Dean's Message

Three of the most powerful learning experiences I had as an undergraduate took place outside the classroom. The first was as a freshman at Stanford before I transferred to Utah State University. I was a "walk-on" to the Stanford baseball team until the coach and I had a disagreement. I thought I was good enough, and he didn't. That kind of ended things. But I had to admit he was right. I needed to look elsewhere for success.

The second experience came in 1972 when I was selected as an intern in U.S. Senator Frank E. Moss's Washington office by his chief of staff, Kem Gardner. I had a front-row seat in Washington during the summer made famous by the Watergate scandal. No doubt, that internship had a direct effect on my decision to seek election to the US Senate 20 years later as a Democrat from Utah. That didn't work out any better than the baseball try-out.

The third experience took place during my senior year. I had just lost another election—for student body office. As they say, one door closes and another opens. In this case, the door that opened was the job of editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, then called Student Life. Now it's The Utah Statesman. In 1972 all the student editors quit the paper in protest for some reason, so the job was opened to anyone on campus. During that losing campaign, it became known that I had served as the editorial page editor of The Stanford Daily during my freshman year. Encouraged to apply for the editorship, I was selected without having worked a single day on the USU paper. At the end of the year, we won the Robins Award for "Achievement of the Year."

All these experiences have shaped me today. They have taught me what I am good at, and what I am not so good at. I have learned how I work best, and what I am most interested in. As our late colleague, Stephen R. Covey, wrote in his book, Great Work, Great Career, we find our unique contribution at the intersection of our passion, our strengths, the world's great need, and what our conscience tells us.

At the Huntsman School, we believe that great learning outside the classroom complements and deepens the learning that takes place inside the classroom. To fulfill our purpose to be a "career accelerator" for our students we must be an "experience accelerator." That's why we have launched our "Learning by Doing" campaign, and why we are so pleased to announce the naming of our new Learning and Leadership Building for those generous friends, Kem and Carolyn Gardner, whom I was so fortunate to meet 50 years ago as an undergraduate at USU.