Warner retirement speech · Digital Archival Objects at WestConn · Omeka-S - A digital resource administered by the Western CT State University Archives

Title

Warner retirement speech

Creator

See all items with this value Warner, Truman

Subject

See all items with this value Universities and colleges

Date

1995

Format

2 manuscripts, on index cards and scrap paper

Description

~20 pgs

Type

See all items with this value speeches (documents)

Identifier

ms026_34_57_speeches

Transcription

Truman Warner Retirement Speech, 1995
I am pleased and honored to have been selected as the first recipient of the President’s Medal.
Some may indeed wonder why anyone would spend 35 plus years deeply involved in the activities of the same educational institution. But what to others may seem a horrendously long period of commitment, in my memory, has slipped by with remarkable speed. It is only when I discover in my classes the children of students who had graduated a generation ago that I realize how much time really has elapsed.
Clearly, I have enjoyed what I was doing. But credit for this durability also belongs not only to my colleagues in all positions on the university staff who made this a very positive environment in which to live and work, but also, and especially, to the pleasure of teaching and associating with the hundreds of students whom I have come to know and admire. My heart-felt “thank you” to all those who have made my tenure here so meaningful to me.
Because of the nature of this award, I have been requested to share some of my reflections on my experiences here at WestConn. But condensing the reactions [of] many decades to the constraints of time at a commencement ceremony is a true challenge. I promise to be very selective.
I have spent most of my career on what is now the mid-town campus, and you too for several years have lived in and traversed the same landscape. Perhaps to many the names of the structures at mid-town – Old Main, Berkshire, Fairfield, White, for example – have been primarily the means for locating class rooms, or offices, or living quarters, or laboratories. But to me those bearing the names of specific individuals conjure up more than a way of identifying a building, and three of these landmarks in particular – White Hall, the Haas Library and Higgins Hall – might well symbolize three parallel but intertwined themes I sense as being characteristic of the university.
White for events of the past which continue to impact campus life today,
Haas as a major force in the on-going educational philosophy under which the university operates and Higgins representing the desire to go beyond the day-to-day necessary and routine functions of an educational institution and also look to the future.
First, let us “dust off” some bits of the past as represented by the term “White Hall.” Most of those present perhaps assume that the label comes directly form White Street on which it is located. Wrong! White Hall is in honor of Alexander M. White a scion of an old Danbury family & descendant of one of its earliest ministers. But why single out Mr. White as worthy of special recognition? Because his concern for higher education within Connecticut convinced him to donate the land [in] Danbury for the establishment of the Normal School. Without his gift there is a strong possibility that the move to establish such a school would never have reached fruition.
When the bill authorizing the establishment of the school was passed in the Connecticut legislature, local supporters staged a brief parade and then gathered to celebrate at what was then the nearby Groveland Hotel. Thus began a continuing cooperative tie between the citizens of the Western Connecticut region and the university and laid the foundation for the belief that local residents would & should support higher education in the area and that the university in turn should not and would not isolate itself from the communities which gave it such support. Town & Gown cooperation has continued through the years as time and time again the expansion and even the very existence of the university has been threatened. Thus, a few years back, when proposed land acquisition for the mid-town campus were found not to be feasible, the joint efforts of both the university and local leaders eventually led to the establishment of this Westside campus where we are gathered today. The university & the region (as well as the state as a whole) have a symbiotic relationship that when recognized has led to a strengthening of each.
Unfortunately, when we do not know the past we may jump to conclusions unsupported by the facts. It has been my observation that the accomplishments of [Westconn] often may have been underrated, even by its own students, because the history of its past is so little known.
Thus, long after this institution had ceased to be a two-year Normal School many people continued to categorize it as such, and since then have failed to appreciate that our transition through a Teachers College to a state college to a university is part of an evolutionary pattern of many similar institutions throughout the nation. To feel a sense of inferiority because we were not founded in the 17th or 18th century is indeed unmerited.
Drawing upon my own experiences as an undergraduate at what was then a teacher’s college, I am well aware that not only did many graduates become highly respected and successful teachers & school administrators but many of those who did not persue [sic] the teaching profession built on their education here to enter other fields. The result was a grab-bag of professions ranging from law and dentistry to the priest-hood. Our commencement speaker today, Dr. Ralph Braibanti was one, who in those pre liberal arts days easily moved into higher education. The list could include several others drawn from an entire class numbering as few as forty who followed a similar route including a mutual friend who became Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University.
