The only result of whining is to push people with purpose from addressing real problems. The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects. Lord Jeffrey ___________________________________________________________________ Recently the…
Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times Opinionator online July 11, 2011, comments extensively on the relationship of tenure, academic freedom, and current university life in response to a book by Naomi Schaefer Riley entitled, “The Faculty Lounges: And…
From any perspective performance should be central to the work of faculty. Not performance judged by administration, but performance judged by peers. Nothing else ensures relevancy and quality of judgment. From the time of Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s Lyceum, academic…
Unions have helped create positive working conditions in this country that would have been unimaginable 100 years ago. One needs look no further than the history of the development of the Fair Labor Standards Act for proof. Every major advance…
On our university campuses the complexities of political activity to create accountability in public resource allocations abound as performance based funding measures evolve. If handled poorly, and without strong faculty leadership, these good intentions will be for naught, at best. …
The Congressional Record, August 1985, provides a revealing perspective held by Albert Shanker, former President of the United Federation of Teachers from 1964 to 1984 and President of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997, regarding his job…
This week you are reading a reflection from Jay Larson on the impact of the campus environment on the university experience. A Murphysboro native and veteran, Jay has a BA and MA from SIUC in history, specializing in China/Asia and taught…
Halloween marks a number of occasions but none more important than the nailing of Luther’s 95 Theses on the Castle Church door at Wittenberg — the birth of a reformation that transformed the modern world on October 31, 1517. This…
Seventh in a series on teaching excellence Possibly the most important thing that excellent teachers pass on to students is the sense of a prevailing moral fabric resembling what someone gains from a healthy family situation, religious teaching, or association…
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…
Fifth in a series on Integrity Free inquiry is the basis for university excellence. When a faculty member produces research findings in contrast, at odds, or inconsistent with a position of the university, the board, or a donor, academic integrity…
Merit is a concept that is uncomfortable to many on university campuses. Years of service are seen as the golden coin, but longevity and excellence are not always cousins. Confusion between meritorious performance and meeting performance expectations kills the recognition…
Knowing the character of any organization requires multiple perspectives. One powerful way to gauge the character of a university is to see it through the eyes of those who leave it. As I participated in graduation exercises this week, I…
Abraham Lincoln said, “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing”. Any university with strong character and commitment to academic excellence will have…
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…
One of the greatest challenges for leadership is to get people, in all parts of the organization, to tell the truth about how things are. It is not that they actively lie, but that they never want to be bearers…
If B.F. Skinner was a university leader who wanted to foster excellence in teaching, research, and service, as do all intelligent university leaders, he would have come up with a dynamic suggestion, one that many inside and outside of the…
There are hundreds of institutions in the United States recognized today as universities that were called “teachers colleges” a half century ago. As these institutions grew and developed diverse areas of study the title “university” was deemed more appropriate. No…
Faculty members should spend 51 percent of their time serving the state and students, and 49 percent of their time serving themselves in personal intellectual development. Faculty work is unique. Imagine any employment setting where leadership says split your time…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
In this season of thanksgiving and refreshment, of looking ahead and looking back, little is more central to our university than new ideas and new knowledge that build on the past and shape the future. Looking back and looking…
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…
When Mary and I go out to eat we always decide where we are going before we leave. Sometimes we even talk about it on the phone before I get to the house. In other words, this is not a…
Organizations are frequently in debt to quiet people. Servants who lead. Jack Graham was such a person and his death last week reminds of our responsibility to remember. There was an era at SIU in which a forceful, visionary,…
Tenure has changed markedly since its inception as an academic concept. It is often confused with the idea of sinecure. Tenure protects a faculty member from a board of trustees or, in public universities, an elected official who might not…
My mother worked as a riveter sewing sheet metal to plane wings in a defense plant on Long Island during the big war. Countless others did too. My in-laws worked at Grumman on Long Island for a combined total of…
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…
Our world is simultaneously growing and shrinking. We must change our views of ourselves and our increasingly intertwined neighbors, near and far. Change powers Our University. Quality is judged by the change that occurs in students during their time at…
Many important characteristics of a research university contribute quality at Southern, but none compete with faculty for first place. To be sure, without students there is no university. Our raison d’etre is students. But after that we must concede the…
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