Speeches

Family Re-Union

It is both a pleasure and an honor to be here in Nashville at this annual event, bringing together so many who wish to share their thoughts about improving the lives of young people and their families.

As someone who studied the dynamics of children, youth, marriages and families before I moved to the "dark side" of university administration, I have for years been deeply concerned about the condition of the American family.

The barrage of media stories we encounter almost daily paints a very mixed picture of today's family. We've all heard statistics like these:

• Half of new marriages end in divorce;
• 34 percent of teenage girls get pregnant at least once before they reach age 20.
• Almost 7 million school-age children are home alone after school.
• From 1980 to 2000, single-parent households increased from 20 percent to 27 percent of all households with families -- amounting to 10 million single-parent families today.
• And one in three American children will be poor at some point in their childhood.

It is my belief that institutions of higher education can have a tremendous positive impact on the lives of children and families if we marshal our vast resources to address their unmet needs. As places where knowledge and new approaches are discovered, it is higher education's responsibility to harness the wealth of expertise in areas such as human development and family studies, medicine, law, education, psychology, sociology, and other specialties to solve society's most pressing problems.

I'd like to tell you a story about a young woman who lives in the small town of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh.  McKeesport was a vibrant steel town a few decades ago, but now like so many other towns in the North that relied heavily on the steel industry for their livelihood, it is struggling. Unemployment and poverty levels are high. This is the town where Sonya grew up. This is also a town where there is a Penn State campus -- one of 24 across Pennsylvania.

Sonya was raised by her grandmother, one of about 4.5 million children nationwide who live with their grandparents. When Sonya was in middle school, her prospects for graduating from high school were dim and her prospects for attending college were non-existent. Even her prospects for getting out of middle school didn't look so good. Considered "at-risk," she was saddled with low expectations and unprepared for school.

But through an early intervention program designed and implemented by faculty in Penn State's College of Education, Sonya is now excitedly awaiting her graduation from Penn State with a degree in food science.

The Penn State Educational Partnership Program, or PEPP as it is known, identified Sonya at an early age as a child who needed help. That program offered Sonya 10 years of assistance -- from seventh grade through her senior year in college. Through after-school study programs, tutoring, educational field trips, and exposure to a variety of role models, Sonya is no longer a statistic in the "at-risk" category.

The program also offered workshops for her teachers and professional development programs. It offered her grandmother parenting workshops and information on how to prepare Sonya for college, financially, academically, and socially. It offered Sonya what so many other children today need -- a real chance at success.

This is what universities can and should do. To paraphrase a famous author, "Great opportunities to change society seldom come -- but small ones surround us every day."

If our institutions were better organized to reflect the concerns of our communities, then we could be more effective in fostering real change. The key lies in restructuring and transforming universities to allow institutions to engage more fully with our communities.

Unfortunately, universities have too often emphasized a one-way process in which we seek to transfer our expertise to community groups.  Today's challenges call for a two-way approach in which we periodically ask ourselves if we are truly listening to the constituents we serve.  Today's challenges also call for a multifaceted or interdisciplinary approach when finding solutions.  In the past, university research has been somewhat compartmentalized -- faculty from one area did not venture into other areas.  This was taboo.

But almost all of the problems facing America are multifaceted.  For example, the problem of abuse and neglect of children is tied to many factors, such as poverty, parental drug or alcohol abuse, lack of childcare, or lack of community support for parents. In addition, studies have shown that victims of abuse or neglect often have problems involving juvenile crime, poor academic performance and drug and alcohol abuse.

Imagine how much we would miss if we only viewed this complex set of challenges from one perspective. No single discipline on its own can effectively address the broad spectrum of issues affecting children, youth and families, nor can it provide a complete answer for the complicated issues that trouble our world.

Some of you may recall a man named Paul Winchell, who was a popular ventriloquist in the 1950s. But a little known fact about this entertainer is that he also was an inventor.

At one point during his life, Mr. Winchell befriended Dr. Henry Heimlich, famous for the "Heimlich maneuver." Dr. Heimlich allowed Winchell to observe thoracic surgery, which got the ventriloquist thinking about an artificial heart.  The two -- surgeon and entertainer -- collaborated on the project and eventually assembled a prototype and patented their work. That patent was used in the artificial heart that sustained Barney Clark, the first patient to receive the device in 1982.

This is just an unusual example of how individuals from vastly different backgrounds often come up with remarkable solutions when given the chance. Encouraging researchers to think beyond their disciplines and providing opportunities for community input and two-way interaction can result in meaningful public engagement and a long-term partnership.

Many institutions, like Penn State, have long had as part of their mission providing service to their communities. We have teamed up with our communities on issues ranging from economic development to environmental protection to school reform. Recently, there has been a call for universities to recommit themselves to their communities and to engage more deeply in the public agenda. 

For centuries, higher education has been responsible for so much of the success we have enjoyed as a nation -- economic, material, and intellectual successes. Now universities need to step up their efforts to tackle the challenges we face in the area of children, youth, and families.

Institutions must first enter into partnerships with communities, particularly its opinion leaders and decision makers, working closely with them to identify issues and problems. Ongoing discussions with community members will result in the development of strategies and interventions, especially primary prevention through education. 

We need to think about our relationship with the public in new terms. The guiding principle for universities must be not to do things FOR the community, but to do things WITH the community, creating a true partnership.

Institutional leadership is critical to creating a mindset that service is part of higher education's responsibility and role in society. Everyone within a university must be committed to the basic idea of engagement. Institutions must provide better rewards and benefits for faculty and staff who take on the important role of service to their communities. In the past, universities have not appropriately rewarded faculty and staff for their efforts in reaching out to communities, judging this activity as less important than other goals. 

I don't want to mislead you. Creating and sustaining an engaged university is not an easy task, but developing an environment where reaching out to our communities is considered a regular part of what universities should do is imperative if we are to help solve some of the most pressing problems facing our children and families today.

Moving from theory to action requires strategies to identify community needs. In partnership with communities, universities should catalogue resources both within the community and the university; highlight academic strengths and capabilities; and coordinate the work of many individuals and groups --frequently over long periods of time. 

At Penn State, we have reorganized many areas of the university so that we can be more responsive.  We have restructured our system of 24 campuses.  We have elevated our Cooperative Extension Service to include a broader range of programs to extend our research-based educational programs to citizens across the state. Through this new system, more than 500 staff and 50,000 volunteers can reach constituents in all of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. We created a virtual university, called the World Campus, for online learning. And we developed a Children, Youth, and Families Consortium, which promotes interdisciplinary teaching, research, and service.  There are now more than 350 faculty and staff members across 80 departments at Penn State who are delivering programs through the consortium and disseminating much-needed information to parents, teachers, health professionals, and others.

Whether a public or private university, engaging with our communities must be an integral part of the fabric of our institutions of higher education. Only by embracing public engagement as a core value and defining characteristic of our universities can we help improve the quality of life for children, youth and families.

Only through imaginative integration of our resources and by collaborating within the university and outside in the community can educators adequately and successfully respond to the needs of families and youth.

We have it in our power to not only shape the communities in which we live but to also shape opportunities for future generations.

As one Greek proverb says, "A society grows richer when individuals plant trees under whose shade they will never sit."