Letters to the Next President: Strengthening America's Foundation in Higher Education

Letters t o t he n e xt

President Strengthening America’s Foundation in Higher Education

A Collection of Letters

by Thought Leaders

The Korn/Ferry Institute

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Letters to the Next President Strengthening America’s Foundation in Higher Education Korn/Ferry International 1900 Avenue of the Stars Suite 2600 Los Angeles, CA 90067 Phone: +1 310 552 1834 Web: www.kornferry.com Copyright © 2008 Korn/Ferry International. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without express written permission from Korn/Ferry International.

NOT FOR RESALE. Beliefs, views, and opinions expressed by contributing authors may not be the same as expressed by their represented university or organization.

Edited by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Gerald B. Kauvar.

Author contributions: Copyright © 2008 Leslie Berlowitz. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Lawrence Biondi, S.J. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Walter M. Bortz III. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2007 CASE “Empires of the Mind.” All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Michael R. Chipps. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Evan S. Dobelle. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Robert C. Dynes. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Marvalene Hughes. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Richard M. Joel. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Gerald B. Kauvar. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Richard E. Littlebear. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Elisabeth Muhlenfeld. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 S. Georgia Nugent. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Michael J. Offerman. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Steven B. Sample. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Donna E. Shalala. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 John Silber. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 David J. Skorton. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Mary Spangler. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Stephen Joel Trachtenberg. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2008 Sanford J. Ungar. All Rights Reserved.

Other contributions by Stephanie Mitchell, Larry Clark, Michael Distefano, Marnie Kittelson, Lesley Kurke, Diane Hoffmann, and Bonnie Parks.

Layout & Cover designed by Zachariah Schaap.

Produced at Lominger International: A Korn/Ferry Company 5051 Highway 7, Minneapolis, MN 55416, USA. www.lominger.com Published by The Korn/Ferry Institute.

Printed in the United States of America.

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Author Letter Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

Page

Empires of the Mind

1

Advice to the Next President

7

Regaining Our Global Status

15

To Reinvigorate America, Put Our Future First

23

Enabling Education

31

The Changing Nature of Higher Education

41

In the National Interest: The Role of Universities in Strengthening America’s Contribution to the World

51

The Measure of All Things

61

The Moral Responsibility of Higher Education

71

Education: Advancing, Not Defending, Civilization

77

Your First Ninety Days

87

George Washington University

Leslie Berlowitz American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Sanford J. Ungar Goucher College

Robert C. Dynes University of California

Donna E. Shalala University of Miami

Steven B. Sample University of Southern California

David J. Skorton Cornell University

S. Georgia Nugent Kenyon College

Lawrence Biondi, S.J. Saint Louis University

Richard M. Joel Yeshiva University

Evan S. Dobelle Westfield State College

Michael J. Offerman Capella University

Access, Affordability, and Accountability for the Adult-Serving College or University

101

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Author Letter

Page

Mary Spangler Community Colleges: The Relevant and Houston Community College System

111

Essential Link

Richard E. Littlebear Underfunded Miracles

129

Chief Dull Knife College

Michael R. Chipps Rural Community Colleges – Building Mid-Plains Community College

141

Communities and Advantaging Regions

Walter M. Bortz III Leveling the Financial Playing Field

149

Hampden-Sydney College

Elisabeth Muhlenfeld The Envy of the World

159

Sweet Briar College

Gerald B. Kauvar Help Those Who Help Themselves

171

George Washington University

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Searching for Presidents Gerald B. Kauvar

179

George Washington University

Marvalene Hughes Emergency Preparedness and Global Warming: Dillard University

John Silber Free Inquiry, Not Ideology: The Philosophical Boston University

185

Higher Education’s Responsibilities

205

Foundations of Successful University Presidencies

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Foreword

Higher education has been the foundation of America’s

success as a nation. Research and innovation will lead us to continued preeminence, but while necessary they aren’t sufficient.

We must have an educated citizenry, one capable not only of contributing to our economic strength but also contributing to public discussion of this century’s complex global challenges that demand multifaceted solutions.

The overall quality and the splendid diversity of our nation’s institutions of higher education must be enhanced, not just preserved and protected, by government policies and actions.

How to do that without stifling creativity and without simply throwing money at problems is rehearsed in detail in the essays in this volume.

This book should be required reading for all government officials involved in education, not only in the federal sector but in states and municipalities as well. Here they will find policy recommendations informed by experience written by leaders from every sector of higher education. I recommend it to them and to anyone who cares about our nation’s future.

– John Brademas President Emeritus, New York University and former (1959-1981) Member, U.S. House of Representatives (Dem.-Ind.)

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Introduction

Nearly 40 years ago Peter Caws wrote an essay entitled

“Design for a University,” which began with these words: “Probably more worthless nonsense is written about education than about any other subject except religion. Because of this proliferation of verbiage, it is one of the hardest subjects to write about effectively. Almost anything that can be said is drowned by a hundred other pronouncements on the same point.”

He concluded his introduction by writing that adding to the corpus brought him an increased sense of futility “because one is probably preaching to the converted . . . most of one’s readers have probably thought the same or better thoughts on their own, and few of them are the people in whose hands the fundamental decisions of public policy lie which must eventually be taken if the situation in American schools and colleges is to improve.”

This volume of no-nonsense essays by strong and significant leaders—who collectively represent a great deal but not all of the diversity of American higher education—is published in the hope that America’s next president and next generation of policy makers will pay attention and make the fundamental decisions required for our nation to retain its place of envy in the higher education pantheon.

Ensuring the nation’s preeminence in higher education, in research, teaching, and service is the common theme.

Contributors write eloquently about ensuring access for everyone—traditional and nontraditional students alike; about articulation between high schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions; about the necessity for creating alliances among government, industry, community, and college; about the imperative of international education and experience for students and scholars from here and those from abroad; about vii

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Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Gerald B. Kauvar

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Letters to the next president

the importance of research and the search for reason; about the importance of maintaining the nation’s moral and intellectual leadership and institutional autonomy; about the imperative of diversity and the contribution of single-sex institutions; about championing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies. And they offer advice to college and university presidents on moral character and coping with the inevitable campus emergency, and advice to those who have the responsibility for selecting leaders in higher education and those governmental leaders whose policy decisions impact the future of our country. There’s even a word or two about ways to get our own educational house in order.

That’s a very full plate—for those with direct responsibility for the health of our institutions of higher education and for those whose decisions enable or constrain their ability to carry out their leadership mandates. What unifies these essays is the passion and clarity of vision and presentation. As a nation, we are fortunate these women and men have devoted their lives to our mutual enterprise.

We are grateful to our contributors for their individual voices and collective wisdom. And we are profoundly grateful to the Korn/Ferry Institute and Paul C. Reilly, the chairman of Korn/ Ferry International, for their quick agreement to publish and distribute this volume at the firm’s expense to government leaders, state legislators, regents, and trustees who have both the responsibility and the authority to implement the policy recommendations that make the most sense to them.

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Letters to the next president

Empires of the Mind Stephen Joel Trachtenberg A former college president writes a letter to the next U.S. president about the need to demonstrate a love for education.

If the next president of the United States were to ask for my thoughts on higher education in America, I would do what I normally do when invited to offer counsel: I would write a letter.

It would go like this.

Dear Mr. or Madam President:

The most important thing you can do for U.S. higher

education is to demonstrate, by your actions as much as your words, that you truly understand and cherish how consequential the contributions of our colleges and universities are to the wellbeing of our republic and democracy.

Given your ear and attention, many of my brother and sister university presidents might offer you specific advice about making Pell Grants more generous, about making it easier for foreign scholars to teach and study here, or about increasing funding for research and fellowships at universities, particularly through the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Please associate my voice with theirs, but without the details.

Improving funding policies or examining issues such as national accreditation is something for the various education constituencies to sort out, ideally with the help of your administration. What higher education needs most from you, however, are personal, visible, and frequent displays of love of learning, a respect for scholarship, and an understanding of what

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professors and students—and those of us who support them through administration—do.

A speech about how important education is, citing the higher salaries of college graduates, is harmless, but it risks sounding like a platitude, however earnestly meant. That college graduates earn more money is a truism, a statistic, and not news. It might be better to state that education is essential to citizenship, U.S. The overall graduation rate from U.S. colleges and policy, and leadership—an elusive concept universities is less than that you will understand far better than most 50%. Tell us how you will people. help us comprehend this Here is a more useful statistic: The overall gloomy state of affairs and graduation rate from U.S. colleges and inspire us to change it for universities is less than 50%. Tell us how you the better. will help us comprehend this gloomy state of affairs and inspire us to change it for the better.

It is not enough to merely appreciate higher education. After all, who is denying its many benefits? It is, as well, not enough to say again that higher education enriches the nation by enriching individual men and women. Who has not heard that? I hasten to assure you that I do comprehend and value your appreciation and understanding of higher education, but I want something more from you. I want your energetic enthusiasm. We need an engaged partner.

It’s melancholy to think that, while a case can be made for Bill Clinton, the last U.S. president to show memorable joy for the blessings of scholarship may have been John F. Kennedy, 45 years ago. He invited 49 Nobel laureates to dinner at the White House in 1962, looked at the assembly, and announced, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge,

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that has ever been gathered together at the White House—with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

That witty line, it has always seemed to me, underscored Kennedy’s serious affection for, and determined confidence in, learning and intellectual achievement. JFK’s statement, widely quoted, was clearly intended to attract attention, to let our countrymen and countrywomen know that their president revered and valued these accomplished, learned people—and that he liked them and felt comfortable enough in their presence to dine with them as colleagues. That is symbolism accompanied by action.

President Kennedy’s obvious ease in the presence of welleducated people—and the equally obvious pleasure he took in being in their company—were more powerful than any speech on education he could have delivered. We are reminded all of our lives that we learn by example. Kennedy’s example encouraged the nation to give higher education its greatest respect and affection.

Since then, it has become common for politicians, including presidents, to behave and speak as if they had never been inside a schoolhouse, let alone a university. Perhaps that is their way of being an average Joe or Jane, the salt of the earth, a regular guy. I doubt, however, that populist syntax and meandering sentences are the intended legacies of Jacksonian democracy. The allusive eloquence of Abraham Lincoln, the two Roosevelts, and Kennedy—all of whom served after Jackson—demonstrated that a learned leader (self-taught in Lincoln’s case) could be a great leader and, by being so, set an example for the good of learning— but not as a mere example of learning as a marketable good.

I have lost track of how many times I have heard presidents talk about higher education—or, rather, a university or college

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degree—as essential to U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace, to justify (if that is the right word) higher education for this reason and no other. It is certainly important to our welfare to have educated people who can do and make all kinds of things, who have learned enough to know that they need always to learn more, and who have the curiosity and capacity to put their learning to work. And it is no less true that, given the erratic way in which the world’s resources are allocated, a country that values and nurtures education will never be left out in the cold—a statement I invite you to take literally and figuratively.

Winston Churchill said in a talk at Harvard University during World War II, “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” The future has arrived.

Even so, higher education is not the handmaiden of higher earnings and competitiveness. Moreover, education should not at this point in our civilization ever need to be justified by this Education is a foundation reasoning or any similar other. Education is of our civil liberty. a foundation of our civil liberty.

Education gives us the arts, the sciences, and yes, commerce. To turn our colleges and universities into trade schools, as some who refer to competitiveness too often appear to imply, would diminish their possibility. Training is good, but education is not training, at least not exclusively. I always make an exception for training in ancient and modern languages, because the former enables us to get to know the roots of our civilization and the latter gives us more understanding and power in diplomacy and trade, among many other endeavors.

Education enables us to make the acquaintance of our own minds and the minds of those who went before us. It frees us from having to reinvent the wheel and the iPod. It allows us to

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incorporate old ideas and formulate new ones, to receive wisdom when it is worthy, and to falsify it when it is not wise. I think there is no harm in adding that learning for its own sake is a delight and, because of the serendipity of discovery, often produces an unexpected payoff.

What more can I say? Beyond hoping that, as the new president, your words and actions will show your enthusiasm for and commitment to higher education. But let me add a cautionary note, from H.G. Wells’ writing 90 years ago: “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”

I pledge my own commitment, and I wish you foot speed and Godspeed.

“Empires of the Mind” first appeared in CURRENTS (November/ December 2007). Copyright © 2007 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education; reprinted with permission from the November/ December 2007 CASE CURRENTS. All rights reserved.

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Stephen Joel Trachtenberg served as president of The George Washington University from 1988–2007. He was president for 11 years at the University of Hartford and was dean and vice president of Boston University for eight years. He has received 15 honorary degrees and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Letters to the next president

Advice to the Next President Leslie Berlowitz

The

founders of our nation combined a passion for democracy with an insatiable appetite for intellectual inquiry.

They thought that the creation, promotion, and dissemination of knowledge were essential to the new country. At the same time they were helping to frame the American Constitution, leaders such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison also championed the development of learned societies and educational institutions to foster discovery and the free exchange of ideas.

In 1780, Adams helped create the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an organization that would convene “thinkers and doers” to promote knowledge in all disciplines, from natural history and mathematics to philosophy and commerce, and to “cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”

Over the past 200 years, the United States has built one of the world’s strongest economies and an internationally preeminent system of higher education. Yet as the global economy expands and more nations acquire wealth, build infrastructure, and invest in their own educational systems, America must work to retain its competitive strengths. The advancement of learning and the creation and dissemination of new knowledge matter more than ever; they are the indispensable engines of economic growth, social progress, and civil discourse.

The nation requires robust intellectual institutions and an environment that respects the fundamental values of our scientific and educational systems—freedom of inquiry, freedom 7

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from political ideology, and commitment to the liberal arts. The next president of the United States should invest purposefully and proudly in education at all levels and across all disciplines.

We also need cabinet secretaries and agency heads who understand the scientific research that underpins the mission and responsibilities of the departments they lead. Not only must the executive branch include independent and respected advisors, including a strong science advisor, the administration must value the expert advice that is offered and not allow ideology to eclipse sound, evidence-based thinking. The president must advance learning, encourage The next president of the debate and discourse, and welcome new United States should invest ideas. purposefully and proudly in Maintaining America’s preeminence also education at all levels and requires wise investment, spending that across all disciplines.

2 fosters the work of our next generation.

We need a workforce well prepared for the increasingly technical jobs of the future. Regardless of their career choices, it is important for citizens to have a working understanding of basic scientific principles in order to be wellinformed voters and consumers. It is therefore essential that we strengthen science education from elementary school through 3 college.

Moreover, our country needs leaders in government, industry, education, medicine, science, philanthropy, law, and the arts and humanities, with advanced training in these fields. In this regard, the nation must encourage and nurture our most advanced scholars-in-training as they enter the workforce. While the United States graduates more Ph.D.s than ever before, other nations are catching up. As a result, the U.S. share of doctorates

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worldwide dropped dramatically, from 52% to 22% in the 4 sciences and engineering between 1986 and 2003.

Graduate training in America takes longer than it used to, and students incur more debt. In 2006, time to degree for scientists and engineers ranged from 6.7 years to 7.9 years, and in the 5 humanities, a doctorate took a median 9.7 years to complete.

That same year, nearly one-third of Ph.D. recipients in all 6 disciplines graduated with debt.

Meanwhile, recent graduates are having difficulty obtaining tenure-track positions in their fields of training. This has been a recent and serious problem in the biomedical research area, where the number of nontenured faculty positions in medical 7 schools has grown from 33% in 1993, to 45% in 2003. The problem has been even more acute in the humanities over the past two decades, where only 53% of faculty positions are full8 time. Many young scholars continue prolonged postdoctoral training, remain in adjunct positions, or leave higher education entirely. These individuals are prepared to make important contributions to society, but we need to provide them information about alternative career tracks.

In the sciences, young researchers who find academic positions frequently struggle to secure funding for their work.

Between 1962 and 2006, the share of the National Institutes of Health’s largest research grants awarded to first-time investigators declined from about 40% to less than 25%. Even more troubling is that the average age of recipients of first-time awards is 42.4 and 9 rising. We are at risk of losing many talented young scientists.

To reverse these patterns and to encourage people to pursue graduate training, the United States government must prioritize funding that supports young scholars and researchers. Many universities, foundations, and research centers are helping

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to ameliorate the current shortage of research funding with grants, seed money, or interim research opportunities, but these efforts fall short. The next administration must ensure that the government develops consistent, effective, and reliable longterm funding mechanisms—fellowships, multiyear research grants, and salary support—to sustain America’s future leaders in the early stages of their careers. The president should give high priority to early appointments of dedicated and highly qualified scientists to lead the federal agencies that fund scientific research and graduate education in science and engineering.

We also must expand federal funding for bold new research initiatives, including those focused on the most fundamental basic science questions. The nation’s constrained budgetary situation too often results in federal agencies making conservative funding decisions that support predictable, incremental 10 research. While incremental research can lead, serendipitously, to surprising new discoveries that advance science, to solve the many problems that confront the world today requires innovative, even radical, thinking. Our nation must invest now in high-risk but potentially high-reward or “transformative” research—what the National Science Board defines as “research driven by ideas that have the potential to radically change our understanding of an important existing scientific or engineering 11 concept or leading to the creation of a new paradigm or field.”

Younger researchers have historically advanced cutting-edge work. In 2007, the National Science Foundation recognized the need to expand funding for high-risk, high-reward research and announced an experimental initiative to foster transformative research. The next president, the appointed heads of research agencies, and the nation’s science advisors would do well to champion such efforts. Whether in the life or physical

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sciences, agriculture, engineering, energy and the environment (climate change), or economics, the brightest women and men need significant long-term financial support to explore the big ideas that fall outside the limits of what we know. The investments required to support young scholars and to advance transformative research would be relatively modest portions of the nation’s overall research budget.

Systems for collecting and analyzing data about trends in education also need improvement. While the biennial Science and Engineering Indicators, published by the National Science Board, provides much information about the state of science and engineering in America, they do not monitor adequately trends in the career choices of the nation’s graduates over time.

The annual Survey of Earned Doctorates, sponsored by six federal research-oriented agencies, compiles and analyzes the immediate career choices of recent doctorate recipients, but provides little data about scholars’ careers several years after graduation, particularly those individuals who do not continue in academia. Without accurate and comprehensive facts about career development, we cannot begin to assess the role advanced training plays for the vitality of our nation—for the financial markets, for industry, for government service, and for scientific and cultural institutions, public and private.

The humanities face an even greater problem in securing properly analyzed and comparable data. For several years, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has led a collaborative effort with national humanities organizations to develop useful and easily accessible information about the state of the humanities in the United States. The next administration should 12 take these prototype data—these Humanities Indicators —and find a home for them in the federal government, where ongoing

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data collection efforts can be systematized across all fields and professions to help strengthen the liberal arts and to facilitate long-term analysis of trends about the nation’s workforce needs.

More than two centuries ago, the people of the newly formed United States, guided by By maintaining careful the leadership of presidents and statesmen adherence to evidence-based who embraced intellectual inquiry and the public policy, by appointing pursuit of knowledge, gambled on a big idea: respected leaders in key democracy. Since then, other American big government agencies, ideas have powered modern manufacturing and by strengthening the techniques, developed vaccines for infectious government’s commitment diseases, championed civil rights around to our next generation of the world, and ushered in the digital age. thinkers, the president will Investment in America’s thinkers has helped keep America vibrant to prolong life expectancy, to generate and strong. wealth, and to improve the collective quality of life.

As the United States and the world face new challenges and opportunities, the next president must nurture and invest in the arts and sciences. By maintaining careful adherence to evidencebased public policy, by appointing respected leaders in key government agencies, and by strengthening the government’s commitment to our next generation of thinkers, the president will keep America vibrant and strong.

Copyright © 2008 Leslie Berlowitz. All Rights Reserved.

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Endnotes 1 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Project on Academic Freedom, “Statement on Academic Freedom,” http://www.amacad.org/projects/freedom.aspx

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American Academy of Arts & Sciences, ARISE – Advancing Research in Science and Engineering: Investing in Early-Career Scientists and HighRisk, High-Reward Research, http://www.amacad.org/ARISE American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Report of the Project on Science in the Liberal Arts Curriculum (forthcoming), http://www.amacad.org/projects/sciLiberalArts.aspx Norman R. Augustine, Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth?

(Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007), p. 43.

T.B. Hoffer and others, “Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities: Summary Report 2006” (Chicago: National Opinion Research Center, 2007), Table 19, p. 78, http://www.norc.org/SED.htm Ibid., Table 23, p. 83.

Paula Stephan, “Biomedical Sciences: Doubling (and Troubling) Outcomes” (Georgia State University, 2007), http://www.nber.org/ sewp/Early%20Careers%20for%20Biomedical%20Scientists.pdf American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Indicators (forthcoming), http://www.amacad.org/projects/indicators.aspx National Institutes of Health, Office of Extramural Research, “Biomedical Research Workforce” (September 2007), http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/new_investigators/ Workforce_Info09072007.ppt (accessed January 1, 2008).

American Academy of Arts & Sciences, ARISE – Advancing Research in Science and Engineering: Investing in Early-Career Scientists and HighRisk, High-Reward Research, http://www.amacad.org/ARISE National Science Board Task Force on Transformative Research, “Enhancing Support of Transformative Research at the National Science Foundation” (National Science Foundation, 2007) p. 10.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Humanities Indicators (forthcoming), http://www.amacad.org/projects/indicators.aspx

Leslie Berlowitz is the chief executive officer and William T. Golden Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an independent research institute and international learned society founded in 1780 and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the first woman to hold this position. Before joining the Academy in 1996, she served as vice president for academic advancement at New York University. Ms. Berlowitz is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Letters to the next president

Regaining Our Global Status Sanford J. Ungar

One of the most important things the next president of

the United States could do to help higher education, not to mention the country at large, would be to introduce a new national emphasis on international literacy and, along the way, to encourage a dramatic increase in the number of American undergraduates studying overseas.

Many of us were raised on the devout principles of American exceptionalism—the idea that the people who came to live in this country from many other places, each group bringing its particular strengths (and its recipes), built a unique and superior nation that would be a beacon to all of humankind.

The braggadocio inherent in this concept crosses all political and ideological lines. Liberal Democrats are every bit as likely as conservative Republicans to speak of and market “the genius of the American system,” with the implication that those in other lands must, for their own good, learn every detail of federalism and our brand of constitutional democracy, the better to emulate it in order to solve their own everyday problems.

In times of stress, we often revert to proclaiming our own superiority. It is routine, of course, with the Cold War behind us, to refer to ourselves as the world’s only remaining superpower.

The concept reached its apogee when, in his first Saturday morning national radio address after the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush found it useful and important to declare that we still have the greatest country in the world. This was perhaps not the most effective means of recruiting other countries to become allies in the thenemerging “war on terror,” but it was obviously reassuring to loyal 15

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Americans who were recovering from the first successful major attack on the U.S. mainland since the War of 1812.

Let’s get one thing straight: We do have a great country, a truly exceptional one where people like my own parents, immigrants from Central Europe, found opportunities they never could have hoped for elsewhere. This is a place where a child of immigrants can actually have the same opportunities for education as a descendant of those who arrived on the Mayflower. Even in some of the old democracies of Europe, and certainly in many other countries of the world—developed and underdeveloped alike— young people tend to be pigeonholed at a very early age and their fate sealed before they have even had a chance to test it. But not here. We are a country of second and third opportunities to show how smart we are, of chance favoring the prepared mind, of rewards for being entrepreneurial and outrageous. Many of our greatest achievers and innovators were late bloomers, or people who broke as many rules as they could while they made their way to the head of the pack.

But the self-perpetuating and tawdry boasts about American moral superiority have run their course. Although presidential candidates, perhaps understandably, dare not dwell on our shortcomings, many of us have come face-to-face with the harsh reality: If it were not for the size of our (albeit troubled) economy and for our international telephone dialing code, few outside the United States would subscribe to the idea that we are truly “number one” anymore. There are, indeed, many areas, including average standard of living, in which we have slipped well below top rank.

Certainly it is obvious that American circumstances in the world have changed dramatically. There is room for argument about when the steep decline began—some might suggest that it

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was as long ago as the Iran hostage crisis in the late 1970s—but popular impressions of the United States overseas have deteriorated, and the country’s latitude in international affairs has been correspondingly reduced. It is, to put it mildly, far from automatic that a large number of other nations, even among our traditional allies in Europe, will fall into lock-step in support of American policies or initiatives. An oft-cited study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, released in 2006, showed “favorable attitudes” toward the United States to be surprisingly low among the citizens of countries thought to be American allies these days (Japan 63%, Britain 56%, France 39%, Germany 37%, and Spain 23%) and catastrophically lower in strategically located nations we tend to believe are favorably inclined to us, such as Jordan (15%) and Turkey (12%). Indications are that the situation has only grown worse, and more widespread, since that time.

One problem is a simple lack of access to straightforward information about the United States, and the American government is at least partially to blame. Once we had “won” the Cold War, Congress actually cut the foreign affairs budget, and that resulted in the shutdown of many U.S. consulates and cultural centers around the world. Thus the overseas art exhibits, theatre productions, and open, introspective discussions of American life and institutions that they had offered disappeared from the scene. Astonishingly, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, formed in the 1990s to supervise and protect government-funded international broadcast operations, has been trying to shut down the English-language radio programs of the Voice of America. So ethnocentric are most commercial U.S. publications and programs that they have little remaining impact in other nations, and so those overseas who seek to learn about life in America are ironically often left to rely upon sources

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of information that are deeply skeptical of, if not hostile to, American perspectives.

The situation is certainly mutual. Even in perilous times, international awareness is not a priority in most American schools, and thus our children still grow up ignorant of the map of the world and giggling at the strange sound of many foreign place names. There have been some improvements in the scope and quality of foreign language instruction, but as we wait for others around the world to Even in perilous times, learn English (as many eventually will), we international awareness fall further behind in the global marketplace is not a priority in most of ideas and products and intellectual American schools. currents. Still afflicted with isolationist impulses from deep in the last century, Americans in general know little about the rest of the world.

Their leaders hardly inspire them to change: Fewer than half the members of Congress, it is believed, even have the passport that is now necessary to cross the Mexican or Canadian borders.

Until recently, members of the U.S. House and Senate routinely dodged assignments to the foreign affairs committees of their chambers, lest constituents accuse them of neglecting their real needs and concerns. The recent steep decline in the value of the U.S. dollar, while potentially helpful in redressing the balance of trade, hardly provides an incentive to ordinary citizens to go abroad and expand their horizons.

The traditional media, long a reliable fallback source of information for Americans about the larger world, have undergone a major transformation in their economic viability and their content. Foreign coverage has been greatly diminished.

Between 2002 and 2006, according to the Washington Post, the number of foreign-based U.S. newspaper correspondents shrank

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from 188 to 141. Some editors and publishers and network executives have boasted in recent years that they have made their output more relevant to consumers and their daily lives by bringing the balance of information closer to home. There are exceptions, of course, and some international stories simply cannot be avoided; but they are often presented with little context, and entire continents have sometimes gone virtually unmentioned for a year or more on some commercial television channels. Overseas assignments are no longer regarded as an essential step in the careers of those who aspire to leadership in news organizations.

