Cub fans, lookout!Ā Talk about underdogs and a passion for the position that marks a ball club.Ā Like the Amazinā Mets, or Joe Namathās Jets.Ā People gravitate towards underdogs.Ā There is beauty and passion in it.Ā Some students donāt hitā¦
Universities work best in the difficult, contentious, unfettered mode that allows free inquiry. Mysterious from within and without.Ā It is their nature. When faculty members are critical of administration, students are rambunctious, and complex discourse erupts on campus, all isā¦
Trade unionism is an old concept and unions exist for very good reasons.Ā In work environments where the safety of workers is tenuous and the motivation for profit is high, coal mines or steel mills for example, unions create anā¦
My friend goes to Jamaica for vacation every few years.Ā Jamaica is a poor island nation, the third most populous nation in North America after the United States and Canada.Ā Bob Marley may be its most famous native son. Whenā¦
Any organization, public or private, for profit or not-for-profit, large or small, new or old, and governmental or non governmental, lives and dies based on a long view. This does not mean the short-term view is unimportant.Ā The difference isā¦
Warning – There is a three-letter word below that might be offensive ā 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 theā¦
In political organizations, the first allegiance for all employees is to the elected official for whom they work.Ā For better or worse the elected officialās allegiance may be to party, to country, to ideology, or unfortunately in many cases, toā¦
Ā When I was seventeen, like many young men I wanted a cool, fast car.Ā Many of my generation will remember the significance of a ā55, ā56, or ā57 Chevy.Ā There were other cars, but all where second fiddle toā¦
All universities have histories.Ā Some aspects of those collected histories are powerful while some are minor nuances of institutional life.Ā Look at the impact of the shootings at the University of Texas on August 1, 1966, at Kent State onā¦
I was reading a piece about the āBig Danceā and how important it is to a university.Ā For the uninitiated few, the Big Dance is the annual NCAA basketball tournament that some feel will boost college enrollments, solve fiscal problems,ā¦
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.Ā Too bad there are not more discriminating bankers who,ā¦
Ā Clarion-calls for rights of every stripe fill the air on our university campuses across the nation.Ā This is as it should be.Ā There are those demanding the rights for the pregnant mother, and rights for the unborn, rights forā¦
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.Ā First, the case of our nation.Ā The coercion exercised upon theā¦
There is a cloister of monks that makes wooden bowls from green, uncured lumber.Ā The bowls are very beautiful but they immediately begin to crack as the wood dries out and shrinks as wood is prone to do.Ā This isā¦
I know I am trouble already with that title, but hear me out.Ā 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 andā¦
Anyone paying attention to higher education knows the familiar mantra: Ā teaching, research and service.Ā This three legged stool of mission is resident in nearly every public and private university in the United States and it is even leaking into institutionsā¦
The concept of āthe Ivory Towerā is used in a negative sense when referring to universities to indicate a separation from reality and the practical concerns of the world. āIvory Towerā first appears in the Song of Solomon 7:4, butā¦
At this time of the year, it is hard not to reflect on graduate education and its rising importance to many students in colleges and universities.Ā We send students to some of the best graduate schools in the United States:ā¦
Ā I recently had the opportunity to attend a reception in Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Arts.Ā It was an alumni event to celebrate the life and work of R. Buckminster Fuller.Ā Fuller was a remarkable man by anyā¦
For many, these three letters may spell something that happens in front of an audience or television camera.Ā For millions of high school graduates seeking entrance to a university, they are the bane of their existence in the transition betweenā¦
In the study of architecture at any university there are always a few courses on professional practice.Ā They are required by accrediting agencies, but that burden is of little consequence.Ā Ā Practitioners want the discipline to flourish; therefore standards of behaviorā¦
Job prospects for graduating students are as challenging as anyone has seen in decades.Ā There is scarcely a bright light to be found.Ā In a rush to address this complex socioeconomic and political issue some universities might be led toā¦
Reverse transfer is the growing phenomenon of students leaving a four-year institution, like our university, and going to community colleges.Ā This is called reverse transfer because; when community colleges were initially established the purpose was for technical training, adult education,ā¦
For all of the bad news about Illinois politicians and their appointees, pay for play, rigged bidding and contract decision making, favoritism, patronage, back room dealing, sinecure, influence peddling, and plain old back scratching, I have become very fond ofā¦
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.Ā Theā¦
Diversity is a catalyst for strength.Ā 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.Ā This dialog is usually viewed through the lens ofā¦
Distinctiveness is the strength of any organization.Ā True at any time, in any place, its importance is magnified when the competitive climate intensifies.Ā We own geographic distinctiveness.Ā The location above, the front steps of the recently renovated Morris Library, isā¦
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.Ā Reach comes from quality.Ā Quality comes from knowledge and insight.Ā Knowledge and insight areā¦
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,ā¦
When James Walker was president of SIU, he said that he would rather see a very good university of 18,000 students than a mediocre one with 23,000. President James Walker understood universities and how they work. Jimā¦
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. Ā People who hold strong views related to their faith areā¦
As the eternal optimist, I have pondered the lessons available from watching the national response to the economic challenges that we face, and how some instruction or, should providence smile on us, some wisdom might be valuable for our university.Ā ā¦
Ā Our university has an excellent architecture program. Ā Ā Architecture students have ACT scores that are over two points higher than the university average.Ā We are oversubscribed and turn away applicants.Ā Bringing in more students than can be properlyā¦
I have previously commented on the various ways that families can reduce the cost of attending university.Ā In my own case, I attended a community college and completed my AAS degree earning 70 hoursā¦ almost all of which transferred toā¦
Ā 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 areā¦
Christmas memories are personal, deep and important for me.Ā Ā My familyās New York Christmases with the strong, first generational, influence of Western Europe; Cajun Christmases with their peculiarities of place and culture, half French and half Canadian and onlyā¦
