Students and employees kicked off the school year Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 at Adventist University of Health Science's convocation. The keynote speaker, President Greenlaw, focused his message on three things he'd like to see take place in students during their college years.

"We want to change you in radical ways," he said, "intellectually, socially, and spiritually." Intellectually, Greenlaw hopes students will grow through exposure to new people, ideas, and subject areas. Though he admitted he remembers very few specifics from college classes such as music and art—two of his most difficult subjects—he sees how they were valuable in expanding his knowledge.

"All of us have a tendency to stay close to our comfort levels in what we like to do," Greenlaw said, but being forced to take classes in challenging subjects "frees us" to understand other cultures and worldviews.

From there students must grow socially as well, finding answers to the questions, "Who are you as a human being and how do you want to react to this thing called life?" The decisions students make today will shape society in the next 20 years, Greenlaw said. He hopes what students will discover at Florida Hospital College is that "every being who lives, lived, or ever will live is God's child," and thus worth treating with care and respect.

Last but not least, as the saying goes, Greenlaw hopes students will change spiritually, becoming ministers of God's love to people at their greatest time of need. In a closing illustration of The Good Samaritan, Greenlaw reminded students, "the way you touch and the way you talk becomes the essence of the voice and hand of God."

That, he says, is what studying at Adventist University is all about.

By Rainey Park