Honors Education at Research Universities 2013 Keynote

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HERU 2013 – Keynote Address

Welcome to the inaugural Honors Education at Research University conference! It is a great pleasure to have you all here at Penn State. Gathered are nearly 100 representatives of 28 schools from around the nation and the world, including our colleagues from the Netherlands and the universities of Radboud and Utrecht.

I would be remiss if I did not begin our event by thanking those who have made this possible. While the idea of such a meeting arose within the annual meeting of the so-called CIC schools (the Big 10 plus Chicago), the planning committee included representatives of other schools as well. Would those on the committee please stand as I call your names?

Dr. Cynthia Jackson-Elmoore, 
Dean, Honors College, Michigan State University

Dr. Anne Krabacher, 
Senior Associate Director, University Honors and Scholars Center, Ohio State University

Dr. Nancy West, 
Director, Honors College, University of Missouri

Dr. Bette Bottoms, 
Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs and Dean of the Honors College, University of Illinois of Chicago

Dr. Matthew Auer,
 Dean, Hutton Honors College, Indiana University

Dr. Arun Upneja,
 Associate Dean for Academics, Schreyer Honors College, Penn State

Dr. Michele “Mitch” Kirsch, 
Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Schreyer Honors College, Penn State

Tom Weber, 
Director of Information Technology, Schreyer Honors College, Penn State

Chris Arbutina,
 Coordinator of College Relations, Schreyer Honors College, Penn State

Lisa Mellott, 
Assistant to the Dean, Schreyer Honors College, Penn State

Thank you all for helping put this conference together.

Whether this is the first of many HERU conferences is up to the community. We will have a reaction survey put up on the website, http://honorseducation.com, to gather feedback and suggestions, including space for you to indicate your desire to organize or participate in a future conference.

I believe I speak for the committee when I say that it was not our vision to create a new NCHC or even a new annual conference. Rather simply to provide an occasional venue for sharing best practices and support for one another. If another school or group of schools would like to join to host another HERU conference, I think that would be great! But this planning committee’s sense was that it is best if it develops organically rather than through the creation of yet another formal organization.
Unique, just like everyone else.

The reasons for such a meeting are fairly well known to us all. Honors societies and disciplinary programs have existed for decades, but it was within large public universities that honors programs and colleges primarily developed over the last 50-plus years. In recent years, however, honors programs have begun to flourish in smaller settings, including community colleges.

I often tell prospective students who are considering their various options that they must remember that each honors college or program is unique to their setting. We all reflect the institution of which we are inseparably a part. We each thus face our own unique challenges and difficulties relating to specific cultures, mission, climate, budgetary models, and so on. Yet we whose programs are within major research universities also share much in common with one another. We have opportunities and challenges that are quite different from those that present themselves to honors programs in community colleges and smaller institutions.

Furthermore, I believe that our ability to answer (or not) the challenges before our honors programs will be predictors of the future of our host institutions. A healthy and active honors college or program is the bellwether of a vibrant university.

It’s the economy…

The most obvious and immediate challenge to public higher education is budgetary constraints. All of us, even and especially our Dutch colleagues, are from institutions that receive significant state funding and support. Even those of us whose institutions are merely “state affiliated” take our identity in no small part from our status as universities that serve the public. Yet in the past few years we have seen the dramatic decline in public funding and in the next decade I believe we will see that the landscape of public higher education in the United States will have changed dramatically.

With these changes come new challenges and some of those challenges even offer us, to use the administrative euphemism, opportunities.

Budgetary pressures cause the reevaluation of all programs, especially those that offer distinct privileges and advantages for a few students. Bette Bottoms from the University of Illinois of Chicago told me that at the most recent the American Association of Colleges and Universities, a senior fellow issued “the call for reallocating resources that are given to the most capable students in Honors programs to the most at risk students, as all universities struggle to increase student success and heed the national (and moral) agenda of producing more degreed adults.”

