Speeches

Penn State's Role in Developing Character, Conscience, Citizenship and Social Responsibilty

Good evening. It is a pleasure to be here in Harrisburg to share my thoughts about the future of Penn State and the importance of promoting not only intellectual development in our students but also the development of character, conscience, citizenship and social responsibility -- all values that are extremely important to the Masons.

I feel privileged to have been asked to talk with you tonight, because it's my understanding from your senior warden Stephen Sigel that this is the first time in the 223-year history of Perseverance Lodge Number 21 that the president of a major college or university has addressed this group. This is quite an honor and I hope that you will think that the more-than-200-year wait was worth it. If not, then you always have this wonderful roast beef dinner to compensate you for your time.

As you know, I am not a Mason, but I have always admired the work of the Masons in creating fellowship and in building a stronger community. My father-in-law has been a Mason for perhaps 50 years and he places a high value on his connection with this organization. Belonging to a Masonic Lodge has been an important part of his life, allowing him to share his ideals of community service, personal responsibility and integrity with others who hold similar beliefs. I can't say enough about my father-in-law's noteworthy values, especially since I am married to his daughter and especially since I am speaking to a group of his brothers. But the Masons have helped shape his life and his father-in-law's life before him in many positive and rewarding ways.

As the world's largest and oldest fraternal organization with more than 4 million members, your humanitarian activities, leadership training and community involvement have been helping to make a palpable difference in the world for centuries.

While Penn State's history does not stretch back quite as far as the Masons, it also has a longstanding mission of service, as well as teaching and research. I know that many of you here today are counted among our 454,000 loyal alumni, and so you may already be familiar with the University and its accomplishments.

But I'd like to take a moment to update you on Penn State's recent endeavors and the direction that American higher education is heading. These actions will all have a significant effect on the University, our students and the Commonwealth in the future.

With an enrollment of about 82,000 undergraduate and graduate students at 24 locations across the state, Penn State is educating a large portion of Pennsylvania's and the nation's future leaders. The demand for a Penn State education remains strong, and as a primary provider of lifelong learning in the state, we are facing a host of new challenges in educating tomorrow's students. Many forces are converging to cause this extraordinary and fast-paced change, not just at Penn State, but across the landscape of American higher education. As you have no doubt heard, at Penn State and elsewhere, tuition has replaced state support as the primary source of funding for our institutions and we are deeply concerned about this trend. This year, the Commonwealth's appropriation to Penn State was reduced by $10.5 million and we are slated for another $17 million reduction in the coming fiscal year. This slow but steady erosion of state funding places quite a burden on the University and its students.

Among the other issues greatly affecting higher education are changes in technology, demographics, competition and legislative expectations. In the past 50 years, college attendance has ballooned from roughly 25 percent to 60 percent of each high school graduating class, and adult and part-time students have been the fastest growing segment of higher education enrollments. In fact, adult students -- those age 25 or older -- now represent about 43 percent of our students nationwide. While the overall adult learner population at Penn State is around 25 percent, many campuses serve a substantially higher number of adult learners, such as Penn State Harrisburg, which has an adult learner population of 70 percent.

Rapid advances in technology have blown the door wide open for a true learning society, in which students can access learning anytime, anywhere. Technology allows us to overcome the obstacles of time, place, and distance that only a generation ago were viewed by many as insurmountable barriers.

New technologies are fundamentally altering the teaching and learning process. Currently, e-mail is being used for instruction in 60 percent of college courses nationwide and 30 percent of courses now use a Web site. Across the country, about 2.2 million college students are taking part in distance learning courses, compared to 710,000 in 1998.

At Penn State, students report spending 30 hours a week online, doing homework, chatting with friends, surfing the Internet and communicating with faculty. With these new technologies, learning can occur online or in campus classrooms or through a combination of these two approaches. I see the convergence of online and resident instruction as the single-greatest unrecognized trend in higher education today.

We're rapidly moving toward what some have labeled as "K to gray" education, requiring a different approach to teaching and learning. So what is Penn State doing to meet the challenges of these new lifelong learners?

In 1998, we were one of the first institutions to develop a virtual university, our World Campus -- some of you may even be students of this global enterprise. Since its founding, the World Campus has attracted nearly $5 million in outside funding and last year generated more than 5,000 enrollments from all 50 states and 45 countries.

We have launched initiatives within Penn State to help our faculty use new technologies and improve the quality of instruction. Across the University, our faculty members are integrating technology into their classrooms, simulating chemical reactions and medical procedures, analyzing space shuttle flight patterns, and recreating famous works of art and music, to name a few of the uses.

We are continually upgrading our technology infrastructure to provide our students with the latest available tools. Our teacher preparation programs now incorporate curriculum geared toward technology use in the classroom, and here in Harrisburg the new library on campus offers training in new technology for anyone in the community who seeks it. The e-Commerce Center in downtown Harrisburg, a partnership among a number of entities including Microsoft, government agencies, Dell and Penn State, is also providing needed technology-based education.

Just two years ago, we established the School of Information Sciences and Technology in response to the outcry from industry, which estimates that by next year the United States will be hit with a 1.2 million shortfall in the number of workers needed in information sciences and technology fields. Enrollment in Penn State's School of Information Sciences and Technology is about 2,200 students and IST degree programs are now offered at 19 Penn State locations. Our newest school is also involved in a number of partnerships with other academic institutions across the state, sharing strategies and insights on workforce development and academic offerings. In addition, voices from industry continue to play a major role in shaping the curriculum of the school, as well as in providing funding. If you visit University Park two years from now, you will see a new state-of-the-art IST building spanning North Atherton Street and creating a spectacular entrance to the campus.

