Segment Order:
1) Seeing the Invisible: Uncommon visions for learning
2) Investigating and Connecting: Graduating critical and constructive thinkers
3) Writing and Presenting: Developing skilled communicators
4) Participating and Leading: Demonstrating personal character and values
5) The BG Experience: Preparing principled citizens
6) Our Uncommon Mission, Our Common Cause

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S OPENING REMARKS

Let me begin by saying welcome and thank each and every one of you for coming out this morning. It feels like it’s earlier in the morning to me than it really is, since yesterday we had an event that went pretty late over in Lima. Then I had some things to do, like get a speech ready for this morning. So it seems like it’s really early, or either really late yesterday; I’m not sure which one. We are very appreciative of the fact that there are so many people here today. Probably the most important part of Opening Day is not my presentation, I don’t delude myself into thinking that everybody comes out here to see me or listen to me. That would be nice, but I don’t think that’s really the case. I think it’s nice to see friends, to reconnect with people you haven’t seen for a period of time, just to spend some casual time with people as we prepare to embark on a very ambitious new semester. And I think that’s probably the most important part about Opening Day.

I remember distinctively, when I was a faculty member how much I enjoyed the beginning of the Fall Semester…the excitement and the anxiety. I taught for twenty years and every time I stepped in front of a new class, I was nervous. It didn’t matter how many times I had taught the course, because I wanted to be better. I wanted to connect more effectively with students. I wanted to explore ideas in a way that would allow us to discover new intellectual horizons, and I put pressure on myself. I think it made me nervous, but the beginning of a semester is just a wonderful time.

Yesterday evening we were in Lima, Ohio for a send-off event for some students from the Wapakoneta/Lima area who will be attending Bowling Green State University. They came and their parents came. My initial impression when I stepped behind the podium was, "Boy, they are young." Then I thought to myself, "maybe I’m just getting old." I’m not sure, maybe they are not getting any younger. That’s probably the case, but the anticipation in their eyes and on their faces showed that they had many questions. What was going to happen when they moved into their residence hall? Who was their roommate going to be? What was their Biology professor going to say to them? What are those courses they are enrolled in and why are they taking them? And that got me going all over again. I think that is what is so important about Opening Day. Enjoy it, relish it. I talked to one of our distinguished colleagues and he told me that this was his 29th Opening Day, without putting any pressure on me, of course. He’ll remain unnamed, but I look right in his direction over there. This is a very special time.

Secondly, what we want to do today is talk about the University in a different kind of way. We want to talk about the University as a place where teaching, and learning, and intellectual discovery takes place. But we want to talk about it through the voices of a number of people. I’ve said from the beginning, and I will continue to say, that the strength and achievements of Bowling Green State University have been accomplished because of the hard work and dedication of countless faculty and staff, many of whom are here, many of whom have retired and are no longer here. My role is that of conductor, orchestrater. The hard work and dedication comes in the classroom, in the library, in the labs, where each and every one of you spend time with students. It will take place in the new Student Union, which will be up in January, where our students can interact with staff members and faculty members in a way that makes a difference in their lives.

A final thing I’d like to say before we get into the formal presentation is that…I was thinking about this as I was driving back from Lima last night…what we do, if we do our work at its best, is to create a set of experiences, a set of opportunities where students engage in the learning and discovery process. But we must assure that the organizational structure, our academic resources, our faculty and our staff are deployed in a way that allows this to continue to go on – not just in 2001, but in 2005, and 2010 and 2020 – that we institutionalize a legacy, an academic legacy that says as an institution, this is what we stand for. As a student, if you attend Bowling Green State University, this is what we expect of you, but in return, this is what we offer to you. So it needs to be a reciprocal process…a dialectic where teaching and learning take place, but they don’t take place in a haphazard, random way. They take place in a very instrumental, intentional way. And that instrumental and intentional way requires students to bring something to the equation. It requires a certain perspective, requires a certain dedication, commitment, motivation and, likewise, on behalf of our faculty and staff, there is a commitment that we too must make. That commitment says that we go the extra mile, we take the extra step, we take the extra time to really engage students where he or she might be. And that’s not always easy. It’s not always easy for administrators, for deans or directors, for chairs or university presidents. But it’s something that is one of the hallmarks of great institutions. Great institutions are created and maintained by dedicated people. That’s what makes a great institution. And that’s what we are trying to achieve at Bowling Green State University. We’ve come a long way and today we are going to talk about some of the things that have been accomplished; and some of the ways we have conceptualized and reconceptualized teaching and learning and what we are trying to achieve in the classroom, specifically, the outcomes we are trying to achieve. Then we’ll talk about how that contributes to the kind of educated graduate we want to leave Bowling Green State University. Oftentimes, people don’t think about the other end of the equation. We are really prone to think about inputs like who we want to put into a classroom, what we want to put into our experience with a student. I don’t care if it’s on the athletic field, in a classroom, or a facility on campus where a student is doing research. We must also think about not just what they are doing at the time, but what we want them to leave that experience with. Ultimately students are going to leave Bowling Green State University with a series of experiences that come together as a gestalt and that will define their profession, their career, and what they do with their lives.

When I was an undergraduate student and I was an English major, I had no idea how the study of Shakespeare was going to impact what I did later in my life. In fact, I didn’t think it would impact anything at that particular time. But low and behold, that had an impact on what I learned about human relationships, and values, and respect, and family. When I learned lessons about morality and ethics, I also learned that these lessons have been instrumental as I’ve pursued several different avenues in the academic community.

