Dr. Dominick Hart, recently retired dean of Eastern Kentucky University's College of Arts & Sciences, returned to EKU on Friday, Aug. 1, to remind 646 summer commencement degree candidates that "neither wealth nor poverty is a measure of worth and that cost is not an indicator of value."

Hart, who served 33 years at Eastern, the past four as dean, said, "It is well to remember that our own success is not measured by our position, status or wealth - but by the good use to which we put our gifts."

Speaking in Alumni Coliseum, Hart addressed 645 degree candidates - 329 bachelor's degree candidates, 280 master's degree candidates and 37 associate degree candidates.

"I wish you success," Hart said, "the kind of success that is measured by its contribution to the common good. That contribution to the common good ultimately is the source of the satisfaction which gives meaning to our work - to what we do, to who we are."

Hart, now the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at St. Xavier University in Chicago, said, "As graduates of Eastern Kentucky University, you have the pride of being an essential part of the heritage of a university, a community, with a deep commitment to serve.

"Your time to serve is now. We who inhabit the communities which you … do now or will inhabit welcome you and depend upon you as partners who will build and maintain these communities with the talent, the will and the energy which you each so clearly have."

Kristy Moore, of Williamstown, a master's degree candidate in middle grades education, spoke on behalf of the graduates.

"Each one of us may have had one attainable goal that we wanted to reach when we came to Eastern, but along the way we discovered so much more," Moore said. "We are better people now because we have learned more about ourselves and are more aware of the world around us."

Prior to the formal commencement ceremonies, each academic college held a reception for graduates and their guests.