Several University of Iowa alumni are back on campus to share real-world experience with undergraduates.
After establishing careers after graduation that reached Washington, D.C., and Mexico City, Howard Kerr and Elizabeth Kerr Rivera continue to nuture their roots in Iowa City, hoping to motivate current UI students.
Kerr has regularly returned to the university to speak with students in the Political-Science Department. Meanwhile, daughter Rivera was on campus last week to talk to students studying journalism, communication studies, and marketing.
The central message both said they wanted to share with students was clear: Take advantage of the opportunities offered on campus.
The two are part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ ongoing efforts to have UI alumni return to campus and share their experiences with students. Liberal-arts alumni are given opportunities to donate and volunteer for the college.
After earning his degree in 1960, Iowa native Kerr served as a U.S. naval officer. He went on to become the military aide to former Vice Presidents Spiro Agnew and Gerald Ford and later assisted as a naval aide and deputy presidential counselor to President Ford.
Cary Covington, a UI associate professor of political science whose class often features Kerr, said he gives his students insights on topics that they are unable to pick up from a college textbook.
“The nice thing of having Howard in is that his presence creates a venue for him to speak to students,” Covington said. “And given the context and his accomplishments, they are very receptive. He’s walked the walk, and so they listen to him when he talks.”
Kerr said his advice to students is to use their time at the university to prepare themselves for their future.
“A young lady came up to me after one of the lectures I had, and she said, ‘You’ve been lucky to be able to do all the things that you have done,’ and I said, ‘Let me give you a definition of luck,’” he said. “I said, ‘Luck is preparation waiting for opportunity.’ ”
Upon leaving the military, Kerr developed a successful private-sector career, becoming president and CEO of several companies. He later served as mayor on the City Council in Lake Forest, Illinois.
A proponent of a liberal-arts education, Kerr said he believes the humanities and liberal arts are important for individuals and society as a whole because the two fields are the foundation of the human value system.
“[A liberal-arts education] also prepared me to get along with different people with different disciplines,” he said. “To understand and get people together, and to listen to what other people have to say — a liberal-arts education prepares you for that.”
Rivera, who graduated from the UI in 1999 with a degree in English and art, resides in Mexico City and works as the communications manager for the Mexico branch of McKinsey and Co. — a worldwide management-consulting firm.
An early adopter of electronic communications, Rivera said she brought innovation into digital communications and social-media outreach campaigns for a number of employers such as Themesoft Inc. and Accenture. She also worked in marketing for several private companies and had a stint at the American Medical Association.
Rivera said the contrasting effect of the college experience is that it could create an environment that lacks the flow of information among students, professors, and classes at the UI.
“People have a hard time figuring out what they want to do if they don’t do it the traditional way,” she said. “So many people need to know that there is so many more opportunities than are necessarily presented some professors.”
Being in college should help students figure out what they can and can’t do, she said.
“You can’t do everything,” Rivera said. “I learned that I wasn’t that great of a painter, but I really liked to really write about paintings, and I realize my future would be in writing because I really enjoyed writing about what I was painting.”
Her best advice to students, she said, is to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
