Robert Sternberg 16Sternberg explains psychology as ‘the interaction of who you are with the environment.’ A drive for mentoring “I find students don’t much remember what they learned in classes,” Sternberg says. “They remember a few professors, students or staff members who changed their lives.” The chance to provide that mentorship to students is what drives him today. It’s why he believes in Oklahoma State and its land-grant university mission. It’s part of why he earned the university’s highest promotion for faculty members, a Regents professorship in 2011. Busy man Sternberg received the Regents post three years after he was hired as provost. He took that job over from Marlene Strathe, who had been the provost for seven years. The provost is the senior member of the OSU president’s cabinet and administers all of the university’s academic programs. His job includes planning policies, budgets, student and faculty development — the “whole enchilada.” In addition to his administrative work, Sternberg teaches an undergraduate course in leadership, which he notes received an overall student rating of 3.92 out of 4.00 last spring, and is teaching a graduate course this fall in one of his specialties, human intelligence. Before he came to OSU, he was the dean of arts and sciences at Tufts University. For more than 30 years, he taught at his alma mater, Yale University, where he was the IBM professor of psychology and education and a professor of management. He is also the author or editor of more than 150 books and a prolific writer for the academic and lay presses. OSU rolled out a new admissions process last July that he designed in collaboration with Kyle Wray, OSU’s vice president for enrollment management and marketing, and other personnel from the university’s admissions office. Called Panorama, it incorporates prospective students’ leadership qualities into their evaluations, expanding them beyond the typical essays sent in with applications. He also published a book on intellectual giftedness in 2011, the same year he and his wife had triplets, Samuel, Brittany and Melody (the latter two are identical twins). It’s hard to imagine when he sleeps. “I don’t have a lot of spare time these days,” he admits. “I think it’s important for administrators to teach. It’s especially important if you’re in academic affairs to stay in touch with what’s going on with the students. And I think it’s important to publish because it’s awkward to evaluate the research of others if you’re not doing any yourself.” No one realizes the irony more than Robert Sternberg does. OSU’s chief academic officer and one of four new Regents professors in the College of Arts and Sciences for 2011 doesn’t remember much of what he learned in class at Yale. And yet, thanks to hard work and caring professors, Sternberg made himself into one of the world’s leading experts in how people think, love and hate. Sternberg aims to make OSU memorable for students.
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