This document summarizes an interview with the former VP of Advancement at Franklin University Switzerland about the school's history and identity. The interviewee believes students have little awareness of Franklin's origins and traditions, which has led to less cultural integration on campus than in the past. He shared a video from the 1970s depicting how Franklin split from another school and established its independence. While this historical context is important for strengthening school identity and pride, the video has never been made available to current students. Both the interviewee and a student survey support that learning about Franklin's history could foster a greater sense of belonging and cultural cohesion among the diverse student body.

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The Source Interview:
“The Franklin Identity”
Defining the identity of a collective sphere can be quite a daunting concept to elaborate.
Looking at the English Dictionary, we define identity as “the characteristics determining who
or what a person or thing is”. When we look at Franklin University it is clear that the
intercultural background of many members of our community make this academic institution
a vibrant, dynamic and unique place to be a part of: People make up the culture of an
organization and this latter will undoubtedly shape the Franklin identity, and because the
student body continuously changes, so will the culture to a certain extent. This article wants
to address the need for our students to look back at Franklin’s history, knowing that what
happened yesterday will forever influence the present and the future of this community. It is
crucial that an unmovable foundation be maintained so that every future Franklin student will
carry the original identity of this university, building on the legacy that was once forged. The
goal of any administration and regulatory body is to create rules in order to maintain order
and effectively run the organization, however another pivotal task is to establish traditions,
values and collectively shared ideas; thus creating a culture and an identity of its own. In this
way the university has the ability to foster a greater sense of belonging for its members and
convey how everyone in our community should feel that they are an essential component that
makes this institution special.
On Thursday, April 7th I had the pleasure to conduct an in depth interview with the former VP
of the Advancement Department (from 2009 until 2015): Robert Pallone. During our 54-
minute discussion we were talking about the history of Franklin, how understanding the full
picture could potentially strengthen our community and further solidify the values and ideas
that this institution has instilled in everyone one of us. When we become accustomed to what
we have, we often underestimate how numerous traditions have played a decisive role in
defining the Franklin culture: The yearly events like Oktoberfest, Carnevale and Holi, the
manner in which our classes are set up as well as the constant need to travel and explore;
these are all examples of what makes Franklin unique and thus portrays a clear identity for
the institution. However these factors alone are not the entirety of the equation because
symbols and historical occurrences have also influenced and shaped the Franklin identity.
What we know is that “Franklin University Switzerland, named for the United States’ first and

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most illustrious ambassador to Europe, was
founded in 1969 as Franklin College, a nonprofit,
independent, post secondary institution”. We know
that the school was founded by Theo Brenner,
Jaques Villaret, Pascal F. Tone, Wilfried Geens and
Pietro Cassina, we know that this institution
changed its location throughout the decades since
its inception; however is this all we can say about
our history? I think we can do better than that.
Back in 2014 I had the opportunity to work for the advancement department and on the very
first day of introduction to my future tasks, Robert showed my teammates and I a marvelous
artifact: A short 20 minute clip recorded by a former faculty member in the early 1970’s,
portraying the origins of Franklin College, why was it founded
and most importantly how: The establishment of this institution
“was done by a former faculty member and a group of students
at the time, it needs to be edited, because when we split off from
Tasis there was a certain theme of rebellion by the end of the
60's”; this quote extracted from the transcript of the interview
portrays an unfamiliar aspect of Franklin’s history: Indeed what
we used to recognize as Franklin College, was originally called
Fleming College; based on the last name of the founder of The
American School in Switzerland (TASIS): M. Crist Fleming. The
video previously mentioned portrays the intertwined
relationship that the two institutions shared and how the fall out
of this original tie created a brand new entity.
The video “from a historical point of view is great to watch, nonetheless from the point of
view of our relationship with Tasis we want to make sure we don't sponsor this fall out
between the two organizations”, the quote emphasizes on the extreme delicacy of the
situation in which Franklin College and Tasis were at the time and how resurfacing old
wounds might bring unwanted consequences. Nonetheless it is absurd that a video like this,
(Franklin College Founders)
M. Crist Fleming/ Founder of
TASIS & Fleming College

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an artifact that clearly represents our university, has never been edited and shared with the
rest of our community. Mr. Pallone clearly expressed his state of mind when he said:
“Students are the real owners of the university, and we can make the analogy that they move
into a new house and they have no clue who lived in and they can ask themselves questions
like why was this house built here? What was the intention of the original owners to change to
a new location? Students don't have this knowledge and I’ve argued about this component
missing from the Franklin experience for years, in fact I used to show first year students that
video I showed you, that talked about Franklin and adding a few slides to talk about the
history of our school and I believe that is important”
Both Robert and I agreed on the lack of information that students have about the history of
our university. At first it may seem like a frivolous aspect of Franklin’s curriculum and
experience, however when you look at the low level of integration that different cultures in
our student body portray, we believe that gaining facts about the heritage, origins and reasons
for the inception of this school could be a powerful catalyst that can potentially bring all of us
closer. Because being a member of Franklin University is something we all have in common
and the true identity that this academic institution holds has been kept dormant, waiting to be
awakened.
Robert mentioned his view about the lack of cultural cohesiveness and integration that is
currently present at Franklin and “clearly cross cultural attraction is at the heart of what we
do. The goal is to let students integrate with each other. However when I walk on campus I see
a lot of small groups and all fairly homogeneous, the more common phenomenon that occurs
is people hanging out with other students from similar backgrounds because it's easier and
often times it seems scary having to deal with the unknown, if it's more comfortable just to
hang out people from our country; we have to nudge that. So I believe that is a lost
opportunity really and Franklin had more cultural integration back in the old days, during the
70s, that's the feeling I’ve been getting from older alumni”. Of course this quote can be
understood as someone’s subjective opinion and to test whether or not this claim was indeed
accurate, in the weeks to come after the interview, I distributed a survey to the student body
in order to gather empirical evidence to back up Robert’s assumptions. The survey was
definitely a success and 34 responses were gathered, which made the sample size statistically
significant for the research.

