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…
Significant challenges face public higher education and corrective actions are not easy to see. The Republican primary debate last week revealed a few concerns and fewer solutions. Five pieces of the puzzle were evidenced. One — Senator Marco Rubio reminded…
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…
Leadership in any organization implies and requires transformation. Change in purposeful groups of people, large and small, creates discomfort. Organizational discomfort sometimes matures into a labyrinth of processes that stymie evolution in every corner of the hierarchy. Numerous excuses…
National economic growth requires education beyond high school. College in the conventional sense is not always the answer to a stronger economy. Neither the traditional 20th century view of higher education from the student and family vantage point (outside looking…
Last week the staff of the Federal Reserve Board of New York published a report, “Credit Supply and the Rise in College Tuition,” tracing the relationship between a cheap, seemingly never-ending, supply of cash and the interminable increases in college…
Universities impact regional economies. In rural areas where economic diversity is scant, the impact is greatest. Economic growth follows four forces. A Labor Force Universities require workers of every stripe, and the jobs needed are one aspect of economic development.…
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…
Ninth in a series on public/private higher education Senator Bill Brady’s legislation, SB1565 for changing the nature of higher education boards in Illinois, will be difficult to endorse: Large government organizations loathe change. George Will observed it’s not so…
Eighth in a series on public/private higher education Too many public organizations gravitate towards performance at the lowest common denominator. Private organizations do too, but mediocrity’s poison is more prevalent in public settings. Illinois State Senator Bill Brady might be…
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…
Fifth in a series on public/private higher education. Too many universities accept unprepared students. Regardless of status — public, private nonprofit or for-profit — motivation is suspect and results debilitating. Institutions know it, but bureaucracies need to be fed. …
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…
Illinois state Senator Brady’s suggestion for making public universities private (Illinois SB 1565) hinges on a transfer of power away from politically appointed boards. The bill posits a nonprofit board structure, not to be confused with that of profit driven…
The proposal by Illinois State Senator Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, to convert state universities into private non-profit corporations run by a board of directors addresses a basic question: “What is a public university?” As politicians frequently reflect, if you want to…
Illinois State Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, started a discussion with SB1565 that could return the prestige of the higher education enterprise to one of the best in the nation. The not-ready-for-prime-time proposal calls for a conversion of universities to a…
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…
Overwhelmingly, the 7400 state lawmakers nationwide attended and graduated from public universities. Again overwhelmingly, these elected officials attended schools in their home states. All but four of the 535 members of the United States Congress have a post-secondary education. A…
President Obama recently proposed America’s College Promise, free community college to qualified students. Great marketing, even greater mythmaking. I recently reviewed the 2015 budget for John A. Logan College in Carterville, Illinois; a similar budget would be at found at…
This was originally posted on February 18, 2011. The importance of effective 2+2 transfer agreements grows. This is a worthwhile reflection although 4 years old. Sixth in a series on who our students are and how they perform. Quality transfer…
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: …
According to M. Jagger that is. From every corner of the universe of universities, dissatisfaction with campus climate abounds. The costs, the social climate, the impact, the value, and nearly every other aspect of university life are maligned by one…
According to the higher education leaders, many elected officials, faculty, students, staff and the general public, higher education budget cuts will send universities, and therefore their states, into decline. Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker’s budget proposal last week included a decrease…
“Students from high-income families are considerably more likely than students from low income families to earn a college degree.” So says a Higher Education Equity report. That’s not my bias, but an incontrovertible fact. My bias is that crime and…
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…
Recent reports give some interesting examples of politicians who have made a leap of faith into leadership roles in the academic community. Some are cataloged nicely in a recent Politico piece. Bob Gates, President Emeritus of Texas A&M University and…
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…
Given renewed interest in federal performance measures (ratings) for universities evidenced by last week’s announcements, this reflection of August 21, 2012 is worth a second look. So are the Department of Education’s pronouncements: No two universities are the same. No university…
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. However, when…
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 the…
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 states…
This piece originally ran four years ago, November 12, 2010 under the title “The Appearance of Money”. I corrected a few mistakes — probably overlooked a few too. Given current events in Illinois I thought it might be worth a…
