Given renewed interest in federal performance measures (ratings) for universities evidenced byĀ last week’sĀ announcements, this reflection of August 21, 2012 is worth a second look.Ā So are the Department of Educationās pronouncements:Ā No two universities are the same. No universityā¦
Inspired by a recent visit to Seoul National University and Yonsei University in South Korea. In order for a university to create positive economic and social value it must serve the community and region where it is located.Ā However, whenā¦
Mark A. Pearson I am yielding the floor for the second week to my friend Mark A. Pearson. Now retired, for more than a quarter of a century Mark was an institutional psychologist working in 7 different institutions for theā¦
Mark A. Pearson I am yielding the floor for two weeks to my friend Mark A. Pearson. Now retired, for more than a quarter of a century Mark was an institutional psychologist working in 7 different institutions for the statesā¦
This piece originally ran four years ago, November 12, 2010 under the title āThe Appearance of Moneyā.Ā I corrected a few mistakes — probably overlooked a few too.Ā Given current events in Illinois I thought it might be worth aā¦
Seventh and final in the IMTE series A reflection on October 6, āIām Mad, too, Eddie,ā (IMTE) claimed that minority points of view are swept under the rug and labeled as intolerant.Ā Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking at Harvardās commencement, wasā¦
My reflection on October 6, āIām Mad, too, Eddie,ā (IMTE) criticized the notion of entitlement ā not the common political understanding that refers to programs that look after people in old age, like Social Security, or assist with health careā¦
Fifth in the IMTE series My reflection on October 6, āIām Mad, too, Eddie,ā (IMTE) suggested that admissions offices accept students without basic skills or diminish standards and dole out scholarships to enhance enrollment. Last week Rose ā Hulman Instituteā¦
Fourth in the IMTE series My reflection on October 6, āIām Mad, too, Eddie,ā (IMTE) suggested that university leadership appears to react slowly or not at all to athletics problems. The nearly 400,000 students that participate in intercollegiate athletics programsā¦
Third in the IMTE seriesĀ My reflection on October 6, āIām Mad, too, Eddie,ā (IMTE) suggested that university leadership appears to operate without a moral compass. Of course it does appear to be so, because, too frequently, it is so.ā¦
SecondĀ in the IMTE seriesĀ I have a friend, an attorney, who, in response to my column last week, āI’m Mad, too, Eddie,ā (IMTE) said, āComplaining is the easy part but the solutions, now that’s another matter, and never easy.ā Iā¦
First in the IMTE seriesĀ Communities of every type near and far; social, geographic, political, and professional have legitimate expectations about the universities they are married to. Hold on, you may not like much of this. When I arrived inā¦
Of all the pitfalls of biblical illiteracyĀ — and they have been increasing for decades in Western culture ā is a tragic ignorance of the pervasiveness of the concept of original sin. I am not a theologian. I am notā¦
Universities used to be led and managed by people who understood the academic enterprise. Teachers, scholars, servants to individual students, people who with grade-book in hand looked into the eyes of freshmen, taught class, listened to the struggles of studentsā¦
I am a sap. I like college football. I believe football and other team sports create reasonable rivalries and help bind people together who are committed to being members of a campus community. When my band plays my school songā¦
As colleges across the nation open their doors to anxious freshmen the value and worth of this or that degree, at College X or College Y attracts intense scrutiny.Ā Everything from earning capacity to preparation for adulthood, even happiness andā¦
I walked into a room full of freshmen the other day and we exchanged blank stares.Ā They looked at me as if to ask, āWho is this guy?ā Simultaneously, I was asking myself, āWho are these people and what doā¦
I know I will be accused of being old fashioned and out of touch with reality and if so I admit it, but here it is.Ā The position of a university regarding sexual crimes, a growing campus concern, should beā¦
In a free society it is essential that education, however procured, produce people who can dream, think, and accomplish.Ā Exploration and discovery are the roots of freedom and the foundation of egalitarian republics. āI suppose it is because nearly allā¦
Universities serve the same purpose as community colleges, differences are matters of degree.Ā (Pun intended.) āPeople look at me like I’m crazy when I say that our greatest partnership here at Ohio State should be with the community colleges.ā Gordonā¦
A March 12, 2010, column “Student Work” Ā suggested, āOne thing that good universities can do is help reconfigure the role of being a college student on campus so that it might include the opportunity to do personally and institutionally usefulā¦
Distance education programs can offer quality and academic intensity, but they also can be shams.Ā As the Latin warning caveat emptor suggests, those contemplating distance education or satellite campus study ā even on-campus programs ā need to ask the rightā¦
Universities serve many purposes each defined by varied constituents and always based on individual desires and perceptions. This complexity requires that students and families and institutional leaders all appreciate how critical a sharp focus is.Ā Without it no one isā¦
Effective institutional leadership puts a clearly focused mission at the center of every funding decision.Ā And in every organization that seeks to serve people, resources are directed toward that mission. Higher education is opportunity capitalized through thoughtful, rewarded-when-successful risk inā¦
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.Ā No bureaucracy in public service or private enterprise ever starts out as anything but a step towards fairness and excellence.Ā Yet, time and power jointly contrive to pollute legitimate ordering principles.Ā ā¦
Some try to defuse the increasing costs of college and subsidized student debt as an overreaction.Ā Can that be? āDebt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.ā Ā Wendellā¦