We must consider how we are to respond to such challenges and sharing our own approaches and experiences may help the broader community.

In our situation, for example, my response to a challenge of elitism and the questioning of the very existence of such a program at a place like Penn State, is to first point out that our primary funding comes from endowments and then to immediately remind them that any student may enter into the college if they meet the criteria, even after the highly selective first year admissions process. In the Penn State community this sort of egalitarian “academic boot strapping” resonates positively. If you are good enough, you can make the team. So long as the path remains open for students to work their way into the Schreyer Honors College then most are satisfied. Your context may require a different response.

As I mentioned, we are in the fortunate position of having fairly healthy endowments that support our college. While not everyone here has that good fortune most ought to be considering how to engage in fundraising for honors education. Tomorrow’s lunch will get at the question of development in a discussion with Penn State’s Senior Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations, Rod Kirsch.

Having funds available to support creative programs, study abroad, and research grants are, I assume, on all of our wish lists, but I expect that at the top of that list are scholarship funds. After all, who are the programs for if not our students? While each of our schools may have a slightly different mission and target recruitment population, we have all, I am sure, faced the challenge of getting that outstanding student to actually attend. Most often it is money that makes the difference.

Selectively selecting

Even with a large scholarship endowment selecting a strong incoming class is a challenge. Several of our sessions relate to these topics including admissions criteria and processes. How we select our students, the diversity of our population, and the engagement of our alumni are all integral to the character and nature of our programs. In the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State we have placed a priority on developing the diversity of our student population. We face a number of challenges, as you can imagine, some of which are unique many are not.

For example, a top underrepresented minority student is likely to have a full-ride offer from an Ivy League or similar school. We can rarely offer complete scholarships. I suspect many of us face that challenge. But we are also, as I am sure you noticed, in central Pennsylvania. I absolutely love it here. Just 3-4 hours from four major cities and yet with the bucolic beauty of a rural environment. I find it perfect. Yet many of our URM students do not. Most are from urban areas and prefer to be close to home and comfortable environs.

And so we have several sessions this morning that not only addressed the admissions concerns relating to diversity, but also asking how we can best support a diverse student body.

Research

Today’s lunchtime panel will discuss “The Institutional Role of Honors in R1 Universities,” getting to the very heart of the matter.

Research is, of course, central to the mission of all of our universities and yet I think all of our institutions, and not just our honors programs, struggle to adequately engage undergraduates in these endeavors. The result can be the dissociation of our faculty from our undergraduate students. While promotion and tenure processes require scholarly production, faculty often find trying to cope with more than the basic required teaching burdensome and so little time and thought is put into including undergraduates in their own research projects. Some disciplines are better than others and here I point to my own general area of humanities; we are a lonely bunch who do not play well with others. We have not been trained in collaborative research ourselves, we don’t do it with our peers, and so we are often clueless as to how to do it with our students. In this as in most things I think honors can and should be a leader and we have a number of sessions on this topic.

Most of us require a thesis or culminating project from our students. How do we go about preparing our students for this? Is it different by department and college? And most importantly of all for our institutions, can what we have learned and accomplished be scaled up to the university as a whole? Answering such questions is, I believe, the key not only to our future, but that of our institutions as well.

Success breeds success

Where we are successful we must share our success with the rest of the university. My view of honors is that of leaven throughout a loaf of bread. We are not large in quantity, but we are throughout the entire enterprise and make the whole “rise.” Or to use a more modern analogy, we are to be an incubator, the startups of the academic world. Small venture capital in our programs, establishing solid methods for UG research in honors, may pay large dividends for the rest of the university. In this way we can demonstrate our value and worth.

