Commencement Remarks: Robert E. Cook, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, May 3, 2009
Indiana University of Pennsylvania: The finest academic institution in the country for teaching students of modest financial means
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, our IUP, offers the finest academic training in the United States, for students of modest financial means. The term "Modest Financial Means" applies when even IUP is expensive and you have to get a job to afford a beer. By finest academic training, I mean that we teach, and teach well, the entire spectrum of financially challenged smart kids who want to go to college, just like you. IUP now targets all of us, not just most of us.
I'll talk today about the secret sauce at IUP, and it comes in two parts, that allowed IUP to be the finest value in the United States. I'll talk just a bit of how we got here over time, on this path to national academic stardom.
For the first 125 years or so of IUP's existence, we were an exclusive university; we excluded certain groups from our midst. IUP targeted only a portion of our population for admission. Up until 1960 or so, IUP taught to the big group of smart students who wanted to go to college, for all of the experiences fabled to be there, but this large group was certainly not dedicated to living a life of the mind and probably not really in love with learning and knowledge. It seems that this is the biggest group of students among us at IUP today, and in most large public universities.
Next in IUP's history, as our national society at large became more unfair to the very poor and disadvantaged, IUP reached out to this group with offers of admission and special help, fully aware that more attention and money must be directed at those students who are less well prepared than most to enter college and learn. We still teach this group, and well.
At IUP, the final inclusion of students began in 1996 when we began admitting and teaching students from our midst with unusually strong academic talents and gifts. That is when IUP finally became an inclusive university, and quickly came on path to support my assertion that IUP is the finest university in the country for teaching students of modest financial means.
Let me break down that last thought a bit. This final piece of the IUP story that brings us to enjoying the best-in-the-country status is new. 45 years ago when I was at IUP, even 20 years ago, there wasn't much academic joy here for the really bright geeks and the nerds that we went to high school with; we excluded them. Except for a few, they didn't go to IUP and the ones that came were not taught any differently from the rest of us. Now they do go here, at least many of them. We at IUP are finally educating all of the smart kids from our society, even the smartest, and doing it well. We made a place for the smart kids from back home that never had a good place to go that they could afford. We gave them a group to hang with who was just like them. It's called the Cook Honors College at IUP. This is its 10th graduating class. IUP has done a great job with those Honors kids and they responded in kind. All of us will benefit from that.
What do I know about all the rest of you, besides this honors stuff for a few? A lot. I'm one of you. I got out of here with a 2.2. GPA, and had a wonderful time enjoying all of the fabled extras in college life. I certainly had no academic ambitions nor did I want my studies to get in the way of other college experiences that were easier and a lot more fun. But people taught me: IUP's faculty taught me whether I liked it or not, and they are good. IUP's faculty teaches – that is major piece of the secret sauce that is causing IUP to leap in prestige and distinction. At most top universities, undergraduate students are taught by graduate students who must teach as part of their quest for an advanced degree. Graduate students know little about teaching – yesterday they were students! Here at IUP you get taught by professionals who teach for a living with no other agenda, and they love to do it; that is why they came to IUP with their advanced degrees already completed. That is a huge deal. You will enjoy that benefit for the rest of your life – I did.
One thing that establishes the reputation and even defines a top university like Harvard or Stanford, or even Penn State and Virginia, in the eyes of our society is the number of top academic scholarships that its graduates earn. That number has proven a broadly reliable measure of how well graduates contribute to society later in life. At the top of that academic scholarship prestige list is the Rhodes scholarship: President Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar, as is Bill Bradley, the former Senator. A little down the prestige list are Fulbright Scholars: Dr. Janet Goebel, the Director of IUP's Honors College is a Fulbright Scholar, and a superstar. There are Marshalls, Goldwater, and so on. In the first 125 years of IUP's existence, we earned one major undergraduate scholarship, a Fulbright. In the past ten years we have earned 36 top scholarships including a Rhodes finalist, A Marshall Finalist, a Goldwater for four out of five years and 7 Fulbright Scholarships, among others for a total of 36, up from one. These were won by IUP finally devoting some time to the geeks and the nerds from our high school classes, and challenging them here, in IUP's Honors College. You will enjoy that reflected glory during your career, that growing reputation of IUP, as it helps you get jobs with its prestige and growing buzz.
As an example of just how good IUP looks to others right now, consider the Goldwater award. The Goldwater is broadly viewed as the most prestigious scholarship in science awarded to an undergraduate. Each year, a Goldwater Scholarship is awarded to 200 undergraduates in the United States, out of 7 million students enrolled in four year university programs. The award of a Goldwater is made to fewer than one-hundredth of one percent of one percent of that 7 million student population. IUP students have been awarded a Goldwater 4 out of 5 years.
Were they all from IUP's Cook Honors College? They were. Each of them spent four semesters being taught to be critical thinkers and superior oral and written communicators. They were forced to argue morality with St Thomas Aquinas and feminism with Susan Sonntag, and were told which side of the argument to take, then later told to argue the other side in a new paper. After four semesters of a curriculum like that, designed by the faculty senate, and taught by an IUP faculty that lives to teach, they go to work on their major as well prepared as any in the country. It is no surprise that they continue to excel at math, biology, chemistry and other sciences. But top 200, four of five years? That is a big deal.
But the Cook Honors College at IUP is about much more than just science or Goldwater scholarships; it is about learning to think. As an example or two about how we start teaching young men and women to think, there will soon be a podcast on the CHC website that shows an IUP professor discussing Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as an example of what form is taken for the first lecture to incoming freshman at IUP's Cook Honors College. Another podcast will cover an introductory lesson in history, illustrating the marvelous depth and complexity of interpreting history as practiced at here.
Just as were the honors college students, you were taught to think, however reluctantly on your part, by IUP's faculty. That is a valuable thing and a big part of IUP's secret sauce. It will probably be another five years before it becomes obvious to you, that whether you really tried or not, you learned a lot here, because IUP's faculty teaches. They love what they do, and they are good at it. The second part of the secret sauce is that people at IUP know how to work, and work hard. I don't think that any of us wanted to work as much as we did; it was just necessary.
There are no Ferraris in the student parking lot that I saw. IUPers work hard just to keep going; we find summer jobs, part-time jobs, tutoring jobs, whatever it takes to keep going. That is so intimidating for so many rich kids. If we can't baffle them with BS, we dazzle them with hard work, or maybe a wee bit of both. We can work others to a frazzle as they try to keep up, because we know how. That is the second part of IUP's secret sauce. We are workers. Bosses value hard work. And, in my experience, the harder one works, the luckier he or she becomes.
No other school in the country does what IUP does, as well as it does for so little money. We educate the whole mass of kids whose families have only a little money, and do it very well. The whole mass now finally includes the smart ones from our high school class, the ones who love academia and show it. That is helping IUP's reputation as a source of smart workers, across the board. That reputation will make it easier for you to get a job, and then a better one. Having IUP stamped on your class ring is becoming a big asset, and it will become bigger.
When you make it big, don't forget about IUP. We don't have much money, and things are going to get tougher, it seems. IUP is a fabulous school for folks like you and me. Someday, reach in your pocket for IUP and how it contributes to our society. Give something back. I did.
