Dean's Update:
Reflections on a Year at Jepson
Sandra J. Peart, Dean
May 15, 2008
During this past year, I have been telling students,
alumni and parents that Jepson students are risk
takers. I stand by that characterization. But as I
reflected on the class of 2008 in order to address
the graduates at our Senior Appreciation and
Recognition Ceremony, another set of adjectives were
also apparent: Jepson students are extraordinarily
diverse, engaged and driven.
This year’s Jepson School graduating class is made up
of 37 majors and 18 minors. Our students comprised only
7 percent of all graduates from the University of
Richmond, yet they made up 13 percent of the
university’s Phi Beta Kappa recipients, 21 percent of
the students elected to Mortar Board and 22 percent of
the students admitted into Omicron Delta Kappa.
Our graduates are heading to New York, Indiana, Florida,
North Carolina, Tennessee, the District of Columbia,
Massachusetts, Europe, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
England, Japan, Africa, Oklahoma and California. They
combined their majors and minors in leadership studies
with majors (sometimes even triple majoring) and minors
in journalism, business administration, rhetoric and
communication, Italian, Japanese, interdisciplinary
studies, economics (there are three doubles this year in
economics and leadership studies), history, medical
humanities, Spanish, political science, English, music,
urban practice and policy, studio art, law and liberal
arts, Chinese, psychology, international studies, and
women, gender and sexuality studies.
They are headed to graduate schools for MBAs, law
degrees, nursing, public policy and administration and
higher education. They obtained positions in the
for-profit sector at Lehman Brothers, Deloitte, Lilly
Pulitzer, in medical research, at Northwest Mutual and
in software development. In the nonprofit sector our
students were strongly represented as well: in our own
Center for Leadership in Education (a joint project
between Jepson and the School of Continuing Studies), in
Teach for America and in other nonprofits.
All of this represents a tremendous diversity of
intellectual interests and goals.
We at Jepson challenge all of our graduates to continue
their education formally or informally, working,
observing, and learning and leading in nonprofits and
for-profit organizations.
In 1877, a famous social reformer and political
economist, William Stanley Jevons, wrote this about
education in England:
“It is not merely that which goes into the eyes and ears
of a student which educates him; it is that which comes
out. A student may sit on the lecture-room benches and
hear every word the teacher utters; but he may carry
away as much useful effect as the drowsy auditor of a
curate's sermon. … education is in the exertion. So
intellectual education is measured, not by words heard,
or read, but by thoughts excited.”
That’s from an essay, entitled “Cram,” which argues that
education is much more than the sometimes inevitable
cramming we all do before exams. I know that professors
at Jepson have excited and inspired students to continue
to take risks as they make the transition from Jepson
student to Jepson alumni.
The group they are joining is somewhat larger than 55,
but still selective and distinguished: 821 Jepson alumni
who live in many states and countries and work in
medicine, law, business, nonprofit, entertainment, and
other industries. They are an extraordinarily talented
and energetic group. I can say this because I know many
of them now.
It’s been a wonderful year at Jepson, in large measure
because our students are so wonderfully diverse, engaged
and driven.
Dean Sandra J. Peart is the fourth dean of the Jepson School of
Leadership Studies, founded in 1992.
More about Dean Peart
Other messages from the dean:
The Value of a Jepson Degree,
March 2008
The Academic Program,
January 2008
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