ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú

Sarah Rudolph Cole (00:00):
I would say that first and foremost I thought of myself as a swimmer because that is how I identified myself pretty much from the time I started swimming when I was eight years old all the way through college. I guess I should say that I first thought of myself as a student, but that always came to me as sort of a natural part of my life, whereas swimming, I had to work so hard to perform well. So swimmer first, student second.

Narrator (00:29):
This is Greater We Ascend, a podcast from the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú about Loggers reaching to the heights.

Sarah Rudolph Cole (00:38):
Hi, I'm Sarah Rudolph Cole and I'm the Michael E. Moritz Chair in Alternative Dispute Resolution at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and a 1986 graduate of the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, as well as a 1990 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. I majored in history and I also participated in the honors program, so I believe I graduated as a Coolidge Otis Chapman Honors Scholar.

(01:06):
Athletic careers, I think whatever sport you're involved in, teach the same skills, which is that hard work and commitment pay off, that there is no detail that's too small or too great, that one should not focus on it. And what I mean by that, and I often have hired research assistants in my current position who are former swimmers, and I know that's because I hired them, because I know how hard they're going to work, and they're not going to treat a small project as unimportant. They're going to realize that whatever activity they're participating in, they have to go in all out, as we would call, say in swimming. They have to work hard no matter what, and no matter how big or small the scope of the project is, and that no detail is too small, which turns out to be a really important quality for a lawyer because we think of lawyers as walking into a courtroom and making great arguments. But so much of the time what you're doing is researching issues on your computer until late at night, and you need that sort of hard work ethic/ethos that's developed in sports.

(02:17):
I had so many great memories as part of a member of the Puget Sound Swim team, and we were fortunate that in most cases, the women's team and the men's team, and we were very close, we were able to travel together and go to meets all over the Northwest and even national locations.

(02:36):
One of my most memorable experiences was attending nationals in Orlando, Florida, and we were all so excited to be somewhere warm in March, and we looked forward to going to the beaches afterwards. Of course, it's important to remember this was a time when people didn't really wear sunscreen, and it didn't occur to me that after a winter in the Northwest, I really wouldn't be well prepared to lay on the beach for eight hours. So it was quite memorable. I had the worst sunburn of my life and actually had to fly home the next day. I was in so much pain, but I had a great time at Daytona Beach with all my best friends on the swim team, and I remember very positive aspects of that as well as a sort of negative one.

(03:23):
I chose history as a major because I had always loved history. It was always my favorite subject in school, and I think because I started college without a clear career direction, it seemed like studying something I loved would make the most sense and I wouldn't change it at all. I think it's harder when you focus on a subject in the liberal arts to see what the future holds for you. It's not as clearly demarcated as studying engineering, but the background that you develop, the writing skills, the communication skills, will tend to serve you fairly well, whatever career you ultimately choose.

(04:06):
I was very fortunate to go to the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. At the time I chose UPS, I didn't realize what a strong academic program it was and how much, and this is perhaps the most important thing to me, how much the professors really cared about the students. There's a very low professor-student-ratio, which may be common in small colleges, but as I was reflecting recently on some of the work I'd done at Puget Sound, I was amazed to discover the depth and breadth of the feedback I received on written projects. I'm not sure there are professors anywhere who would care that much and feel it was that important for the student to learn that they would give that kind of feedback and care so much about their student's performance, both in the university itself, and then later when I was applying to graduate school.

(05:02):
I had a couple favorite classes at the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú in particular. I remember a Civil War class taught by a professor who I don't think was at Puget Sound all that long, but the enthusiasm he brought to the subject as well as his leather jacket and motorcycle boots just were inspiring to me as at that time, thinking I would be a historian and just how cool someone could be, but still convey all the information and be an intellectual and that you could kind of have it all. I was impressed and enthralled by that.

(05:44):
And then back in the day, we used to have something called Winterim, which was a one month period of time where the student focused on one topic only, and it was at the advent of the use of computers to do social science research. And our professor had us working on, I think it was St. Charles, Illinois, in the 1880s. And we were looking at the census from that time and trying to log all the information about that community to tell us something about what life was like in Illinois in the 19th century. And I don't know why I thought that was about the coolest thing I'd ever done, but I felt like a part of a bigger project, something important that would be meaningful to other people.

(06:29):
When I graduated from Puget Sound, I wasn't immediately sure what I wanted to do. My father was a law professor, and so having majored in history and always focused on reading and writing, law seemed like a pretty logical step for me. So I ultimately, after a year of reflection, decided law school was the right spot. And in my mind, I always thought I would go into teaching, which I did after four or five years in practice. And from there, I've been teaching since then, I've moved around to a couple different schools, but have now been at Ohio State University for I guess 25 or 26 years. And even though I absolutely miss the beauty of the Northwest, I love my career and would do it wherever the opportunity arose.

(07:19):
A liberal arts education is such an incredibly good foundation for life in the law in particular, the reading, the focus, the writing, the feedback professors provided to me all put me in such a great position to succeed in law school. And when I went to law school, I was nervous. I wondered whether my education was going to be as good as other students' education. And I came to learn that it was, and that I could succeed at a high level competing with people who'd gone to the perhaps somewhat better-known schools. And I felt like I was, there was, again, between the swimming and my school experiences, I felt exceedingly well prepared, and I knew I could put my nose to the grindstone and do what I needed to do to succeed in that environment.

(08:17):
And frankly, since then, there probably isn't a job out there where you to succeed professionally, you don't work hard. And I think that's something important for everyone to know. Nobody gets there easily. It's not handed to you. The work ethic you develop in sports and in school, you need to carry on throughout your career. Since I left Puget Sound in 1986, I think the aspects of it that I remember the best are the friends I made on the swim team and in my classes and in other activities I did around the university, but also the sort of memory of what it was like to be at a small school where I felt cared for and respected no matter what I was sort of involved in.

(09:07):
And more recently, I had the good fortune of becoming more involved in Puget Sound because of an award that brought me back to campus this past summer. And I always thought it'd been this incredibly beautiful campus. And to see it today with all the new buildings so well integrated into the campus environment, I was really proud to say that I was an alum. And then more recently, through my work at Ohio State where we're trying to help communities and campuses prepare for conflict situations, I've had the opportunity to work a bit with the provost in trying to prepare current students at Puget Sound to deal better with conflict; to develop communication skills as they move forward. It will help them both during their college careers and hopefully make them better educated and prepare citizens for the future.

Narrator (10:17):
Greater We Ascend is a production of the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. This episode was produced by John Moe. Our theme music is by Skylar Hedblom, Puget Sound, class of 2025. Learn more at pugetsound.edu/greater.