We need to think about, not only what we share with students at the moment in time at which they are ours, but also about how those things come together and what kind of guidance can we give them in helping them pull together the pieces into a coherent picture that will help define what they will do with the knowledge, and information, and the skills that they discover while at Bowling Green State University. The best thing you can do is to equip a person to learn, because once you equip them to learn and you ignite the passion within them to learn, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. There is nothing that we can do, that anyone can do, that society can do, that a job can do, to stop them. To ignite that imagination and the excitement and the beauty that comes from knowledge is a wonderful thing. It’s so hard to convey, but the best faculty members and the best staff members, the best parents, also do that; excite in students, in young people, young women and young men, a passion and a desire to explore whatever their human potential might be. There is nothing more exciting and invigorating than a new idea. And when a faculty member in a classroom has revealed information and literature and research, and it ignited an idea in the eyes of the students…it doesn’t happen often enough. You might have 35 students in a class and you see that light coming on in the eyes of one or two. Once you see that light, you’ll never forget it. And that’s what teaching and learning and education are really all about.

Today we are going to talk about teaching and learning and undergraduate education in particular, and some of the things that we have learned about our curriculum here at Bowling Green State University. We are going to talk about some of the things we want to see happen as we move forward as an institution, and we are going to hear from faculty members, staff members, students and others; one Board of Trustee member who actually is reflecting upon his experience as a student at Bowling Green State University and where he sees us going as an institution. The voices that you hear are singular, but they represent a multitude of individuals who have a certain experience with and a connection to Bowling Green State University.

To begin to give you a little contextual information, let me take you back to 1994. The learning outcomes that we are going to talk about today actually date back to a committee that was formed in 1994. I’m going to then give you the learning outcomes and the three categories into which they fit. And then I’ll talk a little bit about where we go with this information and what we have to say about the future of Bowling Green State University. In 1994, the University formed a Student Achievement Assessment Committee. It was representative of all academic colleges. Ron Russell, many of you might remember him, the then Dean of the College of Education and Allied Professions, was, at that time, the Chair of this committee. Ron Russell is no longer here, as you know, he’s retired, but Milt Hakel is now the Chair of that committee. The committee asked the faculty of every department to come up with a discipline-specific learning outcomes for their majors. What we were trying to do, as part of a discussion that had to do with assessment and the North Central Accreditation visit, was to see if, in fact, we could take all the experiences, and the knowledge, and the teaching and learning curriculum here at Bowling Green State University and identify specific learning outcomes that might be shared or common in all disciplines. That’s what this committee set out to do. They collected information from each college, from each department in each college, and they put it into a spreadsheet and began categorizing and analyzing the information, grouping discipline-specific learning outcomes into like categories and common learning goals.

What I want to do now is look at some of these and talk about them for just a moment. What they found were six major institutional learning outcomes and that those could be grouped into three categories. I should say before we actually go to the outcomes that these outcomes appeared for the first time in 1999 in our Undergraduate Course Catalog.

Before we go into the presentation, I wanted to make a few comments. When you talk to individuals who are engaged in this process, they were discussing and describing what they were trying to accomplish in psychology, what they were trying to accomplish in philosophy. What the committee found was that there are certain commonalities, certain features that most majors have as part and parcel of their program. Developing critical and constructive thinkers was one category. Most majors had as a goal to develop critical and constructive thinkers. You might do it different in Political Science, than you do it in Music. You might do it different in Chemistry than you would do it in Physical Education. But one of the things they try to achieve in all majors is to develop critical and constructive thinkers. Under this category, two things that stuck out in the most pronounced way were:
1) teaching students how to investigate, how to intellectually pursue ideas and to discover those ideas, and then
2) connecting that information in some kind of coherent fashion.
So developing critical and constructive thinkers was one category that we could pull through all the majors in the University and under this category there were two items that emerged: investigating and connecting.

I want to take a second to say something about connecting. One of the major criticisms we hear about public education today is that it’s a series of unrelated courses that aren’t necessarily connected. When people say students are doing well on problem-solving tasks that are part of the proficiency exam, part of the reason is that students are really taught to integrate and connect what they learn in civics and what they learn in composition and what they learn in geography in a way that allows them to use that information for a specific outcome. If you look at our curriculum and all the majors in our university, you can tease from that cross-discipline analysis, whether it’s Computer Science or Accounting: developing critical and constructive thinkers who are skillful at investigating and connecting information is a common theme that emerges. This is a good thing and something we can be very proud of.

Category Two: Developing skilled communicators. Under this category we have writing and presenting. All disciplines talked about developing students that were skilled communicators through the curriculum. It’s important because if a student masters a body of knowledge or a literature within the discipline, he or she has to be able to convey that knowledge in order for it to have utility. Before coming to Bowling Green State University, I worked at a number of science and engineering campuses…a couple of, not a number of. I didn’t have too many previous jobs. I was at a university once where we had 15,000 students, and 5,000 engineering majors. Engineering majors had a very rigorous academic program. A five-year program would allow one elective course. We fought about that constantly from my position as Provost, because it didn’t give them much latitude to explore anything else. One elective course. But one thing we all came to agree on is that even engineers needed to become skilled communicators. How do engineers work in our contemporary society? They work in teams. One of the things we did in my former position is raise money from Fluor Daniel, Hughes and other major corporations. And they would tell you, very quickly, that what they wanted were engineers that were technically sound who could solve problems, because that’s what engineers do, but they also wanted engineers that could convey that; engineers that could work collaboratively, that could communicate the results of their findings. So a second category that we found that was very important to Bowling Green State University majors, no matter what their disciplinary area, was developing skilled communicators.

