These were the Ohio Fellows, students selected for their diverse beliefs, personalities and grade point averages to be groomed as the nation’s future leaders. The revolutionary program, although short-lived, was one of the first in the nation to provide a special learning atmosphere for promising students, setting the stage for today's popular honors programs. 
 
The Ohio Fellows project was the brainchild of Vernon Alden, who left his job as associate dean of Harvard Business School in late 1961 to serve as Ohio University's 15th president. Inspired by the idealism of President John F. Kennedy and a national call for youth to take leadership roles, Alden created the Ohio Plan, later called the Ohio Fellows. In all, about 100 students participated in the program throughout their college careers. 

  "Before I came to Ohio, my impression was that at many state-assisted universities, students were moving in lock-step through required, often unimaginative curricula," Alden says. "I was determined that Ohio University would lift the level of aspiration for all students and provide special opportunities for unusually gifted students." 
 

Media Services archives

Ohio Fellows talk with visiting speaker Samuel Proctor, president of North Carolina A&T State University in the 1960s.

In 1964, Alden recruited Robert Greenleaf, former senior executive at AT&T, and J. Leslie Rollins, former Harvard Business School assistant dean, to help him select the first class of students. They scoured student biographies to find top candidates. 

The best students weren't always the smartest or most disciplined. The dozen or so selected each year came from varied social and economic backgrounds and spanned every personality -- from the quiet, shy academic to the outspoken activist. Liberals, conservatives, artists and intellectuals all were involved. 

The selection process was so obscure that even many fellows could only guess why they were chosen. Gemma Marangoni Ainslie, AB '71, now a psychologist in Austin, Texas, recalls participating in a weekend retreat at which candidates were grilled on a wide range of issues. 

"I've always wondered about the philosophy behind the program and how we were chosen, just from a psychologist’s perspective," Ainslie says. 

The program's unusual curriculum added to the mystery. Students went on field trips to the nation's capital and got first dibs on competitive internships at major corporations. They also got to pick the brains of the nation’s top decision-makers. 
 

Ford (and later Chrysler) giant Lee Iacocca, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk -- as well as big names outside the political arena such as longtime film director Norman Jewison (who directed "The Hurricane" with Denzel Washington earlier this year) and famous portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh -- met privately with the fellows. Rather than simply expecting them to read about important national figures, Alden wanted to show students the qualities they would need to become leaders. 

"I wanted them to discover that those who are leaders are human," he says. "They are not `super people.' It was important for them to view the leaders to see that they were no different from themselves." 
 

Media Services archives

Ohio University President Emeritus Vernon Alden (right) meets with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk during Rusk's visit to campus in 1966.

 
The sessions also gave students a glimpse at the underpinnings of American politics. During one discussion, former fellow Ralph Haberfeld, AB '69, saw Rusk let down his guard about the Vietnam War. 

"I asked the secretary of state to explain why we were in Vietnam," says Haberfeld, now a marketing consultant in Colorado. "The answer was pretty lame, and his body language made me believe that he was secretly disheartened by the war." 

Many of the fellows were motivated by these experiences and inspired to seek higher education opportunities at prominent schools such as Duke, Stanford and Harvard. Some eventually landed jobs as Wall Street executives, college professors, lawyers, scientists, auto company managers and government leaders. 
 
"What has been so life-sustaining is that these interactions have led me to be undaunted by celebrity,” says former fellow Terry Moore, a marketing consultant in Spencer, Ind. He finished his Ohio University bachelor’s degree in 1991, 21 years after leaving to attend Harvard. 

"Once you stopped being overwhelmed by who they are, you got to know them. I feel like I can sit down with anybody and have a conversation," says Moore, who recently spoke about religion and ecology at a United Nations conference in Istanbul.Much of the Ohio Fellows' talent for rhetoric came from the intensive and often heated debates they had with faculty in the former Chubb House, now Crewson House. 

Former Ohio Fellow Terry Moore is interested in what his old classmates are doing now. If you were involved in Ohio University's Ohio Fellows program, contact Moore at 1-800-205-0250 or tmoore@t.pop.kiva.net.

"Everyone had different views and was passionate about their beliefs," says former fellow Thomas Hodson, BSJ '70, an Athens lawyer who also serves as a special assistant to Ohio University President Robert Glidden. They also found themselves frequenting Chubb to chat about everything from world affairs to family issues with Rollins, Alden's former Harvard colleague and volunteer coordinator of the Ohio Fellows program. 

"He was the consummate mentor," Hodson says. "He knew each one of us very well — better than we sometimes knew ourselves." 

  Not all the fellows walked away from the program convinced it had achieved its goals. From the start, Diane Yeager, AB '68, realized she wasn’t interested so much in leadership training as intellectual debate. But it made her think outside the box. 

  "You got stimulating attention," says Yeager, a theology professor at Georgetown University. "Its purpose was to take some lively young intellects and stretch our minds." 

Alden left Ohio University in 1969 to become chairman of The Boston Co. The Ohio Fellows program, which had been supported by the Mead Corp. and the Mellon Foundation, was picked up by the University of North Carolina. Although the program survived only to adolescence, Alden looks at Ohio University's current offerings for honors students, such as the 28-year-old Honors Tutorial College and the prestigious Cutler Scholars program, with much pride. 

"Ohio is unique among universities in the Midwest," he says. "Alumni and faculty are now supporting these programs, and I hope they can be preserved and enhanced on campus." 
 
Elizabeth Alessio, BSJ '00, is a reporter for The Ashland Times-Gazette in Ashland, Ohio.