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And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.
—Geoffrey Chaucer, “General Prologue,” The Canterbury Tales
The annual K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award—bestowed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities—identifies graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education. They have demonstrated strong commitments to teaching and learning; to academic and civic responsibility; and to the development of others as leaders, scholars, and citizens. The award honors Pat Cross, professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. Long a leading scholar in higher education, Cross’s values are reflected in the characteristics for which these students are recognized.
It is appropriate that this issue of Change, which opens with letters to the next President of the United States from a set of current leaders, include an article featuring the leaders of the future. Perhaps due in part to the selection criteria and in part to their experience in laboratory research (Andrew Farke, Kyle Gobrogge, Frances Gratacos, and Dumaine Williams) or ensemble work in theatre (Jennifer Lavy), each of these students demonstrates embedded leadership—not the kind exercised by a commander or executive but the sort that characterizes, as Kimberly Van Orman says, “the leader of a team of knowledge-seekers.” In this role they may provide the team with focus, vision, and knowledge, but in it they also freely share authority.
Here, with their permission, are descriptions of the experiences of the 2008 award winners in their own voices, drawn from the personal statements that accompanied their nomination materials. In them, we see a glimpse of our best hope for our collective future.
—Margaret A. Miller
Executive Editor
Change magazine
One of the most appealing traits that these students exhibit is their enthusiastic belief that they can and should make a difference in the world through their work as teacher/scholars—and that in doing so, they can give their own lives deep meaning. Despite their stellar academicaccomplishments, they see that such a contribution will require more than disciplinary knowledge. The sign of their success as teachers will be how engaged their students become and how they go on to act in the world, which will in turn depend on how well the Cross Future Leaders have prepared themselves to teach.
In their own words . . .
I look forward to a productive career as a scientist and an educator. If I accomplish nothing else, I want to convey my own enthusiasm for the breathtaking expanse of life’s history and intricacy—whether in the dissection lab, in front of an audience, or in mentoring promising students. And most importantly, I want the individuals I reach to use their knowledge. This is why I am dedicated to academia.
—Andrew Farke
Like many graduate students before me, when I first started teaching I was confident that a strong background in my discipline was sufficient preparation for teaching. And like many graduate students before, I found out I was wrong. I consider my teaching successful when my students not only demonstrate that they’ve learned the information that we have discussed, but when they actively engage with it. I want them to see how philosophy relates to their lives, or if it doesn’t, why it might still be important or useful.
I was fortunate that one of my earlier lecture positions was in the First Year Studies Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). This program required participation in an annual two-day seminar on pedagogy. These seminars have taught me a great deal about teaching and about how to connect with my students. Sadly, two years ago, funding restrictions ended the workshop series, but several of us got together to from a learning community. We met every few weeks to share ideas about teaching and to discuss techniques for keeping our students engaged.
—Kimberly Van Orman
I take to heart a question posed in a theme of this year’s [AAC&U] conference: “How are institutions structured—internally and externally—to build real-world capabilities that empower students to apply their knowledge to complex real-world challenges?” For myself, the root of my scholarship is driven by a single concern: How do we make know-ledge meaningful? How can we help students integrate theory and experience in their everyday actions? How do we inspire them to act for social justice? For me, in particular, how do we encourage respect for cultural differences and a stronger appreciation for the historical legacies that structure contemporary societies?
As an anthropologist, I find particular relevance in critical pedagogies that which engage research and teaching as a form of participatory social action. I have recently begun to experiment with using service-learning models which blur the line between theory and action, classroom and community.
—Christine Reiser
My overall research agenda flows directly out of very practical questions I have as a teacher: How can we best facilitate the development of our students? How can we best fulfill our obligations to them, ensuring that the curriculum we provide is relevant to student interests as well as the economic and civic paths towards which they are moving?
—Paul Rogers
Because of this commitment to engaged learning, teaching becomes a two-way street for many of them. They feel that they have gotten as much as they have given as teachers.
Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to teach and tutor students in various capacities. My most interesting teaching experience came as part of a community service/leadership projects that I organized in college. I was part of a group of college students that traveled to Thailand to teach English to students. Ironically, these teaching opportunities provided some of my most beneficial learning experiences. These projects quickly became more than just an opportunity for me to teach a new language to eager students. The students, schoolteachers and villagers had lessons to teach me as well. These lessons have shaped my development as an educator and global citizen.
—Dumaine Williams
Within the academic community, these future leaders are strongly committed to mentoring other students, in part to pay forward what they have received.
Through my undergraduate college experience I had opportunities that helped me grow both academically and professionally. This growth resulted not only from hard work, but also from the encouragement of peers, family, and great mentors. The different mentors I had taught me that success was not the result of pure academic excellence but a combination of it with disposition, love, sacrifice, and, most importantly, interpersonal relationships. With their guidance and advice I was able to accomplish my goals and helped others accomplish theirs. Ever since then, I knew I wanted to combine the passion I had for the biotechnology field with a career in higher education, as well as to become a leader and mentor as a means to offer others what had been offered to me.