Seventh and final in the IMTE series A reflection on October 6, “I’m Mad, too, Eddie,” (IMTE) claimed that minority points of view are swept under the rug and labeled as intolerant. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking at Harvard’s commencement, was…
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…
Fifth in the IMTE series My reflection on October 6, “I’m Mad, too, Eddie,” (IMTE) suggested that admissions offices accept students without basic skills or diminish standards and dole out scholarships to enhance enrollment. Last week Rose – Hulman Institute…
Fourth in the IMTE series My reflection on October 6, “I’m Mad, too, Eddie,” (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 programs…
Third in the IMTE series My reflection on October 6, “I’m Mad, too, Eddie,” (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.…
Second in the IMTE series I have a friend, an attorney, who, in response to my column last week, “I’m Mad, too, Eddie,” (IMTE) said, “Complaining is the easy part but the solutions, now that’s another matter, and never easy.” I…
First in the IMTE series 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 in…
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…
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 students…
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 song…
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. Everything from earning capacity to preparation for adulthood, even happiness and…
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. The position of a university regarding sexual crimes, a growing campus concern, should be…
In a free society it is essential that education, however procured, produce people who can dream, think, and accomplish. Exploration and discovery are the roots of freedom and the foundation of egalitarian republics. “I suppose it is because nearly all…
Universities serve the same purpose as community colleges, differences are matters of degree. (Pun intended.) “People look at me like I’m crazy when I say that our greatest partnership here at Ohio State should be with the community colleges.” Gordon…
A March 12, 2010, column “Student Work” suggested, “One 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 useful…
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…
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. Without it no one is…
Effective institutional leadership puts a clearly focused mission at the center of every funding decision. 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 in…
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No bureaucracy in public service or private enterprise ever starts out as anything but a step towards fairness and excellence. Yet, time and power jointly contrive to pollute legitimate ordering principles. …
Some try to defuse the increasing costs of college and subsidized student debt as an overreaction. Can that be? “Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.” Wendell…
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. It’s a failed strategy though and change must occur. “Gonna change my way of…
The basis for President Obama’s 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, employers…
Universities and lenders must be more transparent regarding costs, opportunities, and likelihoods of success to students. “Greater personal choice, individually tailored services, stronger local accountability, greater efficiency – these are all central to the new direction of travel we have…
Healthy loyalty is so rare it’s nearly unrecognizable. In many organizations primary loyalty is to the lower right-hand corner of a spreadsheet: a.k.a. the “bottom line,” and little else. In others, blind loyalty to a leader is expected. In yet…
Universities perpetuate a misconception about an education — that it guarantees anything separated from the person who claims to have one. Many know a “Harvard Man” or a Wellesley Woman” who can’t tie his or her own shoes. Character, ability,…
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. High school to college to career works for some. High school to work to…
Retirement systems that devalue the contribution of people, or constrain meaningful participation in post retirement work are dysfunctional, costly, and shortsighted. In universities, it is essential that valuable experience be put to best use for as long as possible to…
Universities should be sharply focused on academic excellence and helping students develop the power to think. Thinking and doing creates value. And jobs follow like a “shadow on dry thirsty land.” Employment will be a place of refuge for thought…
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 educational…
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 of…
Student debt recently surpassed total credit card debt. Payments can be delayed through graduate school enrollment; and the accrual of more debt. “Making loans accessible to millions of the previously unbankable customers is a noble goal. Getting them hooked to…
Students borrow too much. What’s worse, the institutions they borrow too much to attend, borrow too much. A ferocious cycle is created: endlessly optimistic and apparently never satisfied. “Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you…
Good universities take risks because they must change. New ideas are risky business. Risk and progress are siblings. And don’t be fooled: Universities are serious businesses and many are on life-support. Healthy institutions learn from exercised risk and mission focus.…
(Spring Break) This column was originally published on March 26, 2010. 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 to…
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. Shortsightedness in spades. “Values are like…
Universities that deny the relationship between merit and value undermine quality. Without recognition of meritorious achievement results fall. So desperate are organizations to be perceived as having value they replace excellence with its appearance, real performance with placebos, and the…
