“I have a grandniece, four years old. I want to make sure that she understands math and science, not because I want her to be an engineer, but because I want her to be whatever she wants to be. I want her to have the power to say, ‘I don't want to be an engineer,’ instead of someone saying, ‘You're not qualified to get into the program.’ To be successful, our kids need to have enough information, access, and interaction with people to make informed decisions about what they want to do. They should have the power to say ‘I want to do this’ instead of someone else telling them, ‘No, you can’t.’
There are countries where the educational system tells people where they’re going to go and what they’re going to do, but what’s great about being in the United States is our freedom to choose. But without the right information, that freedom goes away because you don't know it exists.
For example, when you look at students going to go to college, they pick from three or four majors because that's all they know.
But if they know 10 different majors, maybe that thing they REALLY want to do is the seventh major. So it’s critical that we keep students informed about the decisions they make so they can go in a direction that is best for them.
Growing up, I had very few choices based on the exposure that I had. But I started college and had professors who took the time to talk to me and help me out. It changed how I saw myself, and I began to think, ‘Maybe I really do deserve to be here.’ I saw more possibilities and started setting up meetings with chairs of departments, and every single person met with me. From that, I ended up changing majors and finding the career path that I would not have selected otherwise, and today, I’m here.
That's the power of educators and taking the time to interact with and talk to students: it lets students know they have value and worth.
Sometimes when we ask kids, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and we keep asking to the point where students think, ‘I’ve got to pick something that I'm going to do for the rest of my life.’
But I started off in political science, and ended up switching to social work. I had taken a class and the professor was talking about child welfare, foster care, adoption—all things I knew nothing about, but the class was so fascinating to me. So I took another class, and then another, and then finally switched my major. My original decision when I started college was based on the limited information that I had at the time. I gained new information, and made a better decision.
At first, I didn't know where social work was going to lead me. But now, I'm the president of Saginaw Valley State University! That was not on my list from ages 15 to 25. Knowing what I wanted to do at that moment in time, not necessarily for the rest of my life, gave me the freedom to change, to try new things.
That's the beauty and importance of a liberal arts education. When you're learning philosophy and math, and science and English and history and all of those fields, you gain the ability to move into different directions with that skill set and more doors open.
At parent orientation, we tell them that there's a possibility that their child is going to change majors and that's okay. As they explore and expand, they're going to find areas that maybe they didn't know existed. Now, if they change every semester, that's a problem! But we want students to find something that excites them, and that’s something that not all of them know when they step foot on campus.
But it’s our goal that as they continue to grow and learn, they get to make new decisions.”
“We have different definitions of philanthropy, and the most common is ‘someone donates money’. But there are other definitions of philanthropy, such as giving your time to support the community. A person gets up to go to work and their car won't start, but their neighbor says, ‘I'll take you to work.’ That's philanthropy. A person can’t go to work because the babysitter didn't show up, but a friend says, ‘I'll watch your kids today.’ That's philanthropy.
I'm new to the university, so it was my first year seeing the Special Olympics, and the number of students who volunteered and helped the athletes all day warmed my heart. That act of caring gave parents the opportunity to just sit, cheer and root on their kids. Our students were really focused on helping the children, but I said to them, ‘Look at the impact you're having on the parents because of what you allowed them to do! They could cheer, stand up, make noise and just be excited because of all of the other pieces you helped with!’ That's the beauty of what our students get the opportunity to do here.
It’s experiences like these that show students how they can make an impact. Yes, you're a student, but you're also a role model. You're someone who can make a difference in someone else's life.”
“This is my first academic year as President of Saginaw Valley State University, and seeing all our thousands of students moving from place to place…you can't do anything but smile.
I've been fortunate that whatever job I've had, I've loved. Some of that is due to the decisions I made and some of that is my personality. But the day the SVSU’s Board of Control reached out and said, ‘We want to offer you this position,’ I was glad I was on the phone because otherwise they would have seen this big, silly smile on my face. I was excited because I knew what I was going to get to do.
From day one, SVSU has been a place that cares and supports each other. It's been the place where we know that we're going to support students. It's a place where we know that parents feel comfortable about them being safe. All that work was done before I got here. I get credit for it because I'm here now, but that work was done before I started working here. There’s a commitment to making a difference. The beauty of each day when I walk in there is knowing that people care, and because they care, they're going to look out for each other and support each other. That's what makes a difference.
Yes, I'm the president. But I don't think about it like that. I think about it like I get to be part of this university, this institution, and the impact that it's going to have on campus and off campus.
We're in our 60th year and if you go back over those years, we're not doing what we did 60 years ago. We’re not doing what we did 40 or 50 years ago, because we continue to evolve as the world evolves and as our community evolves. We're in touch with our community. Sometimes we get to lead, sometimes we walk alongside, but we're part of that change. We're not stuck in our ways. We're always going to continue to evolve to what people need.
We know housing, food insecurity, getting a quality education, and helping people see the value of the changes that they can make and the impact they can have on their community are important. That makes an impact on their children and grandchildren. We know the role that education can play if we can do those things. That's what we're going to keep evolving to do.
In our business school, we have faculty working on programs that are going to deal with financial literacy. We know that there's so many people who are struggling with that. If there's no training and support, then how do you do it? If you’re a parent and you're struggling with it, how do you teach your child? If we can provide that, not only for children, but also for adults, now as they learn to manage those resources in a way that will support the family, life starts to change. Life is still a challenge, but it gets a little bit easier, because understanding and knowledge.
Those opportunities are out there and we want to play a part in them. We don't have to lead. We’re not caught up in the ego of leading; we are part of a team. We want to help share the information and expertise that we have working with people in the community and the expertise they have. If we bring that together, that's how we make our community stronger. It’s in the work that we do here, and in the organizations that we work with, and the committees that we're part of. It's bringing people closer together, it's sharing ideas, and is making this region stronger. That is going to attract more businesses, more people, more families, who could come get a quality education here. That's going to make a difference in the quality of life for every single person.”
– Dr. George Grant Jr., President of Saginaw Valley State University
