An effective leader must do everything within his or her power to create a strong organizational culture. Teamwork, knowledge of process, values shared by all workers, a clear understanding of organizational purpose, and a shared goal of attaining that purpose…
West Texas A&M University had its summer graduation last week, as did many universities around the nation. People are always willing to give advice to recent graduates, and I am no exception. Hold on to your hat. Don’t delay paying…
For universities job one is serving students one at a time, but they are not customers. Patients maybe, clients perhaps, hopefully subscribers, but there is no fixed product or performance guarantee. Only hope, and servicing hope requires several basic understandings.…
Universities have lost the public trust. Pew, Gallop, and a number of other assemblers of public opinion have studied and reported findings that suggest public trust in Higher Education is eroding. University of Oregon president Michael Schill in a University…
The principles laid out in Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (commonly referred to as simply “The Wealth of Nations”) provide valuable insights regarding public universities. While useful in any university setting,…
This was originally posted March 20, 2016. It is the last summer rerun… The changing student demographics and accompanying changes in expectation from higher education come with no “gentle rapping.” Rather a thunderous pounding that is wished away by many…
Graduates – 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 and quality primary and secondary educational opportunities, and you may have…
I am begging your pardon for a somber reflection amidst the joy of accomplishment—not to be a wet rag on the festivities of high school graduation, but a bright light on the realities of post-secondary education. If your GPA is…
A Continued reflection on citizenship from last week. There are significant relationships between education and citizenship. I am, before anything else, a professor—a teacher. I work to provide students the opportunity to learn. For me, this relationship between opportunity as…
Student satisfaction and customer satisfaction are not equal. Students are not customers except when they spend a night in their dorm room or buy a meal in the cafeteria, a book at the bookstore or a shirt with the school…
On the very best days, the very best universities treat each student distinctively. Universities are in the business of creating, developing and nurturing human capital. This is true when faculty and staff are hired for their unique skill sets to…
Americans are becoming more insular. Universities value international exchanges and study experiences for the benefit to students. IES Abroad and other study-abroad organizations encourage learning abroad because of the many identified, positive outcomes. A lack of understanding between different people…
If five people go into the same Ford dealership and buy an F150, each will pay a different price. The cost of the new vehicle will be determined by the buyer’s ability to negotiate, the salesperson, color, options, trade-in, interest…
pinterest.com cdfd802216040079fc70c1e3cb899f3a–young-frankenstein-mad-scientists Every high school and college student, every working professional engaged in continuing education and every educational leader and faculty member will address this question every day: “What is the correct mix of face-to-face and online instruction?” According to…
image from The Market of Ideas www.college.columbia.edu. The center of every university experience worth its salt is a grounding in the fundamentals of the human condition. For full and lasting impact on students, it should also be rigorous and challenging.…
image from o-MONEY-facebook.jpg-photos Universities endeavor to transfer the burden of blame to bankers and politicians. Sallie Mae holds almost $200 billion dollars of the debt. Like the housing bubble, much of the student debt problem involves politically driven, unsecured, unchecked…
Ninth in a series on why U.S. Universities are great “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” — C.S. Lewis U.S. universities, until the time of the Morrill Act of…
Second in a series on why U.S. Universities are great Columbia University’s 1880 core curricula required a general understanding of the human condition. Coupled with training in specific disciplines it was the Holy Grail for U.S. universities. It may be…
Of all the grades given at U. S. universities in 2013 — I know they all can’t be earned, so many must be given: a gift or show of appreciation for the ever escalating tuition and fees? The title says…
I returned to teaching in SIU’s School of Architecture at the conclusion of a six-year contract as Chancellor on July 1, 2007. I began writing columns and posting them to in November 2007. The experience as chancellor prepared me…
Marc Edwards, MacArthur Fellow, and Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, created consternation regarding the polluted water supply of Flint, Michigan by telling the truth. His water research and expertise predicted the lead laden…
Some colleges and universities show indifference to employment prospects for their graduates, almost callousness, as hoards of students receive degrees, accompanied by too many promissory notes and too few job prospects. Students almost unanimously choose to pursue a particular career…
This reflection was originally published on December 15, 2008. It is worth a second look. Christmas memories are personal, deep and important for me. My family’s New York Christmases with the strong, first generational, influence of Western Europe; Cajun Christmases…
