Video by PCCTV
The Pima Community College Honors and Phi Theta Kappa Awards and Induction Ceremony was held on Monday, May 12 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the PCC West Campus Center for the Arts. Our very own Jaymes Grace shared a speech to students as their PTK president, which included his experience as a student journalist for The Pima Post.
Check it out in the video above. Read the speech Grace wrote for the event here:
Good evening everyone,
We are all so glad that you are here!
I want to hear lots of cheering! This is a celebration!
Honors students and Honors club members, Phi Theta Kappa members, Honors award winners and graduates of Pima Community College Class of 2025, congratulations! And we are glad you are here!
Those of you I just called out, let us give a big round of applause to those dedicated people who helped to get us here. First above all others, OUR FAMILIES (chosen and otherwise), our parents, your siblings, your awesome children, your partners and friends and neighbors—let’s give them a big thank you with a huge round of applause!!!
And for all the people who over the past two years of our lives (for some of us longer), who have worked diligently to help get us here—our professors, our teachers and instructors, our advisors and our mentors: thank you! Let us thank them with a huge round of applause! You all have made untold differences in our lives!
And if I can (and I think I can ‘cause I have the mic), let us give a nod and shout out to all those who are quote “behind the scenes” running and supporting Pima, thereby supporting each and everyone of us. They are too numerous to mention, yet I will mention a few. For all the librarians, the student employees, embedded mentors, facilities persons, IT, peer to peer mentors, clubs, administrators, staff, Deans, volunteers, and the Pima Foundation: thank you! Let us give them a huge round of applause.
NOW, will all of us gathered here please give a HUGE round of applause for tonight’s Honors award winners, graduates and PTK inductees!
I think as a group, we are generally good when it comes to giving thanks and acknowledgement. But for you student leaders especially, remember to thank those who have helped you in your endeavors and projects. And if you can thank them publicly, do so!
Those of you in Honors or PTK already know that you are in the right place, the best place possible for your future! We are all overachievers in this room and I suspect that many of you came to this place in the same manner that I did. It was my first semester at Pima and my math instructor had given us an assignment to partake in a student activity or club event and write a brief summary of our experience. I assumed I would likely just take in a sporting event. So I went onto Pima Engage, the repository of all the clubs and activities and goings on at Pima. And as I strolled through, I happened across Pima Honors Club and their upcoming virtually held meeting.
Well, I am an admitted overachiever and the sound of an Honors Club immediately sounded like something I wanted to be a part of!
I went, met Kyley Segers, Honors lead advisor, along with other Honors members. Nothing extraordinary was discussed, but I felt comfortable with what I heard so I would continue to go back. What I had no way of knowing at that time was that serendipitous encounter would change my entire academic life! It would help give purpose and direction to my life and future self. EVERYTHING, I have been able to achieve in my Academic career thus far has been because of Honors and PTK.
Honors and PTK are entirely dedicated to your academic success and growth as a student leader and a leader in your community. Now, I don’t want anyone to fret over whether or not you are a leader or should consider yourself one. First off, let me assure you that you are a leader. By virtue of being in this audience, you are a leader. You are the best and the brightest that Pima has to offer. You have led in your academic standards, which is what has brought you here today. So yes, you are a leader among your peers, and it is ok to be aware of that and to acknowledge it.
I learned recently that human beings are akin to water running downhill, that it always takes the path of least resistance. Human beings are naturally the same way. We are programmed to conserve energy. But success doesn’t live downstream, success lives upstream! And you may have to swim against the current of your own nature to reach it.
No one shows up on their first day (anywhere—not to league practice, not to a new job, not to their first club meeting) and shares all of their ideas and skills and talents on that first day! It is not likely that they will jump right into a project. But it is no longer day one. If you haven’t already, find that thing that speaks to you and act upon it! And if it’s more than one thing, that’s okay too! You can pursue more than one thing at a time (and still do it well).
