Ono: Higher ed listens to the future




The leaders of several dozen Ohio colleges and universities gathered on Capitol Hill on March 25 to do something remarkably simple yet altogether extraordinary: We listened.

We listened to policy experts. We listened to researchers. We listened to a senior leader from the Department of Education. We listened to elected officials. We listened to each other.

Each year, Sen. Sherrod Brown convenes this diverse array of college presidents – from state universities, private liberal arts colleges, community colleges, art schools, Christian universities and more – to give us all a chance to see higher education issues from a different angle. Better still, he has the wisdom to invite his colleagues from across the aisle, including Sen. Rob Portman, to join in the discussion.

Sens. Brown and Portman made a strong case for the increasingly pivotal role higher education plays in advancing American prosperity. Rep. George Miller challenged us to do a better job on what he called “the finishing work on a citizen.” Experts discussed the need to increase access to college degrees and produce more scientists. We heard a presentation on Intern in Ohio, an innovative online service that matches college talent to job openings, helping to address the 100,000 jobs in Ohio that sit vacant waiting for qualified applicants to claim them.

The overall message from the speakers was unmistakable: America’s future is on our campuses and in our classrooms, and we must serve it well. As I looked around the room at my fellow presidents, I can assure you that higher education was listening.

But we can’t stop at listening. We must link it to meaningful action in how we educate our students, develop our research and engage our communities. We may be 53 years removed from President John F. Kennedy’s call to action, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” but the words have never been so clear or compelling to hear.

Higher education in Ohio can lead the way in giving back to this country what it so positively deserves – a system that is listening to the future, anticipating the evolving needs of the people, embracing the access and completion agendas, advancing knowledge, accelerating the economy and preparing the hearts and minds of future generations of civic-minded leaders. The rest of the nation also can learn from Gov. John Kasich’s innovative example of turning to college and university presidents to collectively determine our system’s budget model and capital improvement plan.

When the Constitutional Convention stood deadlocked on the question of political representation, several states threatened to withdraw from the proceedings. The country was already floundering under the Articles of Confederation. There was – in that moment – a very real possibility that the nation would soon splinter. Benjamin Franklin was a key figure in seeing through the compromise that created a House that favored big states and a Senate that gave each state two seats. When asked to name the most important thing he had done to help broker the deal, he responded with two words: “I listened.”

Sens. Brown and Portman, thank you for empowering us to learn anew the art of listening and the power of teamwork.

Santa Ono PrezOno


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