Nothing could be further from the needs of Americans. Daily life in this country and others is more international in scope and character all the time. As NAFSA: Association of International Educators has said, in its Call for Leadership on International Education, “Daily, Americans are reminded by the label on our T-shirts, calls to customer service, or the evening news, that global events can have a local impact and that we have a stake in what happens around the world.�

Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of this problem is how slowly the patterns of international awareness and involvement in the United States are changing. Action is needed at many levels and in many domains of American life, but one place to start would be to increase dramatically the number of college and university undergraduates studying abroad.

According to the International Institute of Education (IIE), between 1% and 2% of American undergraduate students currently study abroad. The comparable figure for Canada is 3.3%, for Greece 8.8%, Ireland 9.7%, and Kenya (before the recent crisis there) 13%. An estimated 40% of the highest-achieving students in China are believed to study abroad.

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With an increase in the study abroad numbers, we will make young Americans—the very people who will soon be inheriting positions of leadership and influence—more aware of the world beyond this country’s borders. The future prospects of the United States will be inestimably improved if we graduate more students with a sense that other societies have ideas and have found solutions to everyday problems that might actually be helpful to us. This can perhaps be best accomplished by encouraging students to spend a semester or a year studying in another country, but even shorter and well-focused programs can make a major difference; just getting a young person out of the country for his or her first exposure to another culture can have a startling and lasting impact.

At the same time, we will be sending the best-possible ambassadors overseas to help those in other countries better understand the evolution of politics, life, and culture in the United States. Clearly this has not been well accomplished in recent years by diplomats and other government officials who have had the burden of promoting policies that are drastically unpopular overseas.

The next president will But none of this can happen without have to be convinced serious encouragement by the federal of the need for greater government. The next president will have international awareness in to be convinced of the need for greater the United States. international awareness in the United States, and will have to be willing to set aside exceptionalist cant once and for all. That may take considerable political courage. And it will certainly require resources along the lines of past initiatives. When Cold War fears produced the National Defense Education Act in 1958, it made a difference in teacher training and other important areas. The new

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International Literacy Initiative could do the same, at a fraction of the cost of today’s war machine.

Copyright © 2008 Sanford J. Ungar. All Rights Reserved.

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Sanford J. Ungar joined Goucher College as its tenth president in July 2001. A respected international journalist and educator, he previously served as the director of Voice of America and as dean of the School of Communication at American University. His extensive experience at news organizations worldwide includes editorial positions at Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he was an award-winning National Public Radio host.

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Letters to the next president

To Reinvigorate America, Put Our Future First Robert C. Dynes Dear Mr. or Madam President:

Let me begin by urging you to attempt something that will

be difficult for an elected official: Return America’s focus to our long-term future, and make us see that our great-grandchildren’s prospects must take precedence over our own self-interests.

Like me, you grew up in a buoyant era when America felt a sense of limitless potential. We had emerged victorious from a transformative world war. We were spurred on by the Sputnik launch to pursue scientific innovation at full speed. The G.I. Bill extended educational opportunity to a new generation of eager students. And the youngest-ever elected president inspired young Americans to strengthen their nation, and serve humanity, through altruism, self-sacrifice, and national pride.

A half-century later, this is a vastly different country. We are mired in a protracted war against a nebulous enemy, polarized by a widening gulf between very rich and very poor, and preoccupied by anxiety about crippling debt (national and personal) and the erosion of our global competitiveness and respect.

This downturn in America’s fortunes has shrunk our field of vision, and no one feels that diminution more acutely than university presidents. Fifty years ago, educational access and research-driven innovation fueled the American dream that any child could grow up to be successful and any problem could be solved through ingenuity. Today, that dream seems more and more remote. In my own travels, and I’m sure my peers have had the same experience, people ask, “Who is looking out for the 23

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middle class? How can I afford to send my kids to college when my paycheck keeps losing its value? How can we compete with emerging giants like China and India?”

Your presidency can turn this ship around if, like President Kennedy in 1960, you can Return America’s focus to restore our national pride and optimism. At our long-term future, and the risk of sounding parochial, I believe our make us see that our greatrecent experiences in California, where the grandchildren’s prospects American dream has retained its vibrancy, must take precedence over can provide you with a kind of road map for our own self-interests. reinvigorating our nation.

I took on the presidency of the University of California in October 2003 just weeks before Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor. We set out with a shared commitment to fortify California’s global standing as a mecca for innovation and opportunity, and we looked for specific ways to accomplish that. The result has been three forward-looking initiatives driven by the University of California and bolstered by tremendous statewide support. All three have been lauded by national decision makers and studied closely by other states and by our peer institutions, and I believe they can serve as model enterprises for your own administration. They are: Create an innovation portfolio of R, D, & D: research, development, and delivery of ideas and talent to benefit the public

It is my view that the old twentieth-century era of research

and development (R&D) ended on September 11, 2001. Along with the rest of the world, I watched on live television as the World Trade Center buildings collapsed, with fire and emergency crews trapped inside. I was horrified to see that the first responders could not communicate with each other. As a “techie”

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physicist with expertise in electronics and communication, I knew we had the technology, and I could not fathom, and I still cannot, why those tools were never delivered to the professionals who needed them to save lives, including their own.

I realized at that moment that research universities like ours, especially public institutions with a public mission, could no longer assume that private industry or government would deliver our innovations to society. I vowed then that the University of California would be a pioneer in working with industrial and government partners to ensure the delivery of tools and talent to a whole spectrum of first responders, from emergency technicians to health care providers.

Beginning in 2001, UC’s leadership in the twenty-first century R, D, & D era has been centered in our four California Institutes for Science and Innovation, each of which links several UC campuses together with industry and government to create crossdisciplinary innovations in fields like information technology, biomedical science, and nanoscience. To give just one example, our California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research, known as “QB3,” is a San Francisco powerhouse that harnesses the physical sciences of UC Berkeley, the life sciences of UC San Francisco, the informational sciences of UC Santa Cruz, and the tools and quantitative measurement skills of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. A state-of-the-art QB3 building at UCSF literally exemplifies our R, D, & D concept: fundamental research is conducted on the third floor, drug development takes place on the second floor, and delivery of experimental drugs to patients in clinical trials happens every day on the ground floor.

America leads the world in innovation today because two federal acts from the past two centuries—the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Smith-Levers Act of 1914—created land-grant

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universities and cooperative extension services that transformed this nation through education and knowledge transfer. If your administration takes the lead in developing a similar vehicle for R, D, & D in this century, I think you will find many models— old and new—to help you get started.

Build a new model of strategic international alliances between our best minds and the best minds in key global regions

America has become increasingly isolated in the geopolitical

arena, and it has lost its competitive edge in the global marketplace. That is not coincidence. As my colleagues will tell you, we are losing the race to recruit top talent because other countries offer greater inducements and present fewer entry hurdles. I came to this country from my native Canada, and Governor Schwarzenegger came from his native Austria, because America was THE place to excel and contribute. As California knows so well, you do not lead the rest of the world in innovation by building walls and staying in your own yard. You lead by being open to new ideas from people of diverse cultures and different perspectives.

The University of California has had a long history of international outreach and collaboration; the first major gift to the university was an 1872 endowment to create the Agassiz Professorship of Oriental Languages and Literature. But our international partnerships of past eras tended to be diffuse and limited in scope. Recent new alliances targeted in four key regions—our neighboring countries of Mexico and Canada and the emerging giants of China and India—are producing concrete and viable solutions to global societal problems.

To cite one example, our UC–India Collaborative Initiative is generating R, D, & D efforts to eradicate neglected diseases such

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as tuberculosis. There is great excitement on both continents about the potential to save lives and stimulate economic growth.

Tuberculosis, as we now know, is a global health problem. It is not limited to developing nations. I was told in a meeting with Mexico’s Ministry of Health that an estimated 50% of Mexican migrant workers in the United States carry some strain of TB, usually noncontagious. So the results of this alliance will have real value here at home.

All societies are grappling with the same challenges in public health, energy and America’s K–12 schools transportation, and the environment. Top are in crisis mode, and universities in those societies are harnessing if we do not intervene, their best minds to work on these problems, future generations of and enlightened national governments are American workers will paving the way, most notably, through the not have the scientific Security and Prosperity Partnership of North and mathematical America, launched in March 2005 by the literacy to keep pace with United States, Canada, and Mexico. Using better-trained workers in competitor nations. that as a model, your administration could forge multinational alliances that would strengthen the global economy and foster worldwide peace.

Improve the quality of K–12 education, especially in science and mathematics

Of the three initiatives I am recommending to you for

national replication, this may pose the toughest challenges.

America’s K–12 schools are in crisis mode, and if we do not intervene, future generations of American workers will not have the scientific and mathematical literacy to keep pace with bettertrained workers in competitor nations.

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In my first three years as UC president, I traveled throughout the state to meet with students, faculty, staff, and constituents.

On too many of those trips, I visited school districts that didn’t have a single credentialed science or math teacher. Untrained teachers in those districts are struggling, and their students are languishing. I also traveled to China several times to establish a “10 + 10” alliance of the 10 UC campuses and 10 of China’s leading universities. Schoolchildren I met on those visits were fluent in science and mathematics (and many had mastered English).

In May 2005, together with Governor Schwarzenegger and California State University Chancellor Charles Reed, we at the University of California launched an initiative to increase the number of qualified math and science teachers in California that was fashioned in part on the University of Texas’ renowned “Teach for America” venture. For our part, the University of California has a program called “Cal Teach” which works on three levels: •• It recruits UC students to be math and science teachers.

•• It gives them the training they need by drawing on the expertise of our faculty in those fields.

•• It offers financial incentives to retain them as teachers.

The America COMPETES Act (H.R. 2272), which President Bush signed into law in August 2007, builds on the “Cal Teach” model by authorizing $33.6 billion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs across the federal government, and it directs the secretary of education and the National Academy of Sciences to convene a national panel to identify best practices in K–12 STEM teaching.

To put this critical issue at the top of your administration’s

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agenda, I hope you will consider increasing that support and appearing before the panel to endorse its mission.

Many have questioned why a world-class research institution like the University of California would take responsibility for K–12 educational reform. My answer is simple: It is in our own best interests, especially in fulfilling our imperative to build diversity on UC campuses. To admit more underrepresented students, and recruit and retain more underrepresented faculty, we must level the educational playing field in early grades where youngsters either grasp core subjects, or they don’t.

As I said earlier, K–12 educational reform poses many tough social, economic, and political challenges, and I know you are well aware of them. But I believe you also are aware of a strong national consensus that America cannot afford to shrink from those challenges, and I hope you know you will have the support and momentum you need to tackle them.

Let me wrap up with a few words about the people who will ultimately determine America’s long-term future: young people who prepare to be the next generation of U.S. leaders and innovators by earning university degrees.

UC students are key participants in each of the three initiatives I have outlined. They are working alongside top scientists in our California Institutes. They are becoming global citizens in studyabroad programs as part of our international alliances. And they are embarking on careers as qualified K–12 science and math teachers, knowing that they could earn more in corporate or industry jobs. They have a passion for learning and service that is truly inspiring.

Too many of these talented young people and their families are struggling to cover the costs of their education. And too many other young people are missing out on educational opportunity

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because they never received help in preparing for college admission. You and I can thank higher education for opening the doors that led us to rewarding careers and fulfilled lives. Today’s youngsters deserve no less.

Like everyone who takes on the job of chief executive, you have embarked on an extraordinary journey. The years ahead will be full of exhilarating highs and daunting lows. I leave you with a personal tip that has been a lifeline for me in navigating the rigors of my own job. On days when the news is bleak and you feel discouraged, I would urge you to consider visiting a nearby college or university campus—unlike other visitors, you won’t have to worry about finding a parking space—and spend time chatting with students. When you experience their energy and their enthusiasm, I guarantee that you will feel real optimism for the future. And when that happens, I hope you’ll agree that higher education is the best investment America can make.

Copyright © 2008 Robert C. Dynes. All Rights Reserved.

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Robert C. Dynes, the eighteenth president of the University of California, previously served as the sixth chancellor of UC San Diego. He joined UC after 22 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he was honored with the Fritz London Award in Low Temperature Physics and elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

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Letters to the next president

Enabling Education Donna E. Shalala

Education is humanity’s primary enabler. It is the process

through which we make the world intelligible, so that we can manage it, preserve it, improve it, and live with it. Without education, we could not cure diseases, advance technology, enhance communication, make transportation safer, strengthen our economy, appreciate beauty, understand our past, make sense of our emotions, or promulgate justice. Without education, the world remains mysterious and unintelligible, and we live in darkness and fear. Nothing else we human beings do affects all our lives as comprehensively and fundamentally as education.

The tragedy at Virginia Tech starkly reminded us what is at stake in education. In the midst of our grief, our shock, our sense of loss, we asked: Why did this happen? Alone among living creatures, human beings have no tolerance for the inexplicable. A major purpose of all we do with our minds and spirits—drama, art, philosophy, literature, science—is to make life meaningful by making it intelligible. Indeed, we operate on the premise that meaning and intelligibility are linked. An incomprehensible world cannot be filled with purpose, with achievement, with growth. Ultimately, this is why we study; this is why we question; this is why we learn. The more we understand the world, the more we are at one with it and with ourselves.

Last year’s tragedy in a community of students and teachers showed us freshly and clearly how learning represents a belief in ourselves and in our innate capacity to overcome the inexplicable. Education is the opposite of walking away, shaking our heads, and throwing up our hands. Rather, learning is an act of conviction about our ultimate ability to understand tragedy 31

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and thereby someday to diminish or prevent it. It is our promise to ourselves and to our future. Learning is an act of hope.

Education is hopeful because it is built on the ineluctable power of reason. Reason is relentlessly self-critical and gives us a hugely important reward: the gift of not needing to be right all the time, the capacity to learn from the error and the mistake.

True education is not about always being right but rather about discovering, correcting, and improving what we did wrong.

In this sense, education is the opposite of, and the antidote to, true belief. It is a source of unavoidable humility. Through the work of learning, we come to see what we do not yet know and what we have misunderstood about what we think we do know.

Education is our strongest—and perhaps our only—basis for hope for progress, for a better In America, the future. quintessence and In America, the quintessence and culmination of all culmination of all education is research, the education is research, discovery of new knowledge. All education the discovery of new is engaged in transmitting what is already knowledge. known, but American research universities have the added and pivotal mission of finding out what is unknown. Our research universities constitute the most powerful system of advanced learning in human history.

In the quest for new knowledge and deeper understanding, our research universities have an extraordinary record of sustained achievement. They are distinctive in their ability to nurture and support excellence and to make discovery the centerpiece of learning.

The earliest American universities were private institutions which established the basic contours of higher learning in this country. The land-grant universities that emerged in the late

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nineteenth century built upon and carried forward that basic heritage of excellence. I have been privileged to work in both kinds of institutions, and I have experienced their complementary strengths up close. Our nation’s unique combination of private and public universities has allowed American higher education to expand and mature with relatively little government interference.

A significant consequence is that American research universities have devised and maintained exceptionally high standards of free inquiry and unfettered discovery. In most fields of study, because our research is the best in the world, our graduate programs are the best in the world. It is not by accident that American higher education pursues excellence and that as a result, students from across the planet pursue advanced degrees in our research universities.

Our great research universities have done an astonishing job of transferring their knowledge of science and technology to society at large, and done so with a fair amount of class, compassion, integrity, and humility. So very much was changed for the good in the course of the last century. One does not have to think very hard to come up with a long list of examples, and all these discoveries have emerged from our great research universities.

All in the course of a single century of light and learning. Beyond question, the scientific research done under the sheltering arms of research universities has improved, prolonged, and enriched human life. All of this has been possible because of the character of our research institutions.

Some of the most progressive social reforms in the 20th century also have originated in research universities. As articulated at the turn of the last century by a leader of a great state university—the University of Wisconsin—the “walls of the university should be the boundaries of the state.” Over the past

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century, this concept has grown strong and deep into the marrow of American higher education. It has been expanded and adapted and incorporated as a fundamental mission at most private as well as public universities.

Imagine how astounding this concept must have seemed at the beginning. What a break with the classical tradition of higher education it was to think that the goal—a primary goal at that— of a great university could be public service.

Universities were places for the elite. Under the European model the goal of a university was the transfer of culture, and in the German model it was scholarship carried out for the benefit of the advantaged few. In America, though, we were beginning to understand that work in science and economics could be used—used by design, not accident—and that universities could be agents to improve lives outside the halls of learning.

But it meant more than that. It meant faculty research involved in shaping social institutions and social policy.

Everyone—farmers, professors, business owners, politicians, homemakers, and workers—basically agreed on some important ideas. That those without wealth and power must be protected.

That government should be open. That there must be some social control over those with huge economic strength, and that the government ought to be used as a tool to achieve social equity— to level the playing field for everyone. Everyone acknowledged that the university’s experts could help secure these goals.

And the rightness of those goals was held to be a notion that transcended politics.

We cannot be complacent, though, because our work is far from over as we settle into the 21st century. The research university has a tremendous basic job of discovery ahead of it.

The problems of poverty, health care, and education are our—as

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well as society’s—problems, which no wonder of chemistry or medicine will make disappear. We must solve these problems using all our resources as a society. And the resources of our research universities must address them.

We must focus on the things we do best—educating people and creating knowledge. We have done a good job of creating knowledge in science, medicine, and engineering—of delivering “miracles” of pure science, but less well at delivering the “miracles” of social science. Yet even given the lack of significant support, our social science researchers have been able to make important contributions. They have laid the foundation for changes in national policies regarding, for example, children, race, education, gender, the poor, the disabled, communications regulation, and international security.

This kind of research deserves as much recognition and financial support as research in the pure sciences. That kind of change in the direction in which society funnels its research dollars will take vision and political will. In addition, if we are to develop a new paradigm for great research universities, one that provides for more equity among the disciplines, we must first recognize the many barriers that exist within our own institutions.

And universities are nothing if not creatures of tradition. In many ways, our governance and reward systems have remained largely unchanged for over a century, that same century in which we have seen such profound social change. And just as support for research in the sciences is valued above research in the social sciences and the humanities, work in a discipline still tends to be more highly valued than is interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary work, despite the fact that it often is those kinds of approaches that will help us solve the increasingly complex problems facing

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us in every arena. But if we are to develop a new paradigm for great research universities, we must begin to tear down the barriers—both disciplinary and human—and to build bridges.

First, we must put our houses in order. And we must start by addressing the injustices and inequities that still plague our campuses, our faculties and staff, the very fiber of our ideological tapestry. There is a crying need for our great universities to function as a moral force beyond the pragmatic. With our superior ability to draw together the finest minds and to put those minds in contact with young people whose own value systems are at the critical point of maturation, we ought to be able to serve as models for a just and sensitive interaction. And too often we cannot.

We must be on the leading edge of deep and profound change. Even with substantial gains made, too few scientists and engineers are women and minorities; too few are university administrators and chairs of academic departments. We are not doing as good a We must change the culture job as we should of making our own playing of the university if we hope field level. to enlist the university as a We are not expecting enough of ourselves. primary tool for changing The momentum of the status quo is strong. the culture at large.

Stereotypes persist. We must change, and the resentments that surround change of this kind go deep. We need to make it clear that creating a level playing field signals no shift in quality, but a striving for greater richness for all faculty and the students they teach.

We must change the culture of the university if we hope to enlist the university as a primary tool for changing the culture at large. We must take our stand here and now. We can continue to

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call ourselves great universities only if we passionately work to eliminate the “isms” in our universities in our own lifetime.

Our strategies for this change must be grounded in research if we are to shift any institutional behaviors or paradigms. To get the level of support we need, social research must find a way to cast its own shadow, as science has done so magnificently.

We have done an exemplary job of making pure science seem like the great objective friend to humanity that it certainly is— making science something to be trusted and relied upon without suspicion. Something benevolent and impartial. We must find a way to invest social science research with that same objective sense of good. And we must do that in a climate that is bipartisan when it comes to identifying problems, but partisan when it comes to identifying solutions.

Research is a fundamental form of freedom. Without the capacity to ask any question and seek any answer—and without the material resources (in technology, laboratories, and libraries) to actually find the answer—understanding cannot progress. Closed minds cannot question. Stifled curiosity cannot interrogate. Repressed imagination cannot wonder. Freedom is the surest path to excellence. Research universities, therefore, are—and must be—bastions and exemplars of freedom.

Because research is a form of freedom, it is not and cannot be a matter of skills alone. In the final analysis, the discovery of new knowledge is an act of will—some combination of preparation, technique, intellect, and character. Even with all the training in the world, people do not, will not, and cannot advance learning in an environment that is hostile to the individual intellectual autonomy that research requires. Without access, means, and encouragement, it is difficult—particularly for undergraduates—

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to apprehend the value of pure discovery, much less to devote a lifetime to it.

The educational mission of American research universities extends beyond providing superior laboratories, libraries, technology, and the other facilities for discovery. In a learning environment animated by the values of research, we must create comprehensive opportunities for students to manifest individual responsibility and discover their own emerging autonomy. Our courses, curricula, and campus life should enable students to take charge of their education as much as possible. Nurturing individual autonomy must be a key value of American higher education.

The centrality of individual autonomy to the core educational mission of research helps explain why diversity is so important to the work of America’s great universities. Diversity—social, cultural, gender, economic, intellectual—fosters individuality.

Pluralism provokes self-awareness in intellect and personal identity. The unique power and value of reason are especially and acutely evident in a context of conflicting perspectives and irreconcilable differences. We are less likely to think hard and ask difficult questions if we are all alike and agree on most things. Conformity is the enemy of autonomy. To be sure, broad access to the best of American higher education will contribute to rectifying past injustices and creating a more open, pluralistic society. But even if we were to achieve full social justice in the next quarter century, as some have suggested, our need for diversity in universities would not disappear. My work in public and private higher education, in government, and on the National Academy of Sciences study on women in science has taught me that ensuring and fostering diversity on university

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campuses contributes in a fundamental way to the ultimate purpose of American learning: the discovery of new knowledge.

Pure research is the culmination of an American education.

Our national ambition should be to educate as many of our people as possible as early and effectively as possible so that the most talented and ambitious of them can find their ways into lifetimes of discovery and the advancement of knowledge. To continue to nurture the excellence that leads the world in the discovery of new knowledge, our research universities must foster a climate of intellectual rigor and individual autonomy.

We cannot achieve intellectual or educational excellence if we are all the same and our doors are open to some but not to all.

Excellence demands freedom, and freedom assumes difference.

In a world in which the forces of true belief aim to obstruct reason, suppress discourse, wipe out difference, and kill us, the stakes in this kind of education are higher than they have ever been.

Copyright © 2008 Donna E. Shalala. All Rights Reserved.

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Donna E. Shalala—accomplished scholar, teacher, administrator, and public servant—is president of the University of Miami (2001–present).

She was the longest-serving U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (1993–2001) and served as chancellor of the University of WisconsinMadison (1987–1993) and president of Hunter College of The City University of New York (1980–1987).

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The Changing Nature of Higher Education Steven B. Sample

Higher education is experiencing a quiet revolution. You

wouldn’t notice this transformation by strolling across the campus of your alma mater. You might not even recognize it by stepping inside a classroom and listening to a lecture. But this sweeping change will alter the future of America’s colleges and universities, and perhaps even influence the future of our society.

In the years ahead our response to the changing nature of higher education will have an impact on the intellectual capital of the nation’s workforce, on U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace, and on the quality of life for generations of Americans.

To my mind, three trends stand out: the transformation of the baccalaureate from a terminal degree to a preparatory degree; the higher numbers of students returning to universities for continuing and advanced education; and the emphasis on interdisciplinary research and teaching. To put these trends in perspective, we need to observe how higher education has evolved over the past few centuries.

From the founding of Harvard in 1636 through the better part of the nineteenth century, higher education was mostly devoted to what was known as the classical curriculum. At that time education was equated with virtue, religion, and discipline of the mind, and had the purpose of producing leaders who adhered to upper-class values. Faculty members were not scholars as we know them today, but rather teachers of a fixed body of knowledge, which included subjects such as Greek, Latin, moral philosophy, and mathematics.

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In the 1870s American higher education experienced a fundamental shift in academic philosophy with the rise of original research. During this period the fixed body of human knowledge began to expand, and the role of faculty members began to change from merely teaching the works of others to contributing original scholarship to their respective fields. The ineluctable consequence of all this was the fracturing of what had been a fairly unified landscape into parcels of academic specialization.

Within a few decades, students, like their professors, also began to specialize. No longer passive recipients of knowledge following a prescribed curriculum, they began to choose their coursework based on their personal interests. Majors appeared.

Soon the pursuit of a specialized baccalaureate degree became common for the majority of students at universities around the nation.

The Transformation of the Baccalaureate Degree

Over the past 50 years the baccalaureate degree has played

an important role in U.S. higher education. It has served as a measure of a person’s intellectual progress, signaling that an individual possesses a basic understanding of a particular area of knowledge. It has helped Today, for most students at employers identify people with particular highly selective universities, skills. The B.A. degree has even created a the B.A. is merely a form of social shorthand in which knowing preparatory degree. the university a person attended, and the subject in which he or she had majored, provides a snapshot of a person’s interests and abilities—a kind of intellectual first impression.

However, the nature of the baccalaureate degree has changed.

Today, for most students at highly selective universities, the B.A.

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is merely a preparatory degree. Almost all of these students will go on to master’s or doctoral programs or professional schools, many of them more than once.

Several years ago I predicted the decline of the B.A. as the terminal degree in higher education. My prediction was based in part on the observation that the M.D. had lost its place as the terminal degree in medicine, and had become simply a way station in the process of preparing young people to be practicing physicians.

I noted that residency training had replaced the M.D. degree as the terminal credential in the process of becoming a competent doctor. That observation led me to predict that the B.A. degree would soon be simply preparatory to further training and study.

There are several reasons the baccalaureate is no longer the terminal credential for students at elite colleges and universities.

First, new knowledge is being generated much more rapidly today than in the past. Second, the speed with which data can be processed and manipulated is increasing at an incredible rate. Finally, in many professions new specialties are emerging every day. While we’re experiencing a tremendous expansion of knowledge in toto, we’re also witnessing its fragmentation. Areas of specialization are getting narrower and narrower. For instance, we no longer think of an accountant, or even a tax accountant, as a specialist. Instead, it is the corporate tax accountant whose expertise is considered specialized. As an electrical engineer by training, my own discipline sometimes takes four or five adjectives to define the precise area that one inhabits.

In today’s rapidly changing and complex world, specialization at the undergraduate level in highly selective universities makes almost no sense at all. No undergraduate program today can teach students all they’ll need to know or learn throughout

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their lives. Instead, these students must prepare themselves to be constantly learning, expanding their horizons, and opening themselves up to new ideas and experiences.

Continuing and Advanced Education

Because the B.A. is now merely a preparatory degree for

most students at highly selective universities, a second trend has materialized in U.S. higher education: More students are returning to the university for advanced degrees and continuing education.