As the incubator of the university, honors programs have often been the place where new pedagogical methods are explored, learning assessment pioneered, and innovation takes place and again, we have several relevant sessions at this conference. I feel that innovation is at the heart of what we ought to be doing as an honors college, yet I confess to being challenged in an area that is of particular interest to me: technology and online learning. I grew up in a home where new technology was a passion and it remains a passion of mine today. (I have no less than 25 old Apple products scattered throughout my office.) I taught my first online course even before I had completed my doctorate and was a part of several initiatives in online learning while at Tulane. Even so, I am not sure where a true, fully online course fits into the honors experience.

Melissa Johnson will share the results of her doctoral research with us before our panel discussion cleverly titled, “Honors on The Line: What’s at Stake If We Go Online…Or Don’t?” As you can imagine, I am eager to hear what she and our panel have to say. A preview on my thoughts: An honors course experience has at its heart faculty engagement. How do we capture that in a fully online course?

In many ways, the challenge to honors education is simply a reflection of the challenge to all of education.

I will be one of the first in any room to point out the value of vocational training. We have, admittedly unintentionally, created an inflated degree economy, requiring a bachelors degree for satisfying and worthy and profitable careers where a vocational degree would be far more beneficial and practical. Rather than recognize this and create more such programs and a culture that values them, our universities are under pressure to prove the practical value of the education we provide, bringing into question whether it is education we are truly engaged in at all. Ought the “moral imperative” be to provide more people with degrees or profitable careers? Is our mission education or training?

Even as employers tell the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times that what they value most in recent grads is their ability to think critically and communicate effectively, many states legislature simply want an assessment of skills and job placement.

In such a context honors education appears as a luxury of a bygone era. Yet we know and understand the value of education rather than training AND the importance of experience and employment. Developing service learning components, internships, and mentoring programs will all be discussed at this conference and are all designed to ensure that “honors” means something more than simply getting As. Like many of you, our mission is to not simply train or teach, but to develop men and women who will have an important and ethical influence in the world.

“To whom much is given, much is expected.”

We are the canary in the coalmine, in a gilded cage, to be sure, but we are an indicator of the health of the academic environment. That is a responsibility that we must take seriously. I believe the creation of this conference and your presence here is evidence that we are doing just that. I look forward to hearing what you all are doing to answer the unique challenges that you face and learning how we can benefit one another and the entire enterprise of education.

Getting Read for New Student Orientation!

