Hundreds of incoming MTSU freshmen and their families gathered inside Murphy Center Aug. 25 to be formally welcomed into the Blue Raider family during the annual Convocation ceremony.

Speaker R. Dwayne Betts challenged the new students gathered in Hale Arena to “hold tenaciously on to a dream that will carry you when things are difficult.”

Betts, an author, poet, essayist and national spokesman for the Campaign for Youth Justice, wrote the memoir, “A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison.” His book was selected as the 2013 Summer Reading Selection for MTSU and Rutherford County.

“You’re going to college and part of you says you’ve already made it,” he told students Aug. 25. “But I wonder what part of you is willing to have a dream that makes absolutely no sense right now. Because those are the dreams that change the world.”

University Convocation formally welcomes new freshmen into the MTSU learning community. Faculty members marched in their regalia as the MTSU Band of Blue performed, and the traditions and rituals of the university were explained to the newest members of the MTSU family.

Following Convocation, the annual President’s Picnic was held in the Walnut Grove at the center of campus between the Cope Administration Building and Peck Hall, to celebrate the new academic year.

You can read the complete story at http://mtsunews.com/mtsu-convocation-2013.