CSU graduates aim for success, significance

Diane Knich
The Post and Courier

Charleston Southern University students Keri Yarborough (from right), Bonnie Williams, Rachel Stainback and Virginia Smith line up Saturday for commencement.

Charleston Southern University graduate Rachel Stainback, dressed in cap and gown, lined up for the school's commencement ceremony Saturday knowing her family's life was about to get a little easier.

Stainback, 25, was one of 300 students who graduated with bachelor's or master's degrees at the school's spring commencement at the North Charleston Coliseum.

And she was one of 19 students who earned a bachelor of science in nursing.

Stainback, who's married and has a 5-year-old son, already has a job lined up at a hospital. The extra paycheck will help her family a great deal, she said.

Soon, she hopes she and her husband will be able to buy a second car. The couple had

shared one while Stainback was in school.

She knew nurses were in demand when she entered nursing school. But she didn't know how tough the program would be, she said. It was 'a rude awakening' academically.

Stainback said she didn't have to study much in high school. But nursing 'requires a lot of critical thinking. It requires you to think differently,' she said.

Tara Hulsey, dean of the Derry Patterson Wingo School of Nursing,

said it takes a lot of dedication to get through the program. 'You have to be called to do it, to be passionate about it,' she said.

But it's a popular program at Charleston Southern, she said. In the fall of 2007, 181 freshmen had declared pre-nursing as their major, she said.

Students who graduate with a bachelor's degree in nursing 'can go pretty much wherever they want to go,' Hulsey said.

Stainback also said she was glad she chose to attend a Christian university where she could freely talk about her faith and gratitude without feeling out of place.

The commencement speaker was George Greene, chairman of Water Missions International, a Charleston-based nonprofit, Christian organization that serves the water and sanitation needs of people in developing countries and disaster areas.

Greene told graduates that they should strive for lives full of 'success and significance.'

Being successful includes getting a good education, a good job and raising a family, he said. But living a significant life means doing things that make the world a better place. To live such a life, he told students, it's important to 'love your neighbor as yourself.'

Greene said he and his wife were running their own environmental consulting company when Hurricane Mitch hit Central America 10 years ago, killing an estimated 11,000 people in Honduras.

'Very clearly,' Greene said, 'I heard the Lord say, ‘You need to help these people.'?'

So his company brought six water systems that would provide potable drinking water, along with relief supplies, to the devastated area, he said.

Through that experience, he learned about 'the global water crisis,' he said. More than 20 percent of people in the world don't have access to clean, safe water and proper sanitation.

Providing safe water to those people, along with carrying a Christian message, became his mission, he said, the work that made his life significant.

He encouraged students, as they begin the next phase of their lives, to enter careers that 'combine great success with great significance.'

Reach Diane Knich at 937-5491 or dknich@postandcourier.com.