In a new series for LearningWell, we ask a variety of college graduates, of different backgrounds, ages, and professions, “What experience or person in college most influenced your development as a human being?”  Our aim is to share stories that show the different influences that shape people’s lives during their education and as they navigate the process of becoming adults.  In doing so, we hope to gain insight and guidance, whether it’s identifying common themes or abandoning long-held beliefs.  

We hope that you, as readers, ask yourselves the same question.  For me, it was an invitation from a fellow student to join a group traveling to New York City to attend a meeting of what is now called the Young Democrats of America. I was a freshly minted political science major immersed in the required curriculum when I found myself off campus with peers who were discussing the direction of the country during the Reagan era. When the conversation turned to me, I spoke up, despite my shyness and the fact that my knowledge on the subject was largely limited to political theory. But something about that experience made me think  “I am someone who is politically active.”  It remains part of who I am today.

We start our series with Richard Miller, President Emeritus of Olin College of Engineering and the founding director of the Coalition for Transformational Education. Miller has dedicated his career to strengthening and expanding higher education’s influence on personal formation and is fond of saying  “A good education changes what you know.  A great education changes who you are.”

Richard Miller and Mel Ramey

LW: “What experience or person in college most influenced your development as a human being?” 

There are several people throughout my education that shaped who I am as a person, but the most relevant is Professor Melvin R. Ramey of the University of California at Davis, where I obtained my Bachelor’s degree in 1971. Mel and I arrived at UC Davis at the same time, in the fall of 1967. He had just finished his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon and was a new assistant professor of civil engineering, and I was just enrolling in college, having graduated from Tranquillity Union High School in June of that year. I was assigned to Mel Ramey as my faculty advisor, and I was in his first cohort of student advisees.

Mel was the second  African American faculty member at UCD. While this had some relevance to his personal faculty responsibilities, this had very little effect on me. What was much more significant was the fact that Mel had been a nationally competitive athlete at Penn State in two sports (basketball and track and field), was simultaneously an athletic coach and faculty representative to the NCAA at UCD. Mel coached track and field and several of his mentees won national medals for their performance. While this might seem irrelevant, it is central to his impact on my life and career.

He changed my life and contributed to my lifelong commitment to student wellbeing.

I grew up on a farm with almost no one in my extended family on either side who went to college. Our rural high school did not even offer calculus (and only occasionally offered a weak course in physics) which are both the prerequisites for engineering. About half of our student population at TUHS were migrant farm laborers. While I graduated #2 in my class and got into UCD, Mel knew I was not prepared.  He did, however, see potential in me and drove me to take the most challenging classes which eventually prepared me for a fellowship to MIT for my Master’s degree. I would never have made this journey without his inspiration.

Mel understood that to be an effective teacher you need the same mindset and motivations as a coach. To him, these were essentially identical. A coach takes responsibility for inspiring and mentoring each athlete in his care to achieve their full potential. This can at times involve invasive questions, pushing you when appropriate, and supporting you when appropriate, and never letting you give up. He certainly did this for me and was such an important part of my life that although I changed majors 5 times as an undergraduate (and I did not graduate in civil engineering) I retained Mel Ramey as my undergraduate advisor. My respect for Mel was such that I would rather die than disappoint him.

Mel’s interest in me was authentic and permanent. His values and his example were widely recognized among many students at UCD. His example inspired me to want to pursue a Ph.D. and become a faculty member. I learned so many important life lessons from Mel. For example, every time you walk into a classroom and pick up a piece of chalk, you are not just teaching engineering principles; you are also shaping the attitudes, behavior and beliefs of the students in your class. Later, I learned many other UCD students and athletes were similarly inspired by Mel. One of his former students was a 3-time Olympic medalist in long jump. At a public ceremony in Mel’s honor, he credited Mel with always filling him with joy and wisdom and helping him become all that he is today. While he never shared with me the personal hardships he may have faced due to his race (our conversations were never about him), his life inspired optimism, hard work, and resilience. He changed my life and contributed to my lifelong commitment to student wellbeing .

We became good friends. He visited me in Iowa, after I became Dean of Engineering there, and played ping pong in the basement with our daughters.  I Invited him to be a member of the President’s Council when I was at Olin and we taught a course together in structural analysis and design when he took a sabbatical to Olin about a decade ago.

Mel’s family also remained close. His wife, Felicenne, who recently passed away, was Dean of the Business School at Sacramento State University, and his daughter, Daina Ramey Berry, has become Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts at UC Santa Barbara, where I began my career on the faculty in 1975. She has sought my mentorship from time to time as a form of “full circle” payback and a way for me to honor her father’s contributions to my life.  Mel passed away from brain cancer a few years ago. This memorial/obituary posted on the UC Davis website, available here is a fitting tribute to a remarkable person whose life greatly impacted my own.