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Next week our incoming first year students will join us on campus for their “New Student Orientation.” Here are a few tips to bear in mind during your registration!
-You all need ENGL/CAS 137H in your schedule
-Even if you took AP English, or even a college “Freshman English” course!
-Even if you’re doing LEAP in the summer, which comes with English 15 or CAS 100  You’ll still get credit for those courses, but the 137H/138T requirement still has to be fulfilled.
-You should all have at least one other honors course for fall, major-related or not
-You’re entitled to have just 137H in fall, but you can probably do better than that….and you don’t want to be in a situation where you absolutely need three honors courses in the spring.
-You’re also entitled to schedule three fall honors courses, but you should consider carefully whether that’s a good idea.  Two is the magic number.
-Don’t take more than 17 credits and don’t take more than 5 courses, unless one of them is less than the typical three-credit course.  You’re entitled to take up to 19 credits without special permission, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. Don’t go right up to our recommended maximums in both total credits and honors courses—in other words, 17 credits with three honors courses is probably unwise.
-Only take honors calculus (140H, 141H, 220H) if you’re both strong in math and you have a mathematician’s interest in how math works.  If you see math more as tool for what you really want to do, you may find honors more than you bargained for.
-Here’s what your adviser tomorrow afternoon won’t know about you, but maybe they should, so maybe you should tell them even if they don’t ask!
-What subjects came easily to you in high school, and what subjects didn’t
-What kind of high school you went to: big or small, lots of honors/AP courses or not so many, etc.  High school is never like college, but some high schools are more like college than others!
-How risk-averse are you?  Do you prefer a more-ambitious first-semester schedule that marginally increases your chance of not doing well (not getting the SHC’s required 3.40), or would you rather keep your risk to a minimum?
-Using your AP (or IB, or college-in-high-school) credits.
-We know that you don’t have AP scores for senior courses.  Go with your best guess—you’ll probably be right, and if you’re wrong in a significant way you can adjust your schedule later.
-In general, if it’s a subject you’re not planning to continue with (e.g. Calculus and you’re a History major), or a relatively non-hierarchical subject (History and you’re a History major), taking your AP credits is a no-brainer.
-In subjects that are what you want to continue with, and are hierarchical (each course assumes solid knowledge of the previous ones), the decision is more complicated and should be discussed with your adviser.  There are pros and cons to acceleration based on AP credits, according to your overall situation.
-Don’t make these decisions in isolation, but rather in the context of your overall schedule.  The sum total of individually sensible decisions to accelerate, or to take an honors course, might be a schedule that is much too difficult in a way that increases your chances of not doing well.
-If you are considering medical school, you may want to decline the opportunity to place out of core entrance-to-med-school courses in math, biology, chemistry, and physics, because medical schools prefer to see graded university courses in these subjects.
-Don’t worry if you don’t get all of your dream courses.  You’ll be here a while, and your first semester is unusual in that your priority registration still leave you behind the 75% of Penn State students who were already enrolled and registered for fall courses before you put down your deposit!  After this semester, you’ll be (with all Schreyer Scholars) at the front of the line.
-Leave with a complete schedule!  You may change it later, but be sure that you leave NSO with a “full-time student” schedule rather than 6 or 9 credits.  The only exception should be if a department can’t schedule for a course for technical reasons, but you have a specific assurance that you’ll be on the registration list.  Remember that if you change your schedule later, in a significant way, you should consult with an adviser first even if it’s just by phone or email.  Formal adviser assignments won’t be made until August in most cases, but you can always contact the SHC’s advising coordinator to find out the right person to contact in your academic college or DUS.

2013 Medals Ceremony Speech

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I don’t usually post the speech I give at the Medals Ceremony, but this time the message was a bit different. 

The Lion and the MedalGood afternoon scholars, Parents, and friends, trustees, President Erickson and Provost Pangborn. Congratulations to you all! Each one of you has played a significant role in getting to this moment.

Mrs. Schreyer and DrueAnne it is a particular honor to have you with us. Thank you for being here and thank you for all you have done for Penn State and our students.

It is now my great pleasure and honor, as dean of the Schreyer Honors College and as our tradition dictates, to address you one final time.

“Graduation is both an ending and a beginning.”

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

“A journey begins with but a single step.”

“Your future lies ahead of you.”

“The best is yet to come.”

“Remember, do what you love and love what you do.”

“Keep your eyes on the prize.”

“Spread your wings and fly.”

“Be true to yourself.”

“Always aim for the moon and if you miss you’ll still be among in the stars.”

And finally, “Will you succeed? Yes, you will indeed. (98 3/4% guaranteed.)”[1]

There! I have just provided you with the substance of just about every graduation address I have ever heard. (You can go home now. No, not really.) With the exception of the words from Mr. Theodore Geisel, these are all clichés, phrases that, no matter how true, have been worn down with use so that they become banal in the extreme. The reason we resort to them at a time like graduation (or weddings, get ready to start attending a lot of those as well) is because there is truth in them. This is a time of great change for you.

In the last two weeks some of you have even told me that you find yourselves getting weepy, happy to be done with the work but realizing you are going to miss Penn State, miss Happy Valley. (Let me let you in on a secret: you can come back any time!)

It is a bittersweet time. You are eager to move on, yet you have, I trust, fond and wonderful memories of your time at Penn State. Of course great change has come to this university in your time, but the greatest changes of all are personal. You have grown, made new friends, learned how to do laundry (I hope), and of course demonstrated not just to your faculty, but to yourself all that you can accomplish academically.

It is also a time of mixed emotions not least of all because there are some who started this journey with us who are not with us today.

