Group honored by OU College of Education

By Bill Moakley

For the Transcript

When Bernard Harris Jr. was 6 years old, he gazed out the window of a Greyhound bus, passing from the urban security of Houston toward the vast openness of central Texas, bound for the town of Temple. His only thought was that at such a young age, his future was already behind him.

As it turned out, that short trip ultimately led him to some of the longest ever made by humankind.

Harris, who holds two medical degrees, completed a surgical residency at the Mayo Clinic, and was the first African-American to walk in space as a NASA astronaut, recently was honored with the University of Oklahoma College of Education's Award of Distinction at its annual Celebration of Education in Oklahoma. The award recognizes advocates of education who have achieved state, national or international distinction in their fields and have benefitted the field of education.

As part of its annual celebration, the college also recognized longtime Oklahoma educator and civil rights leader Clara Luper with the Career Achievement Award; OU Board of Regents member Larry Wade with the Meritorious Service Award; longtime Norman educator Margaret Pape as Outstanding Educator; and Lincoln Elementary School third grade teacher Sarah Peil was honored as the top Young Educator. Joseph D. Purdy, Ph.D., and his late mother, Ruth Sanders Purdy, Ph.D., were named to the college's Hall of Fame.

In addition, four College of Education faculty members earned awards:

Jerry Weber, Regents Professor of Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies -- Leadership/Citizenship Award

Priscilla Griffith, Ruth G. Hardman Professor, Department of Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum -- Research/Scholarship award

Susan Laird, associate professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies -- Teaching/Advising award

Kathrine Gutierrez, assistant professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies -- Junior Faculty award.

Harris, who delivered the event's keynote address, noted how deep the roots of education run in his family.

"My great-aunt was probably the first educator in our family," he recounted. "My mother was an educator; my sister teaches nursing and her daughter is an educator and a counselor. I consider myself an educator as well."

Despite overwhelming odds against him -- Harris came from a broken home and his family moved often throughout the Southwest -- he discovered his dream in those early years.

"Standing outside one night watching the sun go down, I looked up at the heavens. I picked out the first star and wondered, as the night got darker, what they were. If they were planets, what would it be like to walk on those planets? That's how my dream began."

In 1969, when he was 13, Harris watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounce down the steps of a lunar capsule to the dusty surface of the moon.

"The impact it had on this young boy, to imagine walking in their shoes, or boots as it were, is unimaginable," he said. "When I saw that, my dream was set, I was going to be an astronaut."

Harris holds faculty appointments at three Texas colleges of medicine and founded the Bernard Harris Jr. Foundation. The foundation supports kindergarten through high school programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and sponsors summer science camps, including one on the OU campus.

"We are becoming a more competitive and more high-tech world. That requires that our young people graduate from high school and college and go into fields such as science and mathematics," he said. "That's my passion. I want our kids to be masters of technology in the future."

He also underscored the critical need to rethink education in the United States.

"We do not value our educators like we value other professionals. Teachers and counselors and educators in all forms and fashions hold our most valuable possessions, and if we are to invest in anything in this country, we need to invest in the educational system," he said.

Now a venture capitalist whose firm mainly invests in early-to-mid-stage healthcare technologies, Harris reminded the audience that it was education that ultimately made his flight through life possible.

"Education is very dear to me," he said. "Education is the reason I am standing before you this evening as a physician, as an astronaut, and now as a venture capitalist. I firmly believe that in life any goal you want to accomplish requires a level of knowledge and I translate that into education."