March 25, 2009 | Articles/Op-Eds

The Roots Of Penn State: Toward A More Vibrant University

The following remarks were delivered in a speech to Rotary International of State College in Centre County, Pennsylvania on March 24, 2009.

Introduction
First, thank you for inviting me tonight to speak. I’m sure you hear it often, but it really is an honor for me – a guy who four years ago was just an average freshman on a campus of some 45,000 – to be with you now, some of the most distinguished members of what I identify proudly and perhaps rather presumptuously as our shared community in the Nittany Valley.

I’ll be speaking tonight on some of my experiences at Penn State over the past four years as a student and campus leader. Specifically, I’ll be talking about a group I founded two years ago called “Safeguard Old State”, a student-alumni group designed to “protect the rights and traditions of Penn Staters.” I hope to relate how my experiences have shaped my impression of the state of modern university life at a land-grant school like ours.

Finally, I’ll introduce the conclusions I have drawn about the kinds of things I believe our University community will need to rediscover in this century, and how we can write a new chapter in the history of higher education by understanding the crossroads at which I believe we are soon to arrive.

Why ‘Safeguard’ Old State?
So, why “Safeguard” Dear Old State? The name implies, after all, that our beloved school is in jeopardy, as if from some unseen foe. To put it simply, Safeguard Old State was founded to oppose what I and many of the other students saw as an increasingly soulless campus climate.

We felt – and still feel – that an alarmingly high percentage of the student body was being allowed to graduate without any particularly meaningful sense of the traditions and heritage unique to Penn State, being sent off into the workforce before being introduced to the things that made Old State “Dear” when Fred Pattee put pen to paper in 1901.

And without an understanding of our common heritage as Penn Staters – the institutions, customs and traditions that make the label “Penn Stater” distinct from “Ohio Stater” or “Michigian Stater” – we have little of real worth to bond us, other than alcohol, football and basic friendships.

Such things are important, certainly, and can play a role, but taken alone they do not provide the incoming freshman or graduating senior with that vital sense of himself and his place in the long history of our institution that engenders tenderness toward our name, thoughtfulness towards our brothers or fidelity to the ideal of a liberal and practical education.

President Spanier emphasizes frequently that his goal is for us to become America’s most “student-centered research university.” But Old State wasn’t founded primarily for research – it was founded to, in the words of our Alma Mater, “mold” young men and women into intellectually informed, practically trained citizens.

And the rights and traditions of Penn Staters for more than three centuries –academic freedom, student rituals and pranks, football games, Indian legends, reading societies, fraternities and free association – are vital to any genuinely “student-centered” enterprise.

In creating Safeguard Old State, our group of a few dozen students and campus leaders, sought to explore the roots of our University in more than a superficial manner.

If Safeguard Old State could succeed in informing a new generation on campus of what the real student body was, we supposed, we might be able to turn the tide against the onslaught of the consumer-driven approach to education which debauches its worth and value.

The pernicious idea of the institution as “multiversity,” charged merely with research and job training, rather than university, a place for a liberal and personal formation, has taken hold over the past few decades, and the label of “Penn Stater” is in danger of losing its luster.

Penn State students now graduate with steadily fewer experiences of common pride, common experiences or common values. The campus has adopted the stark character of the modern research university; fewer and fewer opportunities exist to unify a fragmented student population into that precious and rare community in time that used to make each class of students so different from each that came before. We lack collective memory and are losing the fondness for our own specialness that has been central to the character of Penn Staters.

Safeguard Old State, in attempting to stem this tide, has articulated its mission in “striving to rekindle the spirit of the classical university within the structure of the modern research institution, promoting personal growth through fellowship and genuine academic inquiry.”

To such an end, Safeguard Old State has essentially sought to answer three questions about students that we believe are requisites for a vibrant academic community at a land-grant university that was one of the first to successfully blend traditional liberal arts-style formation with a hands-on, practical and vocational education.