Just two days into his second year at Penn State Schreyer Scholar Tom Richards suffered a seizure and died. He was a remarkable young man who made such a great impact on his friends and Penn State that YOU created a program call The 367 Project. This is an amazing testimony of Tom’s legacy and your love.

This is how The 367 Project website describes your motivation.

 We were founded by a group of Penn Staters and Tom’s parents in September 2010. Our challenge since then has been to “go ahead” and make an impact in the lives of others. Following in Tom’s footsteps, we believe that we can make the greatest impact by helping students discover their true potential as leaders, developing their fundamental skill-sets, and empowering them to go ahead and make an impact.

For so many of us Tom’s death was an horrific shock, yet you chose to celebrate Tom’s life and make a positive difference in the lives of others, even as he had impacted so powerfully your own.

This New Year’s Eve our son Mack died unexpectedly of a blood infection, just two weeks shy of his 9th birthday. What everyone thought was simply strep throat took the life of our incredibly funny, clever, and active boy in a matter of hours. Mack’s passion was soccer and he was, by all accounts, a great goalkeeper. He dreamed of starting for Penn State and the US Men’s National Team. Thanks to the generosity of so many of you, all Penn State Goalkeepers will now carry Mack’s name onto the field on which he dreamed of playing. On behalf of our family, thank you.

You all and the entire Penn State community rallied around us and continue to be here for us, in these darkest times, even as you were there for Tom and his family.

I could add to these tragedies simply by citing the names of cities and towns, just from the past 12 months: Sandy Hook, Boston, and Aurora. What we have all, each in our own way, had to come to terms with is the brokenness of this world. Such tragedies and a million smaller travesties that we confront every day, have no satisfactory explanation other than that. This is a place of great beauty and terrible cruelty, incredible joy and unbearable heartbreak. This is a reality that we must grapple with, but never accept it. “There will be wars and rumors of wars.”

Frederick Beuchner put it succinctly: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

It is time to step out, but don’t be afraid. Be strong and take on the challenges of this world. Our job, your job, is to face the reality of brokenness and respond with healing and comfort. Wherever you go from here, grad school or career, Teach for America or teach for local school district, you have to opportunity and the responsibility to do what you can to help others.

In rabbinic Judaism there is a phrase tikkun olam, “repairing or healing the world.” It was an expression used in legal texts like the Mishnah to indicate that something should be done, not because law required it, but because it was the right thing to do for the benefit of everyone, to bring healing the world. Over the centuries its meaning and use has expanded, but the fundamental concept remains the same. Do not simply do the minimum required, don’t ask yourself “is this legal,” rather “is this the right thing to do.” And do it. In this way we may bring about some healing of this broken world.

Finally, I have one more cliché I would like to challenge. You have heard it said, perhaps at more than a few graduations, that you should “live each day as if it were your last.” Or, the more contemporary take, “YOLO.”

Don’t. “Don’t live each day as if it were your last.”

If I knew today would be my last, as much as I love you all and am so proud of you, I would merely poke my head in, say “Well done!” and go and spend the time with my family. We cannot live each day as if it were our last. And my wife and I are so grateful that we didn’t know what day would be Mack’s last. Instead, live each day, each moment to its fullest. Take advantage of the opportunities you have, whether they be to excel in your career, take a trip, or help a person in need.

Live life fully.

In our own time of grief we have often read the comforting words from Ralph Waldo Emerson “It is not the length of life, but the depth.”

Tom Richards exemplified that and you have carried on his legacy. Continue even as you leave Penn State. So now we send you out!

Live life fully. Live life deeply. And live life with love.

Congratulations to you, the 2013 class of Schreyer Scholars, women and men who are already transforming and bringing healing to this world.

[1] Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, (New York: Random House, 1990).

A Penn State mom on her daughter’s decision to come to the SHC

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Offers to the SHC went out earlier this week. I know that many were disappointed, we had over 2600 very strong applications, but I hope all these great students will strongly consider coming to Penn State. We are…one of the best research universities in the world.

