[Jane Elder, Executive Director, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters]

At the Wisconsin Academy, we’re known for programs and publications that explore, explain, and sustain Wisconsin thought and culture. The work that we do and the events that we host, like the one you’re attending tonight, are all designed to bring people together at the intersection of the sciences, arts, and letters to inspire discovery.

Tonight, I’m very happy to introduce Tom Pleger. In 2014, Tom became Lake Superior State University’s eighth president. He’s held positions at several University of Wisconsin campuses, including Baraboo Sauk County, Madison, La Crosse, Marinette and Fox Valley, and also at Lawrence University.

Tom also served as a member of the Academy’s Board of Directors for several years, and we’re privileged that we have him here tonight.

He’s written extensively on the importance of liberal education and is a champion at the University of Wisconsin System. If you’re interested in learning more about the Academy, membership, or our programs, please find me or any of the other Academy staff after the talk. Help me give Tom a very warm welcome.

[applause]

[Thomas Pleger, President, Lake Superior State University]

Well, good evening. It’s an honor to be back in Wisconsin, to be back at my alma mater. It’s a privilege and pleasure to talk with you about something I’m very passionate about, and that is liberal education and the liberal arts. We’re at an interesting time in the history of higher ed in the United States, particularly in the states in the Upper Midwest, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, in thinking about what kind of public education do we want and where are we headed. What is our history been, and what kind of graduates do we want, and what is the purpose of higher education? That will really be the substance of my – my talk this evening.

But before I get into the issue at hand this evening, I want to mention a few people that are here in the audience. My wife is here. My in-laws, Dave and Linda Schaffer, and it’s my mother-in-law’s birthday and she decided to spend it with me here at the Wisconsin Academy talk – talks. So, thank you for coming.

My former major professor Jim Stoltman from the University of Wisconsin-Madison is here. It’s an honor to see him again. And I see Tony Evers is here, a colleague of mine, the State Superintendent and member of the Board of Regents. Willie Larkin, a past colleague of mine, is here. And I want to make one last mention, I was in Baraboo Friday for the dedication of a new science facility. There was a partnership between the state of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin System, Sauk County, and the city of Baraboo in this three-way unique partnership based on the Wisconsin Idea to bring the university to small communities. Beautiful facility with a green roof. If you have a chance to visit Baraboo, I encourage you to visit it. And at the dedication I mentioned all of my former team members, but one I forgot, and she’s here tonight, Cindy McVenes. Thank you for being here, Cindy, and being a part of my team.

Well, in order to set the stage for the – the talk tonight, I need to tell you a little bit about my background. And the kind of education I had and the history of my family and the kind of education they received that led to what I studied and my interests as a scholar, as an administrator, and as an advocate for higher education.

I grew up in Marinette, Wisconsin, right on the border with the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in a small town of about 12,000 people. It is a twin city with Menominee, Michigan. 12,000 people on the other side. Approximately 12,000 to 15,000. And there’s a University of Wisconsin campus there, right in the backyard on the shoreline that was a big part of my life growing up, having access to the arts, to the humanities, to plays, lectures. My parents knew most of the faculty there. And the campus became part of my upbringing in terms of being able to just walk down the street and access the library, to see a theater performance, to engage in the arts, to listen to scholars visiting from the Madison campus and all around.

And, at the time, I didn’t realize what a luxury it was to have a university in your backyard. When I went off to college, I thought everybody has a university in their backyard, realized what a unique model Wisconsin has, to have twenty-six campuses dispersed across this landscape and including campuses in some of the smallest communities in the state.

Well, my background, I attended the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, studied Anthropology and Political Science, and then went on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison were I earned my Masters in Anthropology, my Doctorates in Anthropology and Great Lakes Archeology.

And I was fortunate that my parents did not say to me: We dont want you to study Archeology because its impractical. It has no benefit to society or It will not lead to employment. And my parents were pleased and excited to see me studying something that captivated me that they thought was a value to me. It would contribute in terms of whatever I did and went out into the world and would contribute to society, but would also lead to a valuable future of my own.

And thinking about that, Im constantly reminded about the stories of both sides of my family and how it impacted my choices in higher education of what I studied and what I was interested in.

