Union College president Roger Hull has a standard reminder for Union seniors at the close of commencement. He tells them to “make a difference: Do well and do good.”
It's a simple phrase. And in the simplest terms, it explains the impetus behind Hull's next ambition in life. When he retires in June, after 15 years as president of Union, Hull has announced his intention to create a foundation supporting college preparation for poor and minority children.
Within a few years, he hopes to enlist a handful of colleges around New England in an after-school and summer program for grades 4-12. The program will be modeled on one he created while president of Beloit College in Wisconsin. Each program site will require a $1 million endowment to sustain itself, money Hull plans to raise with his savvy.
Hull plans to do well and do good. In a recent interview, Hull said he knew he wanted to continue working after he retires as president. “I'm someone who believes strongly in work; I always want to work,” Hull said. “So the question is, what will I be doing? ”
Hull, 62, has also recently emerged as one of five finalists in the search for a new president at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Hull, who once served on the college's board, said the president's post is the only “card” he is playing. Hull said there are only two college presidencies which interest him: his alma mater Dartmouth College, which has a sitting president, and the College of William and Mary.
Regardless of the outcome of the search at William and Mary, Hull said he is committed to the new foundation.
“I've told the people at William and Mary that too. The question is very simple: am I going to do it full time, or part time while at William and Mary? ” Hull said.
UNLIMITED OPTIONS
With his resume and record – which include a degree from Yale Law School, work with the National Security Council, and special counsel to Gov. Linwood Holton of Virginia – Hull's options are not limited.
So why a charitable foundation? Longtime friends hazard guesses: Ask him about his adopted children, one who is Chilean, and the other who is mixed race, they said. Ask him about his parents, refugees from Nazi Germany. Ask him why he is, as one friend put it “a solo world traveler.”
College spokesmen offered examples of Hull's achievements at Union: increasing students of color by 30 percent; support for summer programs introducing minority students to college; his efforts to recruit minority faculty.
Hull has also steered the resources of the college toward strong contributions to the future of Schenectady. He was a leader in the creation of the Metroplex Development Authority, which uses a portion of the county sales tax to fund economic revitalization. And in 1998, the college announced a package of Unionfunded initiatives – including buying and renovating 20 homes along Seward Place – targeted toward the neighborhood west of the college But Hull said his reasons for his choice are simple: He was raised to do well and do good. The charitable foundation meets the goal.
A NEED TO IMPROVE
“I did not grow up in the ghetto; my experience is not a product of having grown up poor. I was always brought up with the idea that you make things better,” Hull said. The Help Yourself Programs at Beloit College will serve as the model for Hull's foundation. Since the program was founded in 1996, 95 percent of students who've stuck with Help Yourself through high school graduation have gone on to college, according to Hull.
“That's 95 percent of kids who probably never thought of going to college,” Hull said.
By contrast, Hull said his efforts at Union have had only modest success. More minority and disadvantaged students choose Union, that much is true, but those students were already college-bound. The Beloit program actually increases the pool of college-bound students. Hull said the origins of the Beloit program can be found 17 years ago: He listened to a National Public Radio report on under-representation of minorities in colleges and universities. Hull said he just decided to do something about it. He approached John Wyatt, then a classics professor at the college, who had experience teaching disadvantaged children in Oakland, Calif., and Chicago. “I said 'you come up with the program and I'll fund it,' ” Hull recalled.
Wyatt, in an e-mail interview, recalled that Hull “marched up to me and started talking about the needs of the community and asking in his Mack-truck sort of way, what I was doing about education in the community.” With Hull, Wyatt said, “it is always a sort of challenge, you know, [a] 'put-your-moneywhere-your-mouth-is sort of attitude.
“At the time, what ran through my mind was the notion that this young Beloit president with his tie and suit and a Dartmouth graduate at that, is not going to lecture a '60s Berkeley grad on social responsibility,” Wyatt said. , the two formed a team; Wyatt said he was like Sancho Panza to Hull's Don Quixote. In 1988 Beloit Academy opened to fourth-grade students from the local school district. Twice a week, the students met for two hours.
LATIN LESSONS
The core of the program is a curriculum designed by Wyatt that uses Latin lessons to introduce them to the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, once a center of learning in the Western world. The study of Latin and Alexandria is in turn a springboard for teaching analytical and critical thinking, English grammar and style and vocabulary. In seventh grade, students graduate into a pre-collegiate program that helps students keep up their grades and plan for college admission.
“Roger backed all of this not only by raising money, but also by demanding almost hourly reports from me both on the program and the individual children,” Wyatt said. “The commitment of When Hull left Beloit for Union, the program continued. Today, volunteers work with about 275 students in grades 4-12.
Wyatt said he thinks Hull is revisiting Help Yourself Programs because he is a “relentless, efficient idealist.” Hull has a nose for business, and a mind for relieving human suffering and dispelling ignorance, Wyatt said, which makes him a “rare bird.”
“There's a line in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex when Oedipus says that the greatest line of work is to relieve the suffering of another human being,' ” Wyatt wrote. “This applies to Roger with the addition of the line 'of course I can fund it. Piece of cake.' ”
Hull said it is simply an idea that merits his industry.
“I'm going to take what was done at Beloit, study it and change it,” Hull said. “I think it's the right idea at the right time and it can make a difference in people's lives.”