Originally posted a decade ago. Worth another look. 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…
Originally posted on June 15, 2009, modified slightly. Old hat? Nope, never more important. I know I am in trouble with that title, but hear me out. For all the discourse about universities being like businesses, they are not run…
Originally published nearly a decade ago, on March 30, 2015, it has a ring of interest for current students and students of current events. Slightly modified here. Overwhelmingly, the 7,400 state lawmakers nationwide attended and graduated from public universities. Again, overwhelmingly, these…
Fourth in a series on strengths in regional universities. The nature of university students is changing. According to the Education Data Initiative, nearly 16 million undergraduate students are enrolled in college as of 2020. That represents a 4.3% decline over…
The season of decision-making for many college students is upon us. Applications have been prepared and sent to universities. Discussions with family and friends have been pursued. Assessments of costs, financial aid and scholarships are being deliberated. A major factor…
Ninth in a series regarding Panhandle values and quality of life. This reflection is modified but was initially posted on March 6, 2021. In traveling the Texas Panhandle, I sensed in many communities a genuine, thoughtful loyalty to people and…
Sixth in a series regarding Panhandle values and quality of life. This reflection is modified but was initially posted in February 2021. The concept of patriotism is recognized as love or devotion to one’s country. I believe patriotism is cultivated from…
Second in a series of reflections on student life at West Texas A&M University. For students to engage in a rewarding and complete campus experience, little is more important than the foundation laid in the first year. Many universities have…
In continuation of sharing the first four reflections published in November 2017, this is the second piece I wrote after my arrival at WT. In 1769, Charles Thompson received financial aid from John Hobbs’s widow to study the ministry at…
The anthem of the Rolling Stones and the genesis of the British invasion, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” moaned in depressingly plain language that “satisfaction” was impossible. The students of the 1960s loved it. Millennials and post-millennials question a new…
Previously published but updated here as the council is still worthwhile. High School 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…
Previously published but updated here. What a year. Old council sometimes retains its value. Dear Graduating Senior, I am begging your pardon for a somber reflection amidst the joy of the near completion of high school – not to be…
Family and the University If a university is to be successful—effective in serving those who choose to study there—it must appreciate the place that hosts it. In the coming weeks I will reflect on the relationship between West Texas A&M…
Second in a series on COVID-19 and studying in Spring 2021 The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was instituted to provide assistance to individuals and families suffering through the economic trials of COVID-19. I will not rehearse…
As we begin the holiday season, a time of thanksgiving for many, even in the midst of trepidation and gloom, thoughtful people will look ahead. Choices regarding college attendance in the spring are more important than ever before. A few…
West Texas A&M University will host a virtual graduation in December — a decision reached only after much discussion and heartfelt deliberations. Details regarding the event will be released soon. I know that many faculty, staff, students and families will…
Fifth in a series of how universities can help build character. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. If you hummed that along in your head, you probably know where this is going. Respect is a commodity. It is traded like baseball cards. It’s a give…
Ninth in a series on what to look for in college. Seventy percent of college students graduated with debt last year—on average $30,000. Some will repay that debt with Social Security checks voluntarily or through garnishment. Of Americans over 60,…
Fourth in a series on what to look for in college. Cotton Center, one of the smallest independent school districts in the Texas Panhandle or the South Plains, has a total enrollment from pre-k through grade 12 of 100 students.…
Pictured: Sundown’s rich history in the oil and gas industry is represented through a donated energy exhibit that has been a fixture of Sundown High School since the late 70s. Pictured from left: Bill Craddock, WTAMU Alumnus, Graduate of Sundown…
First in a series on what to look for in a college. What should students and families look for as they consider college? In the coming weeks, insights from the South Plains of Texas will be shared. New Home, Texas,…
As the new year begins, scores of students and their families will make choices about where to study next fall. Affordability, location and degree offerings should be serious considerations. No one should ever say, “It is worth it no matter…
In Texas 52.2% of the college students initially enrolled in 2009 had graduated with a bachelor’s degree by the year 2015, according to the most recent data available at the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems Information Center. I bet…
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…
What follows is, in part, from a speech I gave at the invitation of the Honorable Judge Phil Gilbert on March 26, 2004. At a naturalization ceremony, the polyglot of peoples that sat before me holding American flags were…
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…
That’s what they used to call it: on-the-job training. In the professional discipline of architecture, it was common for people to become architects by being an apprentice in an architectural office. After 12 years of apprenticeship, a candidate could…
Dual credit or concurrent course credit allows high school students to take courses to earn a high school diploma and college credit simultaneously. Strong opinions abound on both sides of dual-credit discussions. This approach especially helps poor and first-generation students.…
We create false dichotomies. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop; idle lips are his mouthpiece,” from the Book of Proverbs. At 14 years old in 1964, I heard, “Idle hands…
Image from The Prairie News Every spring, countless families from across the nation make determinations about where students will live while attending college. Four-year institutions require one or two years of campus residency for new college students. Exceptions for…