The essence of training is the transfer of skills and abilities. The essence of education is human interaction between someone ignorant and someone expert in a field of knowledge yielding learner’s transformation. “Professors usually teach 12 hours, and are also…
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 of…
Position, profit, and power are too frequently both seed corn and fruit of exercised leadership. Purpose, passion, and perseverance ignite the fires of leadership, consuming the old and creating the new. For what shall it profit a man, if he…
Every sector of the nation’s economy is in flux. Change breeds strength, but if pursued for its own sake may pervert primary purpose. Our universities should ask, “Who do we serve?” Statehouses, communities, and industry? Absolutely. But, the pinnacle of…
Admissions standards and requirements are changing. Student and family expectations are likewise in flux. Responsible leadership recognizes the complexities playing on the mind and heart of students. Honesty, rather than twisting trepidation and apprehension into enrollment and cash flow, is…
Organizations that rely on the public trust must build trust from within to earn the reputation of trustworthiness. Treatment of people creates an aura of trust or distrust. It’s not arbitrary. Human groups give and receive trust: It is a…
Sixth and final reflection on corporate culture… Nurturing a strong organizational culture is the only job that matters. Without the power of a positive shared experience, selfishness and happenstance rule not vision or purpose. “A company’s culture is often buried…
Fifth in a series on Corporate Culture… Where we work shapes us, our work, and those we work with. Places create culture. “I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see…
Fourth in a series on Corporate Culture… Rules without relationships guide organizations to mediocrity at best and in the worst case to the lowest common denominator. Relationships rule. “The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort…
Second in a series of reflections on corporate culture Any organization of human capital rises and falls based on membership’s confidence in corporate mission and means. Effectiveness is achieved when corporate confidence flows liberally. Leadership is the source, whether the…
This is the first in a series of reflections on corporate culture. By corporate I mean collective or community culture. I hope the reflections have application in settings where any group of individuals work together towards a common goal. ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. Loyal…
The fundamentals of a free thinking society, communication and ciphering ability, are not do-dads, or throw-aways but essentials for a university to meet its public responsibilities and have durable economic impact. “So what does business need from our educational system? …
Higher education in China is changing rapidly. When China’s higher education complex matures, it may look like the Golden State’s in 1960. “China maintains a highly specialized approach to university studies that has its roots in the Soviet model, but…
The future of higher education is intertwined with the future of the economic health of our states and nation. The two are inseparable, and our universities are barometers. We need to face challenges head on. “The problem is not that…
Bankruptcy is a form of renewal available to those who have tried to do something worthwhile but failed. If borrowing power is earned by experience and potential performance thank God for bankruptcy’s protection. If borrower or lender enter into a…
Standardized measures never capture the essence of anything, although they provide dimensions: length, width, and depth – descriptions — but not essence. Tests, grades, and performance measures devoid of dreams and desires are gibberish. Measures are frail rhetoric and detrimental…
Clear communication regarding value and cost in higher education is more important than ever. College presidents and financial analysts agree — mission focus is essential. “In general, higher education does not know how to speak for its interests. It offers…
Bureaucracies create and sustain a moral perspective. “If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won’t.” Hyman Rickover ___________________________________________________ Effective bureaucracies — vision directed guidelines and processes — are…
The loan industry has a dubious impact on higher education. It advocates, unknowingly or deceitfully, that a college degree is always an excellent investment. It helps shift focus to cost as a measure of everything, away from quality, value and…
State funding has its place but too much might create organizational laziness, leadership ineffectiveness, and unattainable expectations. Unbridled dependence morphs into a form of gluttony. “The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as `free…
The beauty of American higher education is the coupling of thought and action: Thinking people putting ideas to work make a university strong. It’s the foundation of a free society to boot. But is it a disappearing reality? “You see,…
Students and families should understand what is desired from an education. Socially or politically prescribed solutions for personal aspirations don’t work. “Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that…
Increasing college costs and decreasing employment opportunity have produced an avalanche of studies regarding the value of college degrees. Sometimes more information is not better. A “back to basics” understanding would be valuable to all. “Nowadays people know the price…
This column was originally published October 28, 2010. It’s easy to forget the purpose of universities and the essential — if at times testy — interplay of free thought in a free society. In an age that increasingly gives personal…
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…
Universities will change to meet changing student needs. Some within the higher education establishment fear looming changes. Change should be embraced by them for the opportunity offered to diverse students. “Many of the most powerful forces driving change in higher…
