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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Barbara Bush acknowledged a number of years ago, possibly when First Lady, what she believed was the most pressing problem in America. “Greed.” We have heard a great deal about greed on Wall Street. Bankers who want to make…
Bill and Jan, our friends from Murphysboro, were at the Saluki football game on Saturday last week. Somewhere along the way the excitement and workings of time got to Bill. He had a cardiac arrest. It was serious business, his…
The greatest challenge of any university is building a community. This probably could be said for any enterprise, including towns in Southern Illinois that so many of us call home. Individuals sometimes get things done, communities almost always get things…
Calcification is what happens to soft tissue when it is taken over by calcium. It gets hard. It is no longer resilient. It becomes immobile. And eventually, it cannot work or act the way it was intended to. While I…
St. Paul was a brave man. He summed up the purpose of the Christian Church in ten words uttered to the Church at Corinth: “Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.” The simplicity…
Any good university is concerned first and foremost, now and always, with academic excellence. That is our purpose. 128 university presidents signed onto The Amethyst Initiative, a recent effort suggesting the drinking age should be lowered to 18. The primary…
I recently had the opportunity to spend time in Vietnam. For veterans who served “in country” Vietnam is a different place today. It is teeming with free enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit. New business start-ups are everywhere and there is a…
Universities are affected by many forces at work in the environment. Location, student population, faculty composition and a multitude of other factors shape what a university is. On occasion, an individual will come along and join a university, sometimes as…
The idea of coupling military training and university education originated in 1783. New York Governor George Clinton proposed that civilian colleges, one in each state of the union, offer military training to students. The construct is remarkably similar to…
In places of worship we often think about the importance of lay leadership. No matter how powerful the spiritual leader, how driven by God, how adroit at understanding the business of the organization, how gifted in dealing with people helping…
There are many perspectives that you can take of our university, ways to see it, ways to engage it, ways to experience it. I have had, over the years, a number of opportunities to talk with parents of students. They…
In a great university… this could probably be said for any great organization… individuals must feel responsibility for the future, that it rests on their actions and decisions. This creates a powerful kind of accountability, a deep sense of purpose…
The ability of our university to reach full potential and to engender in students a concentrated and powerful academic experience rests with the nature of the campus as a place to live, as well as a place to study. Ideally,…
Campus evokes strong memories for graduates. The word was first used in the United States to describe the ground Princeton University occupied. In a letter Charles C. Beatty 1775 wrote to his brother-in-law Enoch Green 1760 on January 31, 1774:…
Creating a strong sense of community for students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends is crucial to building a strong university. There are many avenues through which communities are built, but one that is undeniably powerful for public research universities is…
Wanting our university to grow in stature and importance, because it will be a better friend to our region, is an appropriate and powerful aspiration. There is only one way to do it. Seeking quality, defined and heralded as academic…
Universities are a particular type of thread in a neighborhood fabric. In cities, neighborhood is a highly local concept, comprising maybe a few blocks, but not so with Southern, nestled between two rivers, and twice that many cultures. Our university…
I came to work one morning last week and noticed a policeman raising a flag. For those of you who don’t know our campus, this was a surprise because Robert Reid raised and lowered the campus flags every day. An…
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