Inauguration Day Goes Off Without a Hitch

Dr. John Anderson’s inauguration as the 14th president of Millersville University was held on Friday, October 25.  Approximately 1,500 students, faculty, staff, alumni, business leaders, friends and family attended the event in Pucillo Gym. 

You can view photos of the day at: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151958168003584.1073741833.28065298583&type=1&l=418b76c1c8

The ceremony included a presentation by Millersville University’s ROTC Color Guard and performances by student groups including the Millersville University Wind Ensemble, University Orchestra, University Choir and University Gospel Choir.

The president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, Dr. Muriel Howard, spoke on the needs of higher education in America.  Howard said, “Now, for the good of the nation and our position in the world, we need to help government understand its role in providing institutional operating support and need-based financial aid to keep college affordable. We need to remind the world of the ability of higher education to reinvigorate industry and culture, and to transform lives. This is how we can renew the promise of America.”

Anderson’s Presidential Address was “Sustaining the American Dream – The Legacy and Promise of America’s Public Higher Education System.”  The speech is included in its entirety below.

 

SUSTAINING THE AMERICAN DREAM –

THE LEGACY AND PROMISE OF AMERICA’S PUBLIC HIGHER

EDUCATION SYSTEM

The American Dream is all about opportunity—most of us heard it growing up—“THE SKY IS THE LIMIT—YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE. ”Upward mobility—it’s the fabric from which this nation was created and has held us together for nearly 250 years. Greater access to higher education has played an increasingly important role in the preservation of this dream.  The Morrill Act of 1862 expanded access to higher education from the privileged and few, to a larger segment of our country’s citizens.  I characterize this as a bold vision and a bold commitment.  It had a transformative impact on the economic and social ethos of the nation.  This act created our nation’s land grant universities which were the precursors of modern public universities like Millersville. President Abraham Lincoln, commenting on the legislation gave expression to the solemn compact that exists between the American people and its government.  He noted that the nation’s land grant universities are “built on the behalf of the people, who have invested in these institutions their hopes, their support, and their confidence.” 

Almost a century later, it was the GI Bill of World War II and its successors that forever reshaped the educational covenant between our government and its people.  Prior to World War II, a college education and home ownership were still largely improbable American dreams for ordinary working Americans. 

In another time of great crisis for our nation, President Franklin Roosevelt, another leader with a bold vision and bold commitment, marshaled efforts that led to the original 1944 GI Bill that ultimately gave 10 million veterans a meaningful opportunity to have access to a college education and home ownership for the first time.

The GI Bill transformed the American economic and social landscape and was a key element in the expansion of a broader and more educated middle class.  It was a bold vision and bold commitment that emphasized the social good rather than individual entitlements.  Not to mention that veterans paid back in taxes on their increased lifetime earnings, far more than the government expended in their educational benefits.

How many in the audience, like me, are first generation college graduates?  How many of you went to a public college or university?  How many of you utilized programs like the GI Bill?  There may be a few in the audience old enough to have benefited in their educational pursuit from the National Defense Student Loan program initiated in 1958 in the country’s urgent response to the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik.

For others in the room, your educational opportunity might have been assisted through Pell Grants, the college work study program, direct student loans, and/or state grants such as Pennsylvania’s State Grant Program created in 1963 and administered by the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

I am the poster child for public higher education; the first generation in my family to attend college, following in the footsteps of my older sister who also obtained her undergraduate degree from a public institution of higher education.  As much as they wanted to, our parents were not in the position to assist us.  I attended a community college while working two part-time jobs.  I even had to take a semester off before transferring to another public university to finish my baccalaureate degree.  Even my graduate degrees are from public or public-affiliated universities.  If it wasn’t for the high-quality education I received at public institutions of higher education, I would not be here today.  It is that simple.

So, where are we today?

The future of public higher education, as we know it, is seriously threatened by a lack of bold visionaries with a bold commitment.  State funding for public higher education has dramatically decreased in the last five years across this nation without, quite frankly, hardly any political debate.  In a recent Wall Street Journal article, former secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and former senator, David Boren, (both of whom are now university presidents!) commented, and I quote, “Programs for the elderly now consume more than half of all federal spending and are politically untouchable.  But there is no similar resistance to cutting support for higher education.  To be blunt, we are sacrificing our young people’s futures – and our economic growth – by focusing on our generation’s benefits.  That is a formula for decline.” End quote.

