Don Taylor Udall

Transcription

[music] Hello this is Burns Hargis with another edition of Inside OSU and today we have a very special guest, Anne Udall. Thank you for joining us and coming to campus and being on Inside OSU. Anne Udall is the chairman of the Udall foundation, the Morse and Stewart Udall foundation. You've made a significant impact on Oklahoma State University. I'm delighted to be here to honor your Udall scholars this year. You actually have 4, which puts you in very high cotton country. Who else? The only other schools to have 4 Udall scholars scholars at any given time are Yale, Stanford, Penn and I think Montana so you need to be very proud of yourselves. It speaks to the quality of your student body. I know Bob Graalman, who runs our scholars program is a great coach for these students. Before we talk a lot about the Udall foundation I want to go back a little bit, because I think it is a good foundation for understanding your emphasis. Your father Morris Udall, Mo Udall, he was affectionately known as and your uncle, you know all this already I'm doing this for them, is Stewart Udall. Stewart was in Congress and Secretary of the Interior under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and was probably one of the first real active and effective environmentalists. Was he the author of the clean-air and water act? That happened all during his time when he was secretary and he and Mo actually my dad made a very effective team on some of the major legislation that passed during that time, environmental legislation, clean air act. I've read that it kind of had a surprising beginning because it revolved around the great swap in New Jersey. You probably know more about this than I do. I may have that wrong but I think it was a swap in New Jersey. It was one of the first instances where residents stood up to protect the natural habitat. And of course he came to the aid of those residents and that kind of maybe was the genesis of the environmental movement in America. The thing I love to think about when I think about that period of time and incredible body of legislation that the two of them really help see, was a lot of that happened during President Reagan's time. So this whole sense that you can't have bipartisanship around environmental issues is just when you think about what happened during that time. You had a Republican president, Democratic congress and they just did this incredible stuff together. I wonder if it isn't something that Westerners have in common. You all are from Arizona, your dad and Stewart were both Arizona congressmen. Reagan even though he grew up in Illinois ended up a Westerner and there's just something about the land and Westerners isn't there? Yeah I was thinking about some of my comments I'll make to the scholars and Lee Wentz kids, I do think these values are in the west. I bet you all have them in Oklahoma. Very much so. It's sort of getting beyond this narrow definition and it's more about can we figure out the common good, can we work together as we're all in this together. I was hearing some of your really strong advocates on campus, for example around environmental protection, are your ag students and people who care about the land. Yeah there's a lot of work in the clean air, water and food. The other thing that's important I think in your father and your uncle's background is they're attachment to Native Americans. Yes and this has been a very strong part of their tradition in their history. They grew up in a very small town in Arizona, St.Johns, and I think there was a lot of interface between the pioneers and the Native Americans and I think that that stuck with both of them. I know your dad was elected in 1961 and served for 30 years. Many may not know now that he ran for president in 1976 and almost won the Democratic nomination. He came very close. Dad was really the front runner until Jimmy Carter entered and everyone said don't pay attention to him, a southern governor doesn't have a chance and the rest was history. And as we said Mo Udall served for 30 years and Congress honored him and Stewart Udall in a very special way. Yeah which is how the foundation came to be. In about 1994 or 95, a number of congressmen both senators and representatives decided that his career was distinguished enough that the way to honor him was to start a foundation which is the Udall foundation. Which focused on his passions. Yes exactly and it focuses on providing scholarships and fellowships to both undergraduates, we do a little bit with graduates, but our primary focus is undergraduates, Udall scholars, who are studying in any field that is related to dad's legislative accomplishments, so environmental policy, Native American and health are some of the areas and that's how the foundation came to be. And there are 80 scholars picked every year. $5,000 scholarship. It's highly competitive. I mean very competitive. How many applicants? I think we had last year close to 650 to 700. And what would be the required qualifications? The required qualifications is you have to be studying in a field that is related to any of those general broad areas so it's very diverse. You can have someone studying Biology and be able to apply if they can show that they're studying it from an environmental perspective. Significant grade point average, some sort of very significant community involvement and they have to write an essay about dad. They have to pick something out about his career or his life and write about it in terms of how they see it and then the other requirement is that they come to Tucson for five days in August. As I say we get really good hotel rates during that time, I wonder why? But they're absolutely required to be there and that is in order for us to create a network of Udall scholars, which is now bearing unbelievable fruit nationally because all of these guys are going into these remarkable positions either in sort of public policy, running for office, nonprofit work and they stay connected because they're Udall scholars. So the scholars from all years continue to interact. Yeah we really set that up as part of our mission is to really keep them connected because we believe that Mo's legacy and now Stewart, we've changed the name of the foundation to honor stewart as well, that their legacy gets carried through the works and lives of the Udall scholars. As you said earlier, we are fortunate to have 4 Udall scholars out of 80, which is great. Yeah that's impressive. I would imagine that part of the joy of your job is the same feeling I get when I get around the Udall scholars, which is how much hope and optimism they bring to whatever they do and it makes me hopeful. You will enjoy these 4 students and I'm glad you all could see the passion and enthusiasm that these four have for the Udall foundation and it's purposes and mission. We're lucky to have a lot of scholars, but none we're more proud of than our Udall scholars. Thank you. It's very special to have you here. I'm honored and I want you to know that this my first official visit to the any campus. So we'll add that to the list of firsts. The whole honors program and the way you all are emphasizing academic excellence here is really impressive. We really do emphasize that, but we also emphasize the activities outside the classroom. We want the students to have that experience of working as a team and making a difference. As with everything else, you help yourself by helping others. Well I hope you enjoy your time on campus. I already have. And we are going to show you all around and we're very proud of our campus. It's beautiful what I've seen already. This color orange thing though, there's a lot of orange. Oh that is our color. You're very perceptive. Thank you. I was very impressed and I hear Friday's are even more colorful. We'll get you some orange stuff. In fact, we'll make you an honorary Oklahoma State Cowgirl. Thank you so much. We appreciate you being here. That's the end of this very special edition of Inside OSU. We'll see you next time.