Third in a series of thoughts regarding the intersection of faith and reason in university life. Knife edges are the places where greatness lives in organizations. The sides of a knife don’t cut, but the well whetted edge of a…
Second in a series of thoughts regarding the intersection of faith and reason in university life. The expression of a faith perspective is critical to moral and intellectual development of students, yet adherence to one particular view at a public…
First in a series of thoughts regarding the intersection of faith and reason in university life. I am a Christian. I hold faith, founded on principles laid out in the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible, which I…
High quality at low cost is the desire of every organization known, even in communist and socialist societies. The willingness to take the action to keep costs low and quality high is rare. Capitalism’s inelastic bedrock is simply this: people…
Universities all over the United States are wrestling with budget challenges unequaled since the early eighties. There is a tendency in times like these to say, ‘What can we do differently?” or “How can we stay afloat?” Answers outside the…
Adjacencies in architecture are those relationships between the various parts of building that are critical to its success. For example, the living and dining rooms in typical home design have a high degree of adjacency. The rooms support each other…
The ultimate way to increase the retention rate – the percentage of students who return to study after the first year – is to increase admission standards. Similarly, to increase the six-year graduation rates – the national effectiveness measure…
The University of Illinois has been bruised by its aired clout list, but it will recover. In fact, it will be a stronger institution for the focus this incident places on excellence and personal achievement as the measure of…
Nothing is more important to the lifeblood of a university than fresh ideas. These valuable nuggets, like gold, come from panning and searching. They are the results of diligent effort on the part of faculty and students. You can’t buy…
Cub fans, lookout! Talk about underdogs and a passion for the position that marks a ball club. Like the Amazin’ Mets, or Joe Namath’s Jets. People gravitate towards underdogs. There is beauty and passion in it. Some students don’t hit…
Universities work best in the difficult, contentious, unfettered mode that allows free inquiry. Mysterious from within and without. It is their nature. When faculty members are critical of administration, students are rambunctious, and complex discourse erupts on campus, all is…
Trade unionism is an old concept and unions exist for very good reasons. In work environments where the safety of workers is tenuous and the motivation for profit is high, coal mines or steel mills for example, unions create an…
My friend goes to Jamaica for vacation every few years. Jamaica is a poor island nation, the third most populous nation in North America after the United States and Canada. Bob Marley may be its most famous native son. When…
Any organization, public or private, for profit or not-for-profit, large or small, new or old, and governmental or non governmental, lives and dies based on a long view. This does not mean the short-term view is unimportant. The difference is…
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…
In political organizations, the first allegiance for all employees is to the elected official for whom they work. For better or worse the elected official’s allegiance may be to party, to country, to ideology, or unfortunately in many cases, to…
When I was seventeen, like many young men I wanted a cool, fast car. Many of my generation will remember the significance of a ‘55, ‘56, or ‘57 Chevy. There were other cars, but all where second fiddle to…
All universities have histories. Some aspects of those collected histories are powerful while some are minor nuances of institutional life. Look at the impact of the shootings at the University of Texas on August 1, 1966, at Kent State on…
I was reading a piece about the “Big Dance” and how important it is to a university. For the uninitiated few, the Big Dance is the annual NCAA basketball tournament that some feel will boost college enrollments, solve fiscal problems,…
When selling my house a few years ago, bankers refused to underwrite a loan to an individual because he did not appear to have the ability to carry the note successfully. Too bad there are not more discriminating bankers who,…
Clarion-calls for rights of every stripe fill the air on our university campuses across the nation. This is as it should be. There are those demanding the rights for the pregnant mother, and rights for the unborn, rights for…
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. First, the case of our nation. The coercion exercised upon the…
There is a cloister of monks that makes wooden bowls from green, uncured lumber. The bowls are very beautiful but they immediately begin to crack as the wood dries out and shrinks as wood is prone to do. This is…
I know I am trouble already with that title, but hear me out. For all the discourse about universities being like businesses, they are not run in a business-like fashion. Great businesses run on the nexus of merit, productivity and…
Anyone paying attention to higher education knows the familiar mantra: teaching, research and service. 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…
The concept of “the Ivory Tower” is used in a negative sense when referring to universities to indicate a separation from reality and the practical concerns of the world. “Ivory Tower” first appears in the Song of Solomon 7:4, but…
At this time of the year, it is hard not to reflect on graduate education and its rising importance to many students in colleges and universities. We send students to some of the best graduate schools in the United States:…
I recently had the opportunity to attend a reception in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Arts. It was an alumni event to celebrate the life and work of R. Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was a remarkable man by any…
For many, these three letters may spell something that happens in front of an audience or television camera. For millions of high school graduates seeking entrance to a university, they are the bane of their existence in the transition between…
In the study of architecture at any university there are always a few courses on professional practice. They are required by accrediting agencies, but that burden is of little consequence. Practitioners want the discipline to flourish; therefore standards of behavior…
Job prospects for graduating students are as challenging as anyone has seen in decades. There is scarcely a bright light to be found. In a rush to address this complex socioeconomic and political issue some universities might be led to…
Reverse transfer is the growing phenomenon of students leaving a four-year institution, like our university, and going to community colleges. This is called reverse transfer because; when community colleges were initially established the purpose was for technical training, adult education,…
For all of the bad news about Illinois politicians and their appointees, pay for play, rigged bidding and contract decision making, favoritism, patronage, back room dealing, sinecure, influence peddling, and plain old back scratching, I have become very fond of…
The struggles of a university are not the subject of these thoughts. That would be too easy. The struggles are many, not unique, frequently self-inflicted, and reflective of the environment. Universities are members of a family of similar institutions. The…
Diversity is a catalyst for strength. There is a great deal of discussion at our university, as there is on other campuses, about diversity and its importance to the campus culture. This dialog is usually viewed through the lens of…
Distinctiveness is the strength of any organization. True at any time, in any place, its importance is magnified when the competitive climate intensifies. We own geographic distinctiveness. The location above, the front steps of the recently renovated Morris Library, is…
Reach is the ability of an institution; a family, a university, a seat of commerce, a government to generate impact beyond its home or geographic boundaries. Reach comes from quality. Quality comes from knowledge and insight. Knowledge and insight are…
The most powerful stimulus ever invented, used for good and evil since the beginning of time, and producing both astoundingly positive results and the greatest tragedies in human history, creating vast wealth and pervasive poverty, leading to fulfillment or failure,…
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…
In the tension between ideology and pragmatism, that delicate balance, lives the genius of leadership. Ideologues are often associated with narrow-mindedness and a small view of the world. People who hold strong views related to their faith are…
As the eternal optimist, I have pondered the lessons available from watching the national response to the economic challenges that we face, and how some instruction or, should providence smile on us, some wisdom might be valuable for our university. …
Our university has an excellent architecture program. Architecture students have ACT scores that are over two points higher than the university average. We are oversubscribed and turn away applicants. Bringing in more students than can be properly…
I have previously commented on the various ways that families can reduce the cost of attending university. In my own case, I attended a community college and completed my AAS degree earning 70 hours… almost all of which transferred to…
Entitlement is the state of being owed that which you have not earned. We see workers of all kinds, at every level, from classroom teachers to state and national political leaders who suffer from the notion that they are…
