Kendrick Imparts The ​“Daffodil Principle”

With tears in her eyes and a story about goals and perseverance, Gateway Community College President Dorsey Kendrick turned the Omni ballroom into a vast classroom where she instructed hundreds of movers and shakers on the ​“daffodil principle.”

The educator’s lesson took place Thrusday afternoon as she received the top Community Leadership Award from the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce in the packed Omni ballroom.

In an afternoon full of presentations, Kendrick’s was the last given. The first belonged to Mayor DeStefano, whom the chamber honored with its Chairman’s Award acknowledging his two decades of leading the city.

State Sen. Martin Looney noted the leadership award has been given 50 times to individuals who have made a lasting impact on Greater New Haven. He cited Kencrick’s her leadership in bringing Gateway Community College downtown to the site of the old Macy’s and Malley’s.

Looney noted Kendrick’s penchant for pithy quotations that verbally curl around themselves and end up in wisdom, many of which she made sure adorn ​“the president’s learning wall” at the new campus. Looney ended with one of his favorites from the wall. It is by Benjamin Mays, a mentor to Rev. Martin Luther King: ​“Tragedy doesn’t live in not reaching your goal, but in having no goal to reach.”

When Kendrick took the podium, she told the 55 tables of up to 12 persons each —the 615 total attendance was a record for the chamber’s annual awards lunch — to relax and settle in.

She quoted no quotations this time. Instead she told a personal story about a visit to a deserted mountain top, where at the curve of the road, one turned and saw a vast field of blazingly beautiful daffodils.

To keep people from knocking at her door, the woman who planted the daffodils had prepared a sign with answers to the most frequently asked questions: There were 50,000 bulbs, going back dozens of years, each one planted, yes, one at a time.

Thus Kendrick’s ​“daffodil principle”: ​“We must work together one day at a time to change our community.”

In an afternoon full of presentations, Kendrick’s was the last given. The first belonged to Mayor John DeStefano, whom the chamber honored with its Chairman’s Award.

The event was one in a series of occasions in which groups are honoring DeStefano as he approaches the end of a 20-year reign as mayor. The mayor had his legacy in mind as he delivered remarks upon receiving the Chamber award Thursday. He spoke about the progress that has occurred downtown since he won the office in 1993, beginning with the fact that the Omni was in bankruptcy back then. Click here to read the full text of DeStefano’s remarks.