My father, whos shown here as a Lieutenant in the Army, would be on your left, grew up outside of Detroit in a family that had been in the Detroit area for several generations. No one in his family had attended college. My grandfather on that side of the family was a bank teller, not a banker, who worked behind the line in the front of the bank. And my grandmother on my fathers side had attended education to the eighth grade, but not beyond that. And someone in dads history suggested he was bright enough to go to college. And he attended Michigan State College, before it was Michigan State University, at a cost of about $180 a term, which was big money for my dads parents at the time, to send him off to school.

He studied Art and became very interested in the Fine Arts, particularly Drawing and Painting, and Psychology. Had no idea exactly what he was going to do. Took a variety courses in the sciences, then went into the military, and through the G.I. Bill was able to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison for Law School. And he attended here at a cost of about $500 a term back in the 1950s. And thats what brought my dads side of the family to Wisconsin.

My mother, by comparison, attended UW-Madison, earned a degree in Sociology and Social Work. Her parents attended Lawrence University in the 20s. And this is my grandmothers diploma all in Latin from Lawrence University with a Bachelor of Arts. And her parents grandparents, my grandparents parents, attended Princeton. Family had been in Appleton since the 1860s. And so on that side of the family there was great tradition of liberal education. My mothers parents had English and French degrees. And her grandparents had degrees in Law and a broad liberal arts education.

And it was this merger of my dad, first generation, and my mother, third generation college, that provided opportunity for our family and for me to attend college and to explore a variety of topics without the pressure of feeling I needed to study something that would lead to immediate employment. In fact, that wasnt even in my parents concern when I went off to college. They were concerned about, was I going to become a well-rounded young man, an educated citizen, and was I going to do well and enjoy something in life that I might study regardless of how long it took?

And – and I will comment, both grandmothers are very interesting. My grandmother that attended Lawrence and earned a degree in French wanted to do Chemistry, but that was a – the number of majors were limited for women at the time, and she ended up with a degree in French, and she still had some – some feelings about that. But she was very excited about me going out to pursue a PhD, thought it was great. Didnt matter how much time it was. And my grandmother on the other side, who had gone to the eighth grade, would ask me questions when I was home: Why are you still in college? Youve been in college for a decade. And: What is Anthropology? And: Where – where do you go to work in Anthropology? And: What are you going to do with this? And – and it was interesting having those those, sort of, dual heritages influencing what I was going to study and what I might do. But again, very fortunate that my family supported me to explore topics that were outside of the family tradition, so to speak.

Well, when most people think of the liberal arts as an educational path, its a very old path, and its often a vision of the ivory tower educational experience. And the Humanities and the Arts are what most people think of, often History, Philosophy. This is Professor James Moody, our most senior historian at Lake Superior State University. Hes still teaching. Great liberal arts professor in History. And you can see hes quite a renaissance professor by his office. Every time I go to visit with him, I – I get engaged in all kinds of topics that are sometimes far and wide ranging, from history to politics to sociology to anthropology. And he truly embraces and loves and is passionate bout teaching History, not only to future historians but to our business majors, our engineering majors, our fishery science majors, and everyone that comes across his class is enriched and sees the relevance of history.

I am located in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan, today, which is where Lake Superior State is – is located. We will turn, the city will turn 350 years old in two years. So, we are a sister – a city that sits at a strategic point in the Great Lakes with a tremendous Euro-American past but extends far further back into native history. And thats part of the curriculum on campus that students learn something about the region. How did Canada come to be? Why is the border there? Why is the U.P. not part of Wisconsin? Those are things that Yoopers need to know going to college in the U.P.

Well, the liberal arts, as I mentioned, in most peoples minds tend to revolve around the disciplines of the social sciences and the humanities. When you ask someone, often thats what they think of first. But, really, the liberal arts are a series of disciplines that include not only the humanities and the arts, the fine arts and the performing arts, but also the sciences, the natural and social sciences. And so, when you hear this -this division this – this new creation of a – of an academic grouping of disciplines referred to as STEM, science, technology, engineering and mathematics, half of it is in the liberal arts. The sciences and the mathematics are part of this core series of disciplines. So, to be a liberal arts major means, generally, at an institution, youve earned a degree in one of these fields, but it means much more than that in that youve had a broad liberal education experience.

