Last month, in the beautiful new Student Academic Support Center (SASC) auditorium, Professor H. Scott Fingerhut delivered the keynote address at the 2016 Honors College Fall Graduation Assembly to a packed house of faculty, family, and friends celebrating the largest group of fall Honors graduates on record.
“Honors shall always be our special space,” Professor Fingerhut told his students, “grounded in hard work, acceptance, civility, humility, and hope — hope in the promise of a new tomorrow, hope in real and positive change for tomorrow, and hope in a truly, truly better, fairer, gentler tomorrow.”
“To this day,” he continued, “my best teachers are the ones who show me where to look, not tell me what to see, and that’s made all the difference — and what we in turn have tried our best to do for you. For an informed people, an engaged people, a people who demand accountability, aching and able and willing to dare greatly and tell truth to power, those people — you — are our best and brightest promise of a better tomorrow.”
“Remember,” Professor Fingerhut concluded, “nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”
Professor Fingerhut has been a faculty fellow in the Honors College for over a decade and teaches the yearlong upper-level seminar Observing Ourselves. Professor Fingerhut also serves as director of the Honors College Pre-Law programs and as faculty advisor to PATH (Pre-Law Association through Honors).
At FIU Law, Professor Fingerhut serves as Assistant Director of the Trial Advocacy Program. He teaches Trial Advocacy and Pretrial Practice, has taught Criminal Procedure, Criminal Law, Florida Criminal Law and Procedure, and the Criminal and Civil Law Externship Course, and he also coaches our champion Trial Team.