Universities can sustain the status quo, asking students to absorb higher levels of debt while begging statehouses for more money and turning faculty into day laborers.Ā Itās a failed strategy though and change must occur. āGonna change my way ofā¦
The basis for President Obamaās action to cap student loan responsibility at 10% of earned income for 20 years (10/20 plan) is that education is a public good and the public should pay for it. Parts of the public, employersā¦
Universities and lenders must be more transparent regarding costs, opportunities, and likelihoods of success to students. āGreater personal choice, individually tailored services, stronger local accountability, greater efficiency – these are all central to the new direction of travel we haveā¦
Healthy loyalty is so rare itās nearly unrecognizable. In many organizations primary loyalty is to the lower right-hand corner of a spreadsheet: a.k.a. the ābottom line,ā and little else. In others, blind loyalty to a leader is expected.Ā In yetā¦
Making university education available to more people through extended operating schedules would be a positive move towards meeting the needs of learners who are parents, single or married, working full time jobs, or otherwise committed in ways that make 8:00ā¦
Universities perpetuate a misconception about an education — that it guarantees anything separated from the person who claims to have one.Ā Many know a āHarvard Manā or a Wellesley Womanā who canāt tie his or her own shoes. Character, ability,ā¦
Graduates ā In a few months millions of people like you, full of hope and anticipation, will transition from high school to college. Privilege may have provided engaged deliberative parenting, quality primary and secondary educational opportunities, and you may haveā¦
The idea that all college students are the same or that there is only one way to prepare for a productive work life is harmfully wrong.Ā High school to college to career works for some.Ā High school to work toā¦
Retirement systems that devalue the contribution of people, or constrain meaningful participation in post retirement work are dysfunctional, costly, and shortsighted.Ā In universities, it is essential that valuable experience be put to best use for as long as possible toā¦
Universities should be sharply focused on academic excellence and helping students develop the power to think.Ā Thinking and doing creates value.Ā And jobs follow like a āshadow on dry thirsty land.ā Ā Employment will be a place of refuge for thoughtā¦
Threats to higher education come not primarily from shady lenders, crass bankers and bureaucrats interested in turning government-subsidized, student-borrowed, dollars into operating capital, elected officials who want to use educational systems for personal gain, but from a bevy of educationalā¦
Political leadership reflects the dreams and nightmares of the electorate. Voter-sanctioned tolerance and expectations percolate into public leaders of every strain, including university presidents. For university leaders, moral authority or its lack, settles into the hearts, minds and souls ofā¦
Student debt recently surpassed total credit card debt.Ā Payments can be delayed through graduate school enrollment; and the accrual of more debt. āMaking loans accessible to millions of the previously unbankable customers is a noble goal. Getting them hooked toā¦
Students borrow too much.Ā Whatās worse, the institutions they borrow too much to attend, borrow too much.Ā A ferocious cycle is created: endlessly optimistic and apparently never satisfied. āDo not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; youā¦
Good universities take risks because they must change.Ā New ideas are risky business.Ā Risk and progress are siblings.Ā And donāt be fooled: Universities are serious businesses and many are on life-support. Ā Healthy institutions learn from exercised risk and mission focus.ā¦
(Spring Break) This column was originally published on March 26, 2010.Ā With modest modification here it is again. Too often we lose touch with the concept of locus of control, personal responsibility and accountability, and the power of individuals toā¦
Universities, to their demise, confuse what they think they can get away with, and what serves their true mission. Moreover, institutions seem to believe they can be known by something other than their actions.Ā Shortsightedness in spades. āValues are likeā¦
Universities that deny the relationship between merit and value undermine quality.Ā Without recognition of meritorious achievement results fall.Ā So desperate are organizations to be perceived as having value they replace excellence with its appearance, real performance with placebos, and theā¦
The essence of training is the transfer of skills and abilities.Ā Ā The essence of education is human interaction between someone ignorant and someone expert in a field of knowledge yielding learnerās transformation. āProfessors usually teach 12 hours, and are alsoā¦
The marketplace of higher education is special, unique, and provides something unlike any other enterprise. But, it is a marketplace nonetheless. Universities are subsidized by the state and therefore are obliged to respond to the social and economic needs ofā¦
In many rural areas, even those with a university, there is a pervasive sense that economic vitality is impossible, the challenges too great, rewards too limited and regional poverty too persistent. This is a costly misconception. āNobody made a greaterā¦
Good universities provide economic growth by pursuing their primary purpose: Universities must cultivate the human spirit and, simultaneously, build the capacity of the mind with a challenging academic environment.Ā Positive growth always follows. āOnly when the human spirit is allowedā¦
Position, profit, and power are too frequently both seed corn and fruit of exercised leadership.Ā Purpose, passion, and perseverance ignite the fires of leadership, consuming the old and creating the new. For what shall it profit a man, if heā¦
Treat students with dignity and respect. Set high standards.Ā Expect performance.Ā Experienced, effective, teachers should meet students at āthe door.ā āOnce they leave, they donāt come back.Ā Itās more important to do better in your intro course than in yourā¦
Every sector of the nationās economy is in flux.Ā Change breeds strength, but if pursued for its own sake may pervert primary purpose.Ā Our universities should ask, āWho do we serve?āĀ Statehouses, communities, and industry? Absolutely.Ā But, the pinnacle ofā¦