And what I want to do from this point is to depart in terms of terms and make you understand and aware of the differences between the concept or the term liberal arts, which refers to the disciplines the collection of these disciplines, and liberal education, which refers to a broad collection of courses and experiences in the liberal arts regardless of what your major is in.

Okay, does that make sense?

Those – those two differences?

And its important, with this audience I dont think I need to say this, but I will anyways. The first time I gave a talk on liberal education I the U.P., I – I had some in the community say: We dont need any more Democrats up here.

[laughter]

So, Im obviously not talking about the political definition of liberal, but Im talking about the broad collection of disciplines that includes the natural, the social sciences, the humanities, the fine arts and mathematics.

A more, sort of, relevant definition is thinking about liberal education as this broad base of courses that everyone would take in a modern university setting regardless of their field of study.

Now, the pure liberal arts, which makes the U.S. unique. Just a few years ago I was visiting Shanghai and Yan Zhou and with some sister campuses in China. It was very interesting to see the conversation they wanted to have with me is how do you integrate the liberal arts and these broad disciplines into things like science and technology.

We want, meaning China, our graduates to be more creative, innovative, and we think that the problem, what we’re missing here, is this broad collection of courses that produce a more well-rounded individual that can do more than simple a technical task. It was interesting. Over and over again, in that visit, that’s what I was asked about. How can we bring a liberal education and liberal arts to China, and how can we connect them with where they excel in science, technology and math?

Well, the example I gave of my – my parents. The liberal arts in the United States were traditionally a curriculum or a set of degrees that were reserved for the elite. They existed in the Ivy League colleges, in the private colleges. What changed all that was the Morill Act, which basically created the land-grant mission in the United States in the 1860s, signed into law by President Lincoln, that allowed for the sale of public lands and states to produce and build up public universities to transfer knowledge to the citizenry. Part of it was based on practical knowledge, the industrial arts, agriculture, but a second component to it was to bring a liberal arts education to the masses. To make it accessible to all and not just to the wealthy few that could afford or attend the traditional long-lived, at that time, private institutions in the country.

That changed the landscape in the U.S. forever. It opened the doors to many individuals that otherwise had not – would not have been able to afford or come and have this broad educational experience. That, coupled with the G.I. bill after World War II, opened up universities, and particularly liberal education, the liberal arts, to families and people that otherwise it was inaccessible to in the United States.

And the result of that was an explosion of creativity in all kinds of areas where the sciences, the humanities, and the arts intersected in the undergraduates experiences of having coursework in all of these disciplines and seeing how they were related and relative to one another.

I mentioned, this is the modern definition of liberal – liberal education that is used by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, which most Higher Ed institutions that have a liberal education base embrace. And I – and I don’t want to read this word for word. You can read it. But, basically, it’s the concept that all students, regardless of whether they have a technical major, a business major, a professional major, or a major in the liberal arts, should have a broad liberal arts curriculum as part of their experience that is interwoven with the major so that they have the power to see the relationship between the sciences and the humanities, between ethics and creation so that they have the power to understand and interact with people different than themselves, to have a sense of empathy and a sense of global awareness. That is the core liberal education experience, and it’s more important than ever before.

It’s not an outdated, outmoded type of education. Rather, it’s a tool for the future. In a time where information is ubiquitous. Around us at fingertips at any minute’s notice to access on the web, a liberal education base is how we make sense and take that information and combine it to produce things, to produce policies, ideas, and connect with the world. It, I would argue, is as relevant or more relevant than it ever has been.

And depending upon where our country is heading and where the states in the Midwest are heading, the liberal educa – the liberal education and liberal arts should play and should be considered in policy for thinking about what kinds of graduates we want and how we want to fund and move Higher Ed forward.

Interesting question and something I ask freshmen all the time. Why are you here and why would you go to college and why should the state, wherever you are, invest in you to come here? What is the output of your experience that benefits you and benefits society and the state that helped pay for your education? What is it? Why do people invest in Higher Ed, and why do people go? And what does it mean to be an educated person?