There was a time when, for most people, formal education ended with high school. Today, however, even a bachelor’s degree will not provide students with all of the skills and knowledge they will need to reinvent People will seek further themselves throughout their lives. In fact, learning to jump-start many of today’s students will have four or their careers, enhance their five different careers in their lifetime—not occupational skills, increase merely jobs, but careers. their earning potential, This trend toward advanced degrees widen their intellectual is supported by statistics. Over the past horizons, or train for 50 years the number of advanced degrees entirely new professions. conferred by U.S. colleges and universities has increased steadily. In 1950 approximately 430,000 students earned bachelor’s degrees. Of those students, about 14%—or 58,000 people—went on to earn a master’s degree.

Just over half a century later the number of men and women receiving both bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees has risen dramatically. In 2004 nearly 1.4 million bachelor’s degrees were bestowed throughout the United States. Approximately 40% of those students—about 560,000 people—completed master’s degrees. Almost 50,000 people who received bachelor’s degrees in

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2004 later acquired a doctorate, practically equaling the number of master’s degrees awarded 50 years ago.

Students who are enrolled in college today must be prepared for a lifetime of learning. Universities and colleges will need to provide our students with education and training that will serve as an intellectual underpinning throughout their lives, from their early careers through retirement. People will seek further learning to jump-start their careers, enhance their occupational skills, increase their earning potential, widen their intellectual horizons, or train for entirely new professions.

Interdisciplinary Education

The

third trend that is transforming higher education is interdisciplinary research One of our greatest needs and teaching, also known as interdisciplinarity. now is for men and women Interdisciplinarity may not be the most who are truly liberally euphonious word, but it is fast becoming educated—that is, people whose education integrates the sine qua non of the research university of language and literature, the twenty-first century. Interdisciplinarity art, history, mathematics, is where bodies of knowledge intersect, science, and technology. where bridges are built between academic disciplines, and where the sparks of invention burst into full flame.

One of our greatest needs now is for men and women who are truly liberally educated—that is, people whose education integrates language and literature, art, history, mathematics, science, and technology. In his book Consilience, author and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson does a wonderful job of stating the case for a truly liberal, interdisciplinary education.

Wilson writes: Half of the legislation coming before the United States Congress contains important scientific and technological components.

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Most of the issues that vex humanity daily—ethnic conflict, arms escalation, overpopulation, abortion, environment, endemic poverty, to cite several most persistently before us— cannot be solved without integrating knowledge from the natural sciences with that of the social sciences and humanities.

Only fluency across the boundaries will provide a clear view of the world as it really is, not as seen through the lens of ideologies and religious dogmas or commanded by myopic response to immediate need.

Let me offer an example of the importance of interdisciplinary work from my own experience at USC. Like many research universities, USC’s faculty members are dedicated to solving problems of great societal significance. In the past many researchers worked alone, or with one or two disciples in the same field. Each researcher seldom knew whether his project might be a piece of a much larger scientific or technological puzzle. Collaboration was the exception, even within disciplines, let alone across them.

Today more and more groups of researchers are working together across disciplines to solve complex problems.

Neuroscience offers a prime illustration of this phenomenon of cross-disciplinary collaboration. For instance, at USC we’re developing a neural prosthesis to help restore vision. The basic question that has to be investigated in order to develop this prosthesis is, how does the visual cortex let us see? In order to address this challenge, and to work toward developing a practical prosthesis, one must bring together anatomists, physiologists, biochemists, physicians, mathematicians, and engineers.

Neuroscience is only one example. Every field is discovering the benefit and the necessity of collaborating with other disciplines. Universities don’t do interdisciplinary work simply

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for the sake of interdisciplinarity, or simply because it’s au courant or politically expedient. Rather, we work across the disciplines because it is the best and often the only way to address the biggest challenges of our world today.

To help students develop intellectual agility, the faculty of USC have spearheaded the concept of “breadth with depth” among our undergraduates. USC students are encouraged to major in whatever field they may choose, but then we encourage them to minor (or earn a second major) in a field that is widely separated from their major. Some recent examples of such “breadth with depth” include a student who majored in both biochemistry and psychology while completing minors in global communication and musical studies. Another student completed double majors in violin performance and English with a minor in international relations. Yet another completed a double major in communications and political science with a minor in cinematic arts.

By encouraging our students to work deeply and productively in two or three disciplines that are widely separated in the current geography of learning, we’re expanding their intellectual horizons while deepening their ability to think creatively and analytically.

Challenges for the Future

How should we respond to the changing nature of higher

education? Some years ago management expert Peter Drucker noted that the Industrial Revolution changed how we think about our world. Inventions such as the railroad and the telegraph helped us diminish the limitations of time and space.

But Drucker also noted that the information revolution has diminished the limitations of human society even further.

In some instances it has virtually eliminated such limitations altogether, so that the possibilities become almost endless. What’s

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more, Drucker observed that the possibilities are unpredictable.

The most significant developments of the Industrial Revolution were not the ones that had been projected at the time, any more than our projections today will prove to be the most significant developments in the current information revolution. The overriding certainty is that we will be surprised. Our chief task will be to respond well to these surprises. Thus, adaptability and flexibility will be paramount.

It has been shown that individuals who work independently do well at solving simple challenges. But interdependent communities of people are best at solving complex challenges. In the twenty-first century our biggest challenges will be extremely complex. These challenges will include issues such as economic development, disease prevention and treatment, environmental protection, technology transfer, and the development of the next generation of leaders, to name just a few. Those challenges are no longer isolated by country or region or discipline. Instead, they now cross over such artificial boundaries with impunity.

This is a critical moment in our nation’s history. We owe it to future generations to wisely invest our resources and our intellectual capital. We owe it to people around the globe to advance human knowledge and enhance human experience.

To ensure that America’s system of higher education remains the best in the world, and that our nation remains competitive in a global economy, we must encourage our students to pursue lifelong education and develop the intellectual agility they will need to successfully navigate an increasingly complex world.

Copyright © 2008 Steven B. Sample. All Rights Reserved.

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Steven B. Sample became the tenth president of the University of Southern California in March 1991. He has led USC in its dramatic ascent into the top tier of the nation’s research universities. Under his leadership, USC conducted a national record-setting fundraising campaign and has achieved wide acclaim for its innovative community partnerships. He co-teaches a course on leadership and wrote the best-selling book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership. Before USC, he served as president of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

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In the National Interest: The Role of Universities in Strengthening America’s Contribution to the World David J. Skorton

Sixty years ago, having emerged from the Second World

War and begun the rebuilding of Europe through the Marshall Plan, the United States was on its way to superpower status, propelled not only by economic and military dominance but also by the strength of its ideals of democracy, freedom, economic opportunity, and the subsequent promise of a better life through education and hard work.

In the ensuing half-century, and particularly in the last two decades, our perceived place in the world has changed dramatically. We are still arguably the world’s only military superpower, but that military is being challenged by the war in Iraq; our economic dominance challenged by nations like India and China; the power of our national ideals challenged by inequality and poverty in our own cities and rural areas and by the perception that we have engaged the world in a sometimes heavy-handed way. We are still a rich and powerful nation by any measure, but, unfortunately, one that all too often inspires not respect but resentment and even hatred.

Against this bleak perception, America’s institutions of higher education are respected around the world for their ability to offer the means to a better life through education, research, and outreach. America’s colleges and universities have the potential to serve as one of our country’s most effective and credible diplomatic assets while also increasing the ability of American students to be effective participants in the global economy. I call on the next president of the United States to: 51

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•• Better harness the power of research, education, and direct action from America’s higher education institutions to promote international development and human capacity building overseas—in partnership with other governments, NGOs, corporations, foundations, and international higher education colleagues.

•• Increase support for initiatives at American colleges and universities designed to equip our students to function effectively and contribute positively to an interconnected world.

•• Ensure that American visa and export control requirements allow the world’s most gifted students and scholars to study and work at American universities.

Education for a Transnational World

By

educating international students on American campuses, we make a direct contribution to the education of both international and America’s colleges and American students. Studying and living universities have the together, these students live and learn in a potential to serve as one of diverse community, broaden their knowledge our country’s most effective of other cultures, and gain a much-needed and credible diplomatic depth in their understanding of current assets while also increasing events. International students who remain in the ability of American the United States after earning their degrees, students to be effective particularly in science and technology fields, participants in the contribute directly to the U.S. economy as global economy. knowledge workers. Those who return to their own countries take home connections to the United States, frequently have a more favorable view of our country, and very often continue to collaborate with colleagues

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internationally and specifically in the United States. For both American and international students, education in an American university sets the stage for participation in the modern world.

As Jeffrey S. Lehman, former president of Cornell University, noted, “Despite the persistence of misunderstanding and conflict, I believe we are witnessing the evolutionary development of a truly transnational pluralistic culture—a culture that includes profoundly important universal aspirations while retaining equally important regional, national, and local variations. And great universities should prepare their students to prosper in such a culture by holding a transnational perspective on the human 1 condition.”

Global Scope of Research and Scholarship

The scientific method of hypothesis testing and discovery

knows no boundaries and is already one of the most international of activities. This is particularly true in the physical sciences, engineering, life sciences, and agriculture. University scientists and engineers have for decades collaborated with colleagues from throughout the world. Specialized “big science” facilities like CERN in Switzerland attract an international body of researchers; the new Large Hadron Collider at CERN, now in its final stages of completion, has required the participation of some 2 60 countries and some $8 billion over the past 20 years.

International scientific and professional meetings provide opportunities for scholarly exchange and networking on topics ranging from rice genomics to new directions in the humanities. International scholarly discussions of the arts, humanities and social sciences, in particular, can provide insights into the political, social, cultural, and ethical foundations of human societies, stimulate thoughtful examinations of cultural differences, and explore the universals of human experience. All

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of these endeavors help advance knowledge and provide learning opportunities for American students and faculty members as well as for colleagues from other nations.

International collaborations also provide unique research opportunities for American faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and other advanced trainees in a broad variety of fields from economics to population genetics, sociology The core activity of all education is the and global health. Also, they provide unique dissemination of knowledge resources such as genetic material that can be in order to build human useful, for example, in breeding more stresscapacity, enlarge resistant and productive crops. International understanding, and nurture research collaborations can also address the human spirit. problems and issues in which both United States and international collaborators have a direct stake. For example, with issues such as global climate change, alternative energy, HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases and a broad variety of additional global health issues, the combined capabilities of knowledge workers and observations from around the world are needed to deal effectively with the challenging problems.

Development of Human and Societal Capacity Through Higher Education Outreach

The

core activity of all education is the dissemination of knowledge in order to build human capacity, enlarge understanding, and nurture the human spirit. This is accomplished in higher education through a variety of means, including classical classroom pedagogy; experiential learning; other “apprenticeship� activities such as those pursued in medical and laboratory training, creative writing, and artistic creation, and a variety of other approaches. Research and its

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dissemination, as well as outreach, are also ways in which higher education enhances human capacity and provides the means by which individuals and societies can achieve their aspirations. This enhancement of human capacity relies on and ensures political stability, security, robust public health, and effective education, which, in turn, leads to inquiry, discovery, and innovation.

One example of this is the Cornell-Nanking Crop Improvement Program, a cooperative agricultural exchange program carried out in China between 1925 and 1931 in order to improve the major food crops of northern China and train Chinese investigators in crop improvement techniques. The effort paved the way for many post–World War II technical assistance programs involving American universities and their counterparts overseas.

Another example related to global health is exemplified

by Professor Paul Farmer and his collaborators at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the nonprofit Partners in Health organization. They have pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for AIDS and tuberculosis in Haiti, Peru, Russia, and elsewhere, in the process demonstrating that it is possible to provide quality health care 3 even in resource-poor areas.

4 As I have written elsewhere, we must continue and increase the pace of these international collaborations and exchanges as we build educational capacity with our colleagues overseas. The worldwide demand for higher education is fueled by the needs of an exploding global middle class—particularly in China and India—and the collapse of some of Africa’s higher-education 5 infrastructure. A growing number of capable students around the world have no options to pursue their education. Thus we cannot handle tomorrow’s students and the demands for

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advanced skills with the resources that exist today. One critical aspect of capacity building is to help other nations build the capacity to educate their own students so that they can be contributors to their societies and realize their own aspirations for a better life.

Examples of International Educational Partnerships and Initiatives

International partnerships and initiatives can take many

forms, ranging from full branch campuses of American universities overseas to dual- and joint-degree programs, to scholarly exchanges and study abroad programs. Cornell University, like many other research universities, participates in a variety of such initiatives.

We operate a branch campus of our Weill Cornell Medical College in Doha, Qatar, where Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University (School of Foreign Service), Texas A&M, and Virginia Commonwealth University (School of the Arts) also have branch campuses. The first M.D. students at WCMC-Q will earn their Cornell medical degrees in spring 2008.

Select students in the Cornell Law School, who are fluent in French or German, can earn both a Cornell J.D. degree and a graduate law degree at one of three European partner institutions.

Through our School of Hotel Administration, we offer a joint master of management in hospitality program in partnership with Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

In November 2007, Cornell enrolled the first students in a new program based entirely at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia, which offers a Cornell master of professional studies degree in international agriculture and rural development with a specialization in integrated watershed management. In all, Cornell has well over 150 agreements for programs in more than

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50 countries that run the gamut of arts and sciences, engineering, the professions, agriculture, and labor relations.

To increase the international awareness of students on Cornell’s Ithaca campus, we offer instruction in some 40 languages, a variety of “area studies” programs focused on specific regions of the world, study abroad opportunities, and international content in courses taught throughout the university—from international agriculture and development sociology to history, music, and art. We have also instituted a new undergraduate major in China and Asia-Pacific Studies, which combines intensive training in Mandarin and Chinese history, culture, and foreign policy, with internships and work experience in Washington, D.C., and Beijing.

These sorts of programs, which are present on many American college and university campuses, attempt to equip students to thrive in and contribute to a transnational world while also increasing the overall store of human knowledge. The availability of multiple models for expanding the international presence of American universities and for academic programs with an international focus here at home provides a strong and varied base on which to build.

The Way Forward

Mindful of security concerns about sharing science and

technology that may have military or commercial applications as well as concerns relating to terrorism, counterintelligence, and homeland security, U.S. universities must nevertheless have the ability to attract the best students and faculty from throughout the world.

Realizing the tension between these two sets of priorities, the federal government, in 2005, created the National Security 6 Higher Education Advisory Board. This board includes the

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presidents of several major research universities; is chaired by Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University; and reports to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The advisory board provides advice to the federal government on the culture of higher education and its traditions of openness, academic freedom, and international collaboration.

The next president of the United States should continue to seek the advice of higher education on issues that impact our nation’s security. Visa restrictions and export controls, while less burdensome than they were a few years ago, need continually to be fine-tuned in order to derive the maximum benefit from transnational interaction while minimizing the risks.

Increased support for the teaching of critical languages is needed to overcome U.S. students’ long-standing inability to communicate in any language other than English. A promising start in this area is the National Security Language Initiative, which should be continued and expanded.

University-based National Resource Centers focused on key areas of the world, currently funded through Title VI of the Higher Education Act, are also invaluable contributors to research and education, providing advanced language training and knowledge in the liberal arts and applied disciplines that relate to specific world regions. They serve to help U.S. students and scholars become more culturally competent and knowledgeable participants in the global economy.

I challenge the next president of the United States, regardless of party affiliation, to think broadly about how the nation’s colleges and universities can improve their effectiveness and impact as a positive force in international diplomacy and as contributors to the well-being of the world’s people and the sustainability of our planet. International capacity building will

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benefit the U.S. economically and in terms of the respect we command in the world.

I thank Constance Kintner for her research, commentary and assistance related to this essay.

Copyright © 2008 David J. Skorton. All Rights Reserved.

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Endnotes 1 http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_ id=102481 2 http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/the-biggest-thing-in-physics/ article_view?b_start:int=0&-C= 3 http://www.hms.harvard.edu/dsm/WorkFiles/html/research/PIDSC/ pidsc.html 4 David J. Skorton, “Point of View: A Global Outreach Plan for Colleges,” Chronicle of Higher Education (September 21, 2007).

5 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/world/africa/ 20senegal.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1190219985kgvc+1MsGL7AfT6cFkSyzg 6 http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel05/highed091505.htm

David J. Skorton is president of Cornell University and professor in the departments of internal medicine, pediatrics, and biomedical engineering.

He is also vice chair of the Business-Higher Education Forum and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Skorton was president of the University of Iowa.

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The Measure of All Things S. Georgia Nugent

As I prepare to teach a course in classical drama, my

thoughts are inevitably colored by Greek tragedy. Calling my own concerns about higher education (to which I will turn, shortly) “tragic,” would surely be hyperbolic. But if these concerns are in fact part of a larger drama in our society, the term may be more apt. You know the plotline: the protagonist, powerful and arrogant, plows forward toward his own demise, heedless of the warning voices from the chorus. In this first decade of the twenty-first century, many ills plague our society; there is plenty for a Cassandra to decry. The future of our environment looks grim, excessive partisanship cripples our national politics, the infrastructure of our cities is wearing out—and these are only a handful of the many challenges we face. Yet I believe another threat to our well-being and our future, both pervasive and corrosive, goes unrecognized or even mistakenly welcomed. The unquestioned reliance in our era on quantification has exceeded its useful limits. Our dependence on quantification alone as a tool for discovering truth may now blind us to important truths. Again, the pattern is familiar from Greek tragedy. It is not weakness which brings the great Greek heroes down; it is strength—which does not recognize its own bounds.

And our modern reliance on quantitative reasoning has been a strength. As Moore’s Law remains reliable, our wildly accelerating capacity for computation has unquestionably enabled unprecedented scientific and medical advances in our world. Heroic strength, however, always carries its own fatal flaw. Computation alone cannot lead us to a brighter future.

Our technologies now enable us to do things which numbers 61

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alone cannot help us to evaluate. Einstein’s well-known epigram sums up the matter: “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” This is a basic truth, but in our rash embrace of survey data, returns on investment, quantifiable deliverables, ubiquitous “accountability”— The unquestioned in short, in our single-minded reliance reliance in our era on on “the numbers”—we stand in danger of quantification has forgetting this truth. By all means, rely on exceeded its useful limits. quantification where it is appropriate; the Our dependence on numbers do, indeed, tell a story. But there are quantification alone as a many other stories to be told, which require tool for discovering truth other modes of telling. Oedipus rightly may now blind us to takes pride in having solved the riddle of the important truths.

Sphinx; where he goes wrong is in believing he can solve every riddle.

Urging skepticism about reliance on quantitative analysis and what it can accomplish may itself seem antiquated. After all, in our post-Enlightenment development of the sciences and technology, have we not—much like breaking the sound barrier—sped past those limits of understanding which may have held back earlier peoples? When we are able to split the atom, splice the genome, and seed the clouds, perhaps a reverence for what is beyond man’s reckoning seems merely a relic of eras before we had achieved the full powers of our quantitative methods and models. Or perhaps not.

One of the more compelling and influential explorations of quantification in recent years originated as an article in the New Yorker magazine by the young surgeon Atul Gawande and was later reprinted in his best-selling book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. This work has been widely adduced as “proving”

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the great importance and appropriateness of applying quantitative standards across a very broad swath of human activities. But I believe a deeper reading tells a different story.

Gawande’s article entitled “The Bell Curve” traces a fascinating history in the treatment of a particular disease, cystic fibrosis.

Weaving together the stories of a single CF patient and several extraordinary doctors, Gawande shows, first, that results in the treatment of this disease can indeed be quantified and that when they are, a quite distinct range of success emerges. Some doctors, the numbers show, are simply much more successful than others—even when those others are, by their own accounts and those of their patients, extraordinarily dedicated, conscientious, and intent on their patients’ welfare.

Hence, the title of the article. At one point, Gawande writes that a bell curve in success rate characterizes the performance of many activities, such as “catching fly balls, manufacturing microchips, delivering overnight packages. Medicine’s only distinction is that lives are lost in those slim margins.” Later, however, he ventures an even more sweeping statement: “…the simple facts remain: there is a bell curve in all human activities, and the differences you measure usually matter.” But to extrapolate from activities like catching fly balls, manufacturing microchips, and delivering overnight packages to “all human activities” is a patently false conceptual move. Many human activities (encouraging a child, listening to a friend, reading a poem, solving a riddle) cannot be quantified in the way that sports statistics or package delivery rates can.

Gawande would seem to argue for the wisdom of applying numerical standards even to such apparently non-algorithmic activities as healing. But his own information belies that conclusion, as he studies in depth one amazingly successful

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doctor, Warren Warwick. “The buzzword for clinicians these days,” Gawande notes, “is ‘evidence-based practice.’” That is, doctors are encouraged to follow the research findings, rather than relying on their own intuition or ad-hoc experimentation.

Yet Gawande finds that Warwick is “almost contemptuous of established findings.” In studying this gifted healer, Gawande is compelled to conclude: “We are used to thinking a doctor’s ability depends mainly on science and skill…[but] more nebulous factors like aggressiveness and consistency and ingenuity can matter enormously.” Finally, “what the best may have, above all, is a capacity to learn and adapt—and to do so faster than everyone else.”

This study, intent upon proving that a bell curve characterizes all human activity, ultimately confronts the conclusion that the numbers are not enough; there is an elusive something else, something nonquantifiable that characterizes what is best. And Gawande’s work is not alone. In fields of medicine and science, we are seeing more examples of apostasy from the belief that quantification is a sufficient means of understanding our world.

Science journalist Gary Taubes, writing in the New York Times Magazine, presents a compelling case against overreliance on the science of epidemiology. The popular press, he notes, likes to disseminate prescriptions or proscriptions (eat more oat bran, avoid caffeine) based on research evidence that is often spotty, inconclusive, or downright deceptive because of its partiality.

These proclamations—often, much to the public’s confusion, reversed within a short time—stretch the research efforts of epidemiology beyond what they can bear, mistaking hunches or hypotheses for findings. “The perception of what epidemiological research can legitimately accomplish,” Taubes claims, “may have run far ahead of the reality.” The reason, it seems safe to say, is

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the public appetite for quantitative reassurance, particularly in those areas of our lives, such as health, where our anxiety and uncertainty most reside. When the Greeks sought guidance, they went to the Delphic Oracle; today we employ Oracle data to the same end. Professor Sander Greenland of UCLA, author of the textbook Modern Epidemiology, finds that “the combination of data, statistical methodology and motivation seems a potent anesthetic for skepticism.” Quantification—even when it is flawed—provides the illusion of mastery; we might call that illusion hubris.

Not only in medicine, but in other fields as well, scientists are calling for a more thoughtful understanding of the limits to quantification’s usefulness. Orrin Pilkey and Linda PilkeyJarvis, co-authors of Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can’t Predict the Future, make a particularly strong case that “quantitative mathematical models have created the delusion that we can calculate our way out of our environmental crises” and that “the common use of such models has, in fact, damaged society in a number of ways.” They point out that both the multiplicity and the random sequencing of variables that influence the earth’s processes (what they call “ordering complexity”) render many strictly mathematical models “absurd.” Yet despite their repeated failures, “no one ever admits that the models are flawed.” Why not? With the advent of powerful computers, mandated environmental impact statements, and increasingly intractable environmental issues, these scientists argue, reliance on quantitative data has proved to be a Siren’s song. “Our society as a whole,” they claim, “remains overconfident about quantitative modeling. Accustomed to firm predictions—even if they turn out to be wrong—people find qualitative models insufficient.…We have come to the point

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where mathematical models that cannot accurately predict the outcomes of natural processes are widely used and accepted without question by our society.”

This should give us considerable pause. The public is more reassured by quantitative data even if they turn out to be wrong than by qualitative The public is more information. Pilkey and Pilkey-Jarvis make reassured by quantitative a compelling case within their own field data even if they turn of environmental studies, concluding that out to be wrong than by “there are no precise answers to many of the qualitative information. important questions we must ask about the future of human interaction with our planet.

We must use more qualitative ways to answer them.” But far beyond a single field of study, there is a need to recognize that quantitative methods alone are insufficient to address many of our most complex human issues. As a scholar of Greek tragedy I hear, from those I’ve cited here and others, the voices of the chorus—warning, urging another point of view, but not being heeded. Of course, the chorus is never heeded; the protagonist continues to believe that he has a special purchase on wisdom, even at the moment when he is least wise.

As a college president, it seems to me that we are seeing this drama played out in the field of higher education. Particularly since the release of the Spellings Commission report in 2006, no week goes by without a call for more numerical data, to specify exactly how much “learning” as a “value-added” “product” is occurring in America’s colleges and universities. Certainly, some types of learning can be quantified. Answers are right or wrong, and they can be counted. A child has correctly memorized multiplication tables, or not. A language learner has generated

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the appropriate linguistic form, or not. Measurements made in the course of an experiment are accurate, or not.

But it does not take much imagination to recognize that there are many, many forms of understanding and learning which do not admit of simple measurement—indeed, do not admit of measurement at all. And, typically, these types of learning are the true objectives of higher education properly understood, as distinct from the acquisition of basic skills or technical training. Discerning historical causes, inventing a new process, ascertaining one’s ethical duty, analyzing political conflict, creating a work of art—all of these are valued activities in our institutions of higher education. But what modes of measurement could we possibly bring to bear, to quantify that value? Everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.

Some stories cannot be told by numbers alone. They must be grasped by narrative, by observation, by reflection; they unfold over time. They are processes rather than products, directions rather than data. Yet the Spellings Commission insisted that “better data is absolutely essential…for measuring institutional performance,” and that a lack of data “prevents higher education from demonstrating its contribution to the public good.”

Here is a serious charge. Does higher education make a contribution to the public good? And, if it does, how can that be “demonstrated”? To examine this issue, we need to understand, first, how the Spellings Commission defines “the public good.”

And that is not difficult to find. Throughout the pages of the report, from beginning to end, the public good which the commission members expect higher education to serve is clearly stated. The commission’s recommendations, the report states, will lead to a “more nimble, more efficient, heightened capacity to compete in the global marketplace.” The section of the document

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devoted to “the value of higher education” cites only such items as “intellectual capital,” “jobs in the knowledge-driven economy,” “median earnings,” and “economic growth.” The public good, in this view, is synonymous with economic growth and global competitiveness. Presumably, this “good” could indeed be measured: growth in productivity, GNP, and median household income might serve as important indicators. But the haunting lyrics of the old Peggy Lee ballad come to my mind: Is that all there is?

No; that’s not all there is—to higher education or to our republic. We have known for many years that college graduates earn more than those without college degrees; but surely that is not the greatest contribution that higher education can make to “the public good.”

It may not be fashionable There are goods beyond the marketplace to say that there is and means of valuing which are not only learning which cannot be numerical. As Tony Judt has recently written, measured in “value-added” “modern democracies…need to be bound increments and there are by something more than the pursuit of goods which transcend the private economic advantage,” and he aptly marketplace. But, frankly, cites John Stuart Mill: “The idea of a society it must be said. held together by pecuniary interests alone is…‘essentially repulsive.’” Our institutions of higher education are not intended to be, primarily, engines of economic profit. Nor is “productivity” their appropriate goal.