These illustrations from the past are not unique. Somehow many of us do not know this aspect of our university’s history. But such contributions of the so-called non-prestigious college is a common feature of American higher education. In support let me quote a brief statement form a recent review of the autobiography of the naturalist Edward Wilson
“Scrutiny of the careers of America’s intellectual elite show that they tend to come form non-elite backgrounds. The members of the National Academy of  Sciences are concentrated at a few prestigious institutions such as Harvard,  Berkeley and Stanford but it turns out that as undergraduates they studied  disproportionately at state universities or small liberal-arts colleges . . .“
I have watched many of our more recent graduates follow a similar path. With a good undergraduate record and the desire and determination you are in a position to do the same.
To me, the name Ruth Haas as applied to the main library of the university leads me to reflect on the practices and philosophies embedded in the educational process at Wesconn. No element is unique in itself, but the particular constellation of elements that has evolved over time has created its own special synthesis here.
Dr. Ruth Haas did indeed play a major role in creating that basic academic atmosphere. Her long tenure as Dean and then as President provided her with the opportunity to solidify many of her ideas as they became operational.
To Dr. Haas the primary commitment of the university was to educating the students and to her education meant much more than subject matter and included values and attitudes and behavior. Bricks and mortar for buildings were necessary and academic research by the faculty was an important part of being a scholar/teacher, but if a choice had to be made, the teaching learning relationship between professors and students came first. Thus, I first came to Wesconn as director of admission[s] not because I was highly skilled as an admissions officer but because she believed my years of experience as a high school teacher would facilitate the interaction between graduating high school students and the recruitment and admissions process. With similar intent she urged all faculty to be accessible to students both in and outside the class. She herself provided the model. Except on days which required her presence elsewhere she was in her office, often as early as seven o’clock every morning - - even if there were a howling blizzard (some thought this was a little much!) with her office door wide open to meet with anyone -- from faculty members and students to custodians and secretaries - – who wished to see her. To her, education was a full-time affair, not just for professors and administrators but for the students as well.
Probably none of you ever knew or even met Dr. Haas personally, but in varying degrees you have, without realizing it , felt her influence while you have been here – from small classes and efforts to treat everyone as a worthwhile individual and not just a number to support for non-traditional enrollments and attempts to expand programs to meet the rapidly changing needs of society.
Why identify Lothrop Higgins for whom Higgins Hall is named, as an appropriate symbol for dealing with an unknown future? And why focus on someone who was principal as long ago as 1923 to 1935? I’ve been intrigued to learn [that] as a teacher of science he had a vision of the scientific revolution already underway in the world and felt that the ordinary child needed better scientific preparation for the world that was to be. Faced with the problem of reaching pupils in one room rural schools & in ill-equipped elementary class- rooms in the cities, he wrote a science textbook and then created kits of scientific apparatus and supplies which could circulate from school to school. This was his way of meeting the future head on. When after WWII the legislature authorized a new science building his foresight was appropriately memorialized.
A more recent example of Mr. Higgins willingness to innovate is the newly announced establishment of the Lothrop Higgins Fund from the estate of Mrs. Higgins. To honor her husband’s wishes her will had authorized a fellowship for international travel to foster international good will to encourage members of the faculty and the president of Wesconn to play a positive role in dealing with the on-going globalization of the world. Remember he made plans for this in the 1930’s when internationalization was not in its heigh-day.
Through my years here I have been well aware of an eagerness to change as new realities appear. But I have also been aware of the financial, political, bureaucratic and philosophic obstacles that at times have slowed or stalled valiant attempts to introduce or expand what those with vision thought was needed. Note, however, that it took from 1935, the year of Mr. Higgins death to 1995 for his wishes for a Travel Fund to finally become a reality.
When, either in your memory or in actuality you revisit the mid-town campus, perhaps the symbolism of White Hall (the past), the Haas Library (the ongoing present) and Higgins Hall (innovation) will remain for you, as it will for me, and remind us of how much the University had offered each of us.