Now those who were offered admission in to the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State will begin deciding between what I am sure are very good options. On this Admissions Office blog post Tracy Riegel, mother of a Schreyer Scholar, talks about her daughter’s decision to select the SHC@PSU.

Parent Blog: Schreyer Honors College

Tracy Riegel is the parent of two Penn State students and a contributor to the We Admit blog. Tracy and her husband, Rick, are both Penn State alumni and members of the the Penn State Parents Program. As Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College releases its decisions today, Tracy shares her thoughts on the program:

Read more on The Admissions Blog

Schreyer Scholars take third place in Marshall International Case Competition

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Congratulations Schreyer Scholars! This year’s Penn State team for the Marshall International Case Competition was made up of four Schreyer Scholars. They took third place in this highly competitive international competition. I will let their adviser describe their success. Dr. Gustafson should also be congratulated for mentoring and leading this great foursome. Well done everyone!

Please help me celebrate the success of four outstanding Smeal students: Nick Fakelmann, Devin Weakland, Ben Pugh, and Samantha Jarmul.  Nick, Devin, Ben and Samantha earned a 3rd place victory at the University of Southern California’s Marshall International Case Competition.

 

USC invites 30 schools from around the world to compete in a 24 hour case competition.  This year’s case revolved around Owens & Minor Inc.—a very successful supply chain solutions provider of medical and surgical supplies.  Recently Owens & Minor acquired of a European firm to help expand their global reach.    In essence the students were charged with the following question: How do we extract the greatest value of our recent European acquisition?  The students had to create a business strategy, implementation plan, and financial return analysis in less than 24 hours.  On the judging panel were senior members of Owens and Minor including the CEO—Craig Smith.

 

Penn State took 3rd Place, the University of British Columbia took 1st, and the Singapore Management University took 2nd.  Of the American Schools that competed, Penn State ranked higher than Penn, U.C. Berkeley, USC, Texas, North Carolina, Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington in St. Louis, and Illinois.  A complete list to schools can be seen below.

 

Nick, Devin, Ben and Samantha were not only great competitors but also great ambassadors for Penn State.  Please help me in congratulating their success.

 

Yours,

Andy Gustafson

Soccer scholarship to be established in memory of Schreyer dean’s young son

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1/2/2013

John William McKenzie Brady, known affectionately as Mack, the eight-year-old son of Schreyer Honors College Dean Christian M. M. Brady and his wife, Elizabeth, died on Monday, December 31, 2012, at Hershey Medical Center.

Dean Brady shared the news of Mack’s sudden passing with the Honors College staff, Penn State colleagues and friends with the following message on Tuesday morning, New Year’s Day:

Words cannot begin to express the deep, wrenching sorrow that our family feels at the sudden and unexpected death of our boy. He contracted a blood infection on Sunday and by last night had returned to God. He was a special treasure, a true blessing sent from God.

Mack was passionate about soccer and his dream was to be the starting keeper for the US National team. He had wonderful friends at school, at church, and on his team The SC Celtics. He has the best sister one could imagine.

There are not words that can comfort or theology that can accommodate such loss. Thank you all, however, for your prayers and support of our family in this time. It wasn’t what God said to Job that mattered, it was that he spoke. We wait to hear his voice.

“May light perpetual shine upon him who puts his trust in the Lord.”

In addition to his parents, Mack is survived by his sister, maternal and paternal grandparents, a paternal great-grandmother, eight aunts and uncles, and nine cousins.

Mack was a third-grade student at Park Forest Elementary School. In addition to playing soccer, he attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in State College.

The Bradys ask that memorial gifts be directed to a scholarship being established in Mack’s honor to benefit a member of Penn State’s men’s soccer team. In announcing the scholarship, Dean Brady said that through such an annual award to a player his son “will, in some sense, ‘be on the field’ that he had hoped to play on someday.”