Last category: Demonstrating personal character and values. Under that we have participating and leading. Our majors, and I’m very proud of this factor, really place an emphasis on creating in young people the skills and the ability to lead effectively and to participate or become engaged in a research for a particular discipline, or applied kinds of activities that lead to problem solving in the larger community. But to get students participating and involved, involved in their classrooms so they become active learners, not just passive recipients of information…that’s difficult.

Let me digress for a second. Three years ago, I team-taught a course here at Bowling Green State University. And I’m going to do it again, as soon as I can find another colleague to teach with me that is as good as Al Gonzalez was. Is Dr. Gonzalez here? He really pulled me through. It was a great experience. Now, the students weren’t on the edge of their seats jumping to be involved and participate in my class. Let me be really clear. But one of the things that was important for me is to try to create experiences, to try to structure my syllabus in a way that I could facilitate student participation and student engagement. It could be assignments outside of class, it could be discussion in class, but we must as educators create environments where students find a way, find a need to become actively involved and engaged in the learning process. Probably the worst kind of educational format is what we are doing today; you sitting and me talking. It would be much better to have an opportunity to just sit and talk about these ideas in a small group. Where that’s possible, I think it’s very, very important. Demonstrating personal character and values, participating and leading; those were things that were found to be important in all of our majors here at Bowling Green State University.

To summarize, I’d say that the analysis that we’ve done, the assessment that we’ve done under the current leadership, Milt Hakel and Mark Gromko, and the Assessment Committee, has really led us to understand, in a much more detailed and thorough way, the kinds of outcomes that are part of the academic experience here at Bowling Green State University. We have an excellent program that we are very proud of and what we choose to do is to build on that, to take us to the next level of excellence and achievement and I think that is, in fact, what we can do.

What we are going to do now is actually talk about it in more detail, each of these three categories and the items under these categories. What you see on your left are six areas that are all related to the learning outcomes that I have just mentioned in these three categories. "Uncommon visions" is an introduction to the whole presentation, "critical thinkers" has to do with what we are doing in that area, "skilled communicators" is a perspective on that category, "character and values," "principled citizens," and "uniting in a common cause." If all of these things work well together in our BGSU Experience, then, at the other end, when we have graduation ceremonies in Anderson Arena, or out on the quad, I should be shaking hands with students who are prepared to lead, to contribute and to significantly make an impact on our society, on their disciplines and in the world in which they live. Now, let’s see how all that is going to take place.

Segment One Narrative
Seeing the Invisible: Uncommon visions for learning

To some, it might seem invisible. You can’t touch it. But it will touch you. From the moment you arrive, you’ll sense it. You’ll see it in students’ eyes, hear it in faculty members’ voices and experience it in staff members’ genuine acts of understanding. It is an uncommon learning environment, and the legacy of Bowling Green State University.

In America today, so many problems are visible to us – global warming, religious and ethnic conflict, the decline of citizen engagement in the political process, the maldistribution of wealth and opportunity, the shift from a national to a global economy, and the shirt from an industrial to a knowledge-based society. To respond effectively to these emerging national and world issues, future leaders will not only need to possess new knowledge and skills, but will also be called upon to display a high level of critical thinking. With this in mind, American colleges and universities must revisit the trinity of higher education’s mission, drawing upon the synergy of teaching, research and service to create an uncommon approach to learning. At Bowling Green State University, this unique approach involves joining both the university-wide learning outcomes and the disciplinary learning outcomes with an awareness of the role of values in the individual’s personal and professional life.

At institutions of higher learning across the nation, faculty teaching Introduction to Psychology courses show students an artist’s rendering of a woman. In the picture, some see an old woman. But imbedded in the rendering is another picture; a picture of a young woman.

Just like the image of a young woman imbedded in the rendering, values are embedded in the institutional learning outcomes as well as the discipline-specific learning outcomes established by faculty in over 90% of the University’s academic departments.
Academic and humanistic values like:
• Intellectual and personal development
• Scholarship
• Curiosity
• Civility
• Honesty
• Service to others
• Reflective judgement; and
• Individual involvement.

Interview with Jon Bragg, Junior Psychology Major and President of the Undergraduate Student Government
Early in my career as a Bowling Green State University student, I realized the value faculty members place on connecting with and becoming involved in the lives of their students. They really care about learning. The first time I experienced this was in my freshmen Psychology class with Professor Mynett. It was a very large lecture class of about 250 students. Coming from a high school where the average class size was about 30 students, this was quite an adjustment for me. But, I kept up with my reading and assignments and actively participated in the class. I thought that in a class that size, students are viewed as "just a number," not a person, not someone interested in learning. When finals came around at the end of the year, I took it upon myself to set up a meeting with Professor Mynett, and it was at this meeting that I realized that I wasn’t just a number in his large class. Professor Mynett knew my name, my face and what class section I was in. He knew who I was. That meant a lot to me because it showed that Bowling Green State University has faculty members who value getting involved with and connecting with students.

Segment One Narrative continued

At Bowling Green State University, our uncommon vision for learning enables us to see what may be invisible to others within the higher education community. We see the possibilities, and as a result, we recognize our responsibility as an institution of higher learning…to the society that sustains us and to the students who today will engage in learning, and tomorrow will lead us into the future.