There’s a great deal of discussion about this right now. There’s a great deal of discussion about it in Wisconsin. Even though I’m a state away, I’m watching what’s happening here in terms of the discussion. And a similar discussion is taking place in Michigan. Michigan felt the recession first. We’re the only state in the country that had a million people leave our largest city in Detroit. And there’s a great deal of thought right now in the state of Michigan, like Wisconsin, that manufacturing is the future of the state, and there will be a return and a resurgence of manufacturing. I hope that is true.

And there’s an interest in focusing on trades and technical disciplines that will aid in that resurgence of manufacturing. Michigan is making a comeback, and Michigan is also reinvesting in its Higher Ed. The last two budget cycles, the governor’s invested 5%, four to 5%, each budget cycle because Higher Ed is clearly to the – part of the future of Michigan. And it’s clearly part of the future of Wisconsin. But the question is: What kinds of graduates do we want to have? There’s no question we need people in the sciences, technology, medicine, mathematics, business, and engineering, but we want them to have the tools and the skills to navigate the future. To be flexible, adaptable, and to be a – a person that can engage in a global culture.

So, we need to think about what does it mean to be educated, and what is the purpose of Higher Ed, and what’s the difference between training and education? People, when they ask me, what is my educational background, I will tell them I’m a liberal arts graduate and I’m trained in Anthropology, which sometimes I tell people is the master discipline because it’s the study of humanity across time and space. But I think of Anthropology as my training in a major in a specific field, but the skills that allowed me to move from one job to another, to be flexible, adaptable, to move from a research archaeologist to a professor to a college administrator to a president, are skills that are part of that liberal education experience. The ability to publicly – speak publicly, to analyze, think critically, and connect with different people, those are the skills that get you your second and third and fourth job, not necessarily your first job, although they should get you your first job as well.

The purpose of higher education and the way it’s discussed right now, most people, I think if you look at most universities, public universities, will have in their mission somewhere: Develop human potential. That was, still is fortunately, part of the University of Wisconsin’s mission. It’s also embedded in Lake State’s mission and Michigan State and many other Higher Eds of allowing people to become the – the – and enjoy a life, a liberated mind to develop to the furthest they can, to give them the skills to become lifelong learners. To develop curiosity and creativity, discovery and research, to discover new things, to be engaged and passionate about discovery and pursuing the truth, innovation. And two terms that have popped up, over and over again, that are now front and center in the nation’s debate about the future of higher education is workforce development and talent development.

To what degree is a university, a public university, responsible for workforce development, and is workforce development compatible with human potential development? Should it replace, or is it something that should be integrated? I would argue that it should. We are about providing careers and opportunities, but front and center is developing the individual, to become and educated person, to connect disciplines, and then apply it to a specific task or series of tasks and disciplines in a work environment.

Whats troubling is that workforce development is becoming thought of as the primary focus of the public university. And the primary focus should be the public good is producing an educated citizenry that has a wide array of options once the use the – they leave the university in terms of how they employ that education.

This is a great slide that I show first year freshmen students at – at university. That is a survey from the Chronicle of Higher Education across a – a whole sector of different types of higher education institutions in the United States. And I’ve – Ive – Ive highlighted in yellow those responses of: Why are you here and Why did you decide to go to college? that I think refer to becoming an educated individual versus those in white are connected more with training. And still today most college students are there to learn something about themselves and in interest, but right number two and inching up is to get a better job. To get training in a specific career. To gain general education, appreciation, ideas. To be able to make more money, prepare myself for graduate or professional school. To find a purpose in life. The last two I think are rather interesting. I could not find a job, and there was nothing better to do. Not a good reason to go to college, the last two.

What’s troubling is that the discussion in the media and in, often, the political sphere about college and the potential debt that one amasses and the probability or possibility of amassing significant debt and being unemployed is having a profound impact on first generation families about what you should do when you go to college.

And I’ll tell you an anecdotal story about this. Recently, a year or so ago, I was invited to give a keynote address on Mackinac Island to the scholarship recipients from the top – top positions of the 13 school districts in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, many of whom were first generation college students. Very exciting to meet these young people and to see their excitement of heading out, also nervousness, to college of what they’re going to study. Of nearly 50-some students, the majority, all but maybe a half dozen, listed science, technology, engineering, mathematics, business, or a health field as to what they were going to do.