Higher education serves, rather, to advance that elusive kind of understanding, that “something more,” to which Judt alludes and which Gawande found, when he studied extraordinary healers.

It may not be fashionable to say that there is learning which cannot be measured in “value-added” increments and there are goods which transcend the marketplace. But, frankly, it must be

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said. And those of us in higher education must have the courage to say it. In Greek tragedy, the chorus is never heeded. But the protagonist never survives.

Copyright © 2008 S. Georgia Nugent. All Rights Reserved.

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S. Georgia Nugent became president of Kenyon College in 2003. Previously, she served in the administration of Princeton University as assistant to the president, associate provost, and founding dean of the Harold W. McGraw Teaching and Learning Center. As a classicist, she has taught on the faculties of Swarthmore College, Princeton University, Cornell University, and Brown University. She continues to teach the classics at Kenyon.

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The Moral Responsibility of Higher Education Lawrence Biondi, S.J.

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he origins of Saint Louis University, where I have served as president for the past 20 years, date back to a battlefield in Pamplona in 1521. As the battle came to an end, a cannonball struck a solider named Ignatius Loyola, crushing his leg and forcing him to convalesce in a bed for more than a year. During that time he connected with God and began to realize the missteps of his young life. And when he was able to walk again, he vowed to correct them. His spiritual experiences following his devastating injuries eventually led him to the priesthood and to found the Society of Jesus, an order of religious men dedicated to doing God’s work through education.

Sometimes I wonder if the higher education system in the United States would benefit from a figurative cannonball to the leg. Much has been discussed about college tuition increasing at a rate greater than the rate of inflation and about the major increase in student debt. But I worry that as the battle over who is to blame for rising tuition rages on, we are forgetting about the moral responsibility of higher education.

I fear what would happen to this country’s economy and to its young people if a figurative “cannonball”—something we can all see coming—hit the education system. Will it take falling behind emerging economic behemoths like China and India to wake us up to the reality that we all need to work together so as to not fall behind as the global economy changes at breakneck speed?

The solution is not increasing already high tuition, nor is it increasing governmental funding to U.S. universities. The solution is more meaningful collaboration between government, 71

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business, and higher education. Faced with the prospect of losing the high standard of living and freedom we have enjoyed for more than a century, government, business, and higher education leaders continue to spew political rhetoric and point fingers about who should carry the load, as the cannonball careens ever closer.

Sometimes I wonder if the Would it not be better to combine the higher education system in resources of government, business, and the United States would higher education to best benefit a society benefit from a figurative that is quickly changing? This three-leggedcannonball to the leg. stool model would provide a coordinated, effective leadership model that reflects the required interdependency needed.

A few years ago I traveled to several major U.S. cities with the director of a business group here in St. Louis to see what those communities were doing right. What we found were thriving regions that succeeded because each leg of the metaphorical stool is working with the others efficiently and effectively. They set aside the political rhetoric and battle lines. They managed to foster change that is critical for not just each leg’s individual survival but also for their region’s continued economic growth and development.

In 2008 and beyond, our nation needs a president who is an effective consensus builder. A man or a woman who is willing to help foster collaboration on a national, state, and local level to make more of these three-legged partnerships possible and successful. It’s critical that we all work together to provide the most effective and efficient benefits for our society and not needlessly duplicate research and services simply because we are too stubborn to break out of the restraints of the status quo. But it

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seems rare that the persons and institutions that can make these collaborations possible put in the work needed for success.

Higher education institutions are already proficient in cooperating with businesses and government agencies to ensure our survival. We have long partnered with federal agencies that provide funding to our students to prepare the workforce of the future. Government has helped pay for the groundbreaking research conducted by many of our professors. And we rely on the generosity of many businesspeople who have established scholarships, financed construction projects, and shared their expertise with our leadership.

But that is simply not enough. Think of the possibilities if the three-legged approach was applied in our country’s cities. What could be done if all three parties came together sharing resources and expertise, rather than duplicating services and work? How much time, money, and effort could be saved?

In St. Louis, we already have a successful example of such collaboration in the Center of Research, Technology and Entrepreneurial Expertise, or CORTEX. It is a public-private economic development initiative that promotes the development of a nationally recognized life science industry in a corridor ranging from Midtown’s Saint Louis University to the city’s west side at Washington University, another top private teaching and research university. The biotech research district is also controlled by a partnership of SLU as well as our cross-town brothers and sisters at the University of Missouri–St. Louis and the Missouri Botanical Garden.

After a local business group commissioned a study to see how a biolife center in St. Louis could work, CORTEX partners raised $29 million—later leveraged to $55 million—to start CORTEX. The partnership has already led to significant benefits

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to the city and to the region by attracting established firms like Solae Company. The food company, researching and creating new products from soy protein, is building its new headquarters in the district and is serving as an incubator to fledging biotech firms that have emerged from the scientific findings of research performed by CORTEX nonprofit partners.

But more can be done. As I have challenged other leaders in the business community, in the St. Louis government, and at Saint Louis University, more collaboration is possible and necessary. When you look at the impact a university can have on its community—and not exclusively in the economic development role it plays in training young people entering the workforce—you quickly will realize the potential reward of encouraging such partnerships.

At Saint Louis University, we believe in caring for our neighbors and our community. God has created all of us—straight and gay, persons of color, persons of different socioeconomic backgrounds, persons from varied cultural, religious, or geographical origins. It is part of our Catholic, Jesuit mission of forming “men and women for others” to reach out to all, regardless of their circumstances, and improve the community around us. For example, SLU has established a revolving loan fund to help businesses and other institutions in the development of our Midtown neighborhood area. We also offer forgivable loans to our faculty and staff who want to move into neighborhoods around our university campus.

Among many other outreach efforts, we feed our neighbors with surplus food from our residence halls, collect school supplies for the children who cannot afford them, and our law students help hundreds of lower-income Missourians receive Medicaid benefits. We believe in teaching our students to be

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servant-leaders and to strive to make our world a more civilized environment in which to live and to work.

For example, SLU has a long-standing partnership with our neighboring Wyman Elementary School, with our students regularly offering tutoring, mentoring, and other help. Look at what universities can do when we share the talents and expertise of our faculties, staff, and students with the local schools that need it. Think how this We believe in teaching program could be enhanced to improve our students to be servantour troubled schools. If some of the leaders leaders and to strive to in industry in our fair city—and cities make our world a more all across the country—started Adopt-acivilized environment in School programs and used their financial which to live and to work. resources to improve the level of education in our cities’ troubled schools, our primary education system could be transformed. The three legs of the stool—government, business, and higher education—must come together to take regionwide ownership of the problems with area schools and find realistic, workable solutions. If we succeed, then our entire region—and even our entire nation—benefits.

Of course, I know that it is easier to talk about collaboration than it is to accomplish it. Still, I believe that colleges and universities across the country are already setting a standard that leaders could emulate. So Mr. or Madam Future President, as you make plans to improve our great nation, I encourage that you look to higher education for successful models of what can happen when great minds work together.

After all, teaching is what we do best.

Copyright © 2008 Lawrence Biondi, S.J. All Rights Reserved.

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Lawrence Biondi, S.J., was inaugurated as president of Saint Louis University in 1987. During his tenure, he has upgraded and modernized University buildings and has revitalized the surrounding campus. He has committed vast University resources to academics, student scholarships and financial aid, faculty research and state-of-the-art technology and is widely considered one of the most influential St. Louisans. Biondi leads a university that enrolls more than 12,000 students on two campuses and boasts institutional assets totaling $1.6 billion.

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Letters to the next president

Education: Advancing, Not Defending, Civilization Richard M. Joel

Congratulations. You’ve done it.

You’ve made it through the primaries, the convention, the debates, the election, and the transition. Now comes the hard part.

I remember how I felt, assuming the presidency of a great university, with the responsibility of transforming uncertainty into hope and hope into reality.

The challenges facing you are so much greater.

The first thing I would urge you to do is to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln as he left Springfield for Washington: I now leave…with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him, who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.

When I first started to reflect on what advice to give you regarding what you can do for higher education, I was reminded of a story about one of the great rabbinic sages of the twentieth century, the Chofetz Chaim.

After losing the Russo-Japanese War, Czar Nicholas II was forced to accept a Parliament and a Constitution. A group of Yeshiva students went to the Chofetz Chaim to ask which of the candidates for Parliament would be best for the Jews. The venerable sage replied by telling a story about two men in a rowboat. When there was a hole in one side of the rowboat, the

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man on the other side knew that if he failed to act, he too would perish because they were both in the same boat. “The question you should be asking,” said the sage, “is which candidates will be best for Russia?”

For too long, people have tended to pigeonhole us into different constituencies and special interest groups based on region, race, religion, age, gender, and a host of other factors. The truth is we are all in the same boat. The students of today are the workers of tomorrow and the retirees of the future. Our diversity is a source of our strength but only when it is combined with a sense of our common destiny and purpose.

It is in that spirit, that I offer my thoughts on how you in the White House and we in higher education can work together to uplift America.

Your first predecessor, the man whose name graces the city in which you will govern, wrote in his Farewell Address: It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.…

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as a structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

George Washington saw “institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge” as “an object of primary importance.” Yet he did not see them as a means for training students to compete in the economy. He saw them as a place for instilling “virtue and morality” and producing an “enlightened” public opinion.

For millennia, Washington’s conception of education was the defining one in my community.

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The Jewish tradition teaches us that study is the highest calling. It is through study that we acquire our ideas and our ideals. The great Talmudic sage, Hillel, taught that “the ignorant person cannot be righteous.” Rabbi Meir taught that one who engages in study “merits many things” and “is prepared to become righteous, upright and trustworthy,” while acquiring traits of “wisdom, understanding and courage.”

Our tradition goes even further, telling us that the writing of the Torah preceded the creation of the world, that the Torah is the blueprint of creation. It is through study that we acquire the values of empathy, love, compassion, charity, peace, freedom, and justice that are the bedrock of civilization. The more a civilization cherishes these values, the more important learning becomes.

Through the millennia, the primary purpose of education has been seen as to produce well-rounded and enlightened individuals. For over a generation, we have been in retreat from that vision. While Through the millennia, pursuing achievement and proficiency, the primary purpose universities have turned away from poetry of education has been and become too much a place of prose. seen as to produce wellWhether still fearful of the upheavals of rounded and enlightened the ’60s, or paralyzed by the correctness individuals. For over a of relativism, the academy has retreated generation, we have been from shaping our civilization. Our children in retreat from that vision. long to matter, yearning for an informing vision of values that make life work. They confront a madness of license on one hand and extremist hateful fundamentalism on the other that seeks to extinguish the light of ideas and the lyric melody of values.

We need to refocus on the exploration of the value of values, must expose the young to the freedom of commitment, to the

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nuances of ideals firmly held, while protecting the rights of others. We must rebuild a spirit of free inquiry, while embracing the immutability of life values that are nonnegotiable. We must teach the skills of navigating the terrain, while reaching for the cosmos. Our challenge is not to defend Western civilization, but to advance Western civilization.

A major factor in the shift of focus in education is the overemphasis on statistics in general, and standardized tests in particular, as measures of our success. These tests can measure information that has been memorized. They tell us nothing about values instilled. They reward the ability to spit back knowledge but tell us little about students’ skills in reasoning or judgment. We are in danger A major factor in the of graduating a generation of test takers shift of focus in education rather than a generation of enlightened and is the overemphasis on informed citizens. statistics in general, and Standardized tests are one way in which standardized tests in we can judge the success of institutions and particular, as measures of individual students. We need to develop our success. others that tell us more about how we have nurtured the minds and souls of our students. Admittedly, this will be far harder to measure. But it is as or more important in achieving our educational goals.

On a more practical scale, we face another crisis—the crisis of affordability. The cost of providing a quality higher education has soared beyond the reach of all but the most affluent families.

The challenge of bringing ideals back into the classroom is one that we in the university must meet. The challenge of making ideals part of the overall educational experience while addressing the crisis of affordability is one that we can meet together. And in doing so, we can brighten the future for all Americans.

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For many years, we have promoted military service and participation in volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps by emphasizing the opportunity to earn educational benefits. We need to place more emphasis and invest more funds in programs in which students simultaneously pursue education and public service.

Students in these programs would attend college while spending several hours a week in volunteer programs. The public service commitment can be carried out through participation in federal government sponsored programs like Americorps or the USA Freedom Corps, by work in university sponsored programs, or by doing regular volunteer work in local schools, libraries, hospitals, food pantries, parks, and public safety. Participation in these programs would be supervised by the university.

Expanding such programs would make public service an integral part of the educational experience, prepare students for leadership roles, and foster greater interaction between the university and the community it serves.

The cost of a student’s participation in the combined education/public service program would be paid by a combination of tuition, government assistance and financial aid, including student loans.

Students could have their loans forgiven by engaging in public service work after graduation. This could include military service, the Peace Corps and other volunteer programs, working for federal, state, or local government or nonprofits and practicing professions in underserved communities.

Students who choose this option will be freed of the burden of debt. And we will all benefit from a cadre of idealistic, welleducated young people eager to take on our most difficult challenges.

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Another potential area for greater cooperation is interaction between universities and government officials.

It is common for academicians to enter government and for former government officials to become academicians. What we need is more interaction between current government officials and university faculty and students.

Exposure to important officials can greatly enhance the educational experience for our students. Officials would benefit from being able to tap the wisdom of our faculty. I am also confident that they will come to share the perspective of the Talmudic sage, Rabbi Chanina, who wrote: “Much have I learned from my teachers, more from colleagues and most of all from my students.�

In his Farewell Address, George Washington wrote: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.

In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them.

Washington was a firm believer in the separation of religion and state. In this he followed in the tradition of the Bible itself, which invested religious power in the hands of the priestly descendants of Aaron and political power in the hands of the royal descendants of David. When this separation was breached in the Second Temple era, both religion and the state were corrupted, directly leading to the destruction of the Second Temple and the Diaspora.

While religious and secular authority were separated, the king was required to commission the writing of a Torah scroll, to be

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kept with him at all times as a reminder that he is a mere mortal who must govern according to moral and religious principals.

The purpose of the separation of religion and state is not to protect the public from religious ideas. It is to protect religion from the power of the state by guaranteeing the free exercise of religion to all, to guarantee all people the right to participate fully in the political process by barring religious tests for holding office and preventing the combination of religious and secular authority.

It is not the place of government to dictate how or if people should worship or what they should believe. Nor is it the place of the clergy to dictate public policy. But the state and religion can and must share the moral values that are the bedrock of civilized society.

The argument has been made that the government has no business making decisions on moral values which are solely up to the individual. The truth is that government constantly makes decisions based on moral values. Compulsory education, the ban on polygamy, the abolition of slavery, and the establishment of Social Security are all examples of policies that were instituted based on our moral values.

In building a society based on values, there is room for honest difference of opinion on how our values should be put into practice. Proponents of both sides of an issue can be people of conscience advocating ethical positions.

In Jewish tradition, we believe there are 70 faces to the Torah.

The Talmud is full of debates among rabbis regarding issues of Jewish law. While we may only be able to follow the opinion of one sage in practice, we study the opinions of all the sages and regard them as equally sacred.

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The proper role of the political system and of government is to provide the forum for an open and honest debate on the issues based on mutual respect and to determine how we translate our moral values into the pragmatic laws and policies that govern our day-to-day lives. People of faith have an important role to play in that debate.

Once we accept these two basic principles, that there are certain moral values that are sacred and that there is room for debate on the practicalities of how we carry out our values, we will be able to cut through much of the bitterness that has dominated our politics in recent years.

Do not be afraid of who you are and what you stand for.

The public voted for you, not so much for your positions on specific issues but for your character, your judgment, and your core values. Follow the dictates of your own conscience while respecting and reaching out to other people of conscience who disagree with you to seek common ground.

By doing that, you will be able to bring us together as a people to overcome the challenges facing us and lead us to goodness and greatness beyond anything we have accomplished before.

In the words of Lincoln: “Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”

Copyright © 2008 Richard M. Joel. All Rights Reserved.

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Richard M. Joel is Yeshiva University’s fourth president in its 117-year history. He received his B.A. and J.D. from New York University where he was a Root-Tilden law scholar, and has received honorary degrees from Boston Hebrew College and Gratz College. He was an assistant district attorney in New York, and deputy chief of appeals in Bronx, NY. He was an associate dean and professor of law at YU’s Benjamin Cardozo School of Law.

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Letters to the next president

Your First Ninety Days Evan S. Dobelle To: The President-Elect

Congratulations! How fulfilling it must be to know the

difference you will make for all citizens of America. Allow me to share some observations concerning higher education and its critical interdependency in so many aspects of our society.

Traveling a great deal around our country, I lecture focusing on higher education and its relationship to the Creative Economy and successful urban revitalization. As I prepare to teach, I can’t help but think about how the world has changed from that so many of us knew at the end of the 1960s, well before the students in my classes—were born.

By 1974, many of the members of my generation had lost faith in traditional assumptions that had helped to hold America together. Rather than an era in which everything seemed to be possible, it was a time when everything instead began to seem suspect. After 12 years of Franklin Roosevelt, 7 of Harry Truman, and 8 of Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan was the seventh president in 21 years. President Kennedy—murdered; Dr. King— murdered; Bobby Kennedy—murdered; 10,000 days and nights of Vietnam; and the revelations of Watergate.

With Watergate, Vietnam, and the assassin’s bullet, a cynicism had crept into our national psyche and mistrust into our national dialogue. We no longer trusted our government to do the right thing, and we no longer trusted those in government to do the honest thing. We elected leaders who ran against the very government that they were elected to lead. Ours became a politics of limits rather than possibilities. We applauded spectacle, accepted spin, and lowered the expectations we held for our 87

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country and ourselves. We forgot the fundamental lessons of the Federalists who taught us to rise above the push and pull of factions. Instead we became a society too focused on individual needs and our individual causes.

Today America’s colleges and universities hold a special responsibility to help our young men and women fulfill their promise. The academy, which gives voice to timeless lessons about truth and character, should be particularly accountable to inspire civility and citizenship, and particularly accountable to provide the ethical foundation upon which this century will be built.

The higher education tradition teaches important lessons about what de Tocqueville called “the apprenticeship of liberty— the hard work of respecting individual rights while honoring shared values, of shaping one’s future while also creating a nation’s destiny.” The liberal arts remind us of what one individual owes to another, of what one person can achieve, and of what one community can build when it works together. We must, as Benjamin Barber has written, “learn to sculpt our individuality from common clay.”

With experience as president of five very The liberal arts remind different colleges, and as president of the us of what one individual New England Board of Higher Education, I owes to another, of am keenly aware of the responsibility held by what one person can these institutions. True stewardship requires achieve, and of what one community can build when us to go beyond the simple engagement of ideas and to set knowledge at the service of it works together. humanity. We must define a new leadership for higher education which combines vision, a sense of time urgency, a willingness to take risks, and a capacity to move multiple constituencies. We must escape from

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the insularity that breeds institutional arrogance, and move away from the notion that change has to be incremental, painful, and expensive. We must accept and act upon our responsibility as centers of debate on matters of local, national, and international importance, and it is imperative that we move beyond rhetoric or theoretical pronouncements to act in the face of injustice and profound social need.

We must define a new For that, we must look at how are we as leadership for higher a society doing in America? A study by the education which combines Urban Institute found that nearly half of vision, a sense of time the lower-income families living in cities urgency, a willingness are worried about the availability of, or to take risks, and a have difficulty affording, food! Three in ten capacity to move multiple lower-income families are unable to pay the constituencies. mortgage, rent, or utility bills at some point during each year. More than 21% of our nation’s children—over 14 million boys and girls—live in poverty.

America is spawning an abandoned, isolated underclass—hidden faces that constitute a society set apart.

One-third of all U.S. elementary and secondary school children attend urban schools, and this is expected to rise to one-half. For the first time since the end of World War II, more Americans are moving into urban areas than are moving out. A study of 24 large American cities by the Brookings Institution and the Fannie Mae Foundation predicts that all regions of the country will see a growth in the number of city dwellers in the immediate future. In fact, the study says that Cleveland, Denver, and Houston—to cite three examples—are expected to triple their populations over the next decade.

In the face of such daunting and systemic challenges, the promise of urban renewal without cultural and spiritual

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renewal is hollow. The urban activist Jane Jacobs knew well the connection between a vibrant city and a healthy economy. In her landmark work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she observed, “Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon.”

Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.

Despite the quality of our higher education, we lag behind in making college available to minorities and the working class.

Our universities may be gateways to opportunity, but too many people—urban youths, nontraditional older students, and many returning to a new workforce—cannot get access. Higher education cannot operate in a vacuum. We must embrace campaign platforms on early childhood education, elementary and secondary education, special education, vocational and technical education, as well as national and community service.

Honoring commitments to Title IX and diversity in our student body, administrations, and faculty remain critical.

Our young people must be prepared and motivated earlier and more fully for college. Research shows that mandatory preschool for three-year-olds enhances prospects for later success. We must celebrate and fully fund the mission of access and affordability of community colleges, and give our students the financial tools to afford a good education.

Hopefully you will make these issues a priority in your first term. This will require that political leaders work together to seek specific solutions. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Great minds discuss ideas, mediocre minds discuss events, small minds discuss personalities.”

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Here are some things you might consider during your first 90 days: •• Hold a summit meeting on how public education is financed. We are failing our urban, rural, low-income, and first-generation students. All the best intentions about making these underserved students “college-ready” and closing the “education gap” are empty as long as so many tax-poor communities are dependent on local property taxes to finance their schools. This has only gotten more complex since I served as a local school committee chairman over 30 years ago.

•• Create regionwide forums for best practices in teaching.

Some education reformers would put creative teachers in a straitjacket of restrictions and tests. Teaching is both a profession and a passion. To get innovation, teachers and administrators should be given financial incentives to try new ideas and to share information on what works and what doesn’t. Washington needs to celebrate teachers for choosing their profession.

•• Promote the expansion of kindergarten and the making of preschool mandatory. The states can invest in early childhood education now or continue to spend the money in the criminal justice and social welfare systems. Pay now or pay later, but states will pay, so why not make it an investment? Encourage the creation of pre-K through 20 seamless systems of education. Start foreign language teaching in elementary school and encourage science and technology as potential careers for young women and minorities.

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•• Develop a regional network of policy makers and educators, from pre-kindergarten through college, to explore ways to appropriately align what our schools teach with what public and private colleges and universities expect of firstyear students. Toward this end, you could establish regional exchange programs enabling college professors to spend a semester working in K–12 schools and giving school teachers time off to undertake meaningful research projects at two- and four-year colleges and universities—public and private.

•• High-tech marketing campaigns should be targeted at those groups of students and their parents who face the most difficulty in entering and succeeding in college. These campaigns should work in partnership with after-school and enrichment programs administered by the region’s community and faith-based organizations. Their goal must be to convince them of the value of a college degree in today’s job market, and to direct them to one-stop web sites for the information and resources they need to successfully navigate college options. The entire culture of college aspirations must be changed.

Good American jobs that were once open to smart, ambitious high school graduates now require a bachelor’s degree at minimum. However, young Americans face two daunting barriers to college success. First, many are simply not prepared for college—academically or in other ways; and at least 25% of those who enter ninth grade will not graduate from high school four years later. Second, many simply cannot afford the high tuition, fees, books, and other charges—or believe they can’t.

The Federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance conservatively estimates that in this decade, more than

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two million low- and moderate-income high school graduates who are college-ready will not complete college due to financial barriers. This is unacceptable.

•• Use political leverage to lobby for strengthened Pell Grants.

The Commission on the Future of Higher Education recommended raising the purchasing power of the average Pell Grant to cover 70% of average in-state tuition at public four-year campuses, up from the current 48%. Years of efforts to significantly raise the maximum Pell Grant has fallen short. But Congress might be ready to listen to you.

After all, they started land-grant colleges with the passage of the Morrill Act in the middle of our Civil War! •• Direct more aid dollars to need, not merit. The history of federal and state student aid is marked by two trends: (1) a shift from grants to loans and tax breaks, and (2) a shift away from awarding aid based on student financial need to aid based on sometimes dubious measures of merit. Merit aid often benefits students who would go on to college anyway. If we are serious about the value of higher education to our future, we need to use more student-aid resources to fund students who would not otherwise go to college—that means prioritizing need-based aid.

•• Create a national corps of students, including nontraditional students, to address teaching and nursing shortages by waiving tuition in exchange for a guarantee that they will practice their profession for four years after graduation—not unlike the service obligations used by military academies.

•• Urge that community college be cost-free, and ease transfer of credits earned to four-year institutions. The goal is to make all college credits applicable at all accredited

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institutions, to the extent possible. Harry Truman suggested 60 years ago that education should be tuition-free through “14th grade.” It’s time to make this happen.

We are in an economic class war without a battle plan. College readiness and affordability present a quagmire for too many students. The success will be easy to measure. Today over 50% of high school graduates do not go on to college. Surely, we can comprehend what We are in an economic this failure rate means to our economy, our class war without a battle civility, and our collective future. plan. College readiness The population in the United States of and affordability present young workers aged 25 to 34 declined 30% a quagmire for too many between 1990 and 2004. That demographic students. reality, coupled with the nature of our innovation economy, demands an unrivaled interest in making the most of all future workers. But that’s not what’s happening. For every 100 public high school ninthgraders, only 75 will graduate from high school four years later.

Only 46 will enter college the fall after they graduate, only 35 will return to college for their sophomore year, and only 24 will earn associate degrees within three years of enrolling in college or bachelor’s degrees within six years of enrolling. That’s right…24 of 100!

We need to stop making it easy for children to fail and lose hope. One step would be to encourage employers to pledge not to hire permanent workers who do not have a high school diploma unless they have a solid plan and timetable to earn a GED, regardless of their age. The statistical connection between failure to earn a high school credential and criminal justice and social welfare costs is staggering. Another is to mandate parents or guardians, as well as the student, to both have to come into

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the school and sign a document that opts out of a college-ready course of study in high school, which forever alters their options in life. We cannot make that an easy choice.

There is much at stake. Unless the current pattern is altered, we will lose our collective capacity to sustain a vibrant democracy, let alone compete economically in a global marketplace. The “creative economy” has been one of the more influential ideas in economic planning. More and more thinkers and policy makers are heralding the unexpected benefits that creative endeavors bring to economies as a whole.

From Boston to Atlanta, Omaha to Portland, and Dayton to San Diego, colleges and universities are now a major economic force in many of our major cities, beyond the traditional “college towns.” They host what I call permanent tourists—the students— who shop, eat, rent, and attend cultural events, while studying at institutions that employ large numbers.