Seventh in a series on university struggles University leadership often genuflects toward personal and institutional survival tolerating the push and pull of “special interests” and cronyism. Putting anything ahead of academic purpose undermines effectiveness and consequently causes universities to…
Sixth in a series on university struggles Study value. In universities, all should speak the truth to one another in spite of political and university leadership relentlessly peddling the idea that any university degree has value. It is clear by…
Fifth in a series on university struggles Forward focus is essential. Over the past four decades, many faculty and university leaders have begun to believe that research and scholarly activity are more important than teaching. Graduate assistants, adjunct, and non-tenure-track…
Fourth in a series on university struggles Students should work hard, study, and accept responsibility for results. Too many are not prepared. While this is true regarding critical thinking skills, basic mathematical abilities, and reading comprehension, these deficiencies are not…
American universities are struggling. Rethinking purpose, attention to mission, and refreshed understanding of value are required. Ten forces at work on higher education will be addressed in the coming months. One – A foolish man builds his house on a…
Organizations train leaders, for better or worse. Various enterprises are hotbeds for positive leadership training: manufacturing, public service, retail, professional services, and universities provide examples. Effective leadership causes people to change their perspective, to do what they otherwise wouldn’t or…
Free community college, whether completely free or only low-cost, is a powerful way for students to reduce the price of a bachelor’s degree or expedite entry into the workforce. Governor Bill Haslam’s Tennessee Promise has created an enrollment surge…
These three disparate items have a common characteristic. They are all produced by people to create profit. If production is halted by a strike corporate profit is diminished. In addition, strikers withholding sweat, and therefore product, may even…
Student life on university campuses should be challenging and rewarding. The honing of the student mind into a unique and individually tailored instrument of thought is a noble aim. That result helps create educated human beings who enhance personal and…
Clinton’s “New College Compact” a ten-year, $350 billion federal commitment to higher education is appealing to people in universities. It is a detailed plan with many moving parts. To Clinton’s credit it’s a big picture approach, to solve a big…
University reputation determines whether or not students want to study there. The Independent of the United Kingdom conducted a survey of college graduates in Europe, and 62% said it was important for a university to be well-known to create better…
McDonald’s is closing hundreds of restaurants this year, according to Fortune. Gallup claims America now ranks 12th on the planet in new businesses. Startups exceeded closures by 100,000 in 2008, and in 2014 closures exceeded startups by 70,000. Cause for…
Seventh in a series on public/private higher education Illinois Sen. Bill Brady’s SB 1565 proposes creating nonprofit boards to guide public universities. It will impact transfer students. The 21 million students enrolled in post-secondary education in the United States are…
Sixth in a series on public/private higher education. A private nonprofit structure for higher education in Illinois as proposed by State Sen. Bill Brady, in SB1565, is appealing because it might provide more choices for students. Vanilla offerings abound…
Fourth in a series on public/private higher education. A common fear regarding Illinois Senator Brady’s idea (SB1565) for transitioning from public to private higher education in Illinois is that it will drive universities to elitism and homogeneity. Wrong on both…
The crust of the biscuit, the place where the rubber hits the road, the lick log in learning, is the exercise of free will that breeds personal responsibility. And nurturing responsibility in its manifold dimensions is the purpose of a…
The German polytechnic universities of the 19th century were the model and the genesis for the power and explosion of the U.S. land-grant universities in the 20th. What’s required of universities in the 21st century will be as markedly different…
Last week at UCLA, a student government committee disturbingly attempted to bar a student from a spot on the Judicial Board. Her transgression? She is a Jew, which might create a conflict of interest. The Daily Bruin got it right: …
In loco parentis, “in the place of a parent,” suggests that an organization or institution should or can act toward the benefit of a child in the absence of his/her mother or father. This ancient contract was embedded in…
An old friend of mine asked me the other day, “What portion of the accumulated student debt was for educational endeavors?” He worked on a campus for a long time, not as a faculty or administrator but as a public…
Distance Education (DE) offerings by community colleges and universities increase in spite of reports indicating an end to a period of unsustainable U.S. growth. In Australia, India, China, Eastern Europe, Russia, Africa and Latin American growth rates range from 14%…
A Christmas Eve review of a student petition for readmission to my program gave me pause. This student earned a freshman GPA below 1.0: an average of less than a “D”; and a high school GPA of 2.5: roughly a…
My reflection on October 6, “I’m Mad, too, Eddie,” (IMTE) criticized the notion of entitlement – not the common political understanding that refers to programs that look after people in old age, like Social Security, or assist with health care…
