Nelson Mandela
Learning for the Future
This month’s library display will focus on student success in its many forms. For our soon-to-be graduates, we will provide information about the Transfer Center. For those students who are looking for a job after graduation, we will refer them to the services available through the Job & Career Information Center. For all of our students we hope to provide snippets of inspiration for learning, for growing, for striving, and for achieving.
It is with great honor that the library features (i am intelligent), a book that chronicles Peyton Goddard’s challenges in life and describes how she was inspired by the community college staff and faculty. Peyton lives with the label of autism and is unable to speak. The synopsis of her books states, “When her mother Dianne brought her to Whittier, California in 1997, to try a new communication strategy for people with autism, she did not expect much. She did not expect her daughter to type the words ‘i am intlgent.’ She did not expect to learn that her daughter possessed a gifted mind and poetic lyricism.”
Peyton became the first person to use facilitated communication to graduate Valedictorian from a U.S. college, (Cuyamaca College class of 2002). Here is part of Peyton’s speech; “Years I thought I would forever eat separate rather than be supported at the table. I thought this epic was impossible. You Cuyamaca, proved it possible.” The news anchor who covered the event said, “The Valedictorian at Cuyamaca College is proof that everyone can achieve if the desire is there.” Stop by the library and see how you can CHANGE YOUR FUTURE.