Faculty and researchers at those institutions, in turn, create companies and jobs that start the Research Triangles, Silicon Valleys, and Route 128s. Look around your “new” college town of Washington, D.C., and see the logos on proudly worn sweatshirts of GW, AU, Howard University, George Mason, Georgetown, Catholic University, James Madison, University of the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia Community College, Montgomery Community College, and the University of Maryland. It is extraordinary! We must work to recruit even more undergraduate as well as graduate students from around the world. There is a global competition for students, and other countries look upon it as a growth industry which enhances their national economy.

The time has come for fresh ideas and institutional courage.

If we are to be a nation truly committed to the quest for civic

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culture—to a respect for diversity, responsibility, and personal achievement—we are obliged to open a new chapter in the struggle to revitalize our cities. In that struggle, colleges and universities must do more than comment from the safety of the sidelines. They must enter the battle and they must lead. I have long studied institutions that make extraordinary efforts to contribute to not only the educational but also the economic, cultural, and civic well-being of their communities. I call them “Saviors of Our Cities.”

When there is space available at a reasonable price, a new kind of urban government and smart institutions step in and plant the seed for renovation and rediscovery with public/ private partnerships. A well-placed museum, campus building, dormitory, or theater can start the process of urban renewal. As artists and students move in, businesses such as coffee houses, shops, and restaurants follow to meet the demand. We must awaken the conscience and assert the moral authority of more academic institutions. We all have an obligation to look beyond our gates and to step down from the ivory tower and splendid isolation. We are privileged communities of learning, but we also belong to the much larger community that extends beyond our campuses.

Higher education’s vital role is to prepare the people who will drive the creative economy. Bold leadership will pay great dividends. In the new economy, the type of thinking encouraged by artistic study is in demand in all types of fields. The more students learn to trust their intuition and take risks, the bettersuited they will be for a quickly changing world. Artistic instruction can instill these vital traits. Committed study in music, drama, visual arts, or dance strengthens young people’s spatial reasoning skills, their language abilities, and their ability

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to deal with complex information. That’s not opinion; that is fact, borne out by research over the past three decades.

America’s economic future will depend upon a creative workforce. Colleges are looking for applicants capable of independent thought and ready to pursue free inquiry.

Companies want employees who can devise new solutions to the problems of a constantly changing world. International understanding, the capacity to speak foreign languages, and a true understanding of the economic, social, and environmental interconnectedness of our planet is imperative.

Ours, it seems to me, is a world whose sense of balance is seriously askew, a world so captivated by the notion of celebrity that we often forget what we deem worthy of celebration, a world in which the ephemeral and the timeless are too often confused.

I have spent my entire life in public office and in higher education, and I believe that we are reaching a watershed moment. The generation that will inherit our imperfect world and that will shape the new millennium wants something better.

This generation wants to find values that are enduring and opportunities to set their enormous energy and talent to the cause of effecting lasting and positive change.

Colleges hold a special public trust because they are repositories of civic values, ideals, and aspirations. They have a unique capacity to spur a renewed spirit of American idealism.

They are home to young men and women living through a critically important time in their lives—a time when all the promise of an idealistic worldview can reach fruition or harden into cynicism. And their campuses lie in neighborhoods and communities that rightly turn to them for institutional support and investment.

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Those of us in higher education can and must affect the future of our cities and towns and the destiny of this country, both rural and urban. Today’s college students want to build a world that reaches beyond skepticism and beyond limitations. They want their lives and their institutions to stand for something.

They want more than pat answers and tired rhetoric. These young men and women are the promise of America’s new century, and Today’s college students want to build a world that it is our responsibility to be worthy of their reaches beyond skepticism idealism and their potential, and to provide and beyond limitations. a transformational experience, not just one They want their lives and that is transitional into the workforce. their institutions to stand I look forward to your presidency in this for something. most critical area, which is so full of exciting challenges. Don’t let well-intentioned folks tell you its all about money, although it helps. It is about shaping higher education for the future that is inclusive, transparent, and held accountable by you and Congress, governors, state legislators, mayors, and particularly the great strength of America—the local appointed or elected school boards and their superintendents. Create a shared grassroots vision with colleges and universities based on their planning with all these stakeholders and committed to shared governance with faculty and students and in partnership with parents, service clubs, youth, neighborhood and faith-based organizations, business, the AARP, the NEA, and other labor groups. We all must have the resolve to set priorities and accomplish the goals, and for that we desperately need your inspiration and leadership.

Sincerely, Evan S. Dobelle

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Copyright © 2008 Evan S. Dobelle. All Rights Reserved.

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Dr. Evan S. Dobelle is the nineteenth president of Westfield State College.

Prior to coming to Westfield State in 2007, he served as president of the New England Board of Higher Education and as president of the University of Hawaii, Trinity College, City College of San Francisco, and Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Massachusetts. His career in public service and higher education has earned him a national reputation as an advocate for education access and quality.

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Letters to the next president

Access, Affordability, and Accountability for the Adult-Serving College or University Michael J. Offerman

American

higher education history contains several examples of institutional innovations that ultimately became part of the American tradition: the teacher’s college, the state university, the land-grant college, and the community college.

These institutions emerged to serve new and different needs and audiences. And they complement existing institutions.

The most recent type of institution to emerge is the adultserving institution, and it is essential for all those interested in higher education to understand the key role it plays. Global competition, increasing professionalization in many fields, rapidly changing knowledge, and the societal need for a bettereducated workforce have combined to drive demand for higher education by adults to unprecedented levels. While most colleges and universities have responded in some measure to this demand, the expectations and behaviors of adult students and the magnitude of the demand have led to the creation of institutions that are intentionally designed to serve this audience.

This essay examines how institutions that serve adults at a distance address some of the contemporary expectations of American institutions of higher education. Given the nature of these institutions and whom they serve, how they deal with the issues of access, affordability, and accountability is different than other types of higher education institutions. These differences and the opportunity for these institutions to help lead positive change in American higher education are discussed in what follows.

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A Focus on Adult Students

The predominant assumption is that the university exists

to serve young people who come to college on a full-time basis, stay for four to six years to complete a baccalaureate degree, then progress to the master’s and sometimes the doctorate before moving on to a career. Adult-serving institutions, in contrast, are built on the assumptions that the adult student is already in his or her career, is balancing a return to higher education with numerous life demands, will continue to work, and will participate in learning on a part-time basis. The single most important barrier to successful entry into and completion of a higher education degree by the part-time adult student is time: time to participate in classes, time to study, time to reflect, and time to engage in assessments to demonstrate what they have learned. Adult-serving institutions invest considerable effort in helping students overcome time limitations. This is why distance delivery is often an important component of how adult-serving institutions operate. Online delivery is rapidly becoming a preferred delivery mode in serving adults because it allows the adult student to study at times convenient to her schedule and is available to the adult student wherever job and other travel may take her.

Case in point: It has been estimated that more than 3.7 1 million adults are engaged in higher education and more than 1.8 million higher education students of all ages are involved in 2 online learning. It is reasonable to assume that many of the 1.8 million online students are adults since online programs often target the adult learner.

Let us turn to the issues of access, affordability, and accountability and how institutions that serve adults online consider and address these issues.

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Extending Access

Access is a very important value for those institutions that

specialize in serving adults. Often, adult students did not have (or feel that they had) access at an earlier, more traditional age for attending college. The reasons for this are multitude and include financial obligations, work, military service, or family responsibilities.

A palpable sense of mission and values permeates these adult-serving institutions.

Adult-serving institutions They are focused on delivering quality have considerable variance education that prepares adults for success in how they approach in their careers or professions. Here, the admissions but tend to move concept of quality begins with making toward the open admissions effective admissions decisions. Admissions end of the continuum. practices in higher education range from the very selective—admitting only those for whom academic success is all but assured, to open admissions— extending access to all who are willing to engage. Adult-serving institutions have considerable variance in how they approach admissions but tend to move toward the open admissions end of the continuum.

Why is this? Much of the admissions process has grown up around the traditional model, the high school student progressing to college. That’s fine in itself. However, the traditional admission process falls short for a university that is attempting to make informed admissions decisions concerning adults. In general, the standardized admissions examinations are vetted with the highschool-to-college demographic. The standardized admissions examinations do not have predictive power for adults whose valuable life experiences prepare them for advanced study—but not necessarily for success with admissions examinations. Nor do

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high school transcripts and grade point averages predict success (or failure) for adult students. Maturity and life experience can render these measures as less than useful when assessing potential adult students.

Consequently, standardized admission practices leave adultserving institutions with an absence of good predictive data.

Perhaps the only data that offers some predictive power is the recent success of adults in college-level work. This data is useful and used if the applicant has, in fact, been enrolled within the preceding five years or so.

Let me be clear: There are indeed sound processes in place to make admissions decisions for adult applicants. Yet the approach is necessarily different. It relies more on qualitative than quantitative assessments. Again, it is more likely to err toward extending access than denying it.

The value placed on extending access and the related value placed on respecting the adult students for what they have already accomplished and the knowledge they bring into the courseroom creates an environment attractive to adult students.

It is possible that the resulting culture, while still academically rigorous, is more welcoming of adult students, including diverse students. For example, it is not uncommon in adult-serving institutions to have diversity enrollments similar to the roughly 40% level at my institution.

The way that adult-serving institutions relate to the student is fundamentally different than the institution that perceives that its audience consists of younger students. Rather than viewing the parent of the student as a critical decision maker, and rather than assuming some level of “in loco parentis,” the adult-serving institution views the student as the independent decision maker, as the customer. The idea of student (or preferably “learner”) as

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customer is central to the adult-serving institution, not a foreign concept that is debated as either good or bad. It is simply fact.

Affordability: The Total Cost Picture

The fact that the student is the customer in the adult-serving

institution shapes the concept of affordability. Certainly, the concept of return on investment is part of any decision about what college to attend, regardless of the age of the student. And it becomes a very real calculation with a more immediate need for such return for the adult student.

The majority of adult students are primarily focused on career and professional advancement. This is why professional programs comprise the majority of programs offered by adult-serving institutions. While price and price increases are of interest and importance to the adult student, there are more factors that the adult considers.

The adult student must calculate total cost. This includes timeto-degree, added costs due to the limitations placed on transfer of credits earned at other institutions, the ability to engage in studies and learning while balancing home, work, and community life, along with the actual While price is important, cost of tuition and fees. the concept of increased The traditional student or her parent earnings potential, a better looks at job placement rates. The prospective job, or quality of life is adult student assesses an institution and calculated against price for program on how well the program aligns the adult’s projected return with his industry or profession and whether on investment. the program outcomes will prepare him for success in his career. The adult student assesses his return on investment considering a relatively shorter time frame than younger students might consider. This means that, while price is important, the concept of increased earnings

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potential, a better job, or quality of life is calculated against price for the adult’s projected return on investment.

Accountability Is Critical

Colleges and universities that focus on adults need to assure

that every program they offer will serve the student in his or her career progression. This responsibility requires that the institution work directly with leaders in the profession or industry in which program graduates will work. Program outcomes must be based on the contemporary needs and demands of the profession and must also prepare the student to both practice the profession and provide leadership within it. The best adult-serving institutions clearly articulate The best adult-serving what program outcomes they intend to institutions clearly deliver, why these are important, how they articulate what program are linked to the student’s profession, and outcomes they intend to how these will be delivered to the student. deliver, why these are In turn, the focus on profession and career important, how they are leads to a necessary emphasis on program linked to the student’s assessment and accountability to the profession, and how these prospective student, current student, and will be delivered to the alum. That accountability takes the form of student. transparency—clarity and openness—about expected learning outcomes, how those outcomes are assessed, and reports on the aggregate success of the institution’s students in actually demonstrating that they have achieved the expected outcomes.

This accountability is critical to adult-serving institutions as they self-assess and are assessed by students and other external constituents. This critical and high level of accountability serves as a pivotal feedback mechanism that indicates whether admissions standards—necessarily more qualitative than quantitative—are

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appropriate. The accountability also offers prospective students relevant, vital data to help make informed decisions about which institution best fits their individual needs.

The assessment process determines how successfully students are demonstrating acquisition of core learning, such as writing, critical thinking, and analytical reasoning. However, the more critical measurement when serving adults who have more immediate career expectations is the assessment of programspecific, specialization-level learning outcomes.

The adult-serving institutions have a responsibility to be transparent about their assessments, to be accountable.

Interestingly, meeting that responsibility can afford some unique advantages. Remember, adult-serving institutions emphasize professional programs. These programs are readily developed in an outcomes-based mode. Increasingly, adult programs are delivered online. The online development format can be designed to assure an outcomes-based approach and an emphasis on learning assessment. It enables data capture on all aspects of the learning exchange, including demonstrations of learning outcomes. The primary advantage of this is that the clarity about outcomes and the data on outcomes assessments enables us to report on our learning outcomes with unprecedented specificity.

Federal Policy Considerations

Our nation’s leaders must recognize the great importance

of developing our country’s current workforce. Adult higher education is essential to our nation’s ability to compete and prosper in the global economy.

Policy makers can help strengthen higher education for adults in three ways.

First, consider expanding financial assistance opportunities for adult students. Currently, adults can receive financial assistance in

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the form of loans, which obviously increase personal debt. Many adults are understandably reluctant to incur additional debt.

Consideration should be given to making grants and similar types of financial assistance available to adults, just as they are available to “traditional” students.

Second, policy makers should continue to support the initiatives led by higher education institutions and associations to measure and report learning outcomes. Attention should be given to understanding the distinct differences, advantages, and challenges in reporting learning outcomes for universities that serve adults at a distance compared to institutions that serve full-time students coming directly from high school. In terms of accountability and outcomes, “one size does not fit all” when applied to the distinctly different environs of adult-serving and traditional higher education.

Third, policy makers should continue to encourage the improved transfer of credits between regionally accredited institutions. No student wants to retake credits already earned at another institution: it’s a duplication of effort and expense, and can discourage continued education. When credits readily transfer, adults are that much closer to reaching their higher education goals.

A Better Future

The

reality is that all contemporary higher education institutions must address the issues of access, affordability, admissions criteria, and accountability. Institutions that serve adults at a distance must address these issues and, like other types of institutions, face both challenges and opportunities.

These institutions are highly specialized with different missions, operations, and expectations when compared to institutions that

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focus on an audience that typically attends college directly after high school.

These adult-serving colleges and universities are truly a new form of institution, and it is vital for those interested in higher education to understand their purpose and why they are becoming an increasingly important part of the fabric of American higher education. Working together, we must assert greater leadership for higher education. Doing so will enrich the American tradition of higher education and facilitate the ongoing examination of access, affordability, accountability, and other important issues.

Copyright © 2008 Michael J. Offerman. All Rights Reserved.

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Endnotes 1 U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NCES Projections of Education Statistics to 2015, Table 11.

2 Eduventures, Online Higher Education Market Update 2006, Part 1: Students, Growth, and Geography (December 2006).

Michael J. Offerman is president emeritus of Capella University. He served as the president of Capella University from 2001 through 2007 and continues to work on external University initiatives. Prior to Capella University, he served at the University of Arizona and the University of Wisconsin where, as dean, he created the University of Wisconsin Learning Innovations Center that develops, delivers, and supports online degree programs for all 15 University of Wisconsin institutions.

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Letters to the next president

Community Colleges: The Relevant and Essential Link Mary Spangler

The community college is now more than a century old.

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It is the most democratic and the most responsive to economic change of postsecondary institutions. The movement itself can legitimately be described as both relevant and essential to the future of our country at the local, regional, and national levels.

Dr. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, noted in September 2007 that community colleges provide a significant solution for the socioeconomic ills and development of the new knowledge-based economy of this country that is needed in the 2 global marketplace. Just as the invention of the printing press in the fourteenth century democratized learning by making knowledge accessible to all who could read, the establishment of community colleges had the same effect in the twentieth century by making education accessible to learners of diverse ethnicities, races, ages, economic means, educational goals, preparedness, and learning abilities. Positioned in the educational spectrum between the essentiality of K–12 and the academic traditions of four-year colleges and universities, the two-year sector until relatively recently has consistently been an undersung and undervalued hero of higher education. Community colleges are relevant institutions providing open admission to almost 50% of the 24 million higher education students in this country.

Since this sector is the only place where a skilled workforce can be efficiently, economically, and quickly trained to meet 3 the full range of skill sets essential to remain competitive, the leadership at both the federal and state levels must be committed,

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through the policies they develop, to ensuring the continued and expanded vitality of community colleges.

For students navigating a changed world “grown larger,” less forgiving, more complex and competitive, community colleges are a critical link as they stand: •• at the nexus between K–12 and four-year colleges and universities; •• at the crossroads between those unprepared for college-level work but filled with hope and determination to participate in the American dream; and •• at the intersection between an unskilled workforce and the corporate sector needing skilled knowledge workers to compete in an ever-changing global economy.

It is imperative that the president of the United States focus national attention through supportive policy and increased financial support toward the continued development of community colleges. This support will help the sector meet its mission of providing affordable, accessible postsecondary education leading to increased certificate and degree completion and essential workforce training. In turn, partnering with other educational entities and businesses in their region, their state, and the country, community college leadership must be committed to addressing nine key issues.

1 — A Regional and Collaborative Perspective

The bedrock of the community college’s constituency is

the local community that supports, primarily through property taxes, its own local college and is governed by a locally elected or appointed board of trustees. It provides the base from which the movement has grown with the rapidly expanding population so that today there are almost 1,200 public and

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independent two-year institutions around the country. While local ownership is understandable, the challenge is to enlarge the parochial perspective into one that expands the vision to allow for increased collaborations and opportunities.

The 2006–07 National Governors Association Innovation 5 America Task Force recognized the urgency of advancing the conversation beyond state boundaries to work regionally in addressing K–12, postsecondary, and corporate interests. The toolbox developed as an outcome of those efforts demonstrated that this perspective must be typical and not unique. Community colleges must partner with each other, in addition to the other education sectors, so that they combine and thus expand their resources. One prime example is the Community College Consortium Urban Area Security Initiative (C3 UASI) of nine Community colleges must partner with each other, colleges in southeast Michigan created in addition to the other to provide a single point of entry to the education sectors, so that specialized resources—facilities, curriculum, they combine and thus training, staff—for the entire region and expand their resources. beyond in the area of homeland security training. Rather than colleges all duplicating costly facilities, this affiliation leverages strengths to secure the commitment of the area’s agencies to expend training dollars and work directly through one college while enjoying the advantages of nine. This model is being adapted in southeast Texas as a consortium focused on energy education sharing resources within the community colleges in the partnership. Thus community colleges are emerging into new formations that expand resource utilization and create accessible pathways for larger numbers of students. Presidential leadership

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would help the creation of regional and even national consortia that might encourage relationships to leverage limited assets.

2 — An Increased Engagement with the Corporate Sector

While the four-year colleges and universities have long-term

and close relationships with business and industry at the chief executive level and, by having a presence on corporate boards, secure financial support for R&D efforts, most community colleges nibble at the edge of the pie. They work primarily with small businesses to provide customized training and continuing education to the workforce. They are not generally included in the corporate boardrooms where high-level decisions are made. However, the sector must become more aggressive in establishing close working relationships that encourage and support partnerships Unfortunately, too few with the receivers of the workforce they businesses leverage their train. Community colleges train 50% of training dollars through new nurses and educate the majority of partnerships with 6 other new health care workers. They must community colleges. encourage and develop partnerships as part of their primary mission. For example, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) recognizes the power of connecting business with community colleges at the national level. Their initiative to create a Business Champions Council of leading spokespeople in industry to support the community colleges is a mutually beneficial relationship. While providing financial resources and legislative support to the community colleges, the initiative supports their need for trained and skilled human resources and can be replicated as a model to develop powerful relationships to address innovation and competitiveness. Unfortunately, too few businesses leverage their

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training dollars through partnerships with community colleges.

Presidential leadership is needed to stimulate the impetus for corporate America to engage with educators.

3 — Cross-Cutting Curricula Focused on STEM

To be at the forefront of instructional content and delivery,

faculty must be directly connected with the external community and expand their advisory councils and workforce associations to develop cutting-edge programs. The traditional approach to disciplines as pure and intact is giving way increasingly to interdisciplinary approaches. But community colleges must become even more aggressive in the areas most crucial to their competitive position: science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). These are the fields where the technicians and knowledge workers will be prepared to implement the innovative ideas that find their way to the marketplace from their conceptualization in the laboratories of the research institutions.

Areas already demonstrating the direction for more traditional disciplines are the allied health fields and biotechnology. In 7 Michigan, Oakland County’s ten Emerging Sectors™ identified target areas of advanced electronics and control systems, advanced materials and chemicals, alternative energy and power generation, communication and information technology, microand nanotechnology, homeland security and finance. Since its inception, this initiative has brought to the county an investment of almost $290 million, almost 6,000 new and retained jobs, and taxes generating $7.1 million. Oakland Community College in Michigan, as a partner in this effort, is expanding its curriculum to support the workforce that will continue to attract companies from around the world. In Texas, Houston Community College is currently working to blend sustainability, environmental safety, and security into new areas of study. Energy- and space-related

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curricula will connect to the petroleum and space industries that dominate the South Central region.

No longer can learning be just in the classroom with jobs waiting at the completion of the degree or certificate programs. Instead, expanded and applied learning activities must integrate, embed, and infuse science-based material into and across curriculum both in the classroom and beyond classroom boundaries. Since the faculty are the knowledge experts, they must translate their understanding into learning for their students, which will, in turn, translate into an improved socioeconomic state for the country. Presidential support is needed to expand STEM education, especially in community colleges. Doing so will produce the next generation of advances to solve our environmental, health, economic, and social challenges.

4 — A Broadened Global Perspective

Community

colleges are clearly a grassroots movement where the focus has continually been on responding to the needs of the local community whose citizens support through their taxes the access and reduced costs that benefit their residents.

However, because community colleges are so closely connected to the local view, the challenge is to prepare students to function in Friedman’s “flattened world.” Institutions need to develop an agreed-on understanding of what is generally meant by “global literacy” and “global awareness.” Taxpayers must now be willing to have the college in their area look beyond that local community to engage, if not embrace, the larger community.

Thus some of the taxes will be spent outside the local community, politically a difficult objective to accomplish without resistance and criticism. Yet students’ exposure to international experiences is essential.

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Expanding the curriculum to enable students to take foreign languages, such as Chinese, Farsi, Arabic, and Korean, is an obvious choice. Creating cyber communities where students from different parts of the world can effortlessly engage in learning experiences is emerging as another way to span boundaries without excessive cost. A software program enables students and faculty at a community college in Michigan to communicate in the language of their choice (Spanish and/or English) with their counterparts in Oaxaca, Mexico. More such relationships can help broaden understanding.

Welcoming international students to the college offers the opportunity to expose local students to other cultures without going beyond their community. Houston Community College has the largest number of international students of any community college in the country with 4,526 or 8.8% of the fall 2006 credit population of 51,117. But there is no substitute for study abroad experiences, and for community college students the model of the Salzburg Seminar International Community College Study Program is one to be emulated. A one-week intense experience focused on the responsibilities of citizenship in a global environment is a life-changing opportunity for students with limited resources, jobs, and families. Expending local funds to provide valuable outreach programs for students remains a constant challenge but a necessity for administrators and board members. The next president might consider increased support for language development and study abroad programs since these programs directly improve homeland security and create global citizens.

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5 — Blurred Segments Along the Educational Pathway

Looking at the decades ahead, it will be essential for the

K–16 pathway to be a seamless continuum along which learners can move. There is evidence of progress toward increased dual enrollment and early college experiences during the high school years. Accelerating the movement from precollege to college is also appropriate as a way to engage students in concentrated experiences that prepare them for higher levels of learning in a timely progression. Combining the last two years of high school with the first two years of community college into a three-year experience that simultaneously results in a high school diploma, a two-year associate degree, and acceptance into upper division further reduces the financial burden on parents and taxpayers alike. Dual enrollment leading to upper division has proven effective when the state recognizes and negotiates the allocation of resources fairly to underwrite the expenses that shift to the community college.

Needless to say, when high school teachers and community college faculty work together to align curriculum and prepare students with reasonable expectations of college-level work, the conversation that has not regularly occurred can be productive.

P-16 councils, where all stakeholders within the educational segments meet to address learning and outcome challenges, are emerging as successful facilitators of that process. The upper division articulation agreements that community colleges have regularly negotiated need to be streamlined so students can more easily move through to the four-year and postbaccalaureate levels.

This effort could include more widely replicating the concept of dual enrollment at the upper end of the educational pipeline so students take courses at the university but pay the community

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college rate while earning upper division credits. For Texas, which ranks 41st in the nation in the rate of college enrollment, a smoother connection among these segments should increase 8 the rate at which graduates are produced. The next president should promote solutions like dual enrollment as a framework that encourages student development to meet the needs of our knowledge-based global economy.

6 — A Sequenced and Aligned College-Preparatory Curriculum

Related to blurred segments is the need for communication

and articulation between the K–12 and postsecondary sectors. It is now generally acknowledged that as many as 70% of incoming high school students are seriously underprepared to do collegelevel work. According to MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social policy research organization, nationally 46% of students who begin their postsecondary studies at community colleges never complete a degree. Statistics from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) indicate only 26% of Texans aged 9 25–65 have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher. Of even greater concern is that only 13% of Hispanic Texans have earned an 10 associate’s degree or higher. More and more people recognize that the failure to educate the population with at least some postsecondary education means being unprepared to compete as a country in the accelerated environment of economic challenges and technological sophistication. Thus community colleges need to focus on providing a strong foundation so students make satisfactory progress toward degrees and certificates.

Thirty years ago, as the doors to higher education opened to an increased number of postsecondary learners, the recognition that incoming students had weaker skills and were generally less prepared for college-level work resulted in the development of

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a handful of precollege-level courses in grammar, reading, and basic writing and math. Over the years, the proliferation of classes continued as that era’s response to underpreparation. While there were sporadic efforts to convene conversations between high school teachers and community college faculty to understand the challenges and develop remediating strategies, the situation was not urgent, and the outcome never materialized. Now there is little time for hesitation, and the massive efforts must be coordinated conscientiously at the regional level to reverse the trend so students are prepared for college-level work and persist in achieving their goals. Introductory orientation classes, short-term sessions to address specific deficiencies, and learning communities all are demonstrating positive impact on retention and persistence, but the effort and urgency go beyond individual institutional efforts or a handful of approaches. A systematic approach to address basic skills at all K–16 levels across the curriculum is imperative and long overdue. The foundation in basic skills leads to student retention and completion. English (reading and writing) and math are essential to success in higher education. Therefore, a national alignment of curriculum with reading and writing as foundational components across disciplines could produce levels of competence so all students are prepared to do college-level work.

7 — An Efficient Use of Existing Resources

State

support for higher education continues to shrink, yet the need for resources continues to increase. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, the typical student—one-third of whom are minority—is 29 years old, attends part-time, is female and receives some type of financial support. Community colleges also provide most of the higher

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education knowledge and skills development for African Americans and Hispanics.

The funding dilemma in Texas is similar to other states with regard to support of community colleges. According to the THECB, today the community college share of all higher education funds is less than 12%, although 72% of college freshman are enrolled in its community colleges. In 1980 the state’s share of funding in support of this sector was 68%. In 2005 the state’s share had decreased to an average of 31%. During the same period, colleges had increased tuition (32%) and local taxes (33%) to maintain and expand instruction and services.

