Thank you all and good afternoon!
I've got to admit I've given a number of addresses over the course of my career but
this is the first time I've ever worn one of these crazy mikes,
so I don't know if I should speak or if I should sing but for your all's benefit
I'm not going to sing. I want
to thank everyone
for taking the time out of your busy schedules,
to invest two days of time on, what is from my perspective, one of the most
critical discussions facing our country,
and that is how do we inspire a new generation of Americans
to invest their time, energy, and talents
in the STEM fields.
Our ability to inspire Students, our ability to inspire Faculty,
our ability to build connections across disciplines with an emphasis on STEM
is critical to our ability as a country to sustaining everything that we take
for granted.
And, a lot of us struggle with STEM.
You know, the question was made, 'why would a political scientist give a STEM
address?'
My wife asked that on a number of occasions. Why do I give
addresses on
much of anything other than politics or Higher Ed?
But I'm a baseball fan
and, a little bit earlier today, and a little bit of time last night I spent
studying the physics of baseball,
and if you were to examine the physics of baseball you'll understand that
the foundational underpinnings
of science, technology, engineering, math,
physics, the things that many folks, when you bring up those topics,
say 'wait, that's not for me.'
As the Superintendent stated last night,
'you know I'm not so good at math,' everyone looks at u sympathetically.
But if you were to take the physics of baseball
and put that in front of the young Student,
I think we could inspire a new generation
of Americans
to get excited about science
and I want to take a little moment to talk about
individuals, because at the end of the day, it's the individuals in this room
who are going to change the outcome
of conversations.
In the mid-1980's, there was a report that was released called "Nation
at Risk,"
and the Nation at Risk
highlighted
maybe the same issues we're highlighting today.
Our Students are not prepared,
were falling behind in a global marketplace,
we're seeing our SAT scores and ACT scores decline,
we're struggling with college remediation,
our data systems do not align across K-12 and higher education.
Fast forward 25 years, other than hairstyles and music,
nothing has changed.
We're still struggling with aligning K-12 and Higher Ed curricula,
we're still struggling with data issues,
far too many of our Students are still requiring remedial developmental
instruction
when they get to college.
But somewhere in there, I think what's gotten lost,
in the focus on accountability,
is Students.
I'll get to my comments in a second but I want to talk about the
importance of Students,
because here's where political scientists saw the light of STEM.
Within my first couple of months of assuming the position in my former
state,
I got a call
from the Secretary of Education and the Arts, a woman named Kay Goodwin.
Kay called and said 'Brian, do you know anything about this Imagination Library?
You're from Tennessee!'
As if because I'm from Tennessee I'm supposed to know anything about Tennessee,
and I said, "Well, yes ma'am, that involves Dolly Parton, my son received a book
Books from Birth on...
She goes, 'yeah, that's it, you know about it, come with me,
tomorrow we're gonna go somewhere.'
So the somewhere that we went was Lincoln County, West Virginia.
Lincoln County, West Virginia is the county that neighbors Kanawha County,
the state capitol of Charleston,
and from the time we left Charleston
until the time we arrived,
in Ranger, West Virginia,
took us about an hour and fifteen minutes.
When I walked into Ranger Elementary School, there was a group of shiny faces
that didn't look any different than the shiny faces in my son's school
and we read,
and I had my little book that I read. I read 'Goodnight Moon,' if any of
you are familiar with the book 'Goodnight Moon.'
And I talked to Students and I had a great,
great morning,
and as I was leaving, the Principal,
spelled her last name hospital last name N-a-p-i-e-r.
Mark, how would you pronounce that?
It's "napper" in Lincoln County
Principal Napier said to me, "Doctor Noland,
would you please return
because, do you realize, you're the only gentleman in a suit
who's not a parole officer or a mortician that these individuals see,
and the young boys in this classroom have no role models,
because many of their fathers are in jail
or receiving transfer payments.
So I told her I'd come back
but I'd come back only if she never agreed
to talk about it. She agreed never to talk about it, no newspaper stories, no pictures.
I would just come.
So every month for five years,
I went to that elementary school
and the Third Graders grew into Fourth Graders who then grew into Fifth Graders
and we started all over again.