Memorial gifts may be made online at http://givenow.psu.edu or by sending a check, payable to Penn State with “In memory of Mack Brady” in the memo line, to: Penn State University, One Old Main, University Park, PA 16802.

Funeral arrangements include a viewing at the Koch Funeral Home, 2401 S. Atherton St., in State College on Thursday, January 3, 2013, from 5 to 8 p.m. Funeral services will be held at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 208 W. Foster Ave. and Fraser Street, State College, on Friday, January 4, 2013, at 10 a.m. with the Rev. Larry J. Hoffer officiating.

Making a Positive and Lasting Difference

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Written for our Presidential Leadership Academy blog.

Life should be about making a positive difference in the world around you. That is the vision of our college:

To educate men and women who will have an important and ethical influence in the world, affecting academic, professional, civic, social, and business outcomes.

It is important that we specify “positive” and “ethical” when we talk about someone’s impact on the world. In fact, when I first arrived at Penn State our vision statement did not have the “e-word” in it and it was one of the first things we changed. Everyone has some sort of impact on the world, just take a look at It’s a Wonderful Life.

Some will leave deep and indelible marks, others will tread more lightly. Some leave a lasting legacy of good will and benefit to humanity and the world, while others, well, let’s go ahead and invoke Godwin’s Law. A question we must ask ourselves on a regular basis is what sort of impact am I making in this world?

Once I became a parent this became even more apparent to me. (Did you like what I did there? Cute, no?) Whether we like it or not, as parents or children, there is no doubt that this relationship is formative and lasting for both parties. The way I handle a flat tire on a road trip will be remembered by my children far longer than the monologue they heard me deliver at Late Night with the Dean. That is a fairly heavy burden to carry around. Yet the rewards are incredible, to say the least.

What choices will you make?

For those of us at Penn State this has been a year-plus of assessing the impact of others on our community and making decisions about what sort of influence and impact we are having on those around us. As leaders have stepped aside or left the university and new positions have been created, new men and women have stepped up and in. I was particularly impressed when I read a story about our new General Counsel (a position we had not had on a permanent basis before), Steve Dunham, who was asked why he would want to leave Johns Hopkins and take on this position at Penn State at this time. His response, “I am a lawyer. My job is to step into messes like this and help makes some sense out of it all.” I can no longer find the article, by the way, but have talked with Steve and he says my recollection of the quote is accurate. His feeling is that why take on a job that is not presenting a challenge and an opportunity to do good.

We can add Bill O’Brien to this list as well. In the last few years many often quipped that they would hate to be “the man following the man.” Yet Bill stepped into a seemingly impossible situation and, as I write this, led the 2012 team to a remarkable season and is well on his way to recruiting another great team, even without scholarships. Why stick around? Why take on the job in the first place? Because he knew he had a chance to make a real and positive difference in our institution and in the lives of those involved with the football program.

Dr. Erickson, Dr. Pangborn, many board members and many, many others have also stepped into the breach, enduring criticism even before they had taken up their new positions, all because they understood that we all have an impact on our community and our world. They took on these responsibilities because they wanted to make sure that their impact was positive and constructive, not passive or pathetic.

We will not always live in such “interesting times,” but there will always be moments of decision for each of us. I am not suggesting, by the way, that we are to always live in a heightened state of awareness, constantly considering how our choice of breakfast cereal or shoes is influencing someone or impacting the world. Those decision can be important, but life has to be lived and not simply contemplated. By contemplating it now, however, we prepare ourselves so that our actions become not only positive in nature, but instinctive.

So now and again, do consider where your breakfast cereal came from and whether or not the people who made your shoes earned a fair wage. Think about how your angry comments online are influencing others’ views and contemplate whether inaction is a form of condoning. What impact are you having on the world around you?

Learning to learn

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There was very interesting piece on NPR this morning. It is well worth a read/listen. Struggle For Smarts? How Eastern And Western Cultures Tackle Learning : NPR.