That’s great.

The reality is probably most of them will not end up with a degree in that field, but what was absent, not a single English major. Not a single Sociology major. Amazingly, there was an Archaeology major. I was very pleased to see it. One Political Science.

If you were to look back 20 years ago, you would have seen a group of the most talented high school students talk about what they were going to study, a much broader array of disciplines and pursuing something that they’re passionate about. What is happening in high schools and in the discussion in the national debate about college is a fear being put into many first generation families that you should steer away from anything, anything, that you have not heard about getting a job in, or certainly where there’s not at least a job in my community that has a name attached to it that’s related to this major. And that’s unfortunate.

It is setting up a situation that as we move to the future, we will probably outproduce in a certain series of disciplines because of what is happening, of what people are hearing about the return on investment and why they should go to college. What we should be saying, in my mind, is students should pursue something that excites them and that they’re passionate about.

Something that will make them well-rounded, will make them flexible, and today the discussion maybe, I think, should be not about necessarily what do you want to major in, but what problems do you want to tackle in your adult life? What areas do you want to explore, and what disciplines might you invest in that would let you explore that topic in such a way to make some meaning and contribute to society?

This plaque is a quote by Alfred Whitehead, and it adorns our Science and Engineering building at Lake Superior State University. I stop and look at it every time I walk into the building. If you look at the date of Whitehead from 1861 to 1947. He was a scholar, a proponent of higher education. Wrote and talked about the importance of higher education and K 12 education. And this particular quote, I think, is as relevant today. “There can be no adequate technical education which is not liberal”, meaning broad and depth, “and no liberal education that is not technical. That meaning, one that does not possess at least the skills in a particular topic to all proficiency in a particular topic or major. That is, no education what does not impart both technique and intellectual vision.

This is as relevant today, and this is the kind of educational experience we should be telling every STEM major, every student going into medicine, that they need to take a broad discipline where they can see interconnections. One of the concerns that I hear regularly the legislature – the legislators talking about is, well, with college debt and the cost of college what we need to do is shorten the time to degree. All right, now, theres several ways you can do that. In other words, move from four years to three years. One is offer a lot of courses in their senior year in high school. That potentially could shorten college. Another way is to get rid of this broad educational experience or reduce it.

And there is discussion happening in the country in a variety of states to do just that.

To take the liberal education base and compress it and may the primary focus of the college experience on the major, to produce the most technically proficient graduate that we can. Mistake in terms of the need for this kind of education for our future and to create a creative economy.

A liberally educated person is able to understand natural and social science to make sense of the world. Up in your upper left, youre looking at our Plover Research Project in the Upper Great Lakes. We have a program where students are involved in monitoring and protecting habitat of Piping Plovers. And these students are not only taking courses in Biology, but also taking courses in Philosophy and Ethics to understand why is it important to preserve plovers, why is it taking courses in Political Science to understand the political dimension of the problem that theyre working in, and why it is necessary to have protective legislation to protect plovers.

Liberal education students are able to see the natural world and appreciate the aesthetic to apply the aesthetic to a problem to produce a superior end product that is visually and aesthetically pleasing. In liberal education, graduates are able to understand themselves in the context of a global world, to understand people who are different than themselves. I would argue that one of the most important points or attributes of an educated person is the skill of empathy. The ability to see other people and to connect with them and understand their experience and apply it to your own. That particular skill comes from the humanities and the social sciences embedded in an undergraduate curriculum.

And finally, the -the side that would be your left of the robotics; we have one of the first engineering robotics programs in the country. A very highly sought-after robotics program for our graduates. Theyre employed even sometimes a year out before they graduate. We want our students to be able to solve robotics problems, work with robotics in an engineering set-up, build these machines, operate them, see applications for them, but we want them to do it in the context of understanding the people the work with, the environmental conditions they work with, and the impact this has on the – the particular industry that theyre in. They need to be, if youre going to be in this – this particular field of robotics, a well-rounded individual, not just someone who can repair and operate smaller robotic devices.