Of all the pitfalls of biblical illiteracy — and they have been increasing for decades in Western culture – is a tragic ignorance of the pervasiveness of the concept of original sin. I am not a theologian. I am not…
I walked into a room full of freshmen the other day and we exchanged blank stares. They looked at me as if to ask, “Who is this guy?” Simultaneously, I was asking myself, “Who are these people and what do…
Distance education programs can offer quality and academic intensity, but they also can be shams. As the Latin warning caveat emptor suggests, those contemplating distance education or satellite campus study – even on-campus programs – need to ask the right…
The number and value of college degrees produced in the U.S. will be a bone of contention for a long time and the marrow of that bone is that the cost of the degree is no longer borne solely by…
The changing nature of students, their interests and abilities, requires that our universities change too. While they do, we must remember the attributes of learning and insight, and the abilities and skills that make the university valuable to all change…
Universities have lost their mission. Education and academic performance take a back seat to reinforcing the inflated self-concept of students and their families. We have reduced admission standards, reduced standards to progress through courses, and reduced standards of performance required…
In many cases, a college diploma has come to represent exposure to certain experiences rather than individual learning and accomplishment. Absent gross misconduct, everybody passes. The degree is simply a totem of club membership rather than an indication of a…
Competition for ideas is unlike competition for anything else. If we compete to harvest the most gold, we find a limited supply. Fastest person, physiology sets in. Universities should compete for ideas, and those ideas will generate new resources. We…
We tend to find what we look for. You know the old expression, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Those students who look for an intellectual challenge find it… most universities willingly oblige them.…
The relationship of a student to the university is a bit like a marriage. The idea of that relationship is shifting as George Bernard Shaw predicted it would. As with marriage, the university experience is becoming a contractual affiliation rather than…
As we move past the shortest day of the year, my thoughts turn to the eventual return of languid summer days. This column about how universities could make better use of their facilities and faculty during the summer months first…
Increasing costs, lavish loans, low performance standards, the absence of merit, and a lost sense of mission contribute to the diminishment of the effectiveness of public higher education. But most loathsome and detrimental is an organization hell-bent on deflecting every…
Current events related to intercollegiate athletics leads me to post a story this week that was originally published on July 27, 2010. The cost of low integrity programs and poor executive decision making is the highest cost to bear, even…
Universities, one hopes inadvertently, are training generations to avoid responsibility for their actions. This is shameful. Such training breeds an expectation of entitlement that undermines initiative, industry, courage, self-reliance, community, and discourages students from exercising one of the greatest benefits…
Sixth in a series on teaching excellence Great teaching is almost always accompanied by controversy, if not for the teacher, for the student; if not for the student, for the board; if not for the board, for the general public;…
Fifth in a series on teaching excellence It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. — William Ernest Henley One of…
Fourth in a series on teaching excellence Thousands of times during any school day at any university students walk into a classroom, armed with a computer, a cell phone, an iPod, a vision of what they might do for the…
Third in a series on teaching excellence Over the past few years there has been incessant talk about university marketing to increase enrollment. There is more competition to be sure. Research university presidents refer to regional universities and community colleges…
Second in a series on teaching excellence Teaching is leadership. There are many distinctive views of teaching but, in the end, teaching is about leadership. I do not think it possible to find a great leader who is not a…
First in a series on Teaching Excellence The purpose of any university is to help people change the way they think. For example, a student who wants to be an attorney comes to the university and, in effect, says “I…
Students in classes at all universities are lied to, cheated and stolen from every day through grade inflation. Recently at Louisiana State University, a faculty member who refused to lie, cheat or steal was removed from her class of biology…
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…
Visiting with parents and prospective students always reinforces what is most important. The Core Curriculum at our university is a very good one, and provides many options for students to experience a range of intellectual exposure to ideas and subjects…
Over the past few months research, economic development, our library, intercollegiate athletics, graduate study, quality, leadership and resources have been addressed, among a number of other topics. The center of our University, its sole purpose for being though is about…
Stock certificates are used to prove partial ownership of a corporation. A bearer’s stock certificate entitles the holder to exercise all legal rights associated with the stock. Holders of stock certificates want the value of the stock to increase thereby…