First, what does a vibrant student body resemble? Second, what are some of the successes of the modern student body? And finally, how can a richer student body be encouraged?

1. What Does A Vibrant Student Body & Community Look Like?
In answering the question, “what does a vibrant student body resemble,” we have looked to past successes of student creativity and initiative unmitigated in terms of its success in fostering a richer student experience and strong bonds with alumni and townspeople.

The emergence of the fraternity system in the early part of the last century is the most obvious and still most remarkable development. Students came together to devote themselves to a common purpose – for not only living quarters, but a shared brotherhood – and they did so before paid staff or administrators existed to aid or regulate them.

The enduring beauty of the fraternity homes that grace our town are a lasting testament to the potential of the student body when it is elevated above campus bureaucracy.

Other examples are perhaps less obvious today, but the reading societies, poetry groups and sporting clubs that have arisen over the last century have played a significant role in developing a lasting spirit that represents a lasting success even with the transient nature of an undergraduate population.

The key take-away from these successes is that students are naturally ambitious and enterprising when given the opportunity to achieve outside the classroom as well as in it.

Much of the student activity on today’s campus is confined to the Student Affairs bubble, and as a result we’ve fallen into a cyclical political system wherein students have tended to seek power in groups not to distinguish themselves as men or character or students in the pursuit of higher virtues, but instead folks who would merely pad a resume to get ahead later in the job force.

Some of the failures in student life – rampant binge drinking, grade inflation and destructive tendencies off campus – I believe can be remedied if we can call students to emerge from the bubble of purely campus-centric involvement.

With such a vast campus, many students rarely make it outside of the borough to explore Mount Nittany or the streets of Lemont or Bellefonte.

The heart of man was made for bigger things than the campus power structures are built for, and if students are to establish the 21st century equivalent of the fraternity system in terms of traditions and institutions with lasting meaning and beauty, we’ll need to get to reintroduce the wider world to their minds for exploring.

A new concept of student empowerment beckons, of student leaders who merit their title by virtue of their relationships to and bonds with their peers and friends, rather than by their proximity to committees endlessly tweak rules and regulations.

This can be accomplished by connecting with local townspeople, businessmen and philanthropists who are interested in underwriting new student ideas and initiatives and by networking with Rotarians and Kiwanians to enrich communities, giving rise to new customs and traditions that can showcase today’s student spirit.

2. Present-Day Success Stories Of The Modern Student Body
I may have gone too far, though, by painting a bleaker picture of the current student body than really exists. There is much to celebrate, and these things upon which further success can probably be built.

I recently learned that Trustee George Henning has begun an initiative as a part of his service to the University to restore and maintain President Evan Pugh’s Bellefonte grave. Working with students and community members in this way is both a refreshing and deeply humbling example of the kind of servant-leadership from which students can learn.

A few more present day success stories come in the form of two current campus leaders. Luke Pierce, a good friend and president of the Interfraternity Council, has embarked on a campaign to enliven Greek life by calling for brothers to rediscover their founding principles.

Luke has made a point of calling for brothers to act in all facets of their lives as genuine fraternity adult men rather than Animal House-style “frat boys.” He believes, even in his limited one-year term as IFC president, that he might be able to impart a desire for more gentlemanly behavior from our fraternities.

Luke is working to accomplish this not just through new service activities, but through a campaign intended to help current brothers understand the history of Greek life and its significant contributions at Penn State, so that they might understand how they can be a positive part of the future of Old State.

Luke calling for better behavior is not in itself a panacea for Greeks, but it’s also one of the only major initiatives of its kind to have come not from the outside – from administrators or regulators – but from the students themselves. For this reason, I’m hopeful there might be something special to his cause.

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Another noteworthy student leader is Gavin Keirans, the current student body president and head of the student government. I’ve known Gavin for three years now, and he is truly the most exceptional student I’ve met.

Since his freshman year, he has devoted himself to understanding the history of Penn State in and out, and this has guided him during his time in student government in choosing to seek not new services and programs from administration, but instead to seek fundamental change in the mindset of student leaders.

