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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


Just before Spring Break, I attended the Clinton Global Initiative University meeting at the University of Miami, and (unless you’re following me on Twitter) this is the first chance I’ve had to share some observations about this gathering, which was truly inspirational. The source of this inspiration is key to all of us because it goes to the heart of why we’re at MCC: students.

The big picture focus of CGIU is on student commitments: students’ plans to move their innovative and high-impact ideas into actions that will make a better world. And, honestly, isn’t that our goal for all our MCC students?  That what they’ve learned at MCC will help them to make a positive difference. Sometimes this difference comes at home, as in an improved economic future for a single parent in a career program, and sometimes this difference finds a home far away from home, as in clean water for a village in the Sudan.

So, here are three thoughts from CGIU that may get us all thinking about how we can expand the reach of MCC well beyond the confines of our campuses:

Don’t overthink -- do.
We were reminded over and over again that the most important question is “How can we move from idea to action to make a difference?” As a career academic, I can say that this question really hit home. In the academy, we sometimes tend to analyze and research ideas ad infinitum. We can identify all the historical and hypothetical reasons why something will likely not work or never happen and do a great job of talking ourselves out of any action. If we’re going to expend all that energy, we might as well focus it in a positive direction -- something good might actually happen.

Students lead change because they think differently.
Throughout the weekend, I met student after student who had accomplished incredible things in rather ordinary ways.   Most often, their success resulted because they asked “the wrong” questions, reached out for help, and were simply persistent. For example, one young woman, who is herself blind, asked why services for the blind in her native Lebanon did not match those in her adopted home, the US. She then created a transition camp for the blind in Lebanon while relying almost entirely on small in-kind donations and her unwillingness to take “no” for an answer. I was struck by the students’ understanding of and *commitment* to the hard work necessary to create change -- and by how fun they found the efforts involved. They defied all stereotypes we might hold about the Facebook generation -- and interestingly, their easy engagement with technology frequently supported and moved forward their ideas.

When you work on a project, your goal should be to work yourself out of a job.
This thought was shared within the context of humanitarian projects, but upon reflection, I realized that this is truly the goal of all teaching: we want our students to develop to the point that they no longer need us. We want our nursing students to become nurses, our education students to become teachers, our composition students to become writers.  The goal of service learning is to teach students the value of service to the community so they’ll stay involved well after the class ends. The goal of student activities is to build leadership skills that will carry students far beyond MCC. The wonder and joy of our work is that we are shaping the future with each class we teach, each student we advise, each person we mentor. 

I could share many stories about the CGIU experience (catch me sometime if you want to hear them), but instead, I’ll end with my own commitment: next year, we will send a group of MCC students
to the event and help them along the way to changing the world.  How would you change our world?  Let me know on the President’s Wednesday Message blog.

Anne M. Kress
President's Office
04/28/2010