Jeanne Narum
Doctor of Humane Letters
Throughout your long career you have been a distinguished
spokesperson and ardent advocate for the liberal arts, and, more
recently, for the sciences as an integral part of the liberal arts.
Following administrative tenures at several colleges, including your
undergraduate alma mater, St. Olaf College, you moved to a larger
stage in 1988 as director of the Independent Colleges Office, which
assists select liberal arts colleges in their relations with federal
grantsmanship.
In 1989, you became the founding director of
Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), an informal national alliance of colleges
and universities, including St. Lawrence, dedicated to strengthening
undergraduate learning in the sciences, mathematics and engineering. Under
your guidance, PKAL has become an influential and effective national
force in this important endeavor. PKAL has hosted workshops
on introductory courses; facilitated cross-disciplinary conversations
on teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics; assisted member institutions in planning new science
spaces and in obtaining grants; acted as an “intelligence
broker” for the exchange of information among member institutions;
and consulted with college and university officials and faculty in
improving the overall quality of undergraduate science education. You
have kindly visited our campus often to provide guidance in these
and other arenas in which PKAL is engaged.
As evidence of the wide-ranging
respect in which you are held in the higher education community,
you are, or have been, a member, consultant or advisor to over 20 educational boards and associations.
Your undergraduate major was music. While you may not have pursued
a career in that field, you have orchestrated support for higher education,
conducted important work in advancing it, and sung the praises of the
liberal arts. In grateful recognition of an opus spanning half a century,
St. Lawrence University proudly offers you the degree Doctor of Humane
Letters, honoris causa.