Community college leaders must be prepared to manage differently as the traditional core of funding becomes relatively smaller. Finding opportunities to attract extramural funding through partnerships, grants, and entrepreneurial efforts has increasingly become one of the primary responsibilities of the chief executive officer. At the same time, state and federal governing bodies are called upon to review their funding formulas for community college support to provide the nation an educated and contributing workforce.

Re-educating the taxpayers, who have been encouraged to view higher education as a private benefit, is part of the challenge.

But they must also realize that education is a public good and that their willingness to continue to invest in this country’s future will contribute significantly to maintaining their current standard of living. Higher education has done an excellent job of convincing the general public that a primary reason to attend college is to increase one’s lifetime earnings. Now the challenge is to convince the general public that the reason to support increases for postsecondary education is to maintain everyone’s quality of life in a competitive global economy. Otherwise, those most in

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need of securing some postsecondary education will be excluded from the opportunity as escalating costs are shifted to the user.

11 According to Ben Bernanke in a recent speech, “increasing our investment in education can benefit not only individuals and society but also might narrow income gaps.�

This is not to say that community college leaders should not also work toward efficiencies and entrepreneurialism in attracting resources. They have done that but must constantly work to do better while demonstrating to the general public that they are good stewards of their resources. One key approach would be to direct the first two years of postsecondary education be delivered by the community college where the cost of that education is significantly less than at the public four-year college. Research reveals that the success of high school graduates beginning their education at the community college and then transferring to attain a four-year degree is indistinguishable from native students at four-year institutions. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, the cost to educate both groups, however, is significantly different. The national average for two years at public community colleges is $4,544; the national average for the first two years at public four-year colleges is $11,672. Thus national support that encourages the knowledge-based economy is an imperative, not just for engineers and scientists, but for scholars in all fields as well.

8 — Succession Planning for Future Leaders

It is generally agreed that the pipeline for the future leaders

in higher education needs refilling as the turnover rate for college presidents and chancellors remains high and the ranks of experienced senior administrators thins through retirement.

It is also generally agreed that senior positions are not as highly desirable as they might previously have been because of the

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challenges related to shrinking resources, the increased role of shared decision making, and the intrusion of external entities into administrative processes. Yet the stability of complex institutions in a complex environment calls out for experienced and demonstrated leadership.

While many new doctoral programs have emerged over the last decade to address the need for succession planning, the programs are not the panacea. Formal programs generally have a theoretical framework and provide the basis for understanding such topics as the community college’s history and mission, research methodologies and the role of research in decision making, and issues in higher education. However, the actual “job” of leading an institution is very different, and the informal programs that have also proliferated and do focus on more practical issues related to daily leadership challenges and issues do not provide the real-life experiences essential to moving forward.

Contributing to the challenge of developing new leaders is the reality that during the previous 15 years, in response to declining resources and increased demands for collaboration and shared governance, the traditional hierarchical model was “flattened” at many community colleges. Thus college administrations and boards could promote their managerial approaches as lean and resource sensitive. In the process, however, many opportunities for individuals to acquire increasingly responsible expertise while moving up the ladder to senior management positions were eliminated. The gap now between entry-level leadership positions (e.g., associate deans and directors) and the presidency is very wide, so even with a doctoral degree, it is difficult to demonstrate the skills required to assume leadership roles. Candidates need to know realistically what senior positions entail and have

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meaningful on-the-job experiences to discover where theoretical knowledge and the execution of judgment intersect. There is little room for error or indecision and a great need for stability in leading multimillion-dollar operations. Encouragement must come from the national level to create the impetus for quality, sustainable leadership development as a valued national resource.

9 — Increased Financial Support for Students

The challenge of successfully addressing

all the barriers to access and goal completion will never be met. Since the typical student who attends community college must work part-time to afford increasing tuition and fees, pay for child care and transportation, and purchase the tools for learning, it is clear there will always be a need for increased financial support. To the extent taxpayers and the state and federal governments are limited in their willingness or ability to keep pace with the increases and shift the burden to the students, access is reduced and affordability is compromised.

Community college foundations, where they are established, regularly work to develop alternative sources of funds through scholarships, such as the Kalamazoo Promise. The federal government in 2007 increased the Pell Grant by $500 for 2008 (increasing up to $5,400 by 2012), thereby providing more support to attend college. And yet while Pell Grants once covered about 80% of the expenses, they currently cover about 40%.

A major issue that is not generally listed as part of the cost of education but has been drawing higher levels of attention is the cost of books. Averaging now about $1,000 per full-time

When compared with the alternative social destruction that might occur for those who have little hope, investments in community college access for students have a multifaceted return on these investments and create sound national financial policy.

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semester, the cost of this essential tool represents an additional 40% cost—often enough to discourage students from completing a course or persisting from semester to semester in a program when they cannot readily do the studying necessary for success.

When compared with the alternative social destruction that might occur for those who have little hope, investments in community college access for students have a multifaceted return on these investments and create sound national financial policy.

Conclusion

Many of the issues identified in this essay are within the

authority and responsibility of institutional decision makers to ameliorate but need national support and focus. “Community colleges have made a significant contribution to expanding educational opportunities.…[They] play a constructive role not only for 18- to 22-year-olds but also for older adults, providing flexible programs for obtaining new skills, specialized training contracted for by individual businesses, 12 remedial education, and adult enrichment.”

Community colleges offer The future is here as the rate of change inclusive, affordable accelerates almost beyond our ability to access to high-quality anticipate, analyze, adjust to, and execute. But postsecondary education. community colleges, because they function By being efficient, at the grass-roots level of local communities, accountable, and outcomeare adaptable, resilient, responsive, and oriented, community functionally focused. Their ability to make colleges are the relevant and the adjustments to meet both student and essential link in writing the community needs and expectations will future of this country. continue to raise the community college sector into the critical leadership position it has long deserved. Community colleges offer inclusive, affordable access to high-quality postsecondary education. By

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being efficient, accountable, and outcome-oriented, community colleges are the relevant and essential link in writing the future of this country. The hope of this country will be led by the next U.S. president, and the country’s future is inexplicably tied to education. It is this author’s hope that the next president will use the community college as a central resource to build the future and an economy that will sustain our historic high standards of life, liberty, and justice.

Copyright © 2008 Mary Spangler. All Rights Reserved.

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Endnotes 1 Retrieved on 9/22/07, from http://www2.aacc.nche.edu/research/index. htm 2 Retrieved on 10/02/07, from http://www.bis.org/review/r070928a.pdf 3 95% of businesses and organizations that employ community college graduates recommend community college workforce education and training programs, according to AACC. 4 The decade of greatest increase was 1961–1970 when almost 500 new community colleges opened, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.

5 The author served on the 2006–07 task force by appointment of Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to represent community colleges.

6 American Association of Community Colleges (2006–07).

7 Retrieved on 9/23/07, from http://www.oakgov.com/efocus/ newsletters/2007/3_article9.html. This initiative is the brainchild of Oakland County executive L. Brooks Patterson.

8 The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board data (2007).

9 The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board data (2007).

10 The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board data (2007).

11 Ben S. Bernanke, “Education and Economic Competitiveness” (September 24, 2007).

12 Ben S. Bernanke, “Education and Economic Competitiveness” (September 24, 2007).

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Dr. Mary Spangler, a career educator, became the seventh chancellor of the 58,000-student Houston Community College System in March 2007.

For the preceding four years, she was chancellor of Oakland Community College, the largest community college in Michigan. For seven years she was president of Los Angeles City College, the flagship institution of the LA Community College District, the largest in the country.

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Letters to the next president

Underfunded Miracles Richard E. Littlebear

Chief

Dull Knife College (CDKC) is located in the community of Lame Deer, on the 445,000 acre Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. The college was originally chartered by the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council in 1975 as Dull Knife Memorial College. The name of the college was changed in 2001 to emphasize the importance of Dull Knife as a chief of the Northern Cheyenne people. Although Dull Knife is a Sioux name, among the Northern Cheyenne he is known as Vooheheva, or Morning Star.

Accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, Chief Dull Knife College is one of approximately 35 tribal colleges and universities in the United States and one of seven within Montana. CDKC and its counterparts were established because from the time of the first English settlements, Native Americans have been encouraged to participate in the ritual of Western civilization. But the goal of this encouragement has almost always been assimilation, seldom the enhancement of the Indian students or the well-being of their tribes. However, assimilation is contrary to the glaringly obvious fact that young people on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation grow up in a culturally distinct community. Despite its struggles with poverty, substance abuse, unemployment, and political disenfranchisement, this Reservation has retained many of its distinctive cultural traditions. Although many Northern Cheyenne tend to embrace these traditions as adults, growing up where these traditions exist means that young people in Lame Deer, Montana, are qualitatively different from young people in suburban America.

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Assimilation-oriented programs, especially those that are coercive, have never worked with the Northern Cheyenne people and probably with others who have found themselves in similar circumstances. These assimilation-oriented policies have consistently had a residual negative effect on Northern Cheyenne students. When the students left the Reservation to attend college, many would fail for a number of reasons.

Stereotypes or characterizations of American Indians as “dirty,” “lazy,” “drunk,” and “dumb” were primary inhibitors of realizing any degree of success. Assimilation-based educational programs neither prepared them for the hostility they encountered in larger academic institutions nor the academic rigor they would experience, absent the extended At times the students were family and cultural support systems available inadequately prepared for a on the Reservation. At times the students large college or university, were inadequately prepared for a large perhaps resulting from the college or university, perhaps resulting from lack of American Indian the lack of American Indian role models, role models, underprepared underprepared and/or unqualified K–12 and/or unqualified K–12 teachers, inadequate school materials and teachers, [and] inadequate equipment, etc. It therefore became obvious school materials and to a group of American Indian educators that equipment. a successful educational program must relate the learning experience to the environment wherein students grow up. This group of educators promoted the idea of creating colleges on their own reservations, and although initially opposed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the tribal colleges and universities movement was born and continues to thrive today.

The spirit of what is now Chief Dull Knife College is founded in what John Monnett, in his book Tell Them We Are Going

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Home, most recently referred to as the Cheyenne Odyssey. In his book, Monnett provides a historical analysis of a period within which the Northern Cheyenne demonstrated determination and perseverance in embracing forced change in order to deal effectively with the challenges of the future. The Cheyenne Odyssey, under the leadership of Chief Dull Knife and Chief Little Wolf, was about change, about determination, about providing those who followed them the opportunity for a better life in their homeland. Chief Dull Knife College has accepted this vision as part of its mission and continues to, as Chief Dull Knife said, “learn this new way of life”…a way of life, that even today is constantly changing.

Like most tribal colleges, Chief Dull Knife College was initiated in meager facilities. The college began as a vocational training program, housed in army tents, in Ashland, Montana.

It wasn’t until three years later that an 11,900 sq. ft. facility was built using funding from the Indian Technical Assistance Center of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Lame Deer. The original facility was built on the current campus site but was constructed primarily for vocational training purposes. In subsequent years, construction grants from the National Science Foundation, USDA, Like most tribal and the American Indian College Fund/ colleges, Chief Dull Knife Lily Foundation have allowed the college to College was initiated in remodel the facility, and it currently houses meager facilities. laboratories and classrooms for science, math, computer science, agriculture, and secretarial science courses, as well as the college’s extension program. The facility’s heating system was also converted from coal-fired boilers to propane heat, and while an electrical retrofit was completed as well, expanded technology

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in the classrooms and labs has created additional electrical complications.

In 1979, a 5,500 sq. ft. facility that was originally constructed to house the tribal commodity distribution program was acquired and remodeled by building trades students. This remodeled facility replaced a dilapidated trailer that housed what is now the Dr. John Woodenlegs Memorial Library, a library which serves as both the college and community library. An adjacent 13,800 sq. ft. facility built to house an inpatient drug and alcohol program was given to the college in 1980 for expansion of programs and services. With the assistance of subsequent renovation grants, the college’s building trades students were able to remodel the facility, and it currently houses four classrooms, faculty and staff offices, the college cafeteria, bookstore, a student learning lab, and the college administration offices.

With increased student enrollment, the need for student child care services increased, and the college was able to renovate a 2,030 sq. ft. facility located adjacent to the campus to house child care services. The building, which was originally constructed in the early 1960s as a mechanical shop for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, continued to serve as the day care center until recently when it was converted to a student activity center. Unfortunately, all of these original facilities, although remodeled and renovated to the extent possible, are substandard with respect to layout and energy efficiency because they were not originally designed as college facilities. Despite several recently completed expansion projects, CDKC operates at a level that exceeds capacity for current classroom, office, and meeting space. Records indicate an average of 390 hours of instructional use per year in a facility designed for 270 hours. The largest room on campus for classes and/or community meetings is 1,200 sq. ft., which prevents the

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college from hosting workshops, seminars, classes, and meetings in excess of 60 people.

CDKC serves approximately 300 students each academic year. Approximately 85% of these students are Native American, 70% are female, and a significant number of the students are either heads of households or are unmarried, primary caregivers to young children. In addition, 90% of entering students are low-income and 80% are first-generation college students. The fact that 90% of the students are eligible for federal student financial aid assistance and 80% are fully Pell Grant eligible is not surprising when one considers the social milieu within which they were raised. Nearly 50% of Cheyenne families live under the poverty level and unemployment fluctuates between 60% and 85% because of seasonal employment opportunities. Almost 42% of the Reservation’s population are under the age of 18 and another 50% are between the ages of 18 and 64. The persistence of low educational achievement caused in part by the 40% to 60% school dropout rate in local schools, poverty, unemployment, and underemployment across several generations presents strong challenges to all academic institutions on the Reservation, including CDKC. Clearly, absent the opportunity to attend the local tribal college, these students wouldn’t have had the opportunity to pursue and realize their postsecondary educational goals.

However, in just short of 30 years time, Chief Dull Knife College continues to grow and successfully offer accredited associate degree and certificate programs to the residents of the Northern Cheyenne Reservation as well as surrounding communities. In addition, the college has established and maintains articulation agreements with institutions within the Montana University System that facilitate “seamless” transfer

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and acceptance of all credits and degrees earned at CDKC. These agreements have been critically important to CDKC in that nearly 60% of all the college’s graduates transition to the four-year level.

With the addition of interactive television technology at CDKC, the college has been able to expand opportunities for upper-level students to complete advanced degrees online, thereby providing the facilities for continued educational opportunities. In this manner, CDKC is very responsive to identified community needs and is therefore more than simply a community college.

CDKC has been extraordinarily successful in developing and strengthening new and existing academic programs. It has been and is currently a major participant in the National Science Foundation’s Tribal College University Partnership (TCUP), through which it has significantly enhanced math and science teaching through innovative pedagogy and rigorous evaluation. It has developed and expanded science programs with a grant from the National Science Foundation’s Rural Systemic Initiative (RSI) program. It has developed innovative and effective techniques in learning skills and established learning labs to assist students with self-paced software programs in math courses. The USDA Extension Program at the college has additionally expanded its services to the reservation community and offers a variety of financial workshops, tax preparation, and nutrition programs designed to target community needs.

While special grant funding is not uncommon for ordinary general education programs, it has been difficult for the college to secure special funding to fulfill one of the most basic purposes of the tribal college—to provide postsecondary education in a culturally relevant context. There is a desperate need in Indian country to not just “save” traditional culture as an abstract or theoretical “good,” but to use traditional culture as an active and

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critically important part of community and cultural survival in education, economic development, and social integrity, which, in turn, contributes to the community’s ability to build a sustainable society after a century of military conquest, economic disenfranchisement, and political isolation.

Notwithstanding that tribal colleges, such as CDKC, were originally established to undertake educational programs in a culturally appropriate environment, funding formulas for tribal colleges ordinarily support on the most bare-bones activities in student services and instruction. Congress itself recognized the “chronically underfunded” status of tribal colleges (United States Senate 2002). Thus, tribal colleges are often only able to support activities directly related to the most elementary functions of the institution—such as teaching mathematics or English, or keeping student records— Tribal colleges are often with their continuing funding sources, even only able to support though cultural projects, which from the activities directly related rationale for establishing tribal colleges, go to the most elementary unfunded, unless the institution is able to functions of the institution. identify and receive special grants. CDKC has been minimally successful in this area, receiving a grant from the Administration for Native Americans to support Class 7 language certification training and from the State of Montana under the Office of the Governor’s “Indian Education for All” initiative.

In addition to the regular academic programs offered at CDKC, several students and faculty members have been involved in both internships and exchange opportunities. Three faculty members and several students have participated in cultural exchanges in Mali over the past three years. CDKC students have also successfully interned at Brown University, the University of

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Montana, and Montana State University in “Bridges� programs.

Although most of these internships have been science related, it has given participating students an opportunity to experience other cultures and communities. CDKC hopes that future exchanges can involve students and faculty from other areas of the United States or foreign countries visiting the Reservation.

There are many stereotypes that could be dispelled and valuable exchanges of information shared with these kinds of opportunities.

Although CDKC has demonstrated steady but meager growth over the years in a fiscal sense, the increased shortage of funding to support the necessary staffing for an expanding student population has severely limited the college in its ability to provide identified and essential programs and services to its students and community. Increased student enrollment has also increased the need for additional classrooms, library and archival space, laboratories, and student recreational facilities. Over the past five years, CDKC has increased its student headcount by 10% per year and the full-time student enrollment by 20% each year. The college has also significantly increased its student retention and graduation rates while at the same time effectively addressing the many challenges incumbent in assisting handicapped students.

The success being realized with increased student enrollment and the identified need for expanded programs and services has seriously been impacted by reductions in funding. One such area that occurs annually is the arbitrary reductions in the amount of federally negotiated indirect funding received. Although negotiated and budgeted on an annual basis, CDKC receives an average of 65% of the anticipated amount, which results in staff reductions institution-wide. The college, in order to sustain the most basic operations required to meet accreditation standards

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and institutional effectiveness, has cut two faculty positions, the dean of cultural affairs, a finance manager, an archivist within the library and culture studies area, three facility maintenance positions, and the institutional development position. With these necessary reductions in staff, the workload assumed by remaining staff has stretched staffing very thin, and therefore, adding additional programs and services with existing staff is not a viable option.

When the U.S. Congress enacted the Tribal Colleges and Universities Act in the late 1970s, the legislated per pupil cost was $5,820. This amount has never been appropriated, and therefore CDKC has been required to operate with as little as $2,800 per ISC (Indian Student Count) to more recently $4,200 per ISC— amounts that are significantly lower than the legislated amount.

Since 1979, CDKC has operated at a level of funding which remains far below actual cost per student. Even if the original legislated amount were to be appropriated, it would not take into account subsequent inflation and therefore would still be inadequate. CDKC feels strongly that the legislated amount of $5,820 per ISC needs to be appropriated, and because it would simply be an action to meet preexisting legislation, it would not constitute a policy change.

A non-Federal policy issue that the college faces is funding for non-Indian students, called non-beneficiary students, who are not included in federal legislation. Each year the presidents of the seven Montana tribal colleges have to implore the appropriate state legislative committee to appropriate funding for these non-beneficiary students, since they are not covered under the Tribal Colleges and Universities Act. Even when the legislature approves funding for these students, it is far below the $5,000 mark, typically generating $1,500 per non-beneficiary student.

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This means that CDKC supplements the State of Montana approximately $4,000 per non-beneficiary student yearly.

Although the legislature has taken action that will provide lineitem funding in future budgets, there are no guarantees and no assurances that the amount appropriated will increase. In short, Chief Dull Knife College must depend largely upon special funding to launch new academic programs or services. Until such time as there is fiscal accountability at the federal and state levels for the programs and services offered, the college will remain grossly underfunded.

It has been said that tribal It has been said that tribal colleges and colleges and universities universities are underfunded miracles. are underfunded miracles.

CDKC definitely fits that description in that CDKC definitely fits that despite being underfunded, it has succeeded description in that despite in increasing student enrollment, increasing being underfunded, it has student retention, increasing numbers of succeeded in increasing students realizing their educational goals, student enrollment, and expanding programs and services to the increasing student community it serves. In addition, existing retention, increasing campus facilities have been remodeled numbers of students and five new facilities constructed on realizing their educational campus. The new buildings are the early goals, and expanding childhood learning center funded by HUD programs and services to and USDA, the adult education/literacy the community it serves. center funded by the Lily Foundation and USDA, the vocational skills center funded

by USDA, the Florence Whiteman Culture Center funded by the Lily Foundation, and a recently completed visiting lecturer center funded by USDA. All of these facilities were designed and constructed utilizing sustainable green-build technology in cooperation with the American Indian Housing Initiative

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(AIHI). AIHI is a national collaboration in public scholarship joining Penn State University, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin, and Chief Dull Knife College in an effort to proliferate teaching, learning, and discovery of green building technologies and sustainable development strategies, while simultaneously utilizing these methods to address housing and community facilities crises endemic to Plains Indian communities. Penn State, the University of Wisconsin, USDA, and HUD have been by far the most active partners in these endeavors and the appealing factor for these straw-bale buildings is the energy efficiency which results in lowered utility costs to the college.

As CDKC realizes increased enrollment, the need for additional land for the campus and construction revenues will become imperative. Four facility needs that will require resolution in the near future include a new classroom/office complex, a student multipurpose center, a new library, and a new maintenance facility. Hopefully, with the expansion of fundraising activity on campus, these new facilities can be built and the college can continue to realize the words of Chief Dull Knife when he said, “Let us ask for schools to be built in our country so that our children can go to these schools and learn this new way of life.”

Copyright © 2008 Richard E. Littlebear. All Rights Reserved.

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Dr. Richard E. Littlebear is president of Chief Dull Knife College, located on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. Previously, he served as dean of cultural affairs for the college. He earned a master’s in school administration from Montana State University and an Ed.D. from Boston University. The Cheyenne language is Dr. Littlebear’s first language. He learned to read and write the Cheyenne, and he considers that his greatest academic achievement.

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Letters to the next president

Rural Community Colleges – Building Communities and Advantaging Regions Michael R. Chipps

F

rom machinists to automotive technicians and from lab specialists to nurses, America’s 860 community college districts provide the training backbone of the twenty-first century workforce and fulfill the specifications of its business and industry partners.

If this is not enough by itself, instruction delivered at America’s 1,552 community college campuses prepare students with primary skill sets to perform at or above senior college and university peers, knowing full well that those peers are gearing up to become members of the workforce leadership core, which is about 20% of the needed labor supply for America’s business and industry.

And if the plate is not full enough, these 860 community college districts and 1,552 campuses stimulate the engines of regional economic development by providing pathways to create a globally competitive, highly technical workforce for employers.

In addition, America’s community colleges maintain access for all Americans in need of developmental education prior to engaging in technical training and transfer education programs.

And last, community college open-door access reaches out to the new Americans who immigrate in hopes for a better life, and in doing so, need sufficient adult basic education skills to survive and succeed in the workforce and in the great American society.

At the time of a major educational expansion during the “baby boom” of the 1960s and early 1970s, community colleges were seen by many as a movement that could have as easily withered and died as it might have risen and shone. The transition toward 141

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an information-rich American post-industrial society during this period has dramatically increased the need for expanded postsecondary educational opportunities. This void is mirrored in substantial enrollment growth, based largely on the widened chasm in earnings for those who lack sufficient economic means to access them. As America transitions deeper into a lifelong learning society, where people change jobs ten times and careers three, the need for expanded continuing education continues to grow. This may The heart’s desire of the explain why community college enrollments community college is accelerated by 30% over the past 40 years. found within its name…

From 2000 to 2006, a tidal wave of high community. school graduates joined the ranks of college students and subsequently community college enrollments grew from 7.8 million to 10.2 million students in just five years. Today, more than half of all students in higher education attend community colleges.

Another reason for dramatic enrollment increases at community colleges is the flexibility of these relatively young, practitioner-focused colleges. The heart’s desire of the community college is found within its name…community. Most community colleges and rural community colleges in particular are tied closely to the economic well-being of the communities which they serve. They believe and highly value the needs as voiced by local communities and deliver on promises made to those communities, rather than predetermining community needs.

The prompt response nature of America’s community colleges not only makes them popular but, correspondingly, successful.

The relationships forged by community colleges with local communities bring a refreshing, new meaning to the delivery of education. Continuing one’s education beyond high school is

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today no longer just for the elite. The secret is out…if America is to retain or regain its powerful global economic position, continuing education must become a lifelong journey. It is not a luxury or a gift, but rather an entitlement and, greater yet, a requirement. This perhaps explains why enlightened states such as California increased state aid enough to allow its community colleges to reduce tuition rates 28% as of January 2007.

The significant inroads that community colleges have made within higher education are no longer in doubt, even if policy makers and the general public are unclear about the multiplicity of missions these institutions perform. The value and importance of community colleges is reinforced by the Oval Office, in that since 1996 all but two of the past ten presidential State of the Union addresses have mentioned community colleges by name.

In all of this, we find commitment to communities, to its service area, and to its students at an affordable cost. This applies on an even greater scale to the 577 community colleges classified as rural-serving by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2005. Together, rural community colleges account for 53% of all community colleges. Yet due to a steep, long-term decline in state-invested operating budgets, these catalysts for community growth and survival find themselves in an increasingly precarious financial position.

Billy G. Roesser found that from 1980–81 to 2000–01, state appropriations for community college operating budgets declined by 13% nationwide. While 55% of all U.S. community college students in 1980–81 enrolled in one of the 22 states where the state contributed 50% or more of the total budget, by 2000–01, just 8% in seven states did so. The situation has worsened in this decade, when 34 states, including Nebraska, took midyear budget cuts in 2003. Deep cuts in operating budgets lessen community

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college flexibility to react creatively to an ever-changing external environment, as well as reducing its ability to meet regional economic challenges. This trend must be reversed, and here the federal government, in partnership with the states, needs to provide leadership in helping control health care costs, which is the largest state budget Deep cuts in operating driver since 1970. budgets lessen community Rural communities clearly value and college flexibility to utilize their community colleges. My college, react creatively to an Mid-Plains Community College (MPCC), ever-changing external serves 94,000 Nebraskans over a vast area environment, as well as of 20,000 square miles. Its state-assigned reducing its ability to 18-county service delivery area includes meet regional economic four of America’s top ten poorest counties. challenges.

Our three major campuses, four extended campuses, and 35 educational sites provide educational services to this vast geographic expanse. When our residents refer to it as “the college,” they really mean their college, a point underscored by our very deep market penetration. As is the case with many other rural community colleges, where MPCC is the region’s only major postsecondary presence, we annually enroll about 15% of the total population, far higher than the national average of less than 5%.

