Education ‘ conversation’ to honor higher education guru Frank Newman
KINGSTON, R.I. — October 21, 2002 — The University of Rhode Island will honor its eighth president, higher education guru Frank Newman, by naming its renovated admissions building on 14 Upper College Road in his honor and by hosting a conversation on the need for undergraduate education champions on Monday, October 28.
The conversation will be held at 3 p.m. in Edwards Auditorium, followed by the dedication of Newman Hall at 4:15. Both events are free and open to the public.
“We are delighted to honor President Emeritus Newman in this way,” said M. Beverly Swan, URI provost and vice president of academic affairs. “Improving undergraduate education has always been central to Dr. Newman’s work. It’s fitting that we name the building in which undergraduate students have their first contact with the University after him.”
Newman, a Jamestown resident, served as president of URI from 1974 to 1983, navigating the University through troubled waters, reversing the tide of declining enrollment.
He was the lead author of the Newman Report, an influential document filled with innovative ideas that served as a national blueprint for federal legislation related to public education.
His influence continued during his 14 years as president of the Education Commission of the States, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that helps governors, legislators and other state education leaders develop and implement policies that improve education.
He has authored numerous books on higher education, most recently Choosing Quality: Reducing Conflict Between the State and the University and Higher Education and the American Resurgence.
Currently he is the director of the Futures Project, a higher education think tank funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts based at Brown University where he is also visiting professor of Public Policy and Sociology. He is also a visiting professor at the Teachers College at Columbia University.
Russell Edgerton, director of the Pew Forum on Undergraduate Learning, The Education Trust, will present opening remarks.
Joining him on the Edwards Auditorium stage will be Newman, URI President Robert L. Carothers, the state Commissioner of Higher Education Jack Warner, and Provost Swan who will moderate.
“Main Street America has only one big concern about college — how to afford it. The quality of the undergraduate experience is not at issue,” explains Edgerton. “Surveys also show that the students who attend are generally satisfied with their experience. My thesis is that this widespread complacency about the quality of the undergraduate experience stems from the fact that our expectations for what the experience should be are simply too low. We are settling for a level of performance that is below what it needs to be to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
“For example, in the majority of undergraduate classrooms faculty teach by lecturing about their subjects. Yet the last 25 years of research has produced an overwhelming body of evidence to the effect that students who simply listen to lectures and read textbooks forget much of what they have learned, are unable to use in a new context what they do remember, and retain fundamental misconceptions that are inconsistent with what faculty are trying to teach. Lecture courses, in short, rarely produce learning with understanding. Yet they persist as the predominant teaching method.”
Following the conversation, Newman Hall, the first building on the left as you enter the campus will be officially dedicated when a prototype plaque, bearing Newman’s likeness, is unveiled in the front entrance.
Media Contact: Jan Wenzel, 874-2116