For three consecutive years, I was happy to serve as a graduate fellow for undergraduate women in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. Being a female minority increased my desire of becoming not only a good mentor, but also a role model to undergraduate students.
—Frances Gratacos
First and foremost, I recognize the importance of mentoring in changing students’ lives. Several paleontologists—all of whom were certainly quite busy—took time to correspond with me and guide me, even when I was as young as 12. I have never forgotten this, and I try to show others the same attention.
—Andrew Farke
I would like to maximize the educational benefits of my diverse experience by both becoming a professor and encouraging other minorities and students committed to equal opportunity to seek advanced education and research-oriented careers. I know how it feels to be unaware, unsure and even afraid of venturing out into education and career opportunities that are unfamiliar to oneself, friends, and family. I believe that through this connection with other students I can reach out to underrepresented groups and encourage them to pursue new opportunities through my own life example.
—Thomas Eatmon
While a curriculum vitae is a wonderful tool for enumerating scholarly accomplishments, it tends to render other accomplishments invisible: it is, for example, unable to qualify my role as a mentor to and advocate for undergraduate students. My teaching extends beyond the classroom into office hours, field trips, and individualized tutoring.
My motivation for this level of involvement outside of the classroom is predicated on a belief that one teaches best by tapping into the individual student’s passions and interests.
—Cindy Spurlock
Because they are determined to make a difference, these students are inveterate border-crossers. For instance, they seek new audiences—the public and schoolchildren especially—and use new media to do so. Again, they find that they both teach and learn in those environments. And often their work leads them into interdisciplinary collaborations.
As a vertebrate paleontologist, I feel strongly that the relevance of my field must be communicated to the general public. Beyond the “gee whiz” factor of a lumbering woolly mammoth or a towering dinosaur, paleontology offers a unique perspective on how Earth and its life have changed over time. This perspective is important for the public, both as a matter of general awareness and for its relevance to understanding contemporary issues such as climate change, extinction, and the evolution “debate.” Whenever asked (and sometimes even when not asked!), I always say “yes” to a chance to bring fossils into a classroom and talk about paleontology, evolution, and science in general. For more general audiences, I have given a number of public lectures on paleontology.
The Internet has opened up additional opportunities. Several years ago, I was contacted by a second- grade teacher at an elementary school in Indiana. Since then, I have corresponded with all of the students in her class, sending personal responses to their questions about dinosaurs, fossils, and paleontology. I have also had the pleasure of serving on the editorial and advisory board for the Paleontology Portal, a website that compiles the very best Internet resources for educators, the interested public, and scientists.
—Andrew Farke
Many students view graduate school as a time to get completely involved in their studies, sometimes with no regard for things that fall outside of the scope of their thesis project. I believe that this is an unfortunate situation. Graduate students have the skill-sets necessary to really make a difference, not only in their chosen field, but also in the broader community. I will be the first to admit that trying to be selfless during graduate school is not easy and that my involvements have truly tested my time-management skills. However, I am confident that my work in committees, mentoring programs, and other service projects during graduate school has provided additional training that will help me be successful and effective in the world at large.
—Dumaine Williams
While concerned for the ways I can generate new research ... I am motivated even more by the ways I can privilege a teaching-centered approach in public work. I believe that acting as a facilitator, teacher, and advocate among and between students, the communities with which I work, academic institutions, cultural organizations, museums, and the general public is the chief means by which I can make my scholarship and training relevant to our social issues today.
How is it that we can make know-ledge more collective and active, beginning in the classroom and extending fluidly through diverse publics?
As a historical archaeologist whose primary focus is on Native American studies, I am committed to collaborating with local communities to design co-creative projects that meet multiple needs. As academic institutions seek to better negotiate their roles in and of the public, I look to collaborative, practice-based leaning as a means of stimulating student and faculty engagement in civic concerns.
I would like to bring academic institutions into a more vital relationship with other cultural institutions whose missions center on lifelong learning. How can we develop new repertories of tools and modes of inclusion to diversify those whom we understand to be students and stakeholders in our educational enterprises? I am particularly motivated to design and implement programs which encourage intergenerational learning environments.
In better unifying academic and community resources, I hope to provide space for, and to elide, traditional distinctions in learning. I believe that thinking creatively about the forms that we give to "knowledge" in our teaching and learning can further encourage the expansion of our idea of student and classroom. Here, I turn to experiments with uses of media and exercises in distributed authorship to break down barriers between academic and public, teacher and student work.
—Christine Reiser
In 2004-05, the [Simpson] Center made me a doctoral fellow in its Connecting with the Community institute on public scholarship. This remarkable experience put me in dialogue, for the first time, with others from across the university who, like me, constantly ask themselves what it means to be a scholar-citizen working in their field. Prior to that fellowship, I often felt very alone as I struggled to keep step in the intricate dance drawing my spheres of influence ever closer. The fellowship gave me tools and ideas.
