CONTINUING WELLSTONE'S VISION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

Paul Wellstone carried into politics the same values he believed as an educator and what he taught his students. He said "politics is about improving the lives of people" and he taught that "politics is what we create out of what we do, what we hope for, what we dare to imagine." He believed college education to be a tool to develop an active citizenry, to nourish a robust democracy, to help students to form values and imagine their futures. As a politician he was an advocate. As an educator, he wanted students to experience people's lives, to hear their stories, to explore the real world in all its complexity and simplicity.

Paul Wellstone acted on that vision, and his legacy is reflected today in the lives of students and in the educational initiatives he inspired.

Thirty years ago, as a faculty member at Carleton College, Wellstone joined with visionary faculty and presidents of our region's institutions of higher education to create and sustain serious, community-based education programs for students to understand the dynamics of community, explore the many ways in which people were trying to address important social issues and to imagine ways in which they could touch history.

This bold educational initiative was a response to the crisis in our cities and on our nation's campuses. It was the late 1960s, our neighborhoods were on fire and the Kerner Commission had reported on growing inequality and warned of a nation becoming separate and unequal. The experiment was to immerse students in the community while studying the issues. Students lived in the community, learned from the community and from people's lives. They learned that the perspectives of politicians, community organizers and residents added an important dimension to the theories discussed in the classroom.

Paul Wellstone was part of transforming that first experiment into HECUA (The Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs) in 1971 as an association of colleges and universities that would continue to provide students with experiential learning programs that would focus on the most pressing social issues in our society with the intent of "equipping students with the vision, skills and commitment for responsible citizenship and decision-making." This was an action that helped inspire a movement in higher education. HECUA today is a thriving organization of 16 colleges and universities that is serving as a model and a resource as colleges and universities seeking to activate their civic missions and serve larger public purposes.

The most enduring legacy is the living legacy of 3000 alumni who are active in all sorts of pursuits. They are active citizens, leaders and civil servants, architects of a changing world. They are running and staffing human rights, advocacy and refugee programs, community development and greening movements, planning and human services departments and chemical dependency and hospice programs, philanthropic programs. They are teachers.

As a college professor, Paul Wellstone encouraged his students to learn about the issues of the day. In 1996, as U.S. Senator navigating our democracy, he wrote to his colleagues in HECUA to "keep up the good work, because we need you now more than ever."
Paul Wellstone's life serves as a powerful example. His death strikes a deep chord that too many of us too regularly suppress - a life of commitment. A person of principle and conviction in a world that has too little of both. The hope lies in this reflection and what we carry forward in our own lives as subjects of history in the democracy that Paul loved and served so well.