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S REMARKS AFTER SEGMENT ONE

As you have heard from Jonathan Bragg, our Undergraduate Student Government President, what takes place in the classroom as well as the content that’s shared does make a difference. We are always, knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, passing on a legacy of one kind or another. I think back on the relationships that have most influenced my life and it’s not the ones where the people were constantly telling me to do this or to do that. I think mostly of my Dad, and his influence had to do with who he was. A faculty member is in a unique position to do the same thing through the rigor of their discipline, their attitude, their passions. If you are passionate about your discipline and what you are teaching, it’s much more likely that a student will become passionate about that. What we do does make a difference. I don’t necessarily like it, but how I comport myself as President of Bowling Green State University has an impact on people, has an impact on students, an impact on faculty, an impact on the reputation of this institution. And that is the invisible part of the learning process that is so important as you establish an identity for this or any institution.

Segment Two Narrative
Investigating and Connecting: Graduating critical and constructive thinkers

At Bowling Green State University, our learning outcomes include students achieving proficiency in investigating and making connections. By investigating, students are called to explore issues, collect and analyze information and make informed judgments. "Investigating" calls for students to ask big questions. And we know that our faculty are committed to addressing those questions, engaging students and developing in them critical thinking skills, positioning them to be at the center of meaningful social and humanistic dialogue. At Bowling Green State University, students also learn that through connecting, they become innovative problem solvers. They are able to synthesize knowledge in an interdisciplinary way, within and across courses, integrating both theory and practice, and linking their in-class learning with out-of-class experiences. They are able to relate their self and culture to diverse cultures throughout the United States and internationally.

Derek Bok, President Emeritus of Harvard University and Executive Director of Common Cause, advanced that "the critical component of education attempts to expose students to multiple and conflicting perspectives of themselves and their society in order to test and challenge their previously unexamined assumptions." Clearly, a student who is either too quick to embrace every idea or assertion or too quick to reject every new concept will be neither productive nor functional. Faculty members at Bowling Green State University work to infuse the investigating and connecting learning outcomes throughout the curriculum and in so doing, develop critical and constructive thinkers who can redefine their cognitive map of the world as well as the way they view their role in society.

Interview with Dr. Andy Layden, Assistant Professor, Physics and Astronomy
I try to tie together the course material and societal issues through in-class discussion. Generally, I'll introduce the course material through readings the students do at home. In class, we discuss the readings and do some related experimental activities. Then, I'll ask some leading questions to help the students make the leap from the course to the societal issues, and we will discuss the connections. Let me give you an example. In my introductory Astronomy course, they read about how much energy the Sun creates, and how much we on Earth receive. In class, we do some calculations to see whether collecting this solar energy is an efficient way of powering our civilization. The next night, the students read about how the Sun produces this energy by nuclear fusion. I also have them look at a web site describing how we produce electricity by nuclear fission inside power plants. They compare and contrast the two processes -- fusion and fission -- to get a better understanding of the physics involved. Then we discuss the pros and cons of nuclear electricity generation, and compare it with the pros and cons of solar power, fossil fuels, and other alternatives. In total, we spend a day or two discussing energy production here on Earth. This may seem like a high price to pay in terms of the great Astronomy I don't have time to present at the end of the semester. However, the motivation to do it is strong. It encourages the students to:
* think independently and constructively;
* bring in their own preconceptions and reexamine them in a new context; and
* see how astronomy and science in general relate to the pressing social issues of our time.

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S REMARKS AFTER SEGMENT TWO

I had opportunity to visit Professor Layden’s class during the Spring Semester. It was a wonderful experience. I didn’t have any interest in Astronomy in particular, but I wanted to visit some classes and I asked for faculty members from different colleges to invite me if they were so inclined. It was a great experience. What was so fascinating to me was the way that he was able to teach Astronomy in a way that to connected with the students. It was a way that really illustrates what instruction can do at its best. Again, I visited about three or four classes that semester, a History class, an Astronomy class, a Political Science class. To help students figure out critically and analytically how to make sense of the complexity of the world is something that we as educators do, as well as teach the content of our given disciplines.

Segment Three Narrative
Writing and Presenting: Developing skilled communicators

Imbedded in the idea of graduating capable accountants, marketing executives, health care professionals, journalists, artists, teachers or scientists, is the notion that Bowling Green State University graduates will be skilled communicators, proficient in both writing and presenting. Achieving competence in writing means, not only becoming fluent in English or another language, but also in the use of other systems of communication.

Interview with Tom Walton, Journalism graduate ’66, and Vice President-Editor, The Toledo Blade

There is just no way to overemphasize the importance of writing skills in the real world of today. Trying to define good writing is like trying to nail jello to a tree. But we sure know bad writing when we see it. Not long ago, a Blade headline read: "Man hospitalized after traffic accident turns ugly." You know, I sure hope his insurance covered that.
We see bad writing, in part, because the invasion of computers into our daily lives is making us lazy. They help us take the short cut, the easy way out. But you know what? That computer keyboard is exactly the same as your great grandfather's old Smith Corona typewriter. Every letter is in exactly the same place. And while computers are capable of incredibly complex calculations at lightning fast speeds, they are not capable of reasoning, and they are not capable of original thought. For that matter, there are more pages of newsprint, and more books being published today than ever before in our history. So I don’t despair for the written word. What that means is that today's college student had better pay attention to his or her ability to communicate via writing. In my business, we see a lot of young people coming out of college looking for work who struggle to put a sentence together. And I see it in Letters to the Editor. In fact, some of the most basic grammatical mistakes are in letters written to the newspaper by teachers. That bothers me. Well-written English is a beautiful thing. Good writing lends an air of authority and expertise to whatever you are doing. But if you can't write at a certain level, you'll be entering today's high-tech workplace at a huge disadvantage.