The story basically outlines how, in Eastern cultures, children are allowed to work hard through their studies and are praised for their hard work, rather than being “smart.”

In Eastern cultures, Stigler says, it’s just assumed that struggle is a predictable part of the learning process. Everyone is expected to struggle in the process of learning, and so struggling becomes a chance to show that you, the student, have what it takes emotionally to resolve the problem by persisting through that struggle.

Of course, no one approach will work for any child, let alone every child in every culture. Part of what we try and help our students at the college level discover is how they best learn. I know that with our own children (our eldest will be 15 *gulp* on Saturday and our youngest is nearly 9) that we try to balance recognizing their talent in certain areas and fostering that while also encouraging them to recognize that success never comes without work, practice, and patience.

We also discussed a similar topic last night with the seniors in the PLA. The question was whether being a leader was learned or innate. The majority seemed to feel that while some traits and predisposition might be innate, or at least learned at a very early age, to be truly successful one has to be committed to learning, growing, and developing the talents and skills necessary to be a strong and successful leader.

This is not to imply that the Eastern way of interpreting struggle — or anything else — is better than the Western way, or vice versa. Each have their strengths and weaknesses, which both sides know. Westerns tend to worry that their kids won’t be able to compete against Asian kids who excel in many areas but especially in math and science. Jin Li says that educators from Asian countries have their own set of worries.

“‘Our children are not creative. Our children do not have individuality. They’re just robots. You hear the educators from Asian countries express that concern, a lot,’” she notes.

So, is it possible for one culture to adopt the beliefs of another culture if they see that culture producing better results?

Both Stigler and Li think that changing culture is hard, but that it’s possible to think differently in ways that can help. “Could we change our views of learning and place more emphasis on struggle?” Stigler asks. ” Yeah.”

Movember – So that mo’ may live

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Shortcut: JOIN OR DONATE and Thank You.

Collegiate and NFL football games have reminded us all that October is breast cancer awareness month and it is wonderful that so much attention (and money) is being brought to the treatment and cure of breast cancer. Men get cancer as well and as we go into the month of November, it is time to raise awareness and funds for our boys. Movember is when thousands of men (mo-bros) grow out their mustaches in order to raise funds for men’s health, specifically prostate and testicular cancer research and treatment. Family and friends, including the ladies (mo-sisters) can support their mo-bros by offering donations and encouragement.

This is my father. No, really, he is an Abraham Lincoln impersonator.

This year, after nearly 20 years with a beard, I am going to alter my visage to bring attention to men’s health. I admit, I cannot bring myself to fully shave my beard (and my children said they will not speak to me if I do, and yet in spite of that I will still not shave it all off). So instead I am going to shave my mustache and go Abe Lincoln! It is sort of an inverse Movember for me.

This Tuesday evening at 6:30 pm we will have a shaving party in Atherton Hall. I have been encouraged to take this step by a student in our Presidential Leadership Academy, Steve Bookbinder. (Plus, my doc did a prostate exam on me this summer…still walking funny. Now *that* is a reminder to take care of yourself!)

I am asking you to consider supporting our team (the name was chosen by Mr. Bookbinder because he is a butcher and he is doing this in honor and in memory of a great Penn State professor Dr. Chris Raines, “Meat Scientist, Connoisseur of Fine Drink, Gentleman”). You can become a team member to show your support and you can donate either to the team or directly to team members (my Movember page is here). This is the first ever Movember team at Penn State and I hope that our community (including the blogging community!) will help us raise a significant amount for men’s health.

You can find more information about Movember at their website. The basic premise is:

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces, in the US and around the world. With their Mo’s, these men raise vital awareness and funds for men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.
Once registered at www.movember.com, men start Movember 1st clean shaven. For the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November. Through their actions and words they raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health.

At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their gallantry and valor by either throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.

Be sure to also check out Nick Offerman’s advice on How to Grow a Mustache.