The year in review

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Patrick Mather ’89 Eng, ’90g Eng knows how transformative the honors experience at Penn State can be — he lived it as a student himself. The Schreyer Honors College’s new dean, who began his appointment in August, developed an intellectual curiosity as a University Scholar and has cultivated his leadership style in recent years at Syracuse University and Bucknell University. In a wide-ranging interview, Mather discusses the journey that led him back to Penn State and his vision for the future of the College.

SCHolAR Magazine: Why was the thought of returning to Penn State and specifically to the Schreyer Honors College appealing to you? pATRICK MATHER: There’s a few things that come together in terms of appeal. First, the excellence that the Schreyer Honors College has come to enjoy. I’m just drawn to leading a place with such an outstanding reputation. From what I glean — and this is independent of being an alum — they are pretty much best in class. And from what I hear from my other dean colleagues around the nation, there is immediate recognition of best-in-class excellence. Another part is existential. It focuses on students … students who have broad interests and great potential to impact their future yet very diverse worlds that they’re going to enter. I view that as aligned well with my own mission professionally where I enjoy, student by student, helping navigate a pathway. And I derive great joy from the wide range of pathways. Even in my recent history in a college of engineering, which might sound narrow, everybody’s motivated in a different way and everybody’s going in a different direction. I just love it. And students give me a lot of energy and a lot of hope for the future.

Finally, I would say, there’s the soft spot in my heart that derives from the personal experience as a University Scholar in the past that has left an emblem of family feel. It feels like family to me that renders this move back to leading the College as one that just feels very natural and one that I’m absolutely drawn to.

SM: What were you like as a Scholar? PM: I’d say the most accurate word would be ‘curious.’ I loved it all intellectually. ‘All’ is the operative word there. I could not distinguish what I liked the most. My favorite classes ranged from electromagnetic waves to poetry to American comedy to, you name it — bowling, squash. I just loved it all. And being a University Scholar, I got messages that this was good, this was what it means to be a Scholar, is to take it all in and then try to make some sense of that through some form of integration. Curiosity sort of energized me, animated me. I would go to seminars, I would just ask questions, and then I got the research bug later in my academic career as a Scholar. In the original letter inviting me to Engineering Science and the University Scholars Program, that was definitely a draw. It said you would be able to do independent research culminating in a thesis. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew I liked the independent part — one of my core values is freedom — and I didn’t know it at the time but as a musician, I just loved the freedom of a blank page, and this research thing sounded a lot like music to me. The research bug happened my senior year — I got in a lab and that’s all she wrote. That was where I found out that you could make something from nothing. It could be an idea in your mind or your mind with your professor, and three weeks or three months later, it’s been tested and the idea has come to life.

I’ll never forget coming out of Hammond Building, 11:30 at night on a Thursday, and campus was quiet, and it felt like my campus. I had just finished an experiment, it went well, and I was going to catch the last CATA bus out to my apartment, and it just felt like I was on top of the world, on top of campus. It felt like my place. SM: How have previous leadership positions you’ve held helped you grow as a leader and helped prepare you for this role?

PM: At Syracuse University, I learned the principle that different communities may have very different value systems and derive their motivation and excitement from ways different than me personally. And it’s quite natural, whether you’re in the natural sciences, or the humanities, social science, or engineering … it’d be kind of odd if everybody in these communities were the same; it’d be a boring place to live. And then I learned within those communities, everybody’s an individual. And so it’s exciting just to have those conversations and develop relationships. Before that role, I wasn’t as patient with the human relationship part of science. At Syracuse, I started to focus more on the relationships, and I found, ‘Oh, I’m pretty good at this, and I enjoy it. I like getting to know people and it’s very fulfilling, and I can also grow while achieving the goals of the Institute.’ I also started to learn about public communication and how, like it or not, as I had that role, what I said mattered more than what I would ever give my own words credit for. I just had to own that, that if I said something publicly, it could impact a lot of people. The steepest learning curve for me has been at Bucknell. The amount I’ve grown is probably as steep as it was at Penn State, which was very steep. I learned a ton about myself; what are my values? I got an executive coach. I became a student of leadership. I must have read 50 books a year for the past five years on human psychology. Leadership, teamwork — I was just eating that stuff up. I learned a ton about who I am, who other people are. I love different models of human behavior, whether it’s Myers-Briggs or DISC … I learned how to do strategic planning. … Bottom line, I’ve learned just to be myself. When I first became dean, I thought I needed to put on dean clothes. Really, they had hired me for what they saw in me innately, not some pre-conceived “Dean Mather,” just “Pat Mather.” The lesson I learned there is trust. It’s said that progress happens at the speed of trust and I’ve found that trust hinges upon authenticity — demonstrations of authentic behavior, so if you want to lead progress, be yourself. I try to just be myself instead of some person I think I should be. That, I learned at Bucknell. SM: Why is it important for the College’s Scholars to connect in multiple ways with Scholar alumni, and vice versa, for the alumni to connect with students?

PM: I read this book once, and its thesis was ‘Start with why.’ Students in particular need to see where things might go in