About this site

On this site, you will find weekly articles originally published in newspapers across the Texas Panhandle and beyond. Since I began writing in 2007, more than 800 reflections have accumulated here. A few may be worth your time—I will let you decide that.

The earliest pieces were written during my years on the architecture faculty at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Over time, the columns have focused increasingly on the role of higher education: how universities function, the value they bring to individuals and communities, and their enduring impact on society. My hope is that these opinion pieces will spark thoughtful reflection about the place of universities in our national life.

Thank you for visiting. I’ll close with this thought:

Governments cannot make universities by enactments of laws: Nor corporations by erections of edifices: The church cannot create them under the authority of heaven: The flattering eulogies of orators cannot adorn them with learning: Newspapers cannot puff them into being. Learned men-scholars- these are the only workmen who can build up universities. Provide charters and endowments- the necessary protection and capital – provide books and apparatus- the necessary tools: Then seek out sufficient scholars, and leave them to their work, as the intellectual engineers who alone are competent to do it.

–Henry P. Tappan (1805-1881) President, University of Michigan 1858, lecture, Christian Library Association 22 June, quoted in Richard Hofstadter and William Smith (eds.) American Higher Education: A Documentary History Volume II 1961, p. 519