For example: Gavin’s running for re-election as a junior, and his campaign platform, totaling more than 40 pages, includes goals such as personally sitting down with every freshman over the course of the next 12 months to, in his words, “give Penn State a face.”

Gavin’s creating a “Living Legends” series where he will seek to unite folks like Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno to read some of the Indian Legends of Penn State to new students. He’s bringing together a cabinet of the presidents of the top 50 student groups into an informal “college cabinet” in an effort to enfranchise students in the decision-making aspect of the university.

Gavin has reached out to borough officials, numerous deans, trustees, including the student trustee and many others. He writes an online column for the Centre Daily Times on his experiences.

He understands that a vibrant student body can only be achieved once students can feel excited about the life of their university, and know the movers and shakers of the community.

These are promising signs of a student community that might very well navigate itself beyond petty campus politics, short-sighted power grabs and infighting, instead opting to work toward rebuilding a coherency among students that allows for one regarding another as a part of a shared community and common experience rather than a member of an opposing special interest lobby on-campus.

3. How A Richer Student Body Can Be Encouraged

The examples outlined relate to the kind of phenomenon we would like to see spring forth today in terms of a sense of fidelity that gives rise to a real stewardship, to a real understanding of oneself and one’s love of another, to a community in time.

Fidelity is foundational to everything of worth and value that happens at our University. Fidelity to an idea – for the incoming freshman and graduating senior – that they are inheritors of a rich tradition and legacy that by its existence it can enrich their lives in a way nothing else can. Only with fidelity can we witness a rebirth of fraternities and fraternal bonds among students.

Fidelity gives rise to family – that’s the community in time that real transcends time and place. “One heart that loves thy name” can only have sprung up with a sense of brotherhood and sense of inheritorship.

We’ve lost faith in our government and financial elite because people have been taught vocational skills and talents, but they haven’t been taught character, fortititude, morality, civics, ethics or the value of tradition as a means to communicate the timeless.

These first principles are essential to a healthy, coherent university community that genuinely “molds” the young entrant to the college gates into the men or women who will go on not only to be captains of industry, but to exercise their power ethically and morally, and to understand their duty to pass along those gifts to the student body.

When more students feel a part of something deeper than a trade school mentality to education or marketing slogans like “Making Life Better,” they will apply themselves with confidence and alacrity to the creation of a newly beloved “Old State.”

Conclusion
I’ve highlighted what I’d like to think are some intriguing thoughts for enriching and deepening campus life at Penn State.

There has not existed for some time (at least to my knowledge) any organization quite like Safeguard Old State, independent of student government, faculty senate or alumni groups that exists to foster a renewed thoughtfulness among the student body.

Whether we succeed in our goals, practical or philosophical, to restore a more meaningful, lasting sense of collective memory or affection for campus institutions is yet to be seen.

Surely, there is much work to be done, but we’re hopeful that the more we communicate our ideas and our ideals for a renewal at Penn State, the larger Penn State family – including everyone in this room – will find that the more and more students are rediscovering the worth of old values in this new and often daunting world.

If the University remains committed to the ultimate search for life’s purpose and meaning, and a means to such a discovery through learning, we’ll need that collective memory of those old values.

In dedicating Schwab Audition in 1904, President George Atherton spelled out some of these values in no uncertain terms, declaring: “I dedicate Schwab Auditorium to the advocacy of truth in every area of human thought; to loyalty, patriotism and unselfish consecration to public duty; to the service of Religion, pure and undefiled.”

Such old and ageless values – of fidelity to one’s alma mater, our dear mother, of genuine companionship and brotherhood, of character to guard from rashness, ethics to guide action and morality to guide our hearts so that we, like others before us, may be surprised by the joy of living a life well led.

Perhaps surprising, as it runs counter to our culturally-affected expectations, these are the things for which young men and women still yearn, desires written on the heart that still draw the freshman to the gates.

The question is before us: can we, through the University, make these things real again, today?

Thank you.