The humanities, and this is a – a great image. This is – this is a – an image of my colleague’s installation at Algoma University, immediately across the river from my institution. The twin Saults, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, as I mentioned, are over 300 years old. There are four Higher Ed institutions there: Lake Superior State University, Bay Mills Tribal Community College, Algoma University:Ontario, and Sault College in Ontario. All of us serve a significant Native population. And, in fact, Lake Superior State University has the greatest percentage in number of Native students in Michigan. We’re at 10% of our population. My colleagues across the river, Algoma University, this is President Chamberlain being installed in his position. A great friend and colleague there of a great university, has almost 20% of his student population Native and a complex history. His campus is actually a former boarding Native school run by the Ontario government that was transformed into a university.

So, there’s this complex history of the tribal people that were educated there when they were a boarding school and now are returning as a university, to – to further their careers and – and their lives. Algoma has a great liberal arts tradition as well.

The reason I put this slide in is that the humanities and the social sciences allow us to operate in these realms. Although many people are surprised when I tell them I’m in the U.P. that’s a cosmopolitan international world. It is because we’re on the border with Canada. The ability to connect with these diverse populations and diverse people in terms of the Native history, the French history, the English history, the Canadian history, the Michigan history, requires some appreciation and skills to connect with people. And all of my colleagues that are involved in administration, Higher Ed administration, have those skills. They are critical to our success and critical to leadership positions and being creative and connecting with people in your own community who are different, but outside the borders of our own community and becoming more important than ever before.

The humanities also provide us with an opportunity to think about the ethics of what we can create and discover. And this is a great poster from Utah that a colleague of mine sent to me on social media that I think really drives home the point of science without the humanities. Science without the social sciences, natural science, is half a field. Without understanding the context of what you’re doing and how you’re going to apply what you’re doing is very important, particularly in the context of – of medicine.

The arts are also critical to making us see the world and see humanity. If you think about it, when you travel and travel around to other cities to visit relatives, to visit friends, when you travel for the first time, what is it that people are the most proud of in their communities? Their parks, their arts, and their environmental resources, but more particularly their arts. Their museums, their sculptures, their portrayal of humanity. And this particular sculpture that I chose just to exemplify that I – I just think this is an amazing piece reflect the 9/11 memorial in Rosemead, California. The hands are made out of stainless steel and they’re doves, each one representing a loss of life in 9/11, holding a twisted girder from the Twin Towers. What an amazing piece of artwork to tell us about that tragedy, that point in human history, and the impact it’s had on humanity.

The arts are critical to all of our undergraduate students in terms of their experiences. As I mentioned, I’m an archaeologist, and I spent many years in the field doing cultural resource management archaeology. That means archaeology for compliance construction projects. Often with road projects, Department of Transportation projects, sometimes city sewer projects that involved environmental impact studies and involved archaeology as part of the – the project because of an archaeology site that would be destroyed or impacted.

And I could pick out instantly the engineer I was dealing with of whether they came from a liberal education base institution or they came from a pure technical engineering school without that well-rounded experience.

The engineers that didn’t have that could not understand why is taxpayer money being spent on historic preservation and environmental preservation. What – they did not understand the political dimension of this project. Those that had that background could see that there is a historical connection to this project in terms of how it impacts the landscape, there is an aesthetic component to their project in terms of the impact of the beauty and the surroundings of the people that live there, and there is a social and political ramification to doing this engineering project.

And that is a better engineer. An engineer who can see in those dimensions is an engineer that is more complete and can produce a better product in the workforce and in the work field. That’s the kind of engineer that I want to work with.

So, a liberal education – liberal education graduates are creative, innovative, engaged, and curious. They have communication skills. Surprisingly, if you survey incoming freshmen about what their greatest fear is, they will list public speaking as number one, often above death, which is hard to imagine.

[laughter]

Because what’s the worst that can happen in a bad speech, right? Versus death is a bit more final.

Communication, written and oral, is absolutely critical to creativity, to discovery, to be able to make an argument, to convey the importance of what it is that you’re doing, and to connect with other people, analytical skills, the ability to solve problems, and, as I mentioned, empathy. When I hire and look for people of my teams, I’m usually looking for a couple of qualities, communication, hard ability to work, work ethic, but I’m looking for honesty, pursuit of the truth, and I’m looking for empathy. That is an absolutely critical skill of anyone that I have worked with or I’ve wanted on my team. And appreciation for the human condition and the ability to connect.

