On Saturday November 7th, 2009, LaGCC held "The 2009 Student Leadership Conference." The conference's theme was "Celebrate Achievement: Journey to Success." The event was designed to help students deal with the stresses of school and life in general by providing workshops with resources that will help students cope with situations that might arise while going to school. One of the workshops provided was titled "Smart Phones, Smart People." Presenter Albert Neal, an LaGCC Media professor, discussed the many mobile research applications for use with smart phones. The conference also included an inspirational keynote speech.

John Baker, acting Associate Director of Student Services and one of the coordinators of the conference stated, "Because college can be an over-whelming experience for some students, the event's goal was to help students believe that they can achieve their goal of graduating. The combination of the workshops and the speech were designed with this in mind. Also, some students think they can only learn in a classroom setting, the conference was designed to show them that they can learn outside of the classroom, too."

The highlight of the conference was the keynote speech after lunch, in front of the Library entrance in the E Building, given by Byron Pitts. Mr. Pitts, a CBS News Correspondent and Contributing Correspondent to “60 Minutes,” spoke in front of 270 students, not counting the faculty and staff. His speech was titled "Step Out On Nothing."

Mr. Pitts' speech was an oral snippet of his book with the same moniker. In the speech he discussed how his family's faith helped him to overcome the challenges he faced in life. He described how he grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood and his terrible performance as a student. He then made known the relationship he had with his grandmother, and the relationship he has with his mother, a former seamstress.

Mr. Pitts spoke about many instances in his life, but the one thread that ran through all of them was faith. First he spoke about the faith that his grandmother and mother displayed when every teacher he had as a youth told them that their son was mentally retarded and needed to be institutionalized. Secondly, he spoke about the faith he received by observing his mother and grandmother which helped him to believe in himself and to keep trying to do better in spite of his shortcomings. Lastly, he spoke about the faith of a mentor that would encourage and inspire him at a point in his life when he was about to give it all up!

Mr. Pitts suffered from a stutter so badly that often he was not able to complete a sentence. Yet his mother, a devout baptist, did not believe what the teachers and counselors had to say about her son, but rather decided to listen to Pitts' grandmother who said, "believe that God can change any situation and He will!" They both proposed that unrelenting prayer to God and hard work would change his situation. This and constantly reinforcing him by telling him that "he could do better in school" encouraged him to believe that he actually could. His mother put him in every school program she could to assist him, but his best work was a D+.

"Through many trials, toils, and struggles, The Lord has brought us through," he said. Then he asked the students in attendance: "Has anyone ever told you that you are never going to amount to anything? You are not going to make it, you may as well quit now. Has anybody ever told you that? If you are like me, then you have had school teachers and family members tell you that. But I decided that their words would not hold me back, but give me the strength to push forward and accomplish my goal! Strength only comes from trouble. When we are faced with adversity there are only two things we can do; either we will fold under the pressure or we will fight. And if you are like me then you know folding under the pressure is not an option. I have the dreams of my family members past, present, and future pushing me to succeed."

Then he asked another question of the students. "How many students here are the first people in their family to go to college? If you are like me then you are the first and that is why you can not fail." He said, "I fought to achieve my goals because I remember my grandmother telling me that I have to fight so I could have a better life than she did. I had to succeed because I remember hearing my mother praying to God in the middle of the night, please help my son!"

He added that "he was reminded of the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou which stated "I am the hope and dream of a slave! That I would have a better life than my forefathers was their dream!" He said, "We must be successful! We owe it to everyone in our past. We owe it to our families, and we owe it to the people who are watching us now!" He explained it was the optimistic mindset of his grandmother and mother that gave him the power to fight in the mist of trouble. "Their faith became my faith and I share that same faith with you today. If you pray hard believing that God will help you and you apply yourself to study hard you will achieve your goals, I am a witness!"

Lastly, Mr. Pitts spoke of a time when even though he had faith, his faith failed. It was the words of a professor that cut into his heart like a knife. The professor was obviously agitated over Mr. Pitts' terrible performance and vented, asking him: "Why are you wasting my time? You know you do not belong here." Hurt and crying, Mr. Pitts sat down on a public bench on campus wondering what he was going to do when another professor asked him, "What was the matter?" He spoke with that professor and told her everything he had gone through and she helped him. That professor was a journalist. He asked a final question of the students, "who among you can be an angel for someone that's hurting and confused? Who among you can empathize with another person's pain and help? This is why we can not fail, the world needs us."

In his closing remarks, Mr. Pitts said that he loved his job as a journalist because it required him to "cover the news all over the world" and report it back to America. Yet he wrote this book for the underdog. All of his life he has had to fight and the fight is not over. And he realizes that he is not alone. "There are many just like me, and I wanted to encourage someone through the story of my life not to be indifferent about their situation, but to choose to fight! Be ashamed to die before you win some victory for humanity. Fight to achieve your goals. You will not only change your own life but you might change someone else's life as well."