Dr. George A. Pruitt named Chamber's 'Citizen of the Year'

Mercer Business, Feb 01, 1997 by Delany, Don

Dr. George A. Pruitt, who for the past 15 years has been president of Thomas Edison State College in downtown Trenton, has been chosen by the Mercer County Chamber of Commerce as its "Citizen of the Year" or 1996.

Edward F. Meara III, the Chamber president, said Dr. Pruitt was selected for the honor because of his leadership role in the field of education in the area.

"He has been particularly concerned in attempting to develop programs to improve education programs in Trenton as well as throughout the county," Meara noted.

"He is part of a team composed of the presidents of the five colleges in Mercer County which is conducting a study of education in the area to determine the economic impact of the colleges on the economy of the county.

"He and we realize that it is really unique to have five colleges, institutions of the standing of Princeton University, Rider University, College of New Jersey, Mercer County Community College and Thomas Edison, located within the relatively small geographic area of Mercer County. He has been, together with the other four presidents, in the lead in doing an analysis of their contributions to education in the county's communities. The teams findings should be forthcoming soon."

Pruitt's primary interest has been education in the urban centers, Meara said. "He has been working with Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer and the city administration to improve the quality of the city's schools," he declared.

Meara also cited Pruitt's successful efforts over the past decade and a half in developing Thomas Edison into a college which has won national attention and acclaim for is unusual educational format.

Thomas Edison was created in 1972, Pruitt points out, to serve mature adults exclusively. The average age of its close to 9,000 students is about 40. They are enrolled in 11 degree programs, in which there are over a hundred specializations.

The remarkable thing about that student body is that it does not attend classes per se. Its member adults are for the most part people who have acquired knowledge in a particular field outside the classroom setting and who now are undertaking to earn a degree in that field by demonstrating their competency in it.

"We have grown and developed around the unique and peculiar requirements and assets of our client base, mature adults," Pruitt pointed out in a recent conversation.

"There are two principles that control that development," he added. "One is the barriers that mature adults face, barriers of time and place. They are involved in family and careers. They are not mobile--they can't up and just disrupt their lives and take a course at 10 in the morning Monday to Friday.

"The second principle is that learning takes place in a lot of forms other than classes. Mature adults often have their lives enriched by a variety of learning opportunities, and the outcome of those opportunities is comparable to what one traditionally learns in a classroom.

"It doesn't make much sense for someone who has been selling two or three million dollars worth of real estate each year to sit in a classroom and take instruction in real estate because they never formally took it in a college course. One ought to gain credit for learning acquired in non-collegiate settings, through examinations or other forms of testing."

What is important to the college is learning and the ability to prove it, Pruitt emphasized. Where and how that learning was obtained is irrelevant, he said. "We don't care whether you learn actuarial sciences from Prudential, Aetna or the Wharton School. What's important is that you be able to demonstrate that you have acquired it through some reliable and valid assessment process.

The student does not obtain credit merely for experience, he also stressed. "Two people can have the same experience, one can learn a great deal and the other can learn absolutely nothing," he pointed out.

Thomas Edison has more than 12,000 graduates, the oldest of whom is 87 years old. "The prototype is that mature adults come to college for professional purposes, career advancement or job promotion," Pruitt noted. "That's true of some of our students. We have a large number, though, who are over 65 and retired. They're not here for job or career advancement. They're doing it because it is a long-deferred life opportunity that they didn't have chance to attend to. We have people who are retired homemakers. They are much younger than retirement age, but their children are out of the house and now they have the opportunity to attend to their own development as opposed to the development of their children."

Students come from every age, race, gender, ethnic background, economic status, Pruitt said. "What they have in common are some very powerful intellectual and personality attributes. All of our students are goal-oriented, self-disciplined and concerned about academic achievement."

This year marks the college's 25th anniversary, and the 150th anniversary of Thomas Edison's birth.

The silver anniversary will be celebrated on the campus of Princeton University because, Pruitt noted, "early in the existence of the college, before we focused on a location, we were housed at Princeton."