But I found within that group of Students, in the most impoverished section of the
state,
(a county were less than ten percent of the population has a college degree,
so if you strip out teachers, nurses,
the occasional physician, and some lawyers, there's not a lot left,)
that those students had the same spark of creativity from knowledge of
Students anywhere in the country.
And each year we would take the Students on a field trip.
First year I asked, "Where do you want to go?"
A little bit a back-and-forth so we took them to Marshall,
because the Students, while they were forty five minutes from Marshall
University, no one had ever been to a college campus.
The next year we asked, "Where do you all want to go?"
and we took him to the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences which is an
environment in which, in a hands-on setting, similar to the Hands-on Museum,
they could understand the connections between science and what they saw in
an applied setting.
But by the Fifth Grade things had begun to change
Boys were looking at things differently.
They were looking at the girls differently.
But something had changed.
That light that I saw in Third-Graders was no longer there.
So the time came,
we were playing this
little game where I gave out dollars for questions and most of it was around math
and science
because I'd hate to admit, as a political scientist, they were
beating me left and right and they enjoyed the fact that they could beat me and took
dollars home.
So, I said, "Where do you all want to go this year?"
and the vote
that won, was to be exhibition coal mine
in Beckley, West Virginia.
And I said, "Why do you all want to go to the
exhibition coal mine?"
and they said, 'Cause we want to see where our parents work and where most likely we're
going to work.
So, somewhere between the Fourth grade and the Fifth Grade, the desire for
learning was lost.
So we start all over again; Third Grade group,
Fourth Grade group, and a couple weeks ago someone sent me the pictures of the Fourth
Grade Students at Marshall,
taking a field trip
but in that little class
there's now a student who's in the Eighth Grade, and he and I exchange e-mails.
This is a Student whose father is incarcerated
but this one little Student found the spark
for science
because when we would ask science questions in class
he was perpetually beating me and I was giving him
a dollar.
So all of you have
Students like this one young man
because East Tennessee isn't much different
than Southern West Virginia.
First-generation, low-income, hard working people.
Your work in the classroom
provides that inspiration of the spark for science.
Your work in the classroom...
put away all the tests,
put away ACT,
put away everything, put away TCAP,
and focus on the individual
because that one individual
will then create that spark and push and push,
and that's what we do here.
That's what we do at ETSU.
That's what Dr. Rhoton and his staff are leading through the
announcement of the STEM Center in Kingsport.
We are building partnerships between K-12
and Higher Education across departments
that are advancing the fields.
We are building partnerships through our Center of Excellence in Mathematics and
Science Education
and a twelve million dollar grant that we have received that will transform
science education not only in Kingsport
but in East Tennessee.
What we're doing at Brookside Elementary School
is no different than what was done at Ranger Elementary School
but it is significantly different
because it's led by a team of scientists,
it has a curriculum, it has a pedagogy,
and it has a plan.
And that plan
we talked a little bit this morning about plan.
That plan involves the alignment of data,
the assessment of Student information,
the identification of gaps,
and ensuring that we bring data to the table to help inform,
and a few student learning outcomes in the classroom.
All across this institution there are examples of individuals who invest their
time and energies
and lead the transformational role
of STEM education in the region.
One of them is Ms Crystal Duggar.
Crystal was recently named the Outstanding Science Teacher for
2012 by the Tennessee Academy of Science.
She is a physical science, chemistry, and advanced placement chemistry teacher
at Greeneville High School.
Let's go Devils!
Crystal Duggar inspires... my wife is an Alum...
Crystal Duggar inspires, she innovates, she teaches students to
dismantle misconceptions, and solve problems as teams.
She teaches her students to ask the right questions,
and she engages those students to answer them.
When we asked her about the STEM fields, and asked her about individuals whom she had
taught,
and where they went after leaving Greenville High School, here's some
examples,
Gavin Rustin, a pre-med major, Carol Wolseley, who is entering the Quillen College
of Medicine this Fall,
Brandy Fannin who recently graduated from ETSU's Bill Gatton College of
Pharmacy,
and Amber Brooks who's in pre-med at ETSU, who's with us today.
That's one individual
touching the lives of countless others at Greenville High School
and across the region, who are taking forward that spark
of knowledge in the STEM fields
to transform the future.