Segment Three Narrative continued

Achieving competency in presenting means having acquired the oral communication skills necessary to succeed both personally and professionally. The ability to speak clearly, correctly and gracefully illuminates the effectiveness in the organization and presentation of ideas in discussion.

Interview with Dr. Steve Newell, Associate Professor, Marketing

First, students need to understand what good communication skills are. Good communication skills aren’t just being able to talk to somebody comfortably. Communication skills include framing the conversation to your audience and the situation. It includes asking the right questions, so you can understand the issues better. It includes listening, so you can really understand the problems and the person you are talking to. Finally, it is being an expert and being able to develop creative solutions to these problems. One of the ways in which we in the College of Business are helping to promote presentation and oral communication skills is through our CBA Communications Lab. The CBA Communications Lab is really a unique video technology center in which students can come in, videotape themselves doing presentations and they are able to view and look at themselves in action and make appropriate changes to help better the presentations they are trying to give.

Segment Three Narrative continued

The writing and presenting learning outcomes provide a foundation for the educational experience. For without them, one cannot become a critical thinker. Nor can one demonstrate effective social interaction with others. As noted by the late Ernest Boyer, past President for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, "An educated person must be proficient in reading, writing, and verbal skills. For, in today’s society, anyone deficient in these skills will encounter severe obstructions to achieving vocational and personal success."

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S REMARKS AFTER SEGMENT THREE

What’s particularly interesting to me in this clip are some of the comments made by Tom Walton, Vice President-Editor of The Blade, when he says computers can’t reason and they can’t demonstrate creativity. Yesterday, I was at a meeting with some individuals in Columbus and one of them happened to be the President of CompuServe, a huge computer company. He was having a debate with this gentleman who was president of a steel company. He was arguing that computers are not the solution to anything in our society. This is a guy who was a founder of the company and is very, very rich as a result of computers, but he was arguing that they are not the solution to anything for the same reasons noted by Tom Walton. While someone else in manufacturing, the steel industry, were saying, "No, computers are going to save the word." It was an interesting exchange. It came down to the same point. Computers, no matter how effective they might be, and how quickly they allow you to transmit information, and access information and save information; they can’t reason. They can’t analyze and they can’t engage in creative thought. Where that takes place is where human beings come together to discuss the implications and the meanings imbedded in the content. That’s where you get the creativity, that’s where you get the meaning, that’s where you get the reasoning. And that’s what, in fact, we do at colleges and universities.

I have no reservations or fears about the virtual university and all those discussions. They’ve started on the West Coast with the western governors. None of those have been very effective, for the simple reason that technology, in that particular case is, in fact, a tool. And the communication, the analysis, the use of that information still relies on what we do at colleges and universities…what we do very, very effectively.

Segment Four Narrative
Participating and Leading: Demonstrating personal character and values

Through character development and values exploration, Bowling Green State University students demonstrate their effective social interaction by exhibiting proficiency in both participating and leading. Students who achieve competency in participating are actively engaged in, not passive observers of, their own educational experience. Students who have become proficient in participating will have an awareness and understanding of other cultures and the different values and traditions associated with them. An appreciation for culture will enable students to participate in meaningful interaction with others while acquiring the knowledge-base more reflective of a global population of which they are but one member. Leading, which does not require a position of formal power, affords the opportunity for one to provide influence while demonstrating integrity, spirit and respect. Faculty members who develop in their students competency in participating and leading are preparing them well for work in the professions by encouraging them to demonstrate both personal character and values appreciation.

Interview with Dr. Jodi Haney, Associate Professor, College of Education and Human Development

At the beginning of each semester, I ask my students why they chose to become teachers. Almost always, the majority replies, "Because I want to make a difference in this world." A bold and intriguing response. But what does a "difference in this world" look like? To whom is it different? How is it different? What specifically will you do as a teacher, both inside and outside the classroom, to make it different? What will the students you teach be doing in response? These questions, I believe, help Bowling Green State University students bring clarity to what they value. After this discussion, I ask them to create or find an essay, poem, or picture that captures the essence of their definition of the word "passion." What does passion look like? What does it sound like? Why is passion so important? My hope is that these exercises help students realize that in order to enact our values, we must first carefully define them. In other words, we must turn our values into visions. And it is the strength of our passion that will enable us to pursue these visions in light of the obstacles, the frustration, and the self-doubt that we are sure to face. Passion keeps us on course. A person with vision intertwined with great passion indeed has the potential to change the world.

Segment Four Narrative continued

While there still exist many questions regarding the future of leadership, William Richardson, President and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation, reminds us that we can be certain of our answer to perhaps only one such question: "Who will lead us? We know of course, that we will be led by those we have taught, and they will lead us as we have shown them they should."

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S REMARKS AFTER SEGMENT FOUR

The fact that we will be led by those whom we have taught can be exhilarating, but can also be awful frightening, depending on what the nature of that experience really might have been. One of the things that we do intentionally and unintentionally, and we are going to do it even more intentionally in the future, is to create places and opportunities for students to explore values for themselves.

