The Class of 2016 helped the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts reach an impressive milestone this year — breaking the $200 million mark in scholarship offers to graduates since the charter class graduated in 1995.
This year’s class of 96 graduates earned more than $18.9 million in scholarship offers. That pushed the total amount of scholarship offers to all ASMSA graduates to more than $204 million. The achievement was announced during the Class of 2016 commencement held May 21 at Horner Hall at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
Scholarships offered to the class included to the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Arkansas, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Hendrix College and the University of Central Arkansas, among others.
The scholarship total was one of many achievements of the Class of 2016. The class included six National Merit Scholarship Finalists, one National Achievement Finalist, five students qualifying to compete at and three students winning awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a U.S. Presidential Scholar semifinalist, a Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology semifinalist and many other honors.
Speakers at the event reflected the effort and determination that members of the class demonstrated in their achievements. Senior Kennedy Reynolds of Conway reflected on a poster she had on her wall when she moved on campus two years ago. The poster from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum featured the seal of the Apollo XIII mission and the words “Failure is not an option.”
Reynolds and her classmates would soon find out that failure was more than just an option, but instead was an expectation of students at some point during their ASMSA career. She figured it out after failing a pop quiz, she said.
“As I moved forward, however, I realized that, as dismal as this may sound, in failing that quiz, I had done what was expected of me and any other student at ASMSA. I had confronted new, unfamiliar material that no one expected me to understand immediately. What my parents, teachers and RM did expect me to do was to move on from that failure to make progress toward eventual success,” she said.
She said that looking back on that experience and others that she found she agreed with the phrase on her poster but for a different reason. Failure was not an option but “an unavoidable part of any endeavor that all students, teachers and parents must confront.
“But when we fail, as we inevitably will at some point or other, we must lift ourselves up from that low point and look forward. We are not defined by our shortcoming, our temporary setbacks or our momentary missteps. Rather, it is our response to failure that ultimately determines our success.”
Director Corey Alderdice spoke about the “grit — that intangible, immeasurable quality that mixes passion and perseverance” that ASMSA students demonstrate. “It is dogged determination to see failure as a temporary setback and the willingness to push forward past the obstacle,” he said.
Alderdice said it is that mix of passion and perseverance over time that will determine how the graduates will face their biggest challenges that lie ahead of them. How they use their grit to react to those challenges will be a determining factor in their successes and failures.
“I hate to break it to you, but there will come a day when you will work hard, try your best, do everything you could possibly think of and still fall short of success. But that does not have to be the end of your story because as long as you are willing to learn what you can from the experience and continue to push yourself to move forward, everything will be OK,” he said.
Anna Beth Gorman, executive director of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, served as the guest commencement speaker. She shared a story about her own high school career in which she was placed in a class she was not prepared to take.
During her junior year, she was placed in Honors Physics after asking to be placed in a class in which she would not have to do a science project or calculus. She failed several quizzes, but instead of the class becoming a disaster something else happened. Her classmates became determined that they would not let her fail. She began receiving tutoring from a fellow student and the class banded together to help her succeed, she said.
“My class literally would not let me fail, and with their support and help, I passed Honors Physics,” she said.
She said she shared the story because it was important for the ASMSA graduates be congratulated for how talented each were and to be told they have the ability to use their talents to achieve more than the goals they set for themselves.
“You have the ability to help someone like me pass Honors Physics,” she said. “It is not so memorable that I passed the class, but more memorable of the time that was spent with my peers lifting me up. I have never forgotten that lesson.
“Your potential, your future will be defined not by your individual successes, but by the impact of your efforts and successes on people around you, your community, the society and the world. True achievement, the kind that we will talk about forever is recognized by a collective.”
Gorman encouraged the students to consider the environment in which they have had the privilege to be involved the last two years — where their interests, skills and talents were applauded, nurtured and challenged. She reminded them that not every high school graduate had been given those same educational opportunities.
“Consider the students graduating this month who have not had these many opportunities and value the investment that has been placed on you and the potential you have to make an impact on those around you,” she said.
She said there will be many frustrations in the future and the graduates may be discouraged by what they see, hear and feel in the future. Gorman encouraged them to not think only about themselves in those moments.
“It will be at these moments that you have to remember your potential, see the end vision and then figure out a way to bring people with you to make that vision a reality. … It was the state of Arkansas that gave you the chance to be the best, and you are. And that’s good. Now, go be better,” she said.
Rex Hearn of Bryant, who served as Student Government Association president during his senior year, addressed his fellow graduates as well. Hearn said they hadn’t “survived” ASMSA.
“We’ve done more than survive it though, because if you say we survived it, there’s not really a good context there. We survive troubles and diseases, but ASMSA is neither of those. No, we didn’t merely survive this school. We’ve taken and conquered it,” he said.
Hearn and Reynolds presented Alderdice and Bob Gregory, dean of academic affairs, with the Class of 2016 gift — a clock that will be hung in the proposed Creativity and Innovation Complex when it is completed in future years.