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From the PresidentNew Student Convocation & LuncheonThursday, August 23, 2007Noon-1:30 pm Sewall Center Arena President Dell’Omo Speech: It’s days like these that make you so gratified to be an educator. There’s nothing more important than being able to help enrich the future of another human being. As a university president—and as a parent—I am truly proud to be welcoming you all to Robert Morris because I know that we can give you opportunities and experiences that really can change your lives forever...and even more importantly, allow you to change the lives of others around you. We’ve talked about three values that help make RMU what is is today: our academic excellence, our professional focus and our global perspective. I’d now like to add the other three: our commitment to engaged learning, our belief that individuals matter, and our dedication to changing lives. What I mean by engaged learning is the fact that no matter how profound your classroom experience may be—and it will be profound, not only because our faculty here are such experts in their fields and in the classroom, but also because we’re small enough and friendly enough that you’ll actually get to know your professors and learn from them as people, not just as scholars---but no matter how strong our academics and professional partnerships are, what brings it all to life, really, is when you get to put your own ideas, your knowledge and your skills into practice. That’s where engaged learning can take a good student and turn you into a capable leader and a valued performer. Engaged learning is when your curriculum extends beyond the classroom and into practical learning experiences. It’s not just about loading up on clubs or electives or activities for the sake of keeping busy. It’s about taking your book learning about rhetoric and labor relations and then getting into project teams, working with an industry executive and actually conducting a labor negotiation that goes from 6 am Saturday morning to midnight. It’s about collaborating with fellow students to form a band, produce a video, submit it to a national award program and then head to LA to accept your Emmy for Best College Music Video. It’s about taking your engineering expertise combined with your business and communications savvy, and getting an internship at Deloitte Touche that turns into a job offer for an entirely new practice in quality assurance assessment to counsel companies who want to acquire major manufacturing plants. It’s traveling to a third-world country with your fellow nursing professors and students and actually diagnosing and treating a family of twelve who live in a dirt-floored shack and look up to you with all the trust in the world. So, it’s taking the “education of the head” and adding in the “education of the hand” and, in our case, the education of the “heart and soul.” These are the experiences that will make your years at Robert Morris truly unforgettable. They will show you—not tell you, but show you—that we know that individuals matter. You matter to us. We’ll take the extra time to help you get used to college life. We’ll care enough and get to know you well enough to push you when you need a push and to be there when you need a safe haven. You matter to us as individuals...but also, we want you to go forward knowing that other people matter to you. By putting all of this together, by delivering to you academic excellence combined with a professional focus that will guarantee you career options you never dreamed of...and by ensuring that you get the “value-add” of a global perspective ...and a “second transcript” of engaged learning accomplishments...that’s how we demonstrate how individuals matter here at RMU and how we start out by changing the lives of you in this room. But the real pay-off, the real goal here, is to enable you to go out and change the lives of others...for the better. That’s your job. We know you are up to it and, believe me, we are here to help you achieve it. Thank you. < Back to President’s Speeches |
 
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