2009 – Reflections On Higher Education

Year 2009

Our University – Adjacencies

Adjacencies in architecture are those relationships between the various parts of building that are critical to its success.Ā  For example, the living and dining rooms in typical home design have a high degree of adjacency. Ā The rooms support each other…

Our University – Free Inquiry

Universities work best in the difficult, contentious, unfettered mode that allows free inquiry. Mysterious from within and without.Ā  It is their nature. When faculty members are critical of administration, students are rambunctious, and complex discourse erupts on campus, all is…

Our University – A Monastery

My friend goes to Jamaica for vacation every few years.Ā  Jamaica is a poor island nation, the third most populous nation in North America after the United States and Canada.Ā  Bob Marley may be its most famous native son. When…

Our University – Work and Job

Warning – There is a three-letter word below that might be offensive – a slang word used to describe a persons rear end – but sometimes you just have to call it what it is. I reflected recently on the…

Our University – Competition

Ā  When I was seventeen, like many young men I wanted a cool, fast car.Ā  Many of my generation will remember the significance of a ā€˜55, ā€˜56, or ā€˜57 Chevy.Ā  There were other cars, but all where second fiddle to…

Our University – Coaching

I was reading a piece about the ā€œBig Danceā€ and how important it is to a university.Ā  For the uninitiated few, the Big Dance is the annual NCAA basketball tournament that some feel will boost college enrollments, solve fiscal problems,…

Our University – The Fourth and Tenure

Independence of thought for a collected group of people and independence of thought for an individual are so tightly wound together that you cannot have one without the other.Ā  First, the case of our nation.Ā  The coercion exercised upon the…

Our University – Service Motive

Anyone paying attention to higher education knows the familiar mantra: Ā teaching, research and service.Ā  This three legged stool of mission is resident in nearly every public and private university in the United States and it is even leaking into institutions…

Our University – Reverse Transfer

Reverse transfer is the growing phenomenon of students leaving a four-year institution, like our university, and going to community colleges.Ā  This is called reverse transfer because; when community colleges were initially established the purpose was for technical training, adult education,…

Our University – Quality and Quantity

  When James Walker was president of SIU, he said that he would rather see a very good university of 18,000 students than a mediocre one with 23,000.   President James Walker understood universities and how they work.   Jim…

Faculty at Work

Ā  Our university has an excellent architecture program. Ā  Ā  Architecture students have ACT scores that are over two points higher than the university average.Ā  We are oversubscribed and turn away applicants.Ā  Bringing in more students than can be properly…

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