M. Shamsur Rahman - MBA in Executive Management - International (MBA-EM-Intl.)

The following is a speech given by M. Shamsur Rahman, an RRU MBA graduate at a convocation ceremony on Oct. 21, 2005 at Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia

Mr. Chancellor, Mr. President, Faculty members of Royal Roads University, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Honestly speaking, this golden afternoon at Royal Roads and the picturesque surroundings of the university make me truly speechless – besides, I am not known to belong to the speech making species, but I can’t resist making one in order to complete some unfinished business in my life. That is to attend at least one convocation ceremony in my life.

Nearly 43 years ago, when I completed my honours degree and went on to a masters at the University of Dhaka, a place once titled in colonial fashion “the Oxford of the East,” there were no convocations. For almost 10 years the students of Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), were not allowed to hold any convocation ceremonies at the University as the country was immersed in agitation and political turmoil. Because of this, I have no records or photographs to leave behind for future generations to allow them to believe that I was not completely unlettered.

Thirty eight years later, I found PML, an agency that represents Royal Roads University in Bangladesh, only four lanes down from where I live, and sought admission to learn a bit about accounting and finance. To my surprise I was accepted and, to a much greater surprise, I found that a highly elaborate and interesting banquet of learning was awaiting me, far beyond the dry accounts and finance I had anticipated. The menu was with many tasty treats. I thank Royal Roads for creating such a delectable recipe of courses that helped me to create while also training a much needed generation of professionals in my country.

But the curse of the unfinished business tried to cast its shadow again when, just before getting to attend my first convocation, I was nearly denied a visa from the Canadian authorities. I suspect my age made them plainly suspicious about the reason I gave for coming to Canada. They asked for academic transcripts, of which I had none. I was becoming desperate. Nevertheless, on my second attempt and a physical inspection a day later, the visa officer relented, perhaps applying the principle of, “the benefit of the doubt” that is normally applied to senior citizens like myself (laughing).

Before I reach the point of thanking Royal Roads formally, I must tell you what I learned from a master marketer early in my life. His lesson to me was as follows:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries,
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

These are lines 243 to 250 of Act IV, Scene III of Julius Caesar. What Shakespeare taught me in my early teens was greatly reinforced by what I was taught at the Royal Roads much later in life.

There is no room for complacency and no room to be laid back in this fiercely competitive world. I remember a Chinese saying: You cannot step into the same river twice, the current sweeps on, leaving those who missed the moment, lagging behind.

To the sharpness and skill acquired by the students I would like to pray for and invoke the mercy of God Almighty, that He may enhance our skills with the knowledge to be fair and just and the wisdom to be beneficial to our societies.

While I close this evening by thanking RRU from the core of my heart for giving me this opportunity to be here among all of you and to say a few words, I wish to dedicate this special event of my life to the memory of an ultimate teacher with whom I had entered into life-long arguments, and who left us on March 23 of this year. My father, Mr. M. Sharif, in real life was an uncompromising and consummate educationist. He chided me like a child, even a week before he passed away, that I was being tardy and was not completing my Organizational Consulting Project to close this chapter of my studentship. I cannot tell him anymore that for once, I have carried out his wishes.