manage multi-national organizations, are lawyers, doctors, educators, politicians, actors, musicians, professional athletes and leaders throughout the world. Working with this extraordinary group of people over the years, I believe I’ve identified a few common characteristics of successful Rocky Mountain College students that perhaps you might find informative if not inspirational. With many years of experience at RMC, I offer a few of my observations for your consideration.
As students, our most successful alumni were:
- Passionate about virtually every aspect of their lives at RMC. These people seized opportunities as they presented themselves and often created opportunity for themselves. Many of the benefits students enjoy today are the direct result of past student initiative. Some examples that spring to mind include the Student Center, campus technology, the Yoder Lounge and the DeRosier Educational Resource Center, to name just a few.
- Loyal to their family, friends, teachers, mentors and advisors. Loyal to those people that lent a hand when they could and those that demanded better when it was necessary.
- Curious about nearly everything, from their academic/intellectual pursuits to how to lead a student group. These alums regularly questioned themselves and others with the same simple question: why?
- Confident in themselves and perhaps more importantly, confident in others. Rarely does a new student arrive at the College fully secure in themselves and their ability; however, successful graduates quickly learn they are capable of much more than they previously thought and it’s this insight that inspires them to seek and expect more for themselves and from others.
- Honest to themselves about their abilities, honest about who they were, and honest about who they wanted to become. Our students are not perfect, they misstep and make mistakes, but the successful students own those mistakes and refuse to let those mistakes own them.
- Partners with the College, sharing responsibility for their education with the entire College community, yet taking the greatest burden upon themselves. These alumni are the ones that took the hard classes - even if they were only offered at 7:45 a.m., developed close relationships with faculty and advisors, they lead a student organization (or two or three), they were part of the College choir, band, theater, football team, basketball team, etc… In short, these are the students that lead their friends, peers and the institution.
- Stewards of the institution and their RMC experience. Recognizing early on that RMC’s reputation is their reputation, our successful alumni fiercely defend the institution, our people and our facilities. Today our alumni are actively involved in the life of the College and are proud of their values. They often share their success stories and to this day, they will let us know if we’ve done something that, in their minds, hurts the College or our reputation.
No doubt, there is a great tradition of success at Rocky Mountain College as exemplified by our current students and exceptional alumni, and the Student Life division is committed to building on that tradition of success. We encourage you to join our partnership by getting involved in a student activity, club, or organization. Commit to a challenging internship, study abroad experience or volunteer opportunity.
I encourage you to be an active part of the College community and make your RMC experience another in a long line of success stories.
Good luck this year and please, keep in touch.
Sincerely,
Brad A. Nason
V.P. for Student Life