What is so unique and special about the nation’s 577 rural community colleges? Even though serving students at a distance is a fairly new concept at many residential universities, it is not so at Mid-Plains and other rural community colleges. In the mid-1950s, while assisting the citizens of west-central Illinois in starting a new community college, the late Raymond J. Young discovered that people would drive about as far to purchase programs and services delivered at a rural community college

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as they would to purchase durable goods, such as a refrigerator or an automobile. This regionalism is quietly demonstrated in many amazingly creative ways. MPCC was recently featured in a national publication, which highlighted how a rural community college delivers distance education across its extensive geographic area. For example, nursing instruction is scattered in four communities across a 200-mile span. Interactive television broadcasts courses to Valentine, the northernmost point on the South Dakota border, with the instructor and students located in southernmost McCook, which is on the Kansas border. In addition, our students in the north easternmost Broken Bow are connected to those in North Platte, over a hundred miles away.

This complex maze is compounded by the need for suitable nursing clinical arrangements, which are found in small rural hospitals close to where the students are taking the distance classes. A question often asked relates to program quality and effectiveness. We take justifiable pride in the 100% placement rates of graduates who are actively seeking employment, and the 96% nursing licensing pass rates (NCLEX-RN) that demonstrate program quality.

Another example is found in how Mid-Plains Community College is effectively governed. The Board of Governors often finds itself holding a meeting in Imperial, which is 90 miles southwest of the central administrative headquarters and borders on Colorado. The next meeting may find the board in Valentine, 130 miles to the north on the border of South Dakota. Three times each year the board meets in McCook, which borders the state of Kansas. While in those communities, the board often holds town hall meetings to determine whether the local area constituents are satisfied with the services provided by MPCC, and to hear concerns about improving the quality and quantity of

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educational services. For instance, Valentine recently requested expansion of courses and programs for its surrounding area.

Citizens formed a task force and worked with the college to assess needed services. The college and the community decided together to grow the current extended campus operation, and develop strategic enrollment objectives to warrant further campus expansion; so, we are thinking regionally while acting locally.

America’s rural community colleges brought geographic access to Americans by delivering affordable postsecondary access within 50 miles of all Americans. Not only did America’s community colleges deliver on the promise, they brought with it innovation and creative methods to deliver courses, programs, and training opportunities close to home.

MPCC has capitalized on the entrepreneurial spirit of its residents to create the Center for Enterprise (CFE). The college is transforming one of the three campuses into primarily focusing on seven innovative educational pillars: Center for the Railroads, Center for Customized Training, Center for Testing and Certification, Center for Leadership, Center for Wellness, Center for Globalization, and Investing in rural Center for Entrepreneurs. By utilizing rural community colleges can thinking and practice, with an emphasis on help the nation make a regional development, these educational truly powerful statement emphases can be delivered across the vast about its entrepreneurial MPCC service area and provide training spirit. to residents served by all seven college campuses, as well as at multiple business and industry sites.

If America wishes to renew its global position, it may give consideration to revisiting its pioneering roots. Investing in rural

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community colleges can help the nation make a truly powerful statement about its entrepreneurial spirit. Place-based, regionally focused rural community colleges continue to deliver a myriad of innovative services to rural America, whose entrepreneurial spirit is far from dead. Small-town Americans are seriously engaged with producing and using countless products and services, which are delivered globally. Relatively insignificant investments in rural infrastructure from the Department of Agriculture, the federal agency responsible for rural development in America, can yield a huge rate of return.

As Stephen Katsinas noted, “Community colleges are the land-grant universities of the twenty-first century. They provide both practical and liberal education for the working classes of our nation. As we confront the challenges of providing access and building economically and culturally sustainable communities in the twenty-first century, it is time to recognize and support the special contributions that rural community colleges play in providing entry to the American dream.” The hope of rural community colleges is that as America moves forward in a new century, it reflects back upon the success of its rural roots to build and sustain regional advantage.

The author wishes to thank Stephen G. Katsinas, Ph.D., a professor of higher education and director of Education Policy Center at the University of Alabama, for his assistance with preparation of this article.

Copyright © 2008 Michael R. Chipps. All Rights Reserved.

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Dr. Michael R. Chipps serves as president and chief executive officer for an 18-county Mid-Plains Community College service area in Nebraska. The service area encompasses three major campuses, four extended campuses, and 35 learning sites. He holds a doctor of philosophy from the University in Nebraska at Lincoln in educational administration, curriculum and instruction with a specialization in management of colleges and universities.

Dr. Chipps has served as an international higher education consultant for over 60 colleges and universities.

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Letters to the next president

Leveling the Financial Playing Field Walter M. Bortz III Dear Mr. or Madam President:

I have been asked to provide you with my perspective on

higher education and what I would say to our nation’s new leader about our colleges and universities. My observations are based on more than 40 years in the field.

I have the great honor of serving as the twenty-third president of our nation’s tenth-oldest college. Hampden-Sydney College opened its doors in November of 1775 and has been in continuous operation for 233 years. Its mission, “to form good men and good citizens,” is unchanged. It is very much an “academical village” which strongly embraces the traditional liberal arts. The college represents the kind of educational institution through which most of our country’s leadership has passed during our nation’s two-plus centuries, with mentors (faculty) and students in regular and close contact and with a style of learning encompassing a set of core requirements and curriculum. Small liberal arts colleges such as Hampden-Sydney College are fewer in number than 50 years ago and, in many cases, different in focus. A small college, unless heavily endowed, will struggle for survival. The financial model is not nearly as successful as the educational model. Many of these schools have had to add service and professional curricula, accepting a role of vocationalism that brings them into direct competition with the for-profits, community colleges, and larger public institutions.

And, of course, “college” has given way to “university” as institutions attempt to compete with larger, more service-oriented institutions and those focused on processing large numbers of

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students rather than on the liberal arts college’s commitment to a classical education and to individual lifelong learning.

This occurs in the midst of an atmosphere in Washington in which a single set of metrics is sought which will provide a one-size-fits-all measurement of what is assumed to be a welldefined product of higher education. Colleges and universities, in responding to the need for assessment promulgated by accrediting agencies that are responding to federal pressure to measure what faculty are accomplishing in the classroom, spend more and more time A small college, unless devising instruments for such purpose. heavily endowed, will And it is no surprise that the creation of struggle for survival. The such instruments places pressure on faculty financial model is not and institutions to teach to standards that nearly as successful as the are a by-product of the assessment tools. educational model.

This, in turn, results in a situation where mission statements and goals are written to accommodate to the lowest common denominator for colleges and universities rather than the lofty aspirations that we want our students to strive to achieve. Hampden-Sydney’s mission “to form good men and good citizens” requires a host of qualifiers among a sea of descriptors. What good men are and what constitutes a good citizen must be explained against an ever-changing population, political correctness, and ignorance. Measuring and assessing the outcomes is equally daunting.

The challenge we who lead the small liberal arts colleges face is the maintenance of our national ability to continue to deliver on a model for higher learning that has been defined and refined for three centuries. Our small liberal arts colleges educate through discourse, analysis, rhetoric, argument, applications, and performance. We do it through critical review and case study.

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It is best accomplished in small groups, even one-on-one. It is rigorous, participatory, and challenging to student and teacher. It focuses on learning, both the process and the result. It is more likely to occur in the small villagelike atmospheres of our liberal arts colleges, rather than in the much larger institutions where process is emphasized and students are more likely to be learning by teaching each other than by being taught by professors.

It has been interesting to observe the number of large universities which have developed “honor colleges” within their academic structures. These colleges are usually advertised as having a select curriculum, many speakers, classes taught by professors (rather than teaching assistants), as well as small(er) classes. Descriptions and benefits include “a strong sense of community,” “Honors Writing Center,” and “research opportunities.” This, of course, is the stuff of which the liberal arts college is made and has had as a focus predating the forming of our country.

For my college it goes even further: We are one of only three all-male colleges remaining among our country’s more than four thousand institutions of higher education. Five decades ago there were about 230 all-men’s colleges. Today there are three. Five decades ago men were more likely to attend college and outnumbered women in most disciplines. Today we seek answers to the question, “Where have all the young men gone?”

In a recent report given by a public university president at the beginning of the new school year, the president reported a new record freshmen enrollment and the fact that the freshmen class was 66% female. There was no comment about this fact other than to say it was to be expected and compared favorably with sister institutions. (In fact, as a group, the liberal arts colleges are doing better at attracting more gender-balanced student bodies.)

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Why do fewer men than women attend colleges and universities today and why has their number faded so sharply? We have not adequately studied the issue that young men and young women may learn differently. The thought that settings which do not contain both sexes might add rather than detract from the educational process seems to have been dismissed or lost in the attempt to make all education the same for all students. What we have done, of course, is ignore differences between the genders that may be useful tools in the learning process; we have also ignored any special needs of young men as we struggle to create a more level playing field for women.

It is my belief that the men and women who might benefit from learning in a single-gender environment should have that opportunity. Students need to be able to enjoy a diverse group of institutions from which to choose their postsecondary educational experience. From the community college to the large land-grant university, from the historically black college to the all-women’s college, from the multi-college/schools research university to the small liberal arts college, higher education in the United States is strong and delivering on its centuries-old mission of providing a well-educated population.

Regardless of the type of school or model of education, however, the two main issues that should be front and center for higher education leadership are accessibility and affordability.

A long list of other issues includes affirmative action, federal funding, workforce development, use of technology, athletics, IRS regulations, accountability, campus safety, infrastructure maintenance, resource management, and endowment growth.

But above and beyond these institutional challenges and concerns are the overarching problems of accessibility and affordability, two issues that are inextricably linked.

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The continued support for this nation’s various forms of higher education institutions is critical to its future. The distribution of the cost of supporting the diversity of those institutions is also critical. In a letter to John Armstrong in 1788, our founding father, George Washington, regrets that the scarcity of money prevents parents from enrolling their children in school.

This is one of the numerous evils, which arise from the want of a general regulating power; for in a Country like this, where equal liberty is enjoyed, where every man may reap his own harvest, which by proper attention will afford him much more than is necessary for his own consumption, and where there is so ample a field for every mercantile and mechanical exertion, if there cannot be money found to answer the common purposes of education, not to mention the necessary commercial circulation, it is evident that there is something amiss in the ruling political power, which requires a steady, regulating, and energetic hand to correct and control.

Young people, in particular, will participate in higher education if accessibility exists; accessibility is often a function of affordability. The dream of going to college is balanced by the ability of a young person to afford that dream. Families are choosing where to attend based on the availability of dollars.

Over the last 40 years, the number of young people attending college has increased as has the percent of those graduating from high school. In this environment, according to the 2007 edition of the Southern Regional Education Board’s Fact Book on Higher Education, with regard to public four-year colleges and universities, “for 63% of students, Expected Family Contribution and aid received (without loans) are less than annual college costs” and “for 37% of students, Expected Family Contribution and aid received (without loans) are GREATER than annual

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college costs.” While there are a variety of reasons why this has developed, the overwhelming fact is that many families continue to struggle with affordability issues. Students are able to attend community colleges and public universities without regard to their ability to pay. All students are subsidized without consideration of their ability to afford the cost of the education sought. With tuition at public institutions being held artificially low, bargain tuition shoppers are more likely than ever to seek out less costly institutions. Colleges and universities have limited classroom space and, therefore, select students based upon traditional admission criteria. These criteria—test scores and grade point average—often are affected by a student’s financial foundation. The ability to pay increases with test scores and classroom performance. Therefore, the likelihood to be accepted to institutions also increases with the ability to pay. Access is a function of economic wherewithal and, without any checks and balances in place, young people and their families often choose the most steeply discounted option—public higher education.

When students investigate colleges—without regard to finances and rely on an institution’s ability to help a student reduce the price through financial aid, they and their families end up with more choices and many elect the smaller, more personal setting for their undergraduate experience.

One of the options in dealing with such inequities is to individualize college costs based on a sliding scale of affordability.

Colleges and universities already do some of this as they use federally approved financial formulas to determine “need.”

Eligibility for federal grants, including the Pell Grant, is awarded to students who have demonstrated financial need determined by a review of income and assets. Students who have the ability to pay do not receive federal financial assistance. However, this

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is not true in the cases of those students electing to attend public institutions where public dollars are underwriting every student, regardless of individual ability to pay. It is in this regard that a sliding scale of affordability might be more appropriate so that all students could enjoy a level playing field of financial assistance permitting them to choose a college or university without regard to financial need and in tune with their ability to bear the actual cost of the experience.

The result of using a sliding scale for cost addresses the accessibility/affordability problem that challenges all colleges and universities. Students would be able to distribute themselves more evenly across a wider range of institutional options. Distribution of students from different backgrounds helps higher education address diversity issues and permits additional institutional resources to be used for international and globalization efforts, a perspective which is critical to higher education. Colleges and universities have a responsibility to encourage faculty and students to view knowledge in an international context and to immerse themselves in the global arena, regardless of the subject matter. The study of foreign languages is not enough.

International students on campus are not enough, nor are Fulbright scholars, Amity scholars, or other visitors. Students need to be introduced to world culture through these traditional opportunities, but immersion in another country’s culture through living within that culture for at least a semester is a necessity.

I trust that you are familiar with the many types of higher education institutions in the United States and, because of personal experience, you celebrate the options young people already enjoy and that you understand why we would want to strengthen them. In particular, I hope you will have knowledge

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of the small liberal arts colleges and the contributions they have made to the history of our country and their potential for the future. The leaders of these institutions are regularly in touch with students and parents who benefit from their colleges on a daily basis and with the alumni who treasure the experiences they enjoyed. Too often these small colleges are overlooked while athletic scores, research, significant gifts, or other news items overshadow their steady course and solid performance. Too often they are absent at Too often these small the table as national policy is discussed or colleges are overlooked practices reviewed and, unfortunately, the while athletic scores, perspective of these special institutions is lost. research, significant Over two centuries ago, as Hampdengifts, or other news Sydney began its second-term enrollment of items overshadow their 110 students, it was one of the new colony’s steady course and solid largest educational institutions. At the end performance. of the eighteenth century, Harvard had 120 students, while Dartmouth enrolled 30, Princeton 16, and Brown 4. For even the largest, a handful of professors was a richness enjoyed by few. The process of knowledge transfer from one generation to the next was personal. It is a transfer that continues to this day and deserves our collective attention and support. And it is neither inexpensive nor easily accomplished; after all, it is education rather than training and requires professors who stimulate and excite and do so across the curriculum, from Plato to Shakespeare and beyond.

It is the clear dissemination of information as well as its collection that is critical to the communication process that liberal arts colleges stress. It is the ability to study, synthesize, and analyze that is celebrated in its classrooms. These are the foundations for leadership that have been part of the liberal arts

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traditions at places like Hampden-Sydney College. Those of us who are privileged to be part of this genre of higher education institutions believe they are critical to the future of our nation.

We hope they will continue to survive and thrive.

Sincerely, Walter M. Bortz III President Hampden-Sydney College Copyright © 2008 Walter M. Bortz III. All Rights Reserved.

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Dr. Walter M. Bortz III has been president of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia since 2000. Before that, he enjoyed a wide-ranging career in higher education administration in colleges large and small, public and private. He is widely involved in the leadership of higher education organizations in the Commonwealth and beyond.

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Letters to the next president

The Envy of the World Elisabeth Muhlenfeld

Anyone who reads the New York Times “Education” section,

USA Today’s editorial page, or U.S. News and World Report’s annual college issue might reasonably conclude that there are five pressing issues in higher education: three for policy wonks (Spiraling Costs, Accountability, and Campus Safety—including everything from terrorism to binge drinking); and two for everyone else (Getting into Harvard and Gaming the Financial Aid System). The last two topics make for good copy on slow news days, appealing as they do to our national obsession with “How To” literature. The first three issues are in fact of great importance to college and university presidents. Providing a safe, affordable educational setting, and ensuring that our institutions are properly accountable to our various constituencies command much of our time and attention. But serious though these concerns may be, none of them is among the most pressing issues in American higher education today.

What we ought to be concerned about as we look ahead to the next decade are three issues at the very heart of the American experience: competitive edge, equality of opportunity, and ethical leadership. Each of these fundamental elements of America’s success story shows signs of major stress, threatening the nation’s future. Our colleges and universities can and must play a key role in shoring up these traditional strengths. Here is where our political leaders should be focusing their attention.

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Competitive Edge

Our most striking challenge, declining competitiveness, has

not yet been widely recognized by the general public, but it is frightening indeed. A number of reports in the past several years have raised serious concern about America’s ability to compete with the rest of the world going forward, particularly in science and technology.

A number of reports in Perhaps most compelling was “Rising the past several years have Above the Gathering Storm,” a 2005 report raised serious concern of a committee of the National Academy of about America’s ability to Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, compete with the rest of and the Institute of Medicine, collectively the world going forward, known as the National Academies. In a recent particularly in science and monograph, Norman R. Augustine, chair technology. of the Rising Above the Gathering Storm committee, concluded that matters have only gotten worse in the past two years. He notes, for example, that in “Business Week’s ranking of the world’s information-technology 1 companies, only one of the top 10 is based in the United States.”

The basic problem lies in America’s growing inability to produce adequate numbers of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. The proportion of college students graduating in science and engineering has declined nearly 40% over the course of the last two decades. In 2000, for the first time, there were actually more foreign students than Americans studying science and engineering in the United States. As Augustine notes, “Almost twice as many bachelor’s degrees were awarded in physics the year before Sputnik, deemed a time of dangerous educational neglect [italics mine], as last year.”

Sadly, this problem can’t be solved by fiat. As with the issue of greenhouse gases, it will get worse before it gets better. Nobel

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laureate Richard Smalley estimates that by 2010—just two years from now—“90% of all scientists and engineers with Ph.D.s 2 will be living in Asia.” If we begin today, it will take us nearly a generation to develop the needed scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. The children currently in U.S. schools are performing badly when measured against children in other industrialized nations, so our pipeline has slowed to a trickle.

Children in elementary school must first catch the excitement of science and mathematics, and by middle school, be ready to do well in algebra, in order to be on track to take more advanced mathematics and science courses in high school.

What can be done?

•• First, we must prepare far more science and mathematics teachers at the elementary and secondary level. Currently, most students in K–12 have no opportunity to learn mathematics or science from even a single teacher who has a degree or certificate in those subjects. Inasmuch as the number of college students currently interested in becoming mathematics and science teachers is miniscule, we must develop incentives to encourage this career path. Let’s start by making available full-tuition loans to students interested in pursuing science and math teaching, coupled with loan forgiveness programs for those who follow through.

•• Second, we should provide incentives (and remove barriers) to retiring mathematicians and scientists who wish to work in K–12 as practitioner-teachers, role models helping children imagine the excitement of these fields.

•• Third, we should encourage innovation in the teaching of science and mathematics in the elementary grades. At my institution, our science faculty has been working for more

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than a decade with local teachers, focusing on grades 3–8, to help them learn inquiry-based approaches to the teaching of science and mathematics.

•• Fourth, we should review our immigration policy to be more welcoming to scientists and engineers from abroad.

Currently, we require anyone seeking a student visa to prove that he or she will return home after receiving a degree. This makes little sense. Inasmuch as there are significantly more foreign nationals than American students studying science and engineering in the United States, we are thereby sending young American-trained scientists and engineers back to their home countries to compete against us. Further, we have in recent years slashed our visa quotas for people with critical skills. In 2007, the entire annual quota (65,000) was 3 filled five months before the fiscal year began.

•• Finally, it makes good economic sense to support those promising young scientists we do have by increasing research dollars available to them. Currently, the National Science Foundation can fund only a small percentage of the research proposals it receives that have been deemed meritorious by peer reviewers. Many of our most creative young scientists are teaching in the nation’s liberal arts colleges. Undergraduate colleges typically have a hard time competing with research universities for scarce federal research funds—though it is at the undergraduate level that future scientists and researchers in all fields are deciding on careers.

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Equality of Opportunity

The importance of access to a good education for all citizens

has been a fundamental tenet of the U.S. education system for more than two hundred years. The two most sweeping educational policy initiatives of our nation’s history, the Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890, and the G.I. Bill of 1944 were aimed at making broadly available not just secondary education, but higher education. Together, these initiatives transformed the American economy by catapulting millions of families into the educated middle class. But high school graduation rates have barely budged in the last 40 years, and fewer than 18% of high school graduates complete a college degree within six years.

Today, policy analysts project that if current trends continue, the percentage of citizens with high school and college diplomas will actually decline, and average incomes will drop over the next 15 4 years.

Access is thus a competitiveness issue. The United States ranks below all of its major allies in high school graduation rate (17th) and college graduation rate (14th). And the latter is likely to worsen. According to the Department of Education, the next decade will see a 17% increase in college-going students, of whom the majority will be minority students (rising from 31% of the total in 2005 to 36% in 2016—some 7.3 million students).

Most discussions related to access are really about college costs and financial aid policy. Certainly, our national commitment via the G.I. Bill, Perkins Loans, Pell Grants, and other financial aid programs bespeaks a long-standing concern for access. But in truth, we are doing less now than 40 years ago. The recent report of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education (dubbed the Spellings Commission) expressed concern for low college completion rates and noted several

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contributing factors, among them lack of information about college opportunities, inadequate preparation for college, and persistent financial barriers. But the report focused most of its attention on cost and affordability issues, and almost none on the need for improved college preparation, or on the essential learning outcomes we should expect from a college education.

Finally, we need to acknowledge that racism (often unrecognized, institutional racism) is alive and well in elementary and secondary school, and continues into higher education. As the percentage of school children disadvantaged for whatever reason increases, we simply must learn to help every child realize his or her potential.

Colleges and universities Colleges and universities must work hard must work hard to ensure to ensure that minority students thrive, that minority students but that isn’t always possible if students thrive, but that isn’t always are poorly prepared in the first place, or if possible if students are those students don’t have the financial or poorly prepared in the first academic support they need to overcome the place, or if those students disadvantages they bring with them. don’t have the financial Policy discussions about access, both at or academic support they the state and federal level, tend to focus on need to overcome the public institutions. It is important to note, disadvantages they bring however, that the nation’s independent with them. colleges—and in particular its liberal arts colleges—have become institutions of access. In state after state, the average family income of the private institutions in the state is lower than that of the public universities. The percentage of Pell recipients is often higher in private institutions than in public ones. Because private liberal arts colleges are small, with low faculty-student ratios, they have an excellent track record in supporting minority students to

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graduation. (Women’s colleges in particular have a long tradition of placing high expectations on those marginalized by society and are today successfully educating a higher percentage of minority students than the national average.) Regardless of academic preparation as measured by SAT scores, high school grade point averages, or number of Advanced Placement tests taken, students are as likely to earn their degree in four years at a private college 5 or university as they are in six years at a state institution.

Policy makers interested in improving access might well consider:

•• Improvement of our federal financial aid system, both by increasing aid at the federal and state level, and by shifting from loans to grants as much as possible. Many of our brightest students from poor backgrounds are justifiably afraid of loans, well aware of the burden loans can place on their family and their future.

•• Increasing tax credits such as the Hope credit. Significant increases could not only offset additional financial aid for the middle class, but also provide incentive to parents to support their children’s college expenses more fully. Given the huge multiplier that a college education provides to one’s income over a working lifetime, such tax credits would turn out to be a very good investment indeed.

•• Revising No Child Left Behind to encourage more extensive reading and writing from the earliest grades; deemphasizing multiple-choice testing. The most important markers for success in college are strong college-level reading and writing skills.

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Leadership on a Global Stage

The point, after all, of educating our citizenry has always

been to strengthen the nation economically, politically, and ethically. As we look toward a future that we know will engage a global community, fueled by scientific and technological innovation on the one hand, and by religious and political tensions on the other, we must ask ourselves whether our system of higher education is equal to the task of preparing our citizens for the world they will inhabit. In a global environment, one in which China is now the world’s largest “English speaking” nation, do our colleges and universities expect students to learn what they will need to know to excel? When a Gallup poll reveals that 25% of college graduates (and nearly half of all U.S. citizens) believe in creationism, what can we say about the efficacy of our teaching of science in a world where biological sciences are advancing at breakneck pace, and where those advances will require us to make painful and complex ethical choices?

Fortunately, recent work by the American Association of Colleges and Universities has culminated in consensus about “the essential learning outcomes” we should expect from higher education. The simple list includes knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world; intellectual and practical skills (critical, creative, and analytical thinking, written and oral communication, quantitative and information literacy, teamwork and problem solving); personal and social responsibility (including civic engagement, intercultural knowledge, and ethical 6 reasoning); and integrative learning. If we could ensure that a college experience would result in such an education, we could be far less concerned about our nation’s future.

America’s leaders of tomorrow are in our colleges and universities today. Many of them have come of age in a period

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when America’s role in the world has become less predictable, and more problematical. Although we cannot know all of the challenges they will encounter, without question the responsibilities on their shoulders will be as great or greater than those on any generation to date. It behooves us, therefore, as we consider higher education To think about the future policy, to embrace the big questions. How of higher education can we provide higher education for all policy is to dive into a deserving citizens? How can we shore up our paradoxical set of questions competitive position in the world economy? to which the public seems What do our college graduates need to know largely indifferent. to be citizen leaders in their communities and in the world?

Policy makers as leaders can:

•• Make sure they are asking the right questions. Leaders must engage these issues, because it turns out that the general public is a bit complacent. One survey of parents found that 70% “believe that their children get about the right amount of science and mathematics.” Few parents think that low 7 academic standards are a pressing problem. At the college level, a recent report entitled “Squeeze Play: How Parents and the Public Look at Higher Education Today” found the general public believes that colleges and universities are, by and large, delivering high quality. Although the report found some concern about rising costs, parents and the public generally have confidence that if one works hard enough, he or she can get “a good education.” All in all, the report concludes, the public has “minimal understanding of the policy choices with which the country is beginning to 8 wrestle.”

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•• Ensure that competitiveness issues receive at least as much discussion as did the launching of Sputnik.

•• Encourage the Department of Education to partner with the nation’s colleges and universities to develop a wider consensus on “essential learning outcomes,” and provide grant funding to enable institutions to develop innovative ways to teach them.

To think about the future of higher education policy is to dive into a paradoxical set of questions to which the public seems largely indifferent. On the whole, we are as a nation pleased with our system, and certainly there is much for which we can be justifiably proud. But we dare not rest on our laurels. Nearly every report or op-ed on the subject, whether by a college president, a congressman, or a media critic begins with a long-familiar aphorism: “America’s higher education system is the envy of the world.” Perhaps that’s still true. Whether it remains so may well determine the nation’s future.

Copyright © 2008 Elisabeth Muhlenfeld. All Rights Reserved.

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Endnotes 1 Norman R. Augustine, Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth?

(Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2007), p. 17.

2 Cited in Augustine, 44.

3 Ibid., 52.

4 National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, “Policy Alert” (November 2005).

5 National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), Twelve Facts That May Surprise You About America’s Private Colleges and Universities (2006).

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The listing, developed through extensive consultation and dialogue with the business community, colleges and universities, and analysis of accreditation requirements for engineering, business, nursing, and teacher education, is discussed in Liberal Education Outcomes: A Preliminary Report on Achievement in College (American Association of Colleges and Universities, 2005).

73% thought the most pressing problem with their children’s schools was “social problems and kids that misbehave,” Augustine, 37.