If you want more out of life, you have to become more. You become more by doing. Doing is reading, studying, volunteering, helping others, taking action. It is sharing the thing that you know. Sometimes, and I think often, we know a thing (yet for whatever reason—be it shyness or timidness [not the same thing]), we hold back. We don’t say the thing that we know.
As most of you know, I am a pool player. And this scenario happens to me quite often. I will be watching a teammate shoot his or her match and at a crucial point in the game, I will see them lining up for an incorrect shot. And I know I should say something, but I don’t. And inevitably they miss, and quite often it will directly lead to them losing the game. So then, for at least the next ten minutes, I sit there silently admonishing myself for having not said something.
Remarkably however, on many occasions, the exact same scenario will happen in the very next game and I am able to redeem myself by speaking up and helping my teammate secure a win!
Because of our varied backgrounds and experience, there are things that only you know. Yet, on too many instances we shy away from saying the thing that only we can say. I encourage you to “say the thing”, to step-up and to help someone “secure a win.” Likewise, your involvement in a project will be different from mine or someone else’s. We need you to get involved and bring your uniqueness, your talents and your hopes and your dreams and share them with us, thereby encouraging others to do the same.
Many of you are intuit. You know a thing but are reluctant to act on it. Sometimes it’s small things – like you better not place that cup there cause it’s gonna get knocked over. Or I should have sent a text, spoke to, or called that person—and now this has happened. Follow your intuition. When you feel a thing, it’s for a reason.
Some of you need to interject your voice into the conversation. We need you!
This may be a difficult or challenging time for you, as it is for many of us. A very long time ago I learned that one of the very best things you can do when you are struggling is to focus on someone else.
Present yourself in a way that leaders have full confidence in you leading a project or representing their organization. That when you seek their assistance, no matter how busy they are (and they will be busy), they still respond with “Yes, I would be more than happy to help.”
You can start with simply volunteering at a tabling event. Or by representing your club at an event (even in an informal way by just showing up). I once volunteered to represent Honors and PTK at an event night hosted by Student Life, where students could check out other clubs. I briefly spoke about RISE, one of our Honors community service projects that we host every year. I passed out a brochure for RISE that I had recently made. And that was that. Afterwards. no one spoke to me about RISE or PTK or Honors that evening. No one joined our club as a result.
But what did happen was I met Ambur Wilkerson, who is the lead advisor and editor for The Pima Post, PCC’s digital newspaper. Ambur was at the meeting promoting the Digital Media club. I checked out the club flyer and said to myself “I like to write, and do photography. And I’ve wanted to learn how to host a podcast.” So I joined!
Fast forward to my becoming a reporter for the Post where my first assignment took me to a free concert by Grammy Award winning jazz artist Samara Joy, who I also got to meet and take a picture with and get an autographed copy of her latest album. I would later take JRN 185 where this past semester I received 4 journalism awards, including an award for Editorial Excellence for my coverage of the Pima Arts Musical Showcase this past spring. So now, I have to find a space to squeeze in on my resume, that I am an award winning journalist. All because I showed up for a thing.
‘Cause as Kyley Segers says “Cool serendipity happens when you put yourself out there!”
For those of you graduating this year, congratulations! Thank you for all of your contributions to Honors and PTK. May your future be like the lyrics from Nicki Minaj’s single “Moment 4 Life”: We’ve done everything they can think of, greatness is what we’re on the brink of…
Thank you for letting me share! Thank you Dr. Mead.
Thank you Harvard for fighting!
About: A life-long learner, Jaymes has just completed his freshman year at Pima Community College. Jaymes is a Pima Honors student and holds a leadership position within the program. Currently, Jaymes is the president of the Alpha Beta Chi chapter of the International Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa, where he maintains a 4.0 GPA.
Jaymes is happy being known as a pool player, academic, feminist and dog dad! But additionally, Jaymes is a writer, journalist and social justice advocate.