For Robert Sternberg, recently appointed Dean of the Undergraduate School of Arts and Sciences after 30 years at Yale, success in academia wasn't always a forgone conclusion.
Sternberg performed poorly on elementary school IQ tests. His first teachers concluded he was of below-average intelligence and had little potential for academic achievement.
He proved them wrong. Sternberg overcame his initial difficulties and attended Stanford University as an undergraduate.
But there too, Sternberg faced disappointment and frustration.
"I had planned to be a psychology major, but I bombed introductory psychology," Sternberg said. "The professor told me, 'Look, there's already one famous Sternberg in the field of psychology; obviously there's not going to be another.'" (The first famous Sternberg is Saul, now a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania.)
Intimidated, Sternberg took his professor's advice and enrolled in an introductory applied mathematics class, yet that too proved difficult. "I failed the midterm and the professor recommended that I drop the class," Sternberg said. "So I did."
Sternberg returned to his original goal of majoring in psychology, and turned out to be very competent in the higher-level courses. "I'm more of a creative learner," Sternberg said. "I do very well in projects, but I was not good at memorizing all of that material in the introductory courses."
His own experience compelled Sternberg to study the diverse learning styles of students, and use that information to improve teaching methods.
Sternberg plans to continue his research here. He wants all students to "capitalize on their strengths, but also to correct and compensate for their weaknesses."
Academic achievement isn't the only element of the college experience that concerns Sternberg, who served as the director of Yale's psychology graduate studies program. Areas of life outside the classroom are integral to students' education and experience at Tufts, he said.
"Leadership and civic engagement are an important part of the Tufts education," Sternberg said. "People often get themselves into power who are very bright, but not necessarily wise, and maybe even foolish."
"Take, for example, some of the people at Enron," Sternberg said. "It should be that you are developing your leadership skills throughout your education."
(Andrew Fastow, Enron's disgraced former chief financial officer, attended Tufts as an undergraduate.)
The new dean urges students not to sacrifice friends for studies. "There's a tendency for students to say, 'Right now I need to pay attention to my work,' and so they blow off building personal relationships," Sternberg said. "Don't do that - finding the time will never get any easier, and that is a really important part of life."
After graduation, he encourages students to pursue their interests, despite external temptations. "Find what you really love," Sternberg said. "Don't go just for the social prestige or the money. Not that money isn't important, but the people who are doing things they really love are much happier."