A few years ago, some of you might remember, we developed a series of Core Values for the institution, and what those really were, were comments from the University community about things that we value institutionally. And they are important things, they are foundational things. However, as that concept of Core Values evolves into a useful tool, we must create an opportunity for students to explore what their values are, the things that are important to them. Said a different way, what as a student at Bowling Green State University or the President of Bowling Green State University for that matter, do I really value or do I appreciate. What things would give me a sense of accomplishment and contentment? What things would I sacrifice for, struggle for? Is there anything in this world that I would, in fact, die for? The answers to those questions, for me, are embedded in a series of experiences, in the classroom, books I’ve read, people I’ve met, that have allowed me to explore for myself something that defines who I am as a person. Hopefully when a young woman or a young man leaves Bowling Green State University, they have that same kind of exploration, through personal and academic challenges they’ve had, through classes they’ve taken, and because of their co-curricular experiences. They’ve gotten to a point where they can answer those questions for themselves and thus, have a firm sense of what values are important to them.

While this is laudable, it is also a very challenging task that ours or any University must face. I think we are well on the road to doing it in an intentional way. There is a new initiative that is coming out. You might have read the report from the Vision and Values Committee that really talks about how we can, in a very structured way, move forward to create even greater opportunities for students in and out of the classroom, to really explore their values and make meaning out of their lives.

Segment Five Narrative
The BG Experience: Preparing principled citizens

Emanating from the discipline specific learning outcomes developed by faculty, is an appreciation for the critical exploration of values. As stated in the Mission Statement for the University Committee on Vision and Values: The Bowling Green State University core values are a starting point for serious consideration of values. However, we must move beyond these to ensure a critical exploration of values at all levels of the curriculum, in co-curricular activities, and in administrative practice. In an effort to fulfill the University Committee on Vision and Values’ charge to "consider how to best integrate values education, critical thinking, character development and civic responsibility throughout the entire academic and co-curricular experience" the committee of faculty, staff and students, led by the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, submitted a year-end report. Advancing some exciting and creative recommendations, the work of this committee will undoubtedly move the University closer to establishing a more integrated, intellectually rigorous, and holistic experience for our students.

The key recommendations made by the UCVV include:

• An intensive August Orientation focusing on Values and Civic Engagement
• A General Education course on Values Exploration taught in a variety of disciplines and taken by all Freshmen
• A program of Co-Curricular Experiences/Service Learning Opportunities
• An intensive Junior-year Experience and a Senior Capstone Course in the student’s major
• Pledges taken by incoming students, faculty, staff, administrators and graduating seniors
• A Center for Values

Although these recommendations are both innovative and exciting, what is now needed institutionally is the engagement of the entire university community in dialogue about the committee’s recommendations and how we, as an institution, can best move forward in implementing them. Critical to the continued progress of our institutional values initiative is the involvement of students in determining the best practices to employ regarding the critical exploration of values on this campus.

Interview with Betsy Barre, Senior Philosophy Major, Values Initiative Research Assistant, and member of the IMPACT Learning Community

I am incredibly excited about the values initiative taking place here at BG—and the minor role that I have been able to play in the shaping of the program by doing research for the President’s Office this summer. I am excited about this initiative because I can’t imagine a more important component of undergraduate education than the critical exploration of values. One of the primary purposes of undergraduate education is to produce thoughtful and ethical citizens who will do what they can to make this world a little better, but if one looks at the trend of higher education today, she will see that universities are moving away from this emphasis on values, ethics, and civic commitment. If we choose to view undergraduate students as future citizens and leaders, the critical exploration of values seems imperative to prepare them for service in the world. While many within the academy like to make the sharp distinction between facts and values, the human experience is not so clean. Our future leaders must not only be proficient in their understanding of certain facts, they must also be adept in their understanding of values—those abstractions which ultimately drive human behavior.

Segment Five Narrative continued

As President Ribeau stated in his recent letter to the University community regarding our institutional values initiative, "…I recognize that there will be challenges throughout this journey. I also recognize that failing to create such an educational environment will mean we have fallen short in meeting our responsibility to our various stakeholders, as well as the society that sustains higher education."

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S REMARKS AFTER SEGMENT FIVE

I think that clip of one of our students talking about values exploration tells the whole story. If you haven’t had an opportunity to review the report, it’s on our web site. You’ll be hearing a lot more about this as we discuss it with a variety of different people on campus this semester, but it’s something we are very excited about. If you notice, in that last clip there was a picture of me. I had no gray hair, my hairline was much lower. If I don’t get this vision and values initiative finished real soon, I’ll be totally gray or totally bald, and I’ll be in the later part of my career. When they showed me that clip, I didn’t even recognize myself. It was so different. We have an opportunity to do something truly unique at Bowling Green State University…something that most universities of our size, that are state institutions could only imagine or dream of. It’s because of the faculty, it’s because of the learning outcomes that have already been discovered by our faculty looking at the academic disciplines. It’s because of the commitment to students’ learning, growth and development that we have here at this institution.

