Portera delivers speech in record time

In delivering Mississippi State's summer commencement address Aug. 7, the university's first-year president set a brevity record previously held by author John Grisham.

Malcolm Portera, president since January, told his audience that he recently had learned the shortest Mississippi State graduation address to date lasted about 11 minutes.

"Today, I'm going for the record," the MSU alumnus said before launching into remarks that consumed less than 10 minutes.

Though Portera did not mention Grisham by name, university officials confirmed later that the best-selling author purposely prepared his remarks to top a 12-minute speech delivered to graduates in the 1980s by longtime vice president Theodore K. Martin. Grisham, a 1977 MSU graduate, was the 1992 spring commencement speaker.

"You can compete with anybody in the world," Portera told Andy J. Giacone, Shannon L. McCoy and other graduates, in making the first of his three major points.

Giacone, a banking and finance major from McComb, and McCoy, a dual-degree major in international business from Ripley, later were honored during the ceremony for completing their studies with all As. They were among some 800 receiving degrees.

Portera also urged the graduates to find work "that you love" and to "remember to give back to your community, your country, your profession, and even your university."

He reminded the audience that this generation of students, more than any preceding it, "will be called upon to adapt to more and faster change than any generation in history." To function successfully in "the turbulent future," he told the graduates: "You will need much more than the store of information you have accumulated or the incomprehensible volumes of information to which you have access.

"More important will be the skills and attitudes that I believe you have developed here," he added. "Among them: the ability to think critically, communicate clearly and recognize that you must never, never stop learning."