Poet Walter Griffin told the 2007 graduating class of Gordon College that they shouldn�t believe pundits who say the world is doomed. "This old beat up world will survive because of you. The promise of tomorrow lives in you."

 Griffin was the College's graduation speaker in an outdoor ceremony on May 12, in the 155th year of the school's existence. The 2007 class totaled 422 students and 218 marched on Saturday.

 The former Master-Poet-in-Residence for the Georgia Council for the Arts and Humanities drew upon his own experience as a student at Gordon from 1951 to 1954. He said he remembered being seated next to then President Col. Lanier Morgan in the mess hall. Griffin said he was terrified and paralyzed with shyness, and when Morgan offered him his cake, Griffin said no thank you.

 The colonel persisted, telling Griffin he had never known a boy who wouldn't want a second piece of cake. The poet said he never had anyone speak to him with such "paternal kindness" before and that he took it and ran with it for the rest of his life.

 "If you haven't found out what it is you want to do yet, don't lose faith," Griffin told them. He told them that getting their degree was their first piece of cake, �now get your second piece."

 Gordon College Foundation President Peter Banks awarded the Distinguished Service Award to the Gordon College Alunni Advisory Board which includes Kike Seda, Don Neuner, Sophie Blosser, Dr. Aaron Buice, John Burnette, Charles Covin, Laura Harrison, Marcia Rosenfeld, Lewis Covin, Chuck Copeland, Paul Stinson, Berry Cook, Carol Jenkins and Laurie Chambers Holmes.

 The College's president, Dr. Lawrence V. Weill, extolled the graduates telling them that the school�s nursing graduates have the highest pass rate of the Georgia's board certification board exam and that its transfer students do better at four-year schools than those who started there.