Downtown Canyon, Homecoming, From the WT Archives Communities and the universities they host are married to each other. When one partner grows and prospers, so does the other. This has been true for a long time. In European universities…
In 1769, Charles Thompson received financial aid from John Hobbs’s widow to study the ministry at Brown University. In 1792, the Philadelphia Association gave Brown’s president permission to employ a student to ring the bell. For this, the student earned…
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…
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…
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…
This commentary was published five years ago. Current discussions regarding standardized tests make it worth a second look. It has been tuned up. ACT: For many, these three letters spell something that happens in front of an audience or television…
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…
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,…
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, quality primary and secondary educational opportunities, and you may have…
In the best cases, technical education is not just training. In the worst cases, training in literature, history, and mathematics is not always education. Oversimplifications do injustice to both pursuits. “If you want to teach people a new way of…
It’s the season when many soon-to-be high school graduates seek a place to study. Believe some of what you read, a great deal of what you see, and make sure the selection feels right. Be careful. “There is no such…
High-schoolers, make your study choices carefully. Look inside your heart, soul and mind: Determine what’s right for you. “We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles rather than by the…
Finding the right college to fit individual needs is critical, and one size does not fit all. Only thoughtful personal consideration should guide decision making. However, some issues cannot be overlooked. “The college search doesn’t have to begin and end…
Dear Graduating Senior, I must beg your pardon for a somber reflection amidst the joy of your accomplishment: not to be a wet rag on the festivities of graduation, but to shine a light on the realities of post-secondary education.…
Leadership without spine or vision, subject to political whim, fancy, flirtation, and subjugation, will compromise, and eventually enfeeble, U.S. higher education. To watch it occur, as universities are held up as the panacea for social ills, is reckless beyond measure. Real…
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…
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…
There is real work associated with the purpose of the university. Work focused on changing the way people think, and changing the way a society operates. Work building a productive economy. Work that creates enlightened action. It is never…
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…
Third in a series on state funding for higher education Addressing how the Monetary Assistance Program (MAP) is affecting the students of Illinois, the IBHE Task Force observed: The first issue is the increasing demand for financial aid. More students…
Second in a series on state funding for higher education Historically, while state contributions to the total operating budgets of universities have increased as a percentage of all spending, tuition has remained a roughly stable percentage of all operating costs. …
Bachelor’s degrees at community colleges are not a good idea. Articulated transfer is a better answer but both community colleges and universities must be more responsive to the needs of student and state. Pascarella and Terenzini suggest, in Studying College…
A shared vision for a university energizes people. Students must be partners in that vision casting process because theirs is the most fundamental experience that defines whether we have succeeded as an educational institution, and, more importantly to institutions in…
Sixth in a series of who our students are and how they perform. Quality transfer students can bring positive characteristics to the university, not the least of which is a willingness to work. Avril Thorne, Professor of Psychology at U.C.…
First in a series on who our students are, and how they perform. The precariousness of balancing opportunity, access and excellence will be addressed in the coming weeks as the face of the university intersects the faces of students. An…
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…
Second in a series on integrity. This is not about double dipping as was reported last week in the Seattle Times; lavish trips to distant lands under the guise of recruiting additional students; fancy offices and luxury cars; incessantly increasing…
The world is unfair. People without resources are denied access to higher education. No matter how low tuition is, it is still out of reach for some. Inside Higher Ed ran a story recently about a program at Tulsa Community…
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…
In a study from the early part of this century, Learning and Earning: Working in College by Orszag and others, it was found that students who work a reasonable number of hours per week while enrolled in college, say 8…
A measure of university success in “rankings exercises” such as U.S. News and World Reports, Kiplinger’s, and others has appropriately been the rate at which a student completes college. If a student spends a few years at a university and…
When selling my house a few years ago, bankers refused to underwrite a loan to an individual because he did not appear to have the ability to carry the note successfully. Too bad there are not more discriminating bankers who,…
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…
For many, these three letters may spell something that happens in front of an audience or television camera. For millions of high school graduates seeking entrance to a university, they are the bane of their existence in the transition between…
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…
In different settings people use the phrase “two sides of the house”. When you hear this relative to a university the subject is the idea that there are academic issues, and everything else is “the other side 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…
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…
Recently I was asked to address honors students in Union County regarding their futures. I am taking the liberty of sharing a condensed version of those comments as hints that might be of value to highschoolers who are about to…
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…