This is just a brief overview of a few of the initiatives Penn State is undertaking to meet the needs of a changing learning society -- one that demands opportunity, flexibility, and quality.

But while intellectual development is the primary purpose of higher education, I believe that a university should also promote the development of character, conscience, citizenship and social responsibility. In my view, this is one of the most fundamental problems facing higher education today and we cannot ignore our obligation to help foster the development of solid values and sound character.

No aspect of this challenge is greater for our young adults than the excessive consumption of alcohol and the behaviors that surround it. Over the last several years, I have been outspoken on the topic of alcohol abuse because I have seen first-hand the devastating human costs that can result from it. Alcohol is still the number one drug of choice among our nation's youth, but the level of attention being given to this problem by university presidents has accelerated and a wide range of initiatives are in place on campuses nationwide, including Penn State. I believe the vast majority of students welcome the chance to be responsible, but they need our active encouragement and support.

For the time they are with us, students gain some of the values they will carry with them for the next half-century or more. It is critical at this stage of their lives that we provide an environment that will allow for the development of a mature moral and spiritual compass that can guide them for decades as they take on important roles in society.

Rushworth Kidder, founder and president of the Institute for Global Ethics and a former senior columnist for The Christian Science Monitor, wrote a book titled Shared Values for a Troubled World. In the book, Kidder interviewed opinion leaders about the existence of universal values. His conclusion -- which I found persuasive -- is that there is indeed a core of universal values that can and perhaps should be taught. The list of universal core values that he discovered include: Love, Truthfulness, Fairness, Freedom, Unity, Tolerance, Responsibility, and Respect for Life.

I know I can speak for those of you in this room when I say that this is a worthy list to be teaching; the question is how formally are these values incorporated into instruction?

In some instances, at Penn State, we do address these basic values in the classroom, for example in ethics courses in pre-professional programs such as business and journalism. Because students learn best when given the opportunity to focus on problems that are meaningful to them, faculty in many other disciplines regularly link learning to issues of importance to the community.

Last year, the University adopted a statement known as "The Penn State Principles" to convey to students and other members of the University community important values, as well as expectations for respectful and responsible behavior. This set of principles is sent to incoming freshmen and is posted in classrooms, residence halls and other public places. It is our hope that by putting our expectations in writing and sharing them broadly, we will be one step closer to giving our students the basic tools needed to be good citizens.

In addition to stating our expectations, values can also be nurtured by extracurricular experiences including student leadership and community service activities. In a survey last year of 730 institutions across the nation, 87 percent reported offering service-learning courses, up from 79 percent in 2000. In that same survey it was reported that 28 percent of students were involved in service projects and 13 percent of faculty said they integrate community service with academic study or research. You may have recently read in The Patriot News about a Penn State landscape architecture class that has teamed up with the residents in South Allison Hill to transform eyesore vacant lots into parks and playgrounds. This is part of their coursework.

Students from our College of Medicine in January opened a Women's Health Clinic at the Bethesda Mission here in Harrisburg to help homeless women gain access to necessary healthcare. This initiative follows on the heels of a program that our students began two years ago at the mission to provide homeless men with health services. Spring break last month offered countless opportunities for Penn State students to participate in meaningful and enriching activities that benefit humankind, such as Habitat for Humanity and helping impoverished children in Guatemala.

At Penn State, we consider service an integral component of a quality education. I hope that those of you in this room who are Penn State graduates and are serving your communities, particularly through your association with this Masonic Lodge, can attribute some of your desire to serve others and your habits of good citizenship to your Penn State education.

Another extremely significant way that I believe the University is teaching values is through the engagement and service it provides to local communities and beyond.

The idea of engagement is one that is at the heart of Penn State's land-grant mission. Recently, a group of 25 university presidents from across the country came together in a four-year study to take a closer, more critical, look at higher education and how well is was serving the nation. That study required institutions, including Penn State, to reconsider priorities, revitalize our commitment to the many publics we serve, reconnect with forgotten communities, and re-establish partnerships. This is a new chapter in the evolution of higher education -- one that demands we adopt a broader sense of involvement and responsiveness to the world outside our walls. Engagement is the term most often used to describe these activities.

University-community partnerships offer powerful learning opportunities for students and allow Penn State to put knowledge to work solving society's most pressing problems.

For our students, engagement unites theory and practice and connects them to civic life. They acquire a sense of usefulness and are introduced to the notion of working for the common good.

For our faculty, engagement is the vehicle for putting their knowledge and expertise to work, for crossing disciplines to find answers, for fostering an ongoing dialogue with potential partners, and for providing students with hands-on learning experiences;

For our communities, incredible work of value is being done as the resources and expertise of the University are brought to bear on problems in a coherent way;

And for Penn State, as we engage in virtually every area of social, economic, and civic life with our communities, we are providing unprecedented opportunities to make a true difference in the quality of life, both locally and globally.

While educating people is the highest form of service we can perform, there is much more that can be done. Like your organization, Penn State sees tremendous needs that must be answered and it is only by engaging with our communities that this can be accomplished.

For the future, Penn State will continue to involve students in the community in meaningful ways, provide new knowledge to the public and build on its solid heritage of service in the best interests of the common good.

Our communities, the state and the world demand no less.