Why is it important?
It's important because the fastest growing jobs in this country require a
foundation of knowledge in math.
The ability of our country to sustain our economy
requires a foundation of knowledge
in the areas in which you all have expertise.
According to a December 2000 report by the National Governors
Association, building a science, technology, engineering, and math agenda
at all levels of education, STEM job holders are at 11% more
than folks like me
who are in non-STEM fields.
The top 10 bachelor's degree majors with the highest median earnings are all in
the STEM fields.
Over the course of the past 10 years, STEM jobs grew three times faster than
non-STEM jobs.
In 2010, the unemployment rate for STEM workers was
5.3%
when for all other occupations
it was 10%.
But there's more to it than just earnings.
and that's where we in higher education I think have failed,
and I'm as guilty as anyone
I've gone to the high schools and looked at Students and Parents and said, "Go to
college because if you go to college you'll earn a million dollars more over the
course of your lifetime."
But what we've not said to Students and Parents is that investments in post
secondary education
be they two-year, four-year, public, or private,
our investments that teach you how to think,
they're investments that broaden your horizons,
they're investments that expose you to a diversity of ideas,
they're investments that expose you to individuals, and to cultures, and beliefs
that you may not have had view from mountain city
or Ranger, West Virginia.
So that transformative power of higher education,
that ability to look at a difficult issue,
to frame a research question,
to form a hypothesis, to develop and all,
to assess
to put your confidence intervals around them, and to make an educated decision,
that's all part of the process of inquiry,
that you all are instilling in your Students
on a daily basis.
That journey of learning,
that journey of testing,
that journey of exploration
cuts across disciplines,
be you a Political Science Major, or be you an Engineer.
But that focus in math
teaches us how to think critically,
teaches us how to look at problems in a unique way and unravel,
and our ability to sustain our economy, and our quality of life,
is predicated on it,
One of the great opportunities that I had
in my former position
was a chance to work with a Governor
who understood the importance of higher education
in economic development.
And just as the Superintendent noted last night,
time after time he sits in rooms with major employers who are looking to
locate themselves in tennessee
and they asked two questions. How good are the schools
and what's the quality of the work force?
Same questions I was asked.
How good are your schools
and what's the quality of your work force?
'How good are the schools' is controlled by everybody that's in this room.
We've got to work on the quality of our work force
but 'how good are our schools' are controlled by the quality of individuals in this
room.
You all are passionate, if not,
there's a lot of other places you would be,
you'd be like the folks at all the other tables who have is taken the great desert, and if
you
didn't have the red velvet cake, go get some,
and got on the road.
But because you're here,
you're committed, and you care, and I applaud you for what you do.
I hope that as you explore opportunities in the future
you direct your Students to ETSU
because there are opportunities here that I don't think many folks are aware
of.
The level of undergraduate research that occurs at this institution, you're not
going to find at many institutions in the country.
Be it on the main Campus or on the Quillen Campus,
be it in psychology, be it in medicine, or be it in political science, on a daily basis, I've
had the chance to see undergraduate Students
working side by side with First-Year Students in the College of Medicine.
I've have had the opportunity to see undergraduate Students in labs,
looking at learning outcomes
in early development youth,
children aged
eighteen months to twenty four months,
but the chance for your Students to come here, roll up their sleeves, and work side
by side
with Grad Students and our Faculty, is something that doesn't happen at many
places.
So, if you have a young Student who is interested in science,
send them to ETSU,
because what our Faculty do,
many of whom are in the room today,
is to help take that light bulb
that you inspired in middle school and high school
and turn the wattage up a little bit.
I thank you all for your time!
I thank you all for your investments,
but most importantly I thank you for the passion for learning
that you instill upon your Students on a daily basis.
I could stand here all day and read
page after page of accolade of our faculty, and mind you, I did have a
script.
But you all know them.
How many in the room
are ETSU Alums?
Thank you!
You all know our strengths.
You all know our stories.
You are our stories!
I thank you for what you do for this institution and I thank you for what you do
for the region,
and I look forward to watching the amazing things that you accomplish and
the amazing Students that you send to our institution in years to come. Everybody
have a great day and safe travels home!