The course of action for us begins with advocacy, building bridges and partnerships.  Allow me to build the case.

Public universities like Millersville are key partners with the American people, and its government in advancing the fundamental national security interests of stable social, political and economic structures that sustain our way of life.  Our enterprise, more than any other institutionalized service, has a quintessential role in preserving our free society – the heart and soul of the American Dream for future generations.  Take for example, the American Democracy Project sponsored by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities under the very capable leadership of Dr. Muriel Howard.  Two hundred and fifty participating colleges and universities, including Millersville, are committed to the project’s goal of inspiring graduates to be civic-minded, active and engaged members of the communities where they live and work; breathing life into the concept that we are all stewards of the places we touch.

Though, as I reflect on the public good engendered through public institutions of higher education, I believe we have failed to adequately frame our case for support.  Meeting the Commonwealth’s, and our nation’s, long-term employment needs does not diminish the central value-added outcome of producing graduates who have the necessary analytical, computational, and communication skills to be life-long learners and productive, globally-aware, engaged citizens.  These goals and public purposes are not mutually exclusive.  We simply cannot ignore the fact that, year after year, the almanac issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute’s freshmen profiles, listing the reasons freshmen consider very important for attending college.  The reason most cited by students is the ability to get a better job. This is a reality, and we place ourselves in peril if we continue to ignore how inadequately we have framed our role in everyday language that resonates with the public and legislators who influence and/or set the policies and control much of the resources shaping our destiny.  In a very real sense, reframing our message is a transformational prerequisite.  Admittedly, this may not reverse the trend of state appropriations continuing to account for a smaller part of our operating budget, but it is arguably our best hope to stop the downward spiral and restore the trust of the public, business leaders, and policy makers.  This is why our continued advocacy, calling attention to the public good produced by public higher education must not slacken.

To me the most effective strategy for making the case for public higher education is through stories that connect our institutions with the contributions to society that come from dedicated faculty and the graduates they inspire, motivate, support and challenge.  Faculty propel our students headlong into the foundational underpinnings of liberal arts education.  In turn, our students have educational experiences through which they are more likely to be civically-engaged, globally-aware problem solvers; more conscientious stewards of the planet, and better partners in sustaining the pursuit of happiness and quality of life for generations to come.

We have so many stories to tell that speak to how, beyond the individual benefits of higher education, it is society at large that benefits most from the inquiry, discovery, and application of knowledge that takes place within a public university.  We should be proud of how frequently our faculty, staff, students and alumni are engaged in work that contributes to the public good.  There are so many examples to choose from to demonstrate the public purpose contributions of Millersville University that are representative of our institutional impact beyond the campus; I will try to limit myself.

Our MU Software Productization Center partners with local businesses to develop and prepare to market an idea that will grow the company.

Dr. Jessica Kelly and her students are working with 14 communities of the Lancaster Inter-Municipal Committee to research and map all the storm water management systems to assist local communities in meeting the federal environmental regulation requirements. 

More than 2100 students performed 143,000 hours of service learning through almost 100 service-learning courses offered by Millersville faculty. Nearly 1,000 students involved in experiential learning activities performed more than 61,500 hours of service through internships and co-curricular programming. According to an organization that values such services to local communities, the value of these activities was estimated at approximately $3.2 million. Student engagement in internships at nonprofit organizations (242 interns, 54,450 hours) contributed to more than 38 percent of the service learning hours, valued at more than $1.2 million dollars.

Our Student Athletic Advisory Council sponsored a food drive to benefit a local rescue mission; organized a book drive to benefit a local elementary school; and raised money for Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project.

In conjunction with the State System and Pennsylvania Professional Standard and Practices Commission, Dr. Oliver Dreon developed a comprehensive online educator ethics curriculum for pre-service teachers.

Our Department of Earth Sciences assists the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in monitoring precipitation.

Dr. Ajoy Kumar and his students work with NASA on mapping sea-level rise.

Drs. Sepi Yalda and Duane Hagelgans work with National Rural Transportation Assistance Program on emergency management issues for transit facilities.

Dr. Richard Clark and his students work with NASA on multiple air quality studies.