Now, this list actually comes from – it’s a modified list from a paper that Bill Cronon, one of your famous historians here on campus. It’s a phenomenal paper that I encourage you to read called “Only Connect.” It represents or describes what it is to be liberally educated. His number one point is the ability to connect disciplines. That’s what he says, and I would argue is key to someone with that liberal education background of their ability to see different types of information and merge them together to solve problems and to connect with people.

Now, I wanted to give one practical specific example of how a liberal education can be applied to a very specific commercial problem.

This is an image of James Keighley, and James Keighley I met for the first time about a year ago. He’s a retired Kraft and Proctor C.E.O. or C.F.O. He was one of the top leaders, vice presidents, in the organization. He was actually involved in some of the discussions here that led to the changes in Oscar Mayer’s relationship within the parent company. And he retired up in the Sault, became a member of our advisory board for Engineering Technology Advisory Board on campus. And we asked him to speak about this experience of being an engineer with business training in a top commercial international company and how and what he thought were important skills to becoming someone, a vice president in that position or a very top executive, and how those skills could be applied to a specific problem.

And I didn’t know exactly what he was going to talk about.

He came and talked about his experience of a team he had who worked with Gillette. And Gillette originally, if you know anything about the history of Gillette, Gillette was originally from Wisconsin, invented the Gillette razor, became widespread in World War I, the company had tremendous success. Interestingly, Gillette wasn’t able to enjoy that success – success and was separated from the company at some point in his life, but Gillette was interested in expanding its reach in a global market. And they were particularly interested in India, of producing a razor in India that would be successful. And for a significant period of time, their approach was simply to either produce something that was cheap or engineered as inexpensively as possible or was a product that was not selling well in the US and they offered it to India, and that was the strategy.

Very little success.

And then Jim and his team came in and decided what we need to do is go to India and apply some sociology, anthropology, business, and engineering to look at how Indians use razors and what might be attractive in terms of a design and what are the parameters we need to design a product that would be viable and successful in this country.

And so, he did this and found, a: most Indians that were using their product shaved out of a cup, didn’t have running water. So, they needed to design a razor that could be cleaned with a drinking cup, not with running water out of a tap. Very different than how most of us shave in the United States. Found that most of the consumers were shaving outdoors in daylight because they didnt have electricity in their home to produce enough daylight in the morning to shave in that setting. So, what they found was that people were using portable mirrors, shaving with a drinking water outside of their home.

So, they designed a razor around those parameters. Very inexpensive. Also found that Indians, depending upon where they were in the country, tended to hold the razor and use it differently based upon their traditions. So, they designed touch points on the razor that took it – helped hold the razor in a tactile way that would – would make it attractive. And then they, interestingly, found out how did people buy these things in India. And for the average Indian in terms of that would purchase a product like this, they were purchasing razors from their local shopkeeper that was usually a portable or a shopfront store on the street. And up until this point, Gillette had produced its razors in boxes to be on a shelf. But all of these vendors displayed their products by hanging them on rope, or thread, or lanyards; they had to be visually displayed in order to make the sale. And also, had to have something on it that told what the product was and why it was useful that wasnt written, language-based, because there were so many dialects and languages in India.

So, they did this, and after a years time of employing all of these disciplines, produced an incredibly successful product that exploded. Brought Gillette to the forefront in terms of disposable razors in India. You can argue where there should be a sustainable component of that in studying what happens when you bring disposable razors to India.

But its a fascinating story.

Its a story that – and when I asked him about this, he told me his training as an engineer, he never thought or – at the time that a connection between sociology, anthropology, politics, history and business would be critical in the development of a product in his discipline.

Alright?

Perfect example of using a liberal education to approach a problem.

And, finally, I wanted to talk a little bit about the history of liberal education and liberal arts in the context of Wisconsin.

