December 5, 2018
Vince Bertram will speak Dec. 12 at Ball State.
When a fifth-grade boy asked Vince Bertram, president and chief executive officer of Project Lead The Way (PLTW), what keeps him up at night, Bertram responded, “You. And the 54 million other students who have dreams and aspirations but don’t have the opportunity to achieve them.”
At 7 p.m. Dec. 12, the Ball State alumnus will present “Dream Differently: Work Is Changing, Schools Must Too,” a Teachers College Centennial Celebration event in the Frank C. and Elizabeth B. Ball Recital Hall across from the David Owsley Museum of Art in the Fine Arts Building (use the Riverside Avenue entrance). He will speak about dreaming smarter to achieve career goals and lifelong success through maximizing education. His talk is free and open to the public.
“College can either be an expense or investment — it’s only an investment if you get a return on it. I want students to be aware of that,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything more important than the issue around students’ economic prosperity.”
PLTW is a nonprofit organization that provides hands-on, transformative career learning experiences for PreK-12 students and teachers across the U.S. PLTW empowers students to develop in-demand, transportable knowledge and skills through pathways in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science, and supports teachers through professional development training. More than 11,500 schools across the U.S. use PLTW programs.
Bertram holds a bachelor’s, master’s, education specialist, and doctoral degrees from Ball State’s Teachers College, a master’s in education policy and management from Harvard University, and MBA degrees from Georgetown University and ESADE Business School in Spain. His many honors include Distinguished Hoosier, the Ball State Teachers College Outstanding Alumni Award, and Ball State University Alumni Association's Distinguished Alumni Award.
“Ball state is my home,” he said. “It’s a place I believe in. It’s a place that gave me an opportunity, and I hope to pass that on.”