It is that season of the year, when the smell of turkey and Christmas tress is in the air.Ā It is that time of year when finals occur.Ā I really have never liked to think of final exams as final.Ā ā¦
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 lookingā¦
Barbara Bush acknowledged a number of years ago, possibly when First Lady, what she believed was the most pressing problem in America. āGreed.ā We have heard a great deal about greed on Wall Street.Ā Bankers who want to makeā¦
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.Ā He had a cardiac arrest.Ā It was serious business, hisā¦
The greatest challenge of any university is building a community.Ā 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 thingsā¦
Work is a four letter word.Ā Ā Unfortunately. Our sons, while attending university worked long hours in various jobs, sometimes two or three simultaneously, to make it āon their own.ā It may have come from my constant talk aboutā¦
When Mary and I go out to eat we always decide where we are going before we leave.Ā Sometimes we even talk about it on the phone before I get to the house.Ā In other words, this is not aā¦
Calcification is what happens to soft tissue when it is taken over by calcium.Ā It gets hard. It is no longer resilient.Ā It becomes immobile. And eventually, it cannot work or act the way it was intended to.Ā While Iā¦
Ā Ā St. Paul was a brave man.Ā He summed up the purpose of the Christian Church in ten words uttered to the Church at Corinth: Ā āBe imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.ā Ā The simplicityā¦
I shop at a local hardware store.Ā Ā I have since the day I got into town.Ā Ā Mary and I needed a washer and dryer for our new home and someone we met, our new friend, suggested we go to this particular store.Ā Ā Heā¦
Ā Organizations are frequently in debt to quiet people.Ā Servants who lead.Ā 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,ā¦
Tenure has changed markedly since its inception as an academic concept. It is often confused with the idea of sinecure.Ā Tenure protects a faculty member from a board of trustees or, in public universities, an elected official who might notā¦
My mother worked as a riveter sewing sheet metal to plane wings in a defense plant on Long Island during the big war.Ā Countless others did too.Ā My in-laws worked at Grumman on Long Island for a combined total ofā¦
Any good university is concerned first and foremost, now and always, with academic excellence.Ā 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 primaryā¦
In different settings people use the phrase ātwo sides of the houseā. Ā Ā When you hear this relative to a university the subject is the idea that there are academic issues, and everything else is āthe other side ofā¦
I is not my intent to proselytize anyone in what follows. Ā Ā I will not try to force my views of the world we live in, or the one I think I will occupy for eternity. Ā I will notā¦
I recently had the opportunity to spend time in Vietnam.Ā For veterans who served “in countryā Vietnam is a different place today.Ā It is teeming with free enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit.Ā New business start-ups are everywhere and there is aā¦
Visiting with parents and prospective students always reinforces what is most important.Ā 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 subjectsā¦
Universities are affected by many forces at work in the environment.Ā 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 asā¦
Ā Ā 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.Ā The construct is remarkably similar toā¦
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 helpingā¦
Educating professionals was not central to university life until the last part of the 19th century. It was, in a fashion, introduced through the Morrill Land Grant of 1863, and reinforced by Charles Eliot at Harvard as the 19th centuryā¦
I had occasion recently to reflect on the social purpose of a university. Actually, this reflection took place as I held my grandson and thought a bit about this little fellowās future. My lifeās work is the university, so myā¦
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. Theyā¦
A farmer plants crops.Ā Ā The seasons, and the sun, the rain, the soil, all work in combination to bring forth fruit from sown seed.Ā Ā At this juncture in the university calendar what we do feels a bit like farmingā¦and its harvest time.ā¦
In a great universityā¦ this could probably be said for any great organizationā¦ 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 purposeā¦
Recently I was asked to address honors students in Union County regarding their futures.Ā 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 toā¦
Moral perspective is the legitimate work of a university, for without it there is no possibility of intellectual fulfillment, advancement, achievement, or satisfaction.Ā Intellect and morality are like inhaling and exhaling, one without the other is of no real utility.Ā ā¦
Work is a four letter word, but not the kind our mothers and fathers used to scold us for using. The people of Southern Illinois are not afraid to work. Hard work will always produce results and fruit does notā¦
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 aboutā¦
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,ā¦
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:ā¦
We are conditioned to think āundergraduateā when we hear the words ācollege student.ā When we think of growing our university to more ably serve a greater number of students you can feel the predisposition building, we are thinking of freshmanā¦
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 isā¦
You may have heard the old adage; the value of real estate is determined by three factors, location, location, and location. Here is a twist as we think about our university; the quality of the university is determined by threeā¦
Stock certificates are used to prove partial ownership of a corporation. A bearerās 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 therebyā¦
The greatest example of a beneficial public-private partnership in our nation is public higher education.Ā Any student of history knows the key to glory in our republic is the balance between the private lives of citizens and their support ofā¦
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 academicā¦
Universities are a particular type of thread in a neighborhood fabric. In cities, neighborhood is a highly local concept, comprising maybeĀ a few blocks, but not so with Southern, nestled between two rivers, and twice that many cultures. Our universityā¦
I came to work one morning last week and noticed a policeman raising a flag. For those of you who donāt know our campus, this was a surprise because Robert Reid raised and lowered the campus flags every day. Anā¦
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 atā¦
Everywhere you look you hear about the high cost of college. You see it in this newspaper, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Houston Chronicle. Costs are going up at a rate that exceeds inflation here andā¦
All universities are a consequence of the cultures in which they exist.Ā Simultaneously, however, universities continuously act to change those selfsame cultures. The philosophical bedrock on which public higher education in America is constructed comprises these conflicting causal relationships. Seekingā¦
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 dāetre is students. Ā But after that we must concede theā¦
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