Systems engineer, Cubs and Phillies center-fielder, columnist, author, ESPN commentator, GSU honorary degree recipient, Doug Glanville had an important message for Governors State University graduates at the February 2010 commencement. "Dream big," he said, "but also dream many."
As his own career exemplifies, it is essential to have many dreams and to prepare for the numerous changes of 21st century life.
Glanville dreamed of becoming a major league ballplayer, and he actually became one of the minuscule number of dreamers who actually made it to the Big Show. In his junior year at the University of Pennsylvania, the Chicago Cubs came calling with a first-round draft pick. Glanville dreamed many and decided to complete his degree in systems engineering before committing himself to professional baseball. He knew that in the major leagues he would be only a hamstring injury away from a rude awakening.
Serendipity. Glanville's background in systems engineering, as he explains in his new book, "The Game from Where I Stand," enabled him to survey the outfield as a complex system, helping him to estimate the trajectory of many fly balls.
Successful people dream many. Joy Cunningham, justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, started her career as a nurse. Connie Duckworth, founder and president of Arzu, Inc., a public/private partnership established by Presidents Bush and Karzai in 2002, to support and distribute hand-made rugs by Afghan women, had a 20-year career at Goldman Sachs. Glanville, Cunningham, Duckworth, and so many others exemplify what some call nonlinear careers, in the other words the capacity to dream many.
And yet I observe that far too many students prepare for a linear career path.
They want a university major that sounds like a job, whether the job interests them or not. That's a big mistake. Dreaming many is not only fulfilling, it's practical. Think back 40 years to the students who thought that they would be set for life if they got training as key-punch operators. Younger readers of this column may not know what a key-punch operator is. Enough said. Dream many.
A word to those younger readers and to the teachers, family members, and friends who advise them: encourage students who are beginning their college careers to explore subject matter fields that don't sound like jobs -- philosophy, history, English, political science, anthropology. Such exploration will lead students to discover multiple career paths that require higher order reasoning, critical thinking, excellent writing and speaking.
When first-year students fulfill their general education requirements, they are doing much more than acquiring graduation credits. They are opening doors to new realms of knowledge, opportunities, and dreams.
As Doug Glanville says, "Dream big; dream many." You might run the bases according to a pattern, but it will be your nonlinear thinking -- your reading of the changing situations -- that will take you home.
Elaine Maimon is President of Governors State University. The opinion expressed in this column is the writer's and not necessarily that of The Times.