In front of you are three symbols and phrases that are known throughout the country, throughout the world, in terms of Wisconsin and public higher education. The University of Wisconsin seal, Numen Lumen. Seek the light, the divine light, the truth, depending upon how you interpret it, that the rays represent the outside world and information coming into the individual, making sense of it. The sifting and winnowing statement which is about the pursuit of truth and using all means to pursue truth, investigate truth, that require multidisciplinary approaches. And the Wisconsin Idea. The idea that this education, the resources of this state, of this university, should benefit and inform and enrich all of the citizens of the state and beyond.

And that doesn’t just mean enrich in terms of getting a job. That means lifelong enrichment of connecting all of the fields of the universities to people’s lives.

Of transforming the economy, transforming people’s lives, and opportunity. That’s what the Wisconsin Idea is about, and that’s what the legacy of this institution is about.

Michigan, by comparison, does not have a university system. It has 15 constitutionally autonomous universities. 15 boards. And the land-grant mission of Extension and Outreach is the domain of Michigan State, exclusively, because they are the land-grant institution. The rest of us are very much interested in community enrichment and enlightenment and – and sharing the resources of the university with our citizens in surrounding areas, but Wisconsin is the gold standard in the country.

It has been the model for what higher education should be and the value of liberal education and the liberal arts of benefiting all aspects of the economy and the life of this state and beyond. It’s something that all of you need to take very seriously in terms of the direction that this institution is going and the direction of higher education in the country.

And, finally, I would argue that a liberal education and the liberal arts are absolutely critical to the goal of – of a public institution, public Higher Ed providing public good. There’s a dialog happening, occurring in the country right now of – of basically a – a – a dualism. Of the idea that public universities really benefit the individual and the good is a private good. Meaning that I get a degree, I go out and earn more, the benefit is predominately mine and my family’s, therefore I should pay for it or my family should pay for it.

The public good argument is that the individual not only benefits himself but the benefit in return to society is well worth the investment, perhaps greater than the investment of the individual. And in order to achieve that outcome, we need graduates who have this broad liberal education base to be creative, innovative, and to be able to be flexible and adaptable and to be successful in whatever the future economy is.

The image on the left, I’m not sure if she’s here tonight, Heather Breunig, but it’s a graduate at UW-Baraboo handing a diploma. That’s the best part of being a college president is handing out diplomas. That’s just such an exciting time to see families and folks there. And the image Enter to learn, go forth to serve, is a plaque on one of our gates at our institution, the oldest gate on campus. Lake State’s origins are actually a military fort that was transformed into a G.I. access institution after World War II, and we take this seriously. We want all of our graduates to go out wherever they go from Lake State and do something that not only benefits them, their families, but contributes to a greater public good, whether it be in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Canada, the U.S. or the world.

That is critical to what we are there to do. And it’s something that cannot be accomplished without producing a well-rounded, well-educated individual. And, finally, my last slide, the Academy turns 150, Jane, soon?

[Jane Elder, off microphone]

In 2020.

[Thomas Pleger]

In 2020.

The Academy’s origins are in liberal education and the liberal arts. It is, perhaps, the only institution in this state where the sciences, the humanities, and the arts and letters are integrated into a interdisciplinary approach to solving problems and bringing people together.

It’s extremely valuable.

And its origins date back to a time before the internet when a group of scholars saw great value in united these fields to address public policy issues and problems and connect the people of Wisconsin to scholars in a variety of fields.

The individual shown here with a hand lens is Increase Lapham. He is a founder of the Wisconsin Academy, and he’s also the grandfather of Wisconsin archaeology. He is Wisconsin’s first archaeologist, first geologist, read the first weather report in the region. He was a renaissance individual and investigated all things Wisconsin.

And he saw, in his mind with his contemporaries, a need to unite different disciplines, to explore topics, and bring the perspectives of different fields together to bear on the topic of the day. Way ahead of his time. He’s a mentor for anyone involved in archaeology of the Great Lakes.

And the Academy is as much relevant today as it was nearly 150 years ago when it was formed.

So, that ends my talk. I hope you found this of some value and saw the relevance of the liberal arts and liberal education to our past, to our present, and very much to our future as we look to building a creative, innovative, and educated economy, knowledge economy, for this state, for the Midwestern states, and for the U.S. and the world as a whole.

Thank you very much.

[applause]