April 27, 2024
President Robert W. Iuliano
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Good afternoon, everyone. I am so pleased that you’ve chosen to join us for this special weekend here at Gettysburg, as we envision the future of the Eisenhower Institute and its promise to ready students for lives of service and contribution.
When I consider the responsibility we have to today’s students—in this moment of profound change for our nation and our world—my mind turns to a setting so moving that it continues to serve as a source of my own reflection and reverence nearly four years after I first witnessed it.
I was about a year into my presidency when I received a call in my office from Susan [Eisenhower] generously inviting me to join her in D.C. for what would prove to be an unforgettable day for her and her family: the dedication of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.
How many of you have had the opportunity to visit the memorial?
It’s remarkable. The site is located on Independence Avenue at the base of Capital Hill, and fittingly, it stands right across from the National Air and Space Museum.
While many in attendance at the dedication were rightly awestruck by the plaza’s backdrop—a 400-foot long and 60-foot high steel tapestry depicting the Normandy coastline—I found myself captivated by three unique features of the memorial that I’d like to share with you today.
To me, these three features honor the life and legacy of President Eisenhower in such a beautiful way, but more directly related to our gathering this weekend, they have special resonance for what we are seeking to achieve at Gettysburg College through the ambitions of our new Strategic Direction—and the vision of our Eisenhower Institute.
First, the Eisenhower Memorial is distinct in its approach. Rather than elevate a singular moment in Ike’s esteemed career, like so many memorials before it, the memorial is purposeful in focusing on the full arc of Eisenhower’s life: from citizen to general to president. Why? Because it all matters.
There is a parallel to be made here.
At Gettysburg College, we believe there is more to a college education than a student’s four-year experience alone or even a graduate’s first job out of school. These are important, transformative moments, to be sure, but they are chapters of a bigger story.
Our focus at Gettysburg, rather, is on providing an education that benefits the whole student, the whole person—throughout the entirety of their life. We want to prepare our students for careers 10, 20, 40 years into the future—for jobs that haven’t even been imagined yet.
Gettysburg students deserve that.
Our Gettysburg Approach—which is at the core of our new Strategic Direction—is designed to build within every student a breadth and depth of knowledge and a set of enduring skills to prepare them for a lifetime of change and adaptation.
Inside and outside of the classroom, we are helping students to develop and deepen the enduring skills most valued by employers and graduate schools. Skills like: adaptability, communication, creativity, intercultural fluency, leadership, problem solving, and teamwork.
In my view, this principled, long-range approach has never been more essential.
The world that today’s generation of Gettysburgians will graduate into is sure to be vastly different than the one we have known. It is predicted that today’s students will change jobs 17 times over the course of their careers and change industries 5 times. Just think about that.
We need to prepare them for this world.
And with the emergence of artificial intelligence—a disruptive force unlike anything we’ve seen since the Industrial Revolution—I strongly contend that the graduates who will succeed in the future are those who can combine disparate fields of study to see connections others can’t see, and solve problems that others can’t solve.
This is one of Gettysburg College’s greatest strengths. The data supports it.
In fact, in a recent Georgetown study of 4,500 colleges and universities, Gettysburg ranked 29th among all liberal arts colleges for 10-year return on investment and, get this, we ranked in the top 1% for 40-year ROI.
That’s because the education we provide here is enduring.
Our Eisenhower Institute shares this vision—and you can see it clearly outlined in the aspirations of EI’s new 5-year strategic plan.
From my earliest days at the College, in my inaugural address right outside of Pennsylvania Hall, I stressed that we must do more to help students gain a clearer understanding of the tools of government, public policy, and effective and persuasive communication, so they can grow into the leaders and citizens our world needs them to be.
These skills need to be taught. They need to be learned. They need to be practiced, if students are to develop a true comprehension for how their ideas can be translated into meaningful action.
Let me be clear: I came to Gettysburg, in large measure, because I believe that the Eisenhower Institute is the vehicle to achieve this goal—and under Tracie [Potts]’s stellar leadership, my conviction has only grown stronger.
A commitment to democracy.
A rigorous pursuit of the facts.
Respect for all.
An embrace of personal, professional, cultural, and philosophical differences.
The instinct for action.
And lastly, accountability for our choices—and the outcomes of those choices.
These are the values the Eisenhower Institute espouses—the foundation from which everything else is built. I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like our world is straying away from these once commonplace ideals. EI is engraining these values in our students every day because they’re necessary to foster in our future leaders—and they are timeless in their application.
Here too, we need to take a principled, long-range approach. President Eisenhower taught us this. That’s precisely what we’re aiming to do here at Gettysburg College and the Eisenhower Institute.
The second feature of the Eisenhower Memorial I’ll share with you is how President Eisenhower is portrayed.
The memorial is unlike any presidential monument in Washington. There is no towering obelisk. No larger-than-life statue. Rather, Ike is humbly displayed in the company of others. Because Eisenhower understood deeply that the people around us have the potential to shape our life and our world in immeasurable ways.
At Gettysburg College, we subscribe to this same belief.
It’s why through our Gettysburg Approach, knowledge and enduring skills are now being reinforced through our new Guided Pathways and Personal Advising Teams.
Let me say a word about our Advising Teams.
Beginning this past fall, from the moment a student steps onto campus, they are surrounded by their own Personal Advising Team, consisting of a Faculty Advisor, a Co-Curricular Advisor, a Career Advisor, and following their sophomore year, an Alumni Mentor.
Do you remember how it felt to transition to college as an 18-year-old? I viewed myself as an imposter, filled with self-doubt. Now, from Day 1, our students have a team of advisors by their side, providing them with 360 degrees of support as they work to realize their academic and career goals.
