Press Releases

May 14, 2002
Told He?d Never Make It, Top Southampton College Grad Responds With 4.0

Valedictorian Jason Bruck Fought Learning Disability

Contact:
Darren Johnson (PR@southampton.liu.edu)
(631) 287 8313
Fax: (631) 283 4081

Southampton, NY - Elementary school teachers told him he should aim low, maybe vocational school if he were lucky. One pinned him against the wall and told him he was doing things all wrong. Another said that he didn't even deserve the D's on his report card.

Teachers and administrators always tried to dash Jason Bruck's dreams of going to college to study marine mammals. He was constantly told to be more practical. He was diagnosed as learning disabled with attention deficit disorder at a young age and placed in special education programs from grade school through senior year of high school. Teachers probably thought they were doing him a favor at the time, softening the blow for him for when, they believed, he ultimately would fail.

They couldn't have been more wrong. Bruck went on to do something extraordinary at Southampton College of Long Island University get nothing but A's. It was where he got a second chance and made the most out of it. He not only is graduating on Sunday, May 19, at 2 p.m., but will also give the Valedictory Address.

He will use his time at the podium to discuss the hardships he faced and how he never let go of his dream. Bruck managed a perfect 4.0 in Southampton College's esteemed Psychobiology program while also getting the most of the college experience, becoming one of the campus' best-known personalities. By day he was deeply involved in student government, clubs and research groups and by night he religiously studied until 4 a.m. Many of his classes started at 8 a.m.

Bruck's academic career wasn't always as perfect. Heartbreak came the day he was diagnosed as learning disabled. "I don?t think I'll ever forget that day," he said.

But it made him stronger. Coming off a semester of almost all "D" grades in sixth grade in Syracuse, N.Y., he boldly told his teachers that one day he would be valedictorian. Most of them shrugged him off. "Except there were a couple of teachers who took me under their wing and taught me how to be a student," Bruck said.

"However, administrators would try to dissuade me when I told them that some day I would like to study whales and dolphins. They discounted me by telling me to be more realistic, to aim for vocational school."

Even though Bruck was still classified as being a special education student through high school, his determination to get A's became an obsession, and, taking Regents courses, he finished at Marcellus High School among its top students four years ago. Marcellus doesn?t name a valedictorian, so Bruck knew it would take another four years before he could accomplish that goal he set in grade school.

"That day in sixth grade when I was diagnosed as learning disabled, I decided that I wasn't going to let anything stand in my way," Bruck said. "I knew that I would someday be valedictorian."

At Southampton, a small liberal-arts college known for its seaside setting, marine and environmental programs and impressive run of Fulbright Scholars (36 in the past 27 years), Bruck benefited by the low student-to-faculty ratio and the emphasis on hands-on lab work with top psychobiology researchers, including professors Paul Forestell and Lois Tepper.

When he wasn't in the lab, Bruck was a master networker on campus and top student advocate. "To get the true college experience, you can't just sit in a room all day and study," he said. "If I had done that I would have missed out on 75 percent of my study here. "

"To be a good scientist, you also have to be a good communicator, and that's the skill that has helped me the most in becoming a good student. This college fits someone like me very well, I don't think inside the lines or accept things the way they are."

Bruck is applying for graduate study at Cornell University this summer, to study the language of whales. At a May 2 ceremony, he won three campus awards: the Social Science Academic Achievement Award, the Vincent Aloia Memorial Achievement Award and Provost Citizenship Award for his leadership in the Residence Hall and Student Government associations. He is the son of Steven and Mary Bruck of Syracuse, N.Y.

"This is the advice I would give to kids diagnosed as learning disabled: You determine your destiny and no one else," Bruck said. "You make the rules. If you want to succeed and have the effort and energy to do so, you will succeed."