My affiliation with the Simpson Center has strengthened my conviction about the importance of my interactions with the various communities to which I belong and about the benefits of greater, more deliberate, and conscious collaborative, interdisciplinary efforts. I continue to participate in the Center’s programs, including workshops on community- and practice-based course design, arts advocacy, and public writing. I also continue to participate in campus activities connected with that fellowship. For example, I participated in the university’s discussions about revisioning the PhD. Moreover, I have sought ways to expand campus projects in which I’m involved to include the larger public. For example, when I negotiated to bring Polish director Kazimierz Braun here for a public lecture as part of the Polish Studies Endowment Committee’s Distinguished Speaker Series, I developed auxiliary activities such as workshops with local artists and a symposium with an interdisciplinary group of graduate students.
The Simpson Center has, for two years, employed me as program coordinator for Teachers as Scholars, a professional development program for secondary school teachers. In this job, I bring all my organizational, administrative, and scholarly skills together to build strong bridges between the University of Washington, public and private schools around the region, and cultural organizations.
—Jennifer Lavy
Academic scientists conducting biomedical research aim to educate their colleagues, students, and the broader scientific community. Often though, education of the general public is neglected. Additionally, complex biomedical findings can sometimes be difficult to teach to the public in a clear, interpretable fashion. So, how does a scientist conducting basic research educate local communities? Recently, several organizations have been developed with the primary mission of encouraging the communication of science at all levels, with the direct goal of getting the bench scientist out of the lab and into the general community. The Society for Neuroscience (SFN) with The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, a worldwide biomedical research coalition, developed Brain Awareness Week (BAW) and the Brain Bee for this very purpose.
As a research technologist in the Neuroscience Program at Michigan State University (MSU), I first learned about and participated in BAW under the guidance of Dr. Marc Breedlove. I presented a talk to 3rd- and 4th-grade classrooms in the greater Lansing community during BAW 2004. My presentation focused on describing the primary senses, illustrating how the brain processes complex sensory information. I used several demonstrations, including tasting jellybeans without smell to throwing a ball with glasses that shifted vision 30°. These outreach experiences at MSU were personally fulfilling, and they allowed me to educate the general community and younger children about the breadth of neuroscience and the importance of the brain. I extended these science education efforts by organizing and leading the first BAW in the history of Florida State University (FSU) in 2005. With the help of another graduate student in the Neuroscience Program at FSU, we sought interest in the general community for giving presentations during BAW 2005.
We had a large response and decided to focus our efforts on several advanced placement science courses at a local high school in Tallahassee. These presentations included a description of BAW, a hands-on demonstration of brain specimens from various species, and formal presentations of what studying neuroscience entails. Also discussed were ways high school students could become involved with research at FSU offered through a direct student-mentor program I created for talented high school and undergraduate students to facilitate scientific communication and research experience.
—Kyle Gobrogge
As a doctoral student who studies contemporary rhetorical theory, there are significant overlaps among my teaching, research, and service interests, all of which are foregrounded in the belief that the best way to make a difference is to lead by example. ... I reach beyond the boundaries of the classroom at the local, regional, and state level to find points of synergy and to make connection with environmental advocates in ways that enable my students to learn from a hands-on perspective.
—Cindy Spurlock
Finally, for at least one student, there is exhilaration in crossing state and national boundaries as well.
It’s funny that I am now known as a jetsetter among my friends when two years ago I was afraid to fly. Through my research and professional activities I have traveled to San Diego, San Antonio, Boston, Baltimore, Senegal, Switzerland, and the Philippines, absorbing new cultural and geographical experiences along the way. As a requirement of the IGERT traineeship [the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship], I also traveled to Michigan Technological University in the northern snowy mountains of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My eagerness to build upon my diverse experience has helped me to overcome my fear of heights, a testimony to the power of my ambition. This training has also allowed me to embrace a new vision that reaches outside the bounds of American institutions. I would like to share this worldview with other minorities who can offer their talents to the global community.
—Thomas Eatmon
In reading these students’ statements, hope begins to dawn that we’re seeing the emergence of a new type of leader, one who knows how to work in community to foster a larger public good. If this is true, then we may also entertain the glimmer of a faith that the seemingly insuperable problems that bedevil us as a nation and a planet may yet be solved.
The 2008 K. Patricia Cross Award Winners
Thomas Eatmon—Public Policy, Southern University
Andrew Farke—Vertebrate Anatomy/Paleontology, Stony Brook University
Kyle Gobrogge—Neuroscience, Florida State University
Frances Gratacos—Molecular Biology, UMDNJ/Rutgers
Jennifer Lavy—Theatre History & Criticism, University of Washington
Christine Reiser—Anthropology, Brown University
Paul Rogers—Education, University of California, Santa Barbara
Cindy Spurlock—Communication Studies, University of North Carolina
Kimberly Van Orman—Philosophy, University at Albany, SUNY
Dumaine Williams—Molecular and Cellular Biology, Stony Brook University