Even though I had to put on a suit and tie, the evening was balm for my soul in these troubled times.

It was the annual Scholarship Dinner of N.C. State University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, which honors scholarship recipients and donors. I’ve endowed a scholarship in political science/communications at the college, which was called the School of Liberal Arts when I graduated back in the last millennium.

We had a chance to meet and talk with this year’s scholarship winners. I was struck by how smart they are, how committed they are to making a difference in the world and how diverse their backgrounds are.

Take that, Trump.

I sat beside a senior from Greensboro who’s majoring in political science and English and planning to start law school this fall. He wants to go into politics, and he asked me what I did.

“Have you ever heard of Jim Hunt?” I asked him.

“Is that who the library on Centennial Campus is named for?” he replied.

Indeed it is. I told him how Hunt, a farm boy from Wilson County who went to State, became the governor who started the Centennial Campus.

A panel of recent CHASS alums told us how their scholarships broadened their college experience, enabling them to pursue internships, volunteer projects and campus activities like student government and the Technician newspaper. That put them on rewarding career paths

Trump is doing all he can to cripple higher education in America, but the students I saw are too smart, too dedicated and too good-hearted to be stopped.

The best thing we can do for our future is to help them.