Opportunity: the word resonates deeply with Dr. Patricia Book. It’s something with which she has extensive and personal experience.
In her new position as assistant vice president for Continuing Education and Academic Outreach at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colo., Book leads an engagement effort that aims to connect that university with the broader needs of the community. As with her previous leadership positions at universities in Alaska, Ohio and Pennsylvania, her primary focus is on building bridges between the university, community and businesses to create collaborations of mutual benefit.
“I like to say that I’m a culture broker between the community and the academy,” says Book, CAS ’72. “More than just a one-way outreach effort, it’s about extending the university’s capabilities with a spirit of reciprocity to find opportunities of mutual benefit to the community, the university and business enterprises, to address pressing social, cultural, economic, and political issues. It can mean greater opportunity for the entire community.”
Book knows a thing or two about opportunity, and where it can lead. As a young girl, growing up on the Mesabi Iron Range in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she was fortunate enough to seize an opportunity that changed her life. It would lead her to her mission in life today.
Then, as now, a shift in the economy led to uncertain times and turmoil. Book’s hometown of Iron River was economically devastated when the nearby iron mines – the region’s primary employer – were closed forever. Suddenly, her father and the other miners were left jobless, with little hope of finding another line of work. Equally bleak were the prospects for the area’s youth.
But a resourceful Book applied for and received a state-sponsored scholarship. With that, her parents’ and grandparents’ encouragement, student loans, and money she earned doing odd jobs, Book was able to enroll at Oakland University -- a move, she says, that “launched me as a person.”
Her studies in anthropology at OU were formative and essential in shaping her outlook on life. Her professors—Judith K. Brown, Peter Bertocci, Karen Sacks among them--opened her eyes to the wider world; with courses that opened her world to the new country of Bangladesh, countries on the continent of Africa, and the opening of the People’s Republic of China, and so many other regions of the earth, that she calls as “globalizing experiences” that instilled in her a sense of her future mission in life.
“It gave me an expanded lens, a greater appreciation for human diversity and a reverence for humanity that has carried through in my work today,” Book says. “Because of its liberal arts core, OU prepared me well for the flexibility and ability to live and work with ambiguity required in today’s world.”
Her OU experience also helped build her confidence as a scholar, she says, thanks to the tremendous encouragement she received from both faculty and admissions office staff.
“I would never have had the vision to go to grad school if it hadn’t been for those wonderful people,” she recalls. “My folks didn’t have an advanced education, so it wasn’t in my plan. It just didn’t seem like something I could achieve.”
Book applied for and won a scholarship through the National Defense Education Act. Her “support group” at OU helped her evaluate schools for a good fit. She was accepted to the University of Connecticut, where she earned her masters in cultural anthropology and a Ph.D. in medical anthropology.
In her studies as a medical anthropologist, Book has conducted research in the Middle East in Cyprus on children suffering from a chronic genetic anemia, and served as an applied anthropologist working with native Alaskans in health and human services planning. Her work has involved extensive travel around the world, including Europe, Asia, Central America and South America.
After joining the faculty at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in a research institute, Book was able to apply some of the lessons learned in her academic career on a broader scale. She eventually was named dean of the new School of Career and Continuing Education.
Book went on to manage outreach efforts at Penn State University in Pennsylvania and Kent State University in Ohio, where she used her savvy as a bridge builder to form strong bonds between the universities and a variety of state, regional and local constituents.
In 2001, Book returned to Oakland to accept the Odyssey Award, which recognized alumni that exemplify the university’s motto, “to seek virtue and knowledge.” Book says the motto is one to which everyone should be able to subscribe.
“The demographics of this country are changing,” she says. “To fuel growth for the future, we have to be concerned with economic development. We can’t leave entire segments of the population behind so they don’t have the means to participate in that future.”
Economic inclusion and talent development should be a top priority for this country, Book says, adding that universities can play a key role.
For her part as a culture broker, Book says it’s a demanding but fulfilling endeavor that still speaks to that girl from Iron River who had big dreams that came true.
“Human talent is everywhere, she says. “It’s a loss to society to leave people behind just because their circumstances will not support the ability to receive higher education. Having had the benefit of an education myself, I feel it’s a moral calling to keep those doors open for everyone else.”
Opportunity: the word resonates deeply with Dr. Patricia Book. It’s something with which she has extensive and personal experience.
Created by Linda Oliver (oliver@oakland.edu) on Saturday, August 8, 2009 Modified by Linda Oliver (oliver@oakland.edu) on Thursday, August 13, 2009 Article Start Date: Saturday, August 8, 2009
