Chancellor Ammons presents the Chancellor's Award to senior Erica Purkett. (Bryson Pope/Echo Staff Photographer)

“He didn’t know where he came from, so he didn’t have a dream for where he ought to be going,” Robyn Hadley told N.C. Central University quoting Alex Haley’s “Roots” character, Kizzy.

Hadley was the keynote speaker for the 58th annual Honors Convocation for Academic Achievement April 13.

She said met Haley when she was a senior in high school and he was researching his geneology at the local library. He later offered to pay her expenses at Harvard University. Instead, Hadley chose to go to UNC-Chapel Hill.

She quoted Kizzy to encourage students to network.

The convocation was held on Friday the 13th. Hadley said, “Thirteen is a wonderful sign, a divine sign” and told the audience about herself, “this little girl from exit 148 in Graham.”

Hadley was the 13th candidate from UNC for the Cecil Rhodes scholarship in 1985. She became the first African-American female recipient.

Hadley said going to

Spellman College in Atlanta for a semester had kept her from being one of UNC’s 12 candidates.

“There was some question in someone’s mind about the academic rigor at an HBCU. I was insulted,” she said.

Hadley praised NCCU for “setting itself apart.”

She said while students wonder “when do these A’s turn into dollars,” they should still pursue “excellence without excuses.”

Erica Purkett, a graduating social work senior, recieved the Chancellor’s Award for academic excellence.

When she was first contacted, Purkett asked Dr. Timothy Holley, director of the honors program, if he had the right person.

Purkett said she plans to pay off some expenses with the $1,000 award prize. “Just having [classmates] say ‘you can do it, there’s nothing back in Elizabeth City’,” kept her at NCCU, she said.

But Hadley emphasized that where you come from doesn’t matter.

She spoke “to all of the students who were being honored,” said Roberto Diaz, an environmental science senior. “Personally, I felt like more students should have attended,” said Shenequa Marshall, a health education senior.

Diaz said he likes the annual honors convocations because they allow families to share students’ successes.