Remember Who You Are...

Perhaps if you know me (or have seen my musings on LinkedIn), you will know that I am a big Disney fan. I've enjoyed many visits to their parks, have followed Disney leadership teachings and love to read about the wisdom of Walt Disney himself.

One Disney movie quote that resonates with me comes from The Lion King, where the wise Rafiki says "the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it." Later on, he summons the voice of Simba's father, who reminds his son to "remember who you are."

Tonight, I got an email from an outstanding member of our faculty, Matthieu Boyd , who followed up with me from a conversation I had with our faculty about our future. He put together the thoughts and writings of Fairleigh Dickinson University founder Peter Sammartino, whose vision was to build a "community college", not in the current definition, but rather one that was of and for the community it served. Here are a few of Sammartino's ideas about a new kind of college:

The educational philosophy behind the college was Life Adjustment Education. The institution’s success is “best measured by the actions and attitudes of its graduates in the social, economic, civic, and ethical life of the community in which they live.” There’s an eight-point plan:

1.     “Emphasis on guidance and student personnel service.” Students need personal help in “discussing careers, education, employment, and all kinds of individual problems.”

2.     “Emphasis on ethical and moral living.” Students must not only understand but practice ethical democratic living.

3.     “Emphasis on good citizenship […] at the school, community, State, national, and world level.” Again, students need to have an understanding of social and economic problems, etc., and apply it in “real-life situations.”

4.     “Emphasis on wholesome home and family life[: t]he family in its relation to its place in a democratic society, in its relationship to economics and buyership, conservation of resources, child care and guidance, home management.” Students have to address themselves in a participatory way to “real problems”; you can’t just lecture them on this topic.

5.     “Development of self-realization and worthy use of leisure”: “the school must have adequate resources for a broad recreational program, and must sponsor activities, such as participation in school government, clubs, social affairs, and interschool and intramural sports in which all students have equal opportunity to share experiences and ideas.”

6.     “Emphasis on consumer education.” This includes developing “a discriminating sense of values to guide expenditures”; “learning to shop to get adequate return for your money, acquiring ability in financial management, and gaining a basic comprehension of the operation of the total economy.”

7.     “Emphasis on the tools of learning.” The 3 Rs, but also “the tools of cooperation, consensus, and compromise”: “[s]tudies of job-losers show that the reason is usually inability to deal with people or incompetence in social skills and responsibility.” “Rote, regurgitation, and routine have little place in the development of the real tools of learning.”

8.     “Emphasis on work experience and work adjustment.” “Students need guidance and experience in getting a job, holding a job, growing on the job, taking and understanding directions, meeting job responsibilities, improving work habits, gaining knowledge about labor-management relations, and realizing the imperativeness of business and industrial saftey.”

In general, the civic, social, and ethical development of students is as important as their intellectual development.

Freshmen had to take a course in Contemporary Society; sophomores had to take Economics (stressing broader social implications); juniors had to take The United States as a World Power. There was also a course called Dynamic Citizenship, for students interested in public speaking; every month they would prepare an address to the student body (at the College Community Conference; see below) on “an important issue affecting American citizens,” which they would research by running a poll among their friends and family. Apparently even Washington lawmakers took a personal interest in what the Fairleigh Dickinson students came up with. (It didn’t hurt that FDR’s son brought distinguished speakers to campus every Thursday night.)

In reflecting on our future, perhaps we need to learn from our past. When the world is evolving at a rate like never before seen, at a time when technology threatens every livelihood, every field and every worker, perhaps we need to think about how we learn from what was in order to build toward what can be, what could be or what should be. Educating students who are of and for the communities that they serve. Students immersed in a learning environment where all are involved, integral and instrumental in student development. The promotion of social skills, communication, practical knowledge and the ability to reason and apply learning to a world of work. This sounds like the University of the future...yet it was drawn from a vision of the past. It is who we are, it is the foundation of what we were built on. You can either run from it, or learn from it. Remember who you are.