Not many colleges can pull this off. It is a reality here at Gettysburg College—and it is an initiative that is gaining national media attention for its intentionality and impact. We’re really proud of that.
President Eisenhower himself was transformed by the advising and one-on-one mentorship he received from a man named General Fox Connor.
So Fox Connor—by the way, I’m a little reluctant to talk about this in the presence of a world-renowned Eisenhower expert in Susan [Eisenhower], but she’ll politely correct me afterward if I get anything wrong—Fox Connor was known throughout the army as one the smartest men in the service.
Recognizing Eisenhower’s potential from his earliest days, General Connor took the future president under his wing—and the two would stay up all hours of the night examining ancient battles, theorizing about future conflicts, and discussing the endless books on Ike’s assigned reading list from Connor.
This individual mentorship changed Eisenhower forever—building his mind and character, and ultimately transforming him into the leader they both knew he could become.
President Eisenhower would later offer young people this simple yet profound word of advice. He would tell them to, and here I quote: “…try to associate yourself closely with and learn as much as you can from those who know more than you, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you. Don’t be afraid to reach upward.”
Our Eisenhower Institute wants to ensure our students are always reaching upward.
One of our philanthropic opportunities supports Day Trips, increasing access for students to meet policy professionals, government and business leaders at industry and private events. This is pivotal.
These learning and networking opportunities often occur with little notice, and we’ll need the financial flexibility to always say “yes” when a great opportunity for students arises.
We’re also interested in bringing seasoned executives, elected officials, and other practitioners to campus too—enhancing our classroom experience.
EI’s new Executive in Residence Program would recruit leaders in business, government, advocacy, media, and alike to embed on our campus or D.C. office.
I see these as two extraordinary opportunities for EI’s growth that would build on our strong culture of advising and mentorship here at Gettysburg—and open new career pipelines for our students.
Let me conclude by speaking to the third and final feature—and to me, the most moving visual—of the Eisenhower Memorial.
On the far end of the plaza, you’ll find a sculpture of a young Dwight D. Eisenhower, a boy no more than 15 years old. He is peering into the distance—his eye line meeting the statues of his future self: Supreme Allied Commander and President.
It is a poignant reminder that we have within us the potential for greatness, and it is up to us whether we choose to pursue it.
At Gettysburg, we promise every student A Consequential Education — and we are aiming to bring this promise to life through Four Areas of Focus within our Strategic Direction: Academic Excellence, A Transformational and Integrated Student Experience, A Culture of Belonging and Wellness, and Institutional Effectiveness.
Our Eisenhower Institute is a central component in each of these Areas of Focus, particularly as we aim to strengthen civic mindedness, intercultural fluency, and place-based learning for Gettysburg students.
Like the statue of a youthful Eisenhower, we have greatness within us. It now our moment to choose whether we pursue it for our Eisenhower Institute.
Let me share with you a few opportunities that will get us there.
Through EI’s 5-year Strategic Plan, we want to design a 10-week immersive experience for 10 of our Eisenhower Scholars, students who have received the College’s most prestigious scholarship because of their demonstrated record of positively transforming communities through civic engagement, leadership, and change agency.
We want to create an Experiential Learning Fund that would support all forms of high-impact learning practices at the EI, including expert seminars and projects; one-time conferences and events; internships; field research; and study tours.
We want to establish a Fielding Center Endowment. Our Fielding Center for Presidential Leadership Study is a capstone EI experience for seniors centered on the federal government’s executive branch. Fielding Fellows conduct research for the U.S. State Department and present their findings to high-level state department officials at the end of the year. This Diplomacy Lab project has real implications on U.S. foreign policy. Last year, for example, the U.S. announced policy in line with our fellows’ recommendations, a few months after their presentation.
Fielding Fellow Diplomacy Lab research typically involves domestic travel and travel abroad for the entire cohort, plus other expenses. However, the Fielding Fund is not endowed. At current spending levels, not considering inflation, the fund is expected to be depleted in less than five years without additional fundraising, and this impactful program would end. We need to invest in it.
And the most ambitious philanthropic opportunity we are pursuing, and indeed the most transformational, is that we want to create a Center for Policy Leadership and establish a permanent residential space in Washington, D.C.
A new Center for Policy Leadership would define our purpose in the nation’s capital; create focused, permanent programming for our students; take fuller advantage of our proximity to Washington; increase our appeal to prospective students by offering D.C. opportunities comparable to major universities; and create new means for revenue.
And to augment our investment in a permanent presence and staff in D.C., we want to create and expand our capacity for permanent residential space to ensure that our programs are not driven by the increasingly high costs of hotels and rentals in the area.
This is most challenging and most expensive barrier to growing our Washington Summer Fellowship, as well as our semester-long programs and other short-term opportunities for students and faculty.
Let me put this into perspective for you.
Last year, 46 Gettysburg students applied for 8 spaces in our summer fellowship—nearly six times as many applicants as space available.
A generous one-time grant allowed us to lease an additional apartment and expand to 12 summer fellows, but we were unable to accommodate several dozen highly qualified students who desired this experience.
Now, this year we received interest from a student at an Ivy League university seeking to apply to our summer program. This suggests that, with the right resources, there’s an opportunity for Gettysburg to not only serve our own students, but also draw many talented students from other schools through our unique combination of programming and residential learning space.
This would be truly a game changer for the Eisenhower Institute moving forward. Together, we can make it happen.
Once again, I want to thank you for joining us this weekend and exploring our 5-year Strategic Plan and the many ways you can help us elevate the Eisenhower Institute in the years ahead.
This is our moment to step into greatness and position the EI to transform our College, our capital, and the lives of our students and countless other aspiring leaders.
We appreciate all of your support. Thank you.