One of the things that’s really important to me as an educator is undergraduate research. We don’t have to discover and create opportunities for undergraduate research. We are doing it. We are doing it in almost all of our academic departments. We have within our grasp the possibility of doing something very different, to create a generation of engaged learners that will in fact make you all proud because of their work in their disciplines and when they go on to graduate school and careers and professions. But also as important, they will make you proud to have been a part of their becoming an educated person, because of what they stand for and what they do in the world. It’s something I think that is our opportunity if we grasp it and really make it happen. Our students are ready to pursue these goals. And I think that the most important thing is that the ones who don’t seem excited, the ones that don’t seem engaged will be impacted, positively infected by the energy and excitement when they see their fellow students learning, and excited, and engaged, and making a difference. How do I know that? When the students started the Dance Marathon with no money and no resources, with just an idea, no one ever thought they’d be able to achieve what they have. To become one of the leading programs in the country, raising over $200,000 for a student-run program to make a difference in the lives of disabled young people was an amazing undertaking. But they did it. And each year Dance Marathon grows larger and larger and becomes more and more effective. That’s the kind of contagious intellectual environment we want here at Bowling Green State University. Those are the kinds of engaged graduates we want…graduates that are smart, motivated and prepared to make a difference in the lives of others and in their chosen fields.

Segment Six Narrative
Our Uncommon Mission, Our Common Cause

Why are issues of values exploration, character development and civic engagement so important in higher education today? Perhaps in order to best answer this question, we should revisit the purpose of colleges and universities. One purpose is clearly to graduate students to be technically prepared with specific disciplinary expertise. But there exists a larger purpose to which institutions of higher education must remain true. Our larger purpose is to educate principled citizens who will be not only leaders in their respective professions, but also leaders in their communities.

Given the research on today’s college students, we know that nationally there has been a decline in political participation. And according to the National Survey of Freshmen, with 40% of students surveyed reporting "being bored" in class; and, more than 40% claiming they studied fewer than three hours per week while in high school, we know that the academic engagement and preparation of students is suffering. We also know that there is growing concern nationally over serious ethical and behavioral problems of some students. However, we also know many positive things about today’s student population. Among the college-age population, volunteerism is up significantly. We also know that according to a study out of the Higher Education Research Institute, character development in students is influenced by a number of campus activities, including faculty support of and connection to students, interdisciplinary courses, leadership education, volunteerism, and social activities with students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. What we know about today’s students illustrates the need for a higher education experience where the critical exploration of values is prominent. And based on the world issues we face as a global community, we see the far-reaching consequences if we fail in our efforts to graduate principled, reflective citizens.

As stated in the 1993 report by the Wingspread Group on Higher Education, An American imperative: Higher expectations for higher education: "…every institution of higher education should ask itself now—what it proposes to do to assure that next year’s entering students will graduate as individuals of character more sensitive to the needs of community, more competent in their ability to contribute to society, and more civil in their habits of thought, speech, and action." At Bowling Green State University, we have asked that question and, through our efforts, we are well on our way to answering it.

Interview with Leon Bibb, Communication graduate, ‘66, Anchor, Channel 5 – Cleveland, and Member of the Board of Trustees

We have a responsibility. At Bowling Green State University, not only must we educate in the various disciplines students choose to follow…but more. We have a responsibility to focus on core values. Because of my education at Bowling Green, I work now as a television journalist. I report on events which shape our lives. In television news – looking at events from around the world and around the corner – we try to hold up a mirror to show what our society is about – the good or the bad of it. And there are troublesome "sticking points." You need only to watch a television newscast or read a newspaper. Instances of people misstepping off the right paths of life and stumbling along paths poorly chosen, harming society by their decisions, even hurting themselves. At Bowling Green State University – where I am a trustee – we emphasize values, character, respect and leadership. Under the leadership of President Sidney Ribeau, we hold up our mirror, examining ourselves. Our mission goes well beyond teaching classes about how to do something specific. Important, yes. But so, too, we must call upon each student to be a valued citizen of the world. We confer university degrees, but that is not enough. We must promote high standards of citizenship, emphasizing principles for character building. I agree with President Ribeau. We must speak of strong values, discipline and character. Not only must we teach it, we must live it. Out of this philosophy will grow strong foundations for living for those touched by Bowling Green State University. In a phrase of television journalism: "That is the good news." I’m Leon Bibb.

Segment Six Narrative continued

It’s time to end the dated practice of colleges and universities defining themselves far too much by external status rather than by the learning outcomes and values identified by their faculty and determined by their own unique mission. For more than 360 years, American higher education has remained relevant by shaping its curriculum and activities in response to the changing social climate. And as we look at today’s world issues, we know that higher education must respond to these issues and once again, redefine its role in addressing these societal imperatives.

Without question, the University has embarked on an uncommon journey to develop in our students an appreciation for the critical exploration of values, and in doing so, shape the character of their learning. And through the continued focus on learning and values, Bowling Green State University hopes to further the institution’s efforts in creating an educational experience that fosters critical thinking about ethical issues, encourages civic engagement, promotes seriousness of purpose and forges a strong institutional identity that builds on our rich traditions as well as our impressive recent accomplishments.

PRESIDENT RIBEAU’S REMARKS AFTER SEGMENT SIX

That was our very own Leon Bibb from our Board of Trustees and also graduate of the Journalism program here at Bowling Green State University. In addition to being a very successful news broadcaster and a very articulate person, he is a leader in the Cleveland community and he is a man with great passion. If you talk to Leon about where he developed the passion, where he learned to be involved and give back, as well as being a competent professional, he will say it happened at Bowling Green State University. I think that is something that we as an institution can be quite proud of…all the Leon Bibbs of the world. Some who are not in front of the camera, but who are making a difference in the lives of their families, their children, and their communities. That is something that is very important and I think it is one of the highest testimonies of the effectiveness and the value-added of a university. Simple put, attending Bowling Green State University made a difference in your life. It is a very simple phrase but I think it is profound in its impact. BGSU made a difference in your life. In today’s program, what we tried to show is that there are a number of ways in which this University has looked at what we do both in and out of the classroom. We looked at what both faculty members and students are doing in a number of ways. We looked at that, but we also tried to show that, at BGSU, it is how it all comes together to create an institutional identity as well as something that we as educators can hang our hats on.

