GRAD2B SALUTE – Senator Claiborne Pell

Posted by ERUDIO in Inspiration on Dec 22nd, 2009

Can one person gain enough power to change our world for the better? This is the fourth in our GRAD2B

One Person Sent 54 million Students to College!

Yes, that’s Millions, with an M. 54 million low-income people given a chance to learn.

Today, GRAD2B salutes Senator Claiborne Pell.

A six-term Rhode Island Democrat (who rose to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee), Pell died at age 90, earlier this year at his Newport, R.I., home.

Senator Pell was best-known for his sponsorship of the 1972 Pell Grant program— empowering (at this time, and steadily rising) 54 million low-income and moderate-income students to attend college.

This amazing individual also sponsored the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

Claiborne DeBorda Pell

Claiborne DeBorda Pell was born in New York City on Nov. 22, 1918. His family had lived in New York since colonial times. They once owned much of Westchester County and The Bronx.

Five of his forebears, including his father, Herbert Claiborne Pell, served in Congress. His father was close friends with Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the most popular president in all U.S. history. His father later was minister to Portugal and then Hungary, during the presidency of Roosevelt.

Mr. Pell graduated from Princeton University and took a master’s degree in history at Columbia University in 1946. During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard.

After the war, he joined the Foreign Service and was assigned to Genoa, Italy. His foreign languages included French, Italian, and Portuguese. He dressed in his own style and he was often seen jogging in a tweed coat.

First elected to the Senate in 1960, Mr. Pell was polite, calm, and a master strategist. Pell was known for his saying, “I always let the other fellow have my way.”

At the time of Pell’s death, Senator Edward Kennedy made a powerful eulogy statement, which places Senator Pell in a historic political context: “Claiborne was a giant in the Senate and beloved by the Kennedy family. He was a close, personal friend of President Kennedy, and all of our family has been proud to call him our friend since that time.”

Like others in his world, Pell could have simply enjoyed his wealth and family power.

But he believed in a higher goal. Education for all who deserved a chance.

Pell believed that education is the hope of mankind, and the foundational hope of democracy itself. He believed in an educated citizenry.

That’s why Pell was one of the principal figures in creating the government financing program originally known as “Basic Educational Opportunity Grants.”

The awards, (renamed Pell grants in his honor in 1980), are by far the U.S. government’s largest need-based grants to enable college students.

Federal Pell Grants

As Senator Kennedy went on to say (ironically, before his own death): “Claiborne Pell believed strongly that a good education could open infinite doors of opportunity, and he has transformed the lives of millions of young people who have been able to go to college because of the grant that rightly bears his name.”

54 million people— their lives changed forever— empowered by knowledge!

Because one person thought they were just that important.

Can one person gain enough power in our world, to make it better?

Let’s never forget the enormous gift that Claiborne Pell made to all of us!