Howard Payne University President Bill Ellis addressed members of the Brownwood Area Chamber of Commerce on Friday and posed the question, “What would be your all-time important things for graduates from Howard Payne to have?”

Ellis recounted how graduates are given necessary skills to use in their career field along with some degree of flexibility and adaptability due to Howard Payne being a liberal arts university.

Ellis said that although these are very important, they may not be the all time most important thing students can get out of school.

“I think there might be something else,” Ellis said. “For me is at the very heart of what we do at Howard Payne. I want them to be people of integrity, honor, and courage.  That’s important.”

Ellis said that giving students the understanding of the importance of these traits and how to use them outweighs the occupational and adaptability skills they can learn.

“When we all get to the end of the day, what we want are graduates who are going to come out and understand the difference between right and wrong,” Ellis said.  “You have my pledge that at Howard Payne we will do our very best during my leadership there to do the right thing, to do the thing with integrity, but more than that to do the courageous thing.”