This is a space age 2001 diagram. If you look at the bottom at the circle there, down at the bottom-moral conflicts. The point here being that everything exists in a context. Knowledge exists in a context. I do not care if you are in the natural sciences the social sciences or the humanities. You know you come from a certain historical period in time, you are impacted by your culture and the larger question of that culture, the kind of research you do, what it means, its implications, whether it is federally funded or accepted. Just take stem-cell research. If you think science operates independently, you exist in a cultural context and there are issues in that context that determine what will be done and in what ways, and what will be funded. There are always competing academic and humanistic values, the rights and the wrongs, and the good and the bad. If you take all of that and you look at what we do in our major programs here at Bowling Green State University, there are certain learning outcomes that our faculty and staff have said are part and parcel to what they do in their programs. The outcome after a student you know grapples with issues, has rigorous training in his or her discipline and in general education is that they are prepared to make a contribution which can lead to global betterment or improvement, personal success and professional fulfillment. Are we there? No. Is any institution there? No. But it is a laudable goal. It is something that you should strive to achieve. Many institutions have a very clear notion. I had an opportunity this summer to spend a week, about four days at Stanford University. They have a very clear sense of the outcome they desire as a result of being a student at Stanford University. Is it the same as Bowling Green’s? No. Should it be? No. But they have a clear sense – likewise we have all the ingredients that really constitute a profile that is a composite of what Bowling Green State University is as an institution. This values initiative that I talked about is just one piece of a very complex puzzle that is our undergraduate curriculum. But it is something that is very important for our University.

In closing, I would like to say that we have accomplished a great deal in the past six years, but it rests on the institution’s achievements from 1910 until 1995. Nothing has been built from scratch. Everything that we have done has been intended to extend and build upon that which really provided the foundation for this institution. Our goal is to move forward from 2001 to the future in a way in which we intentionally provide the kind of educational experience we all can be proud of. We know we need more scientists. We know we need more physicists and biologists and chemists, but students are not going to graduate school. Why? Why aren’t they being excited about education in the sciences? We need to grapple with that question. We know we need more principled leaders in the private community and in the political community. Why aren’t we identifying and developing the kind of political leaders that make a difference? We know in intercollegiate athletics, which in many times leads to professional athletics, that we have many challenges and many problems with student athletes and their performance off the field. Why is that the case? Well, at Bowling Green State University, I think we have an opportunity to answer the "Why?" questions and do things in a slightly different way.

I am really excited, I will say in closing, about our intercollegiate athletic program. Why? If you look at our volleyball program, we had more students with a 3.5 GPA or better probably than any program in the MAC, and one of the most academically proficient volleyball programs in the entire country. If you look at our student athlete graduation rates in football you know. In many of our sports it is not perfect, but it is pointed in the right direction. It is not just football, it is not just volleyball, it is what are they able to do as people when they leave this institution. Most of our athletes here – our hockey players, our basketball players, our volleyball players – are not going on to careers in professional sports. But they will have a life and we need to prepare them to be successful in that life. Can we do it all? No. Do they have to bring something to that equation? Yes. They need to come prepared and motivated and determined to do the work necessary to be successful. But our part as an institution is to provide the tools, the environment and the support so young women can aspire to be scientists, so young men can aspire to be teachers, so our African American students and Latino students can aspire to be political leaders and go back to their communities and make a difference. It is not going to happen through random chance, it is not going to happen because I wish it or you wish it. It will only happen if the faculty and the staff and the students learn and grow collectively as a community, together. You are not going to find a place where there are resources and commitment and a sense of direction that isn’t successful. We in fact, have a sense of direction. We are on track.

Thank you so much for all that you have done for the University. On behalf of the Administration, the Board of Trustees, your colleagues that cannot be here, the colleagues that have retired that were once employed by Bowling Green State University, I say that we are deeply appreciative for all that you do and have done. Oftentimes it seems like we are always asking for more. Do more. Do more. But what we do is so critically important to the lifeblood of this community, to the state of Ohio, to our nation, that anything less than 150% is not enough. Academic administration today is not what it was five years or ten years ago. The kind of demands, the reports, the accountability that effect the federal and state funding levels are things that can literally run you ragged. But I can tell you one thing, the importance of our work is equally important today as it was year ago, before all of the regulations and all of the other external accountability that has been imposed on us. What we do is still critically important. No matter what others tell you, no matter what you see about education in the press – that we are not efficient or we do not really have control over the bottom line costs – know there is nothing in the world that is competitive with the quality of higher education in this country. Our higher education system and its excellence is far superior to anything in Europe, in Asia or anyplace else in the world, and it is far superior to anything in the manufacturing industry or the technology industry. Our companies are chasing or trying to chase and catch up with Asia and Europe. But our universities are leading the way in higher education, and that is something that we can be very proud of.

Thank you so much for your attendance today. We got through another technological challenge, and I want to thank very much all the people that made this program possible; Dr. Eileen Sullivan and her staff, the WBGU staff under the direction of Denise Kisabeth, the students that worked with Dr. Sullivan to make this happen, thank you all very much for all of your work for this presentation and for the University.