Research examined language traits that have led to Dr. Caldwell’s unique skills in reinventing and branding higher education for a broader pool of students. 

HACKETTSTOWN, NJ, March 5, 2025—When Centenary University President Dale Caldwell was a toddler, his parents recognized that he had remarkable language skills for a young child. So, they enrolled him in a study measuring how children acquire language. Professor Roger Brown of Harvard University’s Psychology Department and his team tracked the language development of “Adam” (aka, Dale Caldwell), as well as two other children, “Eve” and “Sarah” (all pseudonyms) from the ages of 2 to 5. 

            Voluminous transcripts of their speech were created. Using these transcripts, Ellen Winner, one of Brown’s doctoral students, analyzed the kinds of misnomers that Adam created, showing that in most cases these misnomers were not mistakes at all, but were intentional metaphors based on some kind of perceived likeness between two very different things. Two charming examples: At age 2, he tied some tape around a microphone and said, “Microphone need a bib,” analogizing the microphone with tape around it to a child with a bib. And at age 4 ½, as he was putting the paper cover back on a crayon after it had slipped off, he said, “I putting on your clothes, crayon.” Winner, who is now a Ph.D., concluded that “this early capacity for renaming objects may be a necessary investment for later, full-blown forms of metaphor, many of which are, in fact, constructed along the same lines as child metaphor.” She called her article about Adam “New Names for Old Things.” 

Six decades later, Dr. Caldwell and Dr. Winner unexpectedly connected when the Centenary president set out to quantify foundational educational practices at the University that were having the most success in educating students. He quickly aligned with The Multiple Intelligences Theory, which was put forth by influential Harvard developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, Ph.D. in his book, Frames of Mind. Dr. Gardner is married to Dr. Winner.

            “That was certainly a surprise,” recalled Dr. Caldwell, who as a Princeton undergraduate also came across a reference to the study in one of his textbooks. “I had been speaking to the famous Dr. Howard Gardner about more formally embedding The Multiple Intelligences Theory into Centenary University’s culture, and when I mentioned that I grew up in Boston and participated in this study, Dr. Gardner’s wife ran to the computer screen and said, ‘I wrote my dissertation about you!’”

            Dr. Winner said of the chance encounter, “Though I never met Dale when the study was carried out (as it was carried out before I became a doctoral student), I was thrilled to meet Dale and to see what Adam had become!”

            Today, as a college president Dr. Caldwell has developed a reputation as a visionary leader who is reinventing higher education, at Centenary and in the broader marketplace. True to “Adam’s” early language abilities, Dr. Caldwell often crafts acronyms to brand innovative new programs introducing higher education to a broader pool of students, including traditional college and graduate students, vocational students, veterans, and others.

            In his quest to define Centenary’s unique brand identity—WeCU—Dr. Caldwell came across Dr. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory, which acknowledges that people have different ways of learning. The theory concludes that providing a holistic, experiential, and personalized education for students with differing learning styles requires institutions to emphasize eight core multiple intelligences: verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, musical, and visual-spatial.

            “The Gardner Multiple Intelligences Theory aligns perfectly with Centenary’s WeCU brand, which sees each student’s unique intelligence and customizes higher education to enhance student learning and growth,” said Dr. Caldwell. “Centenary had been informally utilizing Dr. Gardner’s eight multiple intelligences in our curriculum and campus life programs for many years. Through our WeCU brand, Centenary sees each student’s distinctive learning style and customizes our education to enhance student growth and success.”

ABOUT CENTENARY UNIVERSITY                                             

Centenary University offers extraordinary learning opportunities that empower students to develop intellectually, emotionally, and interculturally—keys to career and personal success. Under the leadership of President Dale Caldwell, Ed.D., the University aspires to advance its reputation as a world class institution offering innovative programs, including the world’s first Master of Arts in Happiness Studies, to lift the future for our students and local communities.