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As we can view from this histogram, it is evident that out of the 34 participants, 73.5% of the
sample size either agreed
or strongly agreed with the
statement above.
According to Mr. Pallone
students back in the days
were more culturally
integrated then now, why
is that so? I think it is
because students back then
were highly aware of their
college’s history and were extremely proud to be part of such a unique and special community
in the world.
“You know there should be a place where you walk through and have the artifacts that show
why we exists and why it is important to show these things, showing pictures that portray the
success that previous students achieved in their lives. People have gone on to do important
stuff in the world, a guy who ended up becoming the editor of the Washington post was a
franklin alumni and a woman from the middle east who ended up becoming the first female
bond trader in her country. You hear other alumni say "Franklin changed my life" and I think
that talking about the history, how it has changed the lives of many and how it will eventually
influence the lives of many future students gives a short preview of what their experience is
going to be. If students were shown how unique and different this experience is and how
unusual it is to be in this institution and emphasize these virtues of being a student here,
people would feel proud right from the start”
Once again we will portray the results from the survey to show just how much our students
care about the history and heritage of their community and how little they feel they know
about Franklin’s:

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The percentages speak for themselves, when we see that 64.7% of the responses agreed and
strongly agreed about the importance that history holds for our students. Meanwhile the
second histogram shows how 55.8% of the participants disagreed and strongly disagreed
about the statement.
Students are proud to be at
Franklin and this can be clearly
showed by the data collected,
which conveys an overwhelmingly
positive sign for the institution.
Nonetheless when people get
accustomed to the university,
when they start taking for granted
what they have and the incredible
opportunity to study here, history is always a noble companion that will keep reminding us
just how lucky we really are.
“Students need to feel that they are part of something
bigger. Especially when you look at the 4 founders, at
the time when the world was at a very fragile
geopolitical stage, through the Cold War and the
Vietnam War; there was a lot of unease in the world. It's

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important to state that this school was founded in
Switzerland, a neutral nation, it's easier to understand why
we are in this country in the first place, adding the influence
of huge historical occurrences and making the world order
seem very unstable… It explains a lot as to the decision to
move to Switzerland. If students could understand that in
some historical context, it raises their value of the Franklin
education; they start to understand why this school is so
special. Showing the importance of the university's establishment through the macro
historical contexts would be a great way to put things into perspective.”
This quote is very powerful at conveying just how surreal the historical background was
when Franklin College was founded, and if students were presented with this new, yet old
information, there would be a definite shift of perception towards the image and identity of
this institution. The results once again back up the previous allegations, seeing how 61.8% of
students agreed and
strongly agreed
with the statement.
Now that we have
all this information
at hand and
knowing that we do
have the recorded
footage, which
portrays the pivotal
transition of our institution when gaining its independence, what would be the best way to
integrate such knowledge and effectively propagate this message to our community?
Towards the end of our discussion, Robert brought up one idea that the university could
experiment with: “I've always thought there should be a non-credit course that is mandatory
for your first year. Which tells you about the history, values and mission of Franklin and
putting all of these aspects of the university into a theoretical framework and how that
syllabus would fit into this new course: You know take tours around the old campuses that
Franklin used to have and maybe even call in alumni to talk in class or via Skype to tell their

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stories”. This is one idea
that could possibly be
put into action and
there are myriads of
other possibilities for
the university to raise
awareness about its
history. The last
question of the survey asks the student body whether the university should provide more
debates, release articles or even introduce seminars about its history and origins; especially
to future first year students. The results clearly conveyed how these ideas are accepted by
64.7% of the participants, wishing that they would one day become a reality.
It is clear that history is a crucial aspect of any organization’s identity and Franklin’s is no
exception. Our community has been kept in the dark for too long and quite frankly, our
history can be valued as movie-material. It is time for our university to share its origins and
heritage with the rest of us so that we may all stand tall and proud to say that we will honor
our institution’s history, that we will carry its values wherever our lives will take us in the
future; but most importantly, we will never forget how much Franklin University has changed
our lives for the better.
Citations:
1. Definition of “identity” | Collins English Dictionary. (n.d.). In Collins Dictionary | Always
Free Online. Retrieved from
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/identity
2. History| FUS. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fus.edu/about/history
3. TASIS The American School in Switzerland: About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://switzerland.tasis.com/page.cfm?p=2