Dr. Ojoma Edeh founded a school in Nigeria that serves disadvantaged children – street kids, children with disabilities and orphans; she also designed a cross-cultural curriculum and, over the summer, she escorts MU students to the school.

Drs. Persida and William Himmele published a book, Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner which has been published in Arabic and Chinese.  The Himmele’s have presented workshops on this in Lancaster County, China and South Africa.

Dr. Roger Webster and his team developed a mannequin on which surgeons can perform virtual eye surgery.

Dr. Kathleen Schreiber received a National Science Foundation grant to study how temperature changes in the environment affect the transmission of disease.

These are only a few, a very few, of the inspirational stories that capture the remarkable contributions to the greater public good that Millersville and other public universities provide to our country and the world at large.  We work diligently to instill in our students the core values of social justice and meaningful civic engagement.  For me, this puts an exclamation point on how Millersville University is keeping alive our part of the compact.  But much remains to be done to restore the public trust and create a sustainable and vibrant future.

Looking to the future—

As a university community I believe we need to rededicate ourselves to preserving the best traditions of public higher education, such as high quality and access, as well as continue our commitment to civic engagement and student leadership [examples of which I have provided].  I believe we need to do so without apologizing for the driving social and economic imperatives, and the corresponding benefits, obtained from preparing our graduates for meaningful employment.

As we rapidly approach the “tuition ceiling,” combined with reduced state support and more regulatory constraints, we can no longer sustain the way we currently conduct our enterprise.  We need bold visionaries who think beyond the status quo, who think beyond traditional management structures, who think beyond the current delivery systems, who think beyond the traditional student markets, who think beyond the traditional labor-management relationships and who will create and implement effective learning pedagogies that are learning driven, not teaching driven.

Where will our next visionaries come from?  How long do we wait for their arrival?  Don’t expect the next bold visionaries, like Lincoln and Roosevelt, to come from the federal level.  They have a hard enough time keeping their own doors open.  The next visionaries are right here in this room, on this stage, and in this audience!  If we don’t take control as a university community, we will fall prey to the inevitable—but we can do it, and we have already begun!

We will extend, through close collaboration with the faculty, the University’s openness and flexibility to embrace a learner-focused philosophy leading to the development of new approaches that will also make Millersville University a national-recognized institution of choice, not just for our historically strong classes of high school graduates, but also for transfer students, non-traditional degree completers, international students, a growing diverse student population, and those learners seeking to advance and change career paths over  a working lifetime.  Embracing these markets and other non-traditional student populations will help ensure our University will have the revenues necessary to sustain the deeply valued tradition of access and transformation, distinctive undergraduate student/faculty research collaborations, and a residential campus experience with a living and learning environment that will achieve distinctiveness for Millersville University.  We have entered into a brave new world where students will increasingly seek a multi-university pathway.  We need to work together to ensure that pathway leads to, and through, Millersville University!

We are at a cross road.  This is our opportunity to keep the covenant alive; to renew the compact; to ensure the opportunities for the core of the American Dream, and to do so in a framework of social justice and stewardship of our planet for generations of humans yet unborn.  I ask you to join me as, together, we re-establish public higher education’s compact with the American people and our political leaders starting right here at Millersville University.

I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity with which I have been entrusted and relish the good work that we will dedicate and apply to this worthy end.  An inauguration celebrates the University, not merely a president.  Its focus is on our students; their education, growth, development, awareness, and their ability to find purpose and to make a difference; to live and breathe—each in their own, unique way—the promise of the American Dream.

Thank you.

 

Sources for “The American Dream – The Legacy and Promise of Public Higher Education”

“Renewing the Promise, The Public’s Universities in a Transforming World,” a report of the Commission on Public University Renewal published in 2005 by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

The G.I. Bill’s History, as published in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs’ website.

“Forensic Entomology, Solving Crimes,” Review, Millersville University Magazine, cover story, Summer 2008.

“Millersville University professor works toward vastly improving how eye injuries are treated,” Madelyn Pennino, Intelligencer Journal, June 11, 2009.

“Creating a new COMPACT Between States and Public Higher Education,” a report by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Task Force on Making Public Higher Education a State Priority, June 2013.

“Public Colleges Boost Economic Growth,” Robert M. Gates and David L. Boren, Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2013.