I just returned from spending the week at SunGard Higher Education’s Summit 2010 in San Francisco. There were lots of informative presentations and I left with a notebook full of ideas to implement. I also enjoyed some chance encounters, three of which I’d like to share with you:

Greg Mortenson, author of the best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea, inspired attendees with his presentation about building schools for children, and especially girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The title of his book comes from the belief that your first cup of tea is with a stranger, he or she becomes a friend with the second cup, and with the third cup, the person becomes family, someone you would be willing to die for. Greg believes that education can make a difference in this part of the world, and that lasting piece can best be achieved not through bullets, but with knowledge. A really neat thing happened: as he spoke about his life’s work of building these schools, someone passed a Styrofoam cup through the audience, filling it with money for his Central Asia Institute. That money was added to the more than $22,000 previously raised by SunGard and its many employees over the last few months. Greg and his team have so far built more than 130 schools and educated some 58,000 students, including 44,000 females.

If you haven’t read Greg’s book, I highly recommend it. I was delighted to learn that the book is must reading for all of our military being deployed to Afghanistan. Military friends of Greg’s, including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army General David Petraeus, have pointed out what they consider to be three key points in his book: in order to succeed, we need to listen more effectively, we need to respect the people we are there to serve, and we need to build relationships. I’d suggest that’s good advice for anyone, no matter where they are or what they are doing in the world.

The second memory I took away from the week was an opportunity to volunteer one afternoon at the San Francisco City Academy, which is located in the heart of the city’s Tenderloin District. The storefront school enrolls about 43 students per year and is supported through donations. About 70 percent of the students, who range in age from kindergarten to 8^th grade, live in the Tenderloin with the remainder largely coming from the nearby Fillmore District and the city of Oakland. I was privileged to spend time at the school helping 10-year-old Claudia with her math homework (see picture). Math is not my forte, but in this case, I was slightly smarter than a fourth grader, so we worked together to solve her multiplication and division problems. Claudia obviously is a smart little girl and the time we were together, I kept thinking: “if only I could spend a little more time helping her understand the basic  concepts.” It’s easy for me to understand why the academy is able to attract as many as 8,000 vounteers a year, eager to roll up their sleeves and help students who, despite their situation in life, are eager to learn.

This school is making a difference! The principal, Marie-France Ladine, told us about one of her graduates who, when she arrived at the school at an early age, kept telling everyone that she would not be going to college. Rather, she was expected after high school to get a job and make money to help support her family. The staff kept telling the little girl that she could, indeed, go to college, that she was smart enough and that there would be a way. Today, that young woman is making A’s and B’s in high school and plans to enter a nearby university after graduation.

And finally, we were treated to a presentation from Christopher Gardner, whose life was chronicled in the movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness,” starring Will Smith. Chris told how he struggled to raise his infant son alone while training to become a successful stock broker. Unable to provide for the two of them on his meager trainee salary, they became homeless and lived for a year on the streets. “You’re looking at the face of homelessness,” he told us. Today, Chris is a successful businessman and philanthropist. He is active in several homelessness initiatives and also serves on the board of the National Education Foundation. He’s living proof that education and perseverance can truly make a difference.

Attending conferences like this and being exposed to people like Greg, Marie-France, and Chris is such a blessing. It helps to recharge my batteries and it reminds me that education is, indeed, a world altering experience. In the words of Robert Hutchins, former chancellor of the University of Chicago: “The future of education is the future of everything else.”

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