John Immerwahr and Jean Johnson, prepared by Public Agenda for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (May 2007).

Elisabeth Showalter Muhlenfeld is president of Sweet Briar College, having come to Sweet Briar in 1996 from Florida State University where she served as dean of undergraduate studies and professor of English. She is the author of four books, including a biography of Mary Boykin Chesnut. Author of dozens of articles and essays, she makes frequent presentations on issues affecting undergraduate education and currently serves as chair of the Women’s College Coalition.

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Letters to the next president

Help Those Who Help Themselves Gerald B. Kauvar

The distinguished educators who contributed to this volume

focus on what the next president and, by implication, the federal government can and should do to ensure the vitality of the sort of institution they know best—that’s just what we asked them to do.

Their perspectives span the horizon of higher education— from a tribal community college to a major university system, with stops along the way at single-sex institutions, for-profit enterprises, schools with religious underpinnings, schools that serve a particular minority population, a rural community college and a major community college system, schools that are well known, and some that should be better known.

Common themes include the need to ensure access and affordability of higher education for all, the need to maintain the prestige and attractiveness of our programs and degrees particularly for international students, the need to ensure global awareness in our curricula, the need to increase opportunities for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs and degrees, continued independence in the search for reason, support for basic and applied research, the need to maintain diversity in our system and in our institutions, and the need to work cooperatively with government and business.

A few contributors offer suggestions about how institutions need to change, that is, a quid for the quo of added federal support of various kinds—financial, of course, but moral and intellectual leadership as well. Financial support to promote access and increase affordability is frequently recommended if not exactly requested, as is the need for more resources for research in all scholarly and artistic endeavors, more support 171

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for inter- and multidisciplinary work, and more attention paid to international education in all its forms—from easing the way for legitimate students and faculty members and scientists to enter the U.S. to more focus on other nations and cultures in our curricula. Increased articulation between secondary schools and institutions of higher education is a common theme.

Let me offer a few observations on some bolder changes that we in higher education might undertake with the help of presidential leadership—and as partial payment for it.

A recent report from the Carnegie Foundation asks fundamental questions about the way traditional doctoral programs are structured. For example, the authors question whether, “With fields increasingly interdisciplinary, is it possible to devise a meaningful comprehensive examination? Are some humanities programs’ long-standing requirements that students study two foreign languages still necessary? Do the traditional divisions between coursework and research as discrete stages of doctoral study serve a useful function or simply delay the development of students’ independence, initiative, and creativity?”

We need to ask ourselves whether the knowledge and skills one needs to practice medicine absolutely require four years of study and clerkships, and whether the knowledge and skills one needs to practice law require three. We might even expand the types of degrees we require for state or professional certification by including and honoring more non-research doctoral programs, for example. We might expand the range of professional opportunities and provide basic medical and legal education and degrees for people who do not intend to practice medicine or law but could benefit from the training. And we should ask the same questions about terminal professional

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degrees and the Ph.D. in other disciplines, like engineering and business, as well.

Equally fundamental questions should be asked about undergraduate education, which in the United States is as varied as the food preferences of individuals and, indeed, nations. The broad range of institutions offering undergraduate “postsecondary education” encompasses technical training, twoyear institutions that offer associate degrees in trades, technical fields, and some disciplines within the liberal arts, to institutions that are devoted solely to the study of the “Great Books,” and those which have no curricular requirements at all.

What binds them together is a tradition—an exoskeleton— that an associate’s degree cannot be earned in less than two years, and that a baccalaureate degree requires four years of study—or class time. This despite the fact that for the most part our infrastructure is unused for undergraduate instruction about one-third of the year (excluding summer study which attracts few of most institution’s full-time students). We need to find the courage to utilize our facilities for academic purposes yearround, thereby increasing access while cutting costs and prices, and increasing retention of what has been taught and learned.

For the most part, undergraduate education is measured in numbers of courses taken—an input measure. There’s no proof that schools that have a four-course-per-semester model are inferior to institutions that require five courses a semester, and no evidence that a quarter system is better or worse than a semester system, or that 14 weeks of instruction is more efficacious than 13 or 15, or that classes taught twice a week for an hour and a half are better or worse than three 50-minute hours. But there is evidence that learning decays if not exercised regularly—thus,

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our national penchant for not requiring attendance all year long is perverse.

In other nations, we find a diversity of curricular models for undergraduate education as well as professional training, and the length of time it takes to get degrees varies as well. But our habit is introspection, perhaps because for so long American higher education has been the model for the rest of the planet.

Institutional inertia is often excused by invoking the successes of the past. In so doing, we may be blinding ourselves to the challenges of the future.

Faculties tend to search for the divine curriculum—the one set of courses and Faculties tend to search for readings that is sufficient to furnish the the divine curriculum—the minds of educated men and women. Were one set of courses and there one, it should have been discovered readings that is sufficient decades if not centuries ago, and modified as to furnish the minds of necessary as new knowledge is discovered. educated men and women.

Some have tried another approach—defining Were there one, it should a set of mental abilities and skills that should have been discovered characterize an educated person. That, too, decades if not centuries supposes an ideal exists and awaits discovery. ago, and modified as Curricula should furnish the mind well necessary as new knowledge by preparing it for encounters with the as is discovered. yet unknown. William D’Avenant wrote in the sixteenth century, “Through seas of knowledge we our course advance, / Discovering yet new worlds of ignorance.” Undergraduate education, at its best, is the seaman’s guide through the vast ocean of new scientific discoveries, new theories based on research in the social sciences, and additions to the canons of literature, music, drama—indeed all the arts.

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Because D’Avenant was right, we can try an alternative approach to defining a successful undergraduate education.

We must find ways to ensure that we graduate students who have the knowledge and skills required for personal success in whatever occupation or profession they choose, and for the steady improvement of our civil society, our nations, and our planet.

To do so, we ought to focus on learning outcomes in every class and laboratory and internship, in every major and minor.

We need to assess a student’s ability to communicate orally and in writing. Students need to demonstrate quantitative reasoning skills. We need to jettison our reliance on 50-minute teaching hours, and counting credits and courses.

We can do this cooperatively. Imagine for a moment that learning outcomes were defined in part on a supra-institutional basis. The easiest example would be for faculty from one institution to assess the learning of students from other institutions. Thus, physics majors or students in Physics 101 would be expected to possess Imagine for a moment certain knowledge and to demonstrate an that learning outcomes agreed-upon set of skills and competencies were defined in part on a no matter which institution they attended, supra-institutional basis. and the determination would be made The easiest example would by physicists. That does not presuppose a be for faculty from one national curriculum in physics. What such institution to assess the a scheme does require is agreement among learning of students from physicists on learning outcomes. So, too, for other institutions. philosophers, sociologists, art historians, and, and, and. I have no doubt outcomes can be assessed and that various educational models can be developed to assure required competencies. There is no need for

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a nationally standardized test—lots of tests can measure similar achievements. What I propose could be begun by institutions agreeing to pair with each other. Once agreement is reached on what knowledge and skills should be demonstrated—I’ll examine your students, you examine mine. Attention must be paid to institutional quality, perhaps more difficult to assess but which cannot be omitted, even in a sophisticated chase for quantifiable results.

I am not under the illusion that any of the three proposals will be easy to implement—year-round school calendars, a shift from the rigid skeleton of the academic timetable and system of input measurements, or the concomitant effort to move from compiling input measures to assessing outcomes. But I think the inquiry and effort will prove valuable to participants, practitioners, and proponents of higher education, to students, and to the creation of a wiser, better educated, more tolerant, and more civil society.

Institutions making these changes should be supported by the federal government. That support should include subsidies and incentive grants not just for studying the possibility of change but for implementation and evaluation. Public encouragement won’t hurt either, nor will funds for dissemination and replication of success.

In exchange for what we ask from the next president, we need to demonstrate that we can be bold, imaginative, creative, innovative leaders. Trustees and regents must support presidents who try to change their institutions despite the difficulties inherent in shared governance. It is our house to put in order.

If we don’t, either someone else will or we will lose our national standing as the planet’s most envied source of higher education.

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Portions of this essay were included in a presentation by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg at a conference in Japan honoring the 125th anniversary of Waseda University.

Copyright © 2008 Gerald B. Kauvar. All Rights Reserved.

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Gerald B. Kauvar is special assistant to the president emeritus and professorial lecturer in public policy and public administration at The George Washington University. He has held academic and administrative positions at three other institutions and served for 22 years as a senior executive in the Department of Defense.

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Letters to the next president

Searching for Presidents Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Gerald B. Kauvar

Styles and habits change, techniques and preferences shift,

evolution occurs in everything from medical practice to women’s fashion to corporate and academic management style. When my first son was born in 1975, the obstetrician came to the assignment with nearly 50 years of previous deliveries. This was a time of dramatic changes in the delivery room: allowing fathers to be present, natural childbirth, and asking hospitals to provide a serene, quiet atmosphere for the birth—giving the child a gentle start in the world. Our physician’s comment was, “We’ll do it any way you want. I’m old enough to remember when it was considered best medical practice to quickly bathe the newborn in ice-cold water!”

Recently, the New York Times, in an article by Nelson Schwartz, reported that the business community is recruiting a new type of executive: the team builder. According to quotes by Warren Bennis, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, and others, the personality and professional style of corporate America has undergone a radical transformation in the past few years. The empire builders of the ’90s were replaced, post–Sarbanes-Oxley, by the clean-up specialists, who in turn are now being replaced by individuals Bennis describes as people who “have not just the cognitive ability to run a major firm…but (have) the ability to make people feel [emphasis added] like they’re working together.”

It appears that the men with “public swagger and boardroomsize egos”—the Jack Welch/Sanford Weill/Michael Eisner types— are not as fashionable as they once were. Nor are the lowerkey fixers of regulation noncompliance who succeeded them.

Directors and investors are now looking for a kinder and gentler 179

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approach in their leaders—team-building specialists, huggers at the top. An example is the appointment of A.G. Lafley at Proctor & Gamble, who succeeded Durk Jager—the former known for his highly energetic, forceful style and the latter for a more conciliatory—dare one say, collegial—manner.

Having just finished 30 years as a university president, I wonder if this paradigm may reflect possibilities or parallels in academe, which has seen the average tenure of university presidents hover at about six to eight years. I think of John Silber, the longtime president of Boston University, who led BU by being commanding and forceful. I doubt anyone of equal intellect and equivalent personality would be appointed there today. Or recall the era of lawyers as president: Derek Bok at Harvard, Michael Sovern at Columbia, Robert Stevens at Haverford, Michael Hyman at Berkeley, Edwin Levi at Chicago, and yours truly at the University of Hartford—appointments made in part to help guide universities through the travails of campus unrest. Numerous search committees believed that the skills of an attorney in top management would add value to campus administration.

As a trustee once said to me, “We wanted someone with an understanding of the criminal mind.”

It appears that the times are changing It appears that the times once again, and the call is going out for are changing...and a new academic management style. One the call is going out of the most visible examples is the case of for a new academic Larry Summers, who came to grief as the management style. president of Harvard after only five years.

Aside from his highly publicized perceived gaffe of referring to differences of “intrinsic aptitude” between men and women, Summers had previously been considered confrontational and antagonistic with the faculty and senior staff

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members on several other occasions. That approach was tactless and tactically foolish since university presidents can do or change little without faculty cooperation and cannot compel obedience over the direction and personnel of the enterprise to the degree that CEOs can in the private sector.

But if it is true that old-style business leaders who demanded obedience are giving way to more collaborative ones, then perhaps the academy has something to both teach and learn from the business world and is already preparing the lessons.

Consider the appointment of Drew Gilpin Faust to succeed Summers at Harvard. She is an eminent scholar and, from what I have heard (I do not know her), an engaging person. I imagine charm and warmth were critical in her being chosen to lead Harvard because her management experience, which many believe to be imperative for consideration as a university president, is less than one would have historically expected. While Summers had led Treasury and, before that, a large division at the World Bank, President Faust comes from the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard, where an online check of staff reveals 83 names.

Harvard University has a teaching and administrative staff of thousands and manages resources in the billions.

Observing President Faust, I am inclined to conclude that having a contemporary leadership personality trumped conventional leadership experience in this case—and this case being Harvard, it is significant. It suggests that the “right” personality—collaborative, friendly, and even empathetic—is more important than the “right” curriculum vitae, one showing steady progress climbing up the historic ladder of administrative responsibility and achievement.

If this speculation is accurate, it has broad and deep implications. We may be witnessing the end of the era of

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triumphant charisma. The value organizations of all kinds traditionally assigned to forceful individual leadership may or may not have been historically misplaced, but may now be in the process of being succeeded by, or perhaps being accompanied by, a different skill set. This consensus building is defined as collaboration with a leader rather than obedience to the leader— and ironically must be inspired by the leader. This further refines the “evolutionary” idea of leadership by closing the distance between leader and followers and making the relationship more intimate.

I am not proposing that a new age of democracy in organizations, of leaders redefined as first among equals, and of sweetness and light is about to arrive, en masse, anytime soon.

Someone has to have the last word, make the final decision, often without a consensus— If...the leadership skills and and that is not democratic, equal, or sweet. traits expected of university But the parallels between Lafley’s succession presidents are changing, job of Jager at P&G and Faust’s of Summers at descriptions have not kept Harvard are provocative and, if replicated pace. prominently in academe, may be a sign that the nature of the American university presidency and thus the personality of the university president, like the nature and personality of business leadership, are changing and quite possibly for the better. As always, we have to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

If in fact the leadership skills and traits expected of university presidents are changing, job descriptions have not kept pace.

When major companies search for new CEOs, they spend a lot of time analyzing their competitive position, their competitive advantages and disadvantages, and surveying the horizon for changing trends. They also study their corporate culture in

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order to determine what leadership characteristics the next CEO should possess and which characteristics while nice to have are less essential. Corporations understand they need different kinds of leaders at different stages of their histories. Moreover, corporate search committees are composed of people who have agreed on the company’s Perhaps because university position and on the leadership characteristics search committees are required for future success. While companies composed of faculty, staff, cite inspirational goals, they are generally students, and trustees... within their grasp, or at least not far beyond the required leadership it. Their aspirations suit their circumstances. characteristics tend to In announcements of searches for be the same from one university leaders, one looks in vain for institution to the next, similar precision. Each institution either from community college to is or aspires to be the “Harvard” of their major research institution. niche. Being a successful and thriving second best is not an option whether or not being “first” is a physical, intellectual, or fiscal possibility.

Perhaps because university search committees are composed of faculty, staff, students, and trustees (each of whom is seeking advantage for the constituency they strive to represent), the required leadership characteristics tend to be the same from one institution to the next, from community college to major research institution. Each wants a proven leader, a successful fund-raiser, an individual sensitive to diversity, involved in community activities, an intellectual leader with a keen business sense, a consensus builder, someone who is a master politician but not a politician, a sports fan, a lover of science and culture, a dispenser of both wisdom and justice, someone capable of a profound understanding of and concern for each sparrow that flies within the campus boundaries, a visionary and a master of

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detail, a skilled communicator, and who is well-known for being an inspirational leader who is decisive, collegial, and committed to working with others.

Sainthood is desirable (despite the requirement for having died at least five years prior), but canonization is not required—a “nihil obstat” will suffice.

Perhaps we have something to learn from corporate models— the importance of seeing ourselves steadily and whole and of tempering our aspirations to our abilities.

Copyright © 2008 Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Gerald B. Kauvar.

All Rights Reserved.

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Stephen Joel Trachtenberg served as president of The George Washington University from 1988–2007. He was president for 11 years at the University of Hartford and was dean and vice president of Boston University for eight years. He has received 15 honorary degrees and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Gerald B. Kauvar is special assistant to the president emeritus and professorial lecturer in public policy and public administration at The George Washington University. He has held academic and administrative positions at three other institutions and served for 22 years as a senior executive in the Department of Defense.

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Letters to the next president

Emergency Preparedness and Global Warming: Higher Education’s Responsibilities Marvalene Hughes

The professional and personal lives of administrators in

universities often are so consumed that they do not devote time to focusing on how to assure their campuses survive in emergencies, but when they encounter disasters, they understand the urgency of a sound emergency preparedness plan. Emergencies may be big or small, natural or human-created (or a combination of the two), and preventable or unpreventable.

The few that are natural are indiscriminate, striking individuals, families, groups, organizations, corporations, universities, states and nations randomly around the world. Always emergencies pose unanticipated challenges to local habitants and upset the lives of those entrapped in their geographical pathway. Causes of emergencies are variable.

Emergencies that may appear to be natural include: tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina which struck the Gulf Coast and New Orleans on August 29, 2005, revealed a combination of a natural disaster and human and political errors. All disasters must be examined to substantiate their causes and their preventability or unpreventability.

Increasingly, scientists are becoming more circumspect as they introduce cause-effect evidence that humans’ living patterns directly affect important world changes such as global warming which results in climate changes and melting glaciers.

Scientists have advanced many findings regarding the impact of humans’ living patterns on pollution and other environmental 185

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conditions. Our living standards, our policies, our governance and our enforcement practices do not suggest that we are careful citizens who protect and appreciate our natural environment.

Sporadic and isolated problems, precipitated by our life choices, are negatively judged by environmentalists, but there are few laws or principles of ethics and responsibilities locally, nationally, and worldwide to guide our actions and our living patterns and protect our local and global environments. Universities and educational institutions, above all, are communities imbued with the privilege of developing the intellectual capacity to benefit today’s society and future generations, based upon the most modern knowledge and research findings. As such, universities serve as a mecca of learning for those who seek to develop their intellectual prowess, adjust their lifestyles to live harmoniously with the environment, and become civically engaged. How we live daily significantly impacts the current environment and the future society.

It is unfortunate that increasingly university environments are disrupted by natural and human-caused emergencies and disasters, but it is essential that emergency preparedness becomes a mainstream agenda for university managers. All universities should be required to have an emergency plan that is broadly understood by all members of the community. Practice sessions for emergency responses, unannounced, will help everyone to understand the important routines for survival.

Prevention of, and competent responses to natural and human-caused crises are essential elements in an institutional strategic plan in an academic community. In today’s society, it is usual to have a comprehensive emergency plan, which also becomes an important element of academic planning. Such a plan can no longer be viewed as an additive or an imposition

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on the academic agenda, but as a necessary and required programmatic dimension in the academic community.

The systematic work of environmentalists clearly sets the stage for integration of research and teaching, inside and outside of the classroom, to fundamentally address our living patterns which run counter to the natural environment around the world.

Our living patterns, our values, and our lifestyles are not aligned with the natural order of the universe and its sustainability. Our lifestyles are, in fact, not aligned with the preservation of an environment that will sustain our future.

Thoughtless, impractical and selfish living patterns dictate that we “need” more. We “need” more wealth, and more freedom to decide whether to live in the most comfortable and lavish living modality and to acquire more material things. To the contrary, ethical values mandate that we “give” more rather than “possess” more. The habit of possessing more has become our sine qua non and raison d’etre focusing our energy away from sharing and giving back to humanity and preserving the environment for present and future generations. Universal giving could result in an equal distribution of resources whereby needed food, energy, medical care and other necessities are shared.

There is a need for a stronger foundation supporting the right values which protect the environment for future generations.

We need to pursue greater harmony with the natural universe in our daily lives rather than forging patterns that create the rich and the poor and thereby divide us. Such patterns exacerbate disharmony among humans everywhere. Universities around the world have an obligation to teach learners, researchers and scholars the importance of studying and living in manners that protect the environment, stabilize climate conditions, minimize global warming and reduce environmental invasions.

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To be environmentally conscious, universities must stress the importance of sustainability and continue to conduct research on effects of our living patterns on future generations.

Some human-caused disasters are politically motivated, such as terrorism Universities around the which, today, is a major challenge to our world have an obligation country and other nations. Some believe to teach learners, terrorism is an international crisis generally researchers and scholars associated with political disputes in the the importance of studying and living in manners that world, and predominantly based on religious differences and nuclear power. The protect the environment, stabilize climate 9/11 crises at the World Trade Center and conditions, minimize Washington, D.C. for example, marked an global warming and reduce era of discovery about our identity in the environmental invasions.

United States and who our enemies are.

We discovered that our universities teach international and national terrorists. We must, therefore, remain astute and cautious about the laboratories in which we conduct research. They contain explosives with enormous capacity to destroy lives, if left in the hands of academic terrorists. Careful observations of members of the academic community and of their living patterns, such as their activities on computer screens that focus on violence, must be monitored appropriately. User privacy must be protected, but the campus community’s rights must also be protected. Appropriate audits are crucial to this delicate balance of individual privacy and protection of members of the community.

Sporadic and feeble attempts to alter our living patterns are not adequate to affect the full impact of our global living patterns. There is an urgent need for a coherent and universal determination to heighten our consciousness and take

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preventive actions to minimize the adversity of our living styles on preserving our environment. Massive formal curricular education and enforcement of rules and procedures to govern our daily lives, on and off-campus, must be adopted and enforced to make an impact on our environment. Recycling, building green buildings that are LEED-certified, creating smoke-free campuses, introducing green collar jobs, and fuel control are basic practices for universities to enforce.

Blaming other countries and not accepting our obligations in the Unites States is not constructive. It is not enough for citizens within the United States to glibly discuss the depth of air pollution in China, for example, because our environmental violations are equally invasive. As world citizens, we contribute to increasing the melting glaciers, climate shifts, increased numbers of hurricanes and tornadoes and other weather conditions over which we assert that we have little control and no responsibility.

Thus, the outcome is that it is seldom the case that a disaster is a full–blown natural and therefore, uncontrollable event.

Emergency Preparedness Plan

Our campuses for today’s students are microcosmic in their

reflection of the diverse populations around the world. People with behavioral disorders, for example, reside within the sacred halls of ivy. Some students cannot or do not adjust, and this may result in self-destruction and destruction of others. Disruptive students may, privately, develop plans to destroy as many people on campus as possible. The range may be comprehensive, and it may elude others on campus who assume they are cloistered in a safe cocoon of academe. We are not protected; we are not exempt; and we are not prepared to defend our campus communities.

Repeatedly this reality unfolds.

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A major category for universities to address relates to vulnerabilities created by sociopathic and psychopathic members of the educational community. These are the individuals who, in recent years, turned several campuses into their private war zones and found ways to destroy those within their pathways, particularly if they A major category for perceived them to be restrictive of their universities to address academic success. Virginia Tech is merely relates to vulnerabilities one example whereby an individual with a created by sociopathic and personality disorder randomly shot those psychopathic members in his pathway. His actions could have of the educational been curtailed with a carefully orchestrated community. plan. It was determined by some within that community, before the incident, that the perpetrator was maladjusted and should have encountered mandatory observation and treatment.

Much has been learned about what universities must do to be prepared to prevent crises and to act swiftly and thoroughly when crises happen. Universities must be preventive, ready to take actions, and methodically prepared for crises. Administrators must always protect the welfare of humans in the organization above the welfare of those who manage the campus. A prime example is the Eastern Michigan University campus where bizarre circumstances of denying the truth resulted in fingerpointing and deceiving members of the community.

A different, but equally important crisis occurred in the United States with the surprise terrorist strike on the World Trade Center of 9/11. This crisis directly affected universities adjacent to the World Trade Center in New York. The 9/11 strike had a massive impact on our nation and the world. Our higher educational institutions within the United States discovered they

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had trained the enemies, providing them the knowledge which they used as weapons to destroy our country. Universities must, therefore, develop a cognitive reality that they may be training enemies who infiltrate the university community and destroy the sacred environments of learning worldwide.

Some of the vulnerabilities we encounter relate to our campuses’ promotions of global education, granting access to citizens around the world who pursue studies in America and other nations. The 9/11 events should motivate us to carefully reconsider our American/International academic programs which are so important to global education. Global education must be preserved, and for the right reasons.

The prevalence of campus emergencies, coupled with their increasing complexities, make it critically important that shared learning is passed on in order that failures and successes are integral to planning preventions. No one has a perfect emergency response plan and no actions are perfect in emergency situations.

However, we can all benefit from hard-learned experiences by those who have encountered crises.

For example, for 11 years, I had learned a lot about emergency preparedness in California when I served as a university president there. Nothing, however, prepared me for the presidency of Dillard University, the hardest hit academic institution by Hurricane Katrina of all New Orleans’ campuses. When I served as president at a California State University campus, a gunman randomly wandered through buildings and, without the intent to kill (I concluded), he shot an individual in the side in a manner that shallowly penetrated the skin. He moved swiftly through the building firing shots randomly during evening classes. My Board of Advisors and I were in session on campus. When I was advised, I requested that security evacuate and close the campus

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immediately. We had a plan, including evacuating classes, conducting careful screening of occupants in buildings, securing doors, providing shuttle transportation to parking lots and conducting a total examination of all buildings. This amazingly rapid process was conducted in less than an hour.

Later, after evacuating, I held a press conference, as president, to offer updated information. We used television, radio and printed media for public communication. The following morning, we scheduled continental breakfast on campus, and psychologists were on duty all day. I held a press conference the same morning to discuss the incivility of a culprit who deliberately violated the academic community to thwart teaching and learning. Faculty and staff reported their feelings of empowerment during the discussion.

The culprit was identified the following day on the streets in the city, after police viewed the sketches developed by those who saw him on campus. We had a 24-hour succinct machine. He was arrested, classes resumed, and I gave the final press conference over the weekend.

Hurricane Katrina: The Biggest Crisis for Any Campus in U.S. History

The largest crisis on any campus in our nation was that

which visited New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina was unlike anything imagined. It devastated New Orleans, killed thousands, left people on rooftops after cutting their way through the roofs to reach temporary safety, and forced people to the highest grounds. The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the Superdome and highway overpasses became shelters.

Katrina closed universities; destroyed entire communities, including homes and businesses; and relegated portions of the City of New Orleans to lakes. It is hard to fathom that Dillard

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University, which for over 139 years had provided quality education to outstanding students, became a lake. All Dillard’s buildings were under 6–10 feet of water for several weeks, except for the Dillard Chapel. Many witnesses declared Dillard extinct because it was the only campus totally under water for weeks.

Additionally, three buildings burned down and three were later demolished because of extensive damage.

When permitted to visit the area shortly after Katrina’s devastation, I experienced indescribable shock unlike any in my life before. It was raw and unexpected trauma. I had arrived in New Orleans about six weeks prior to Katrina to fulfill my desire to lead a distinguished Historically Black University (HBCU).

Now, it seemed Dillard was gone. Assumptions of many were that Dillard University was a university of the past in New Orleans.

It was a sobering moment. I reflected on lessons I had learned about the power of my ancestors, the slaves, who overcame the impossible to join the abolitionists who built Dillard. For nearly 140 years, they struggled with less than I had, and I knew I should find the strength and courage to endure the trauma caused by Katrina. It became apparent that regardless of the internal and external politics to relocate Dillard to another city, Atlanta, Georgia, it was my duty to save it and return students to New Orleans. From political leadership in Washington, D.C. led by the General Counsel of the United Negro College Fund, to political and community leadership in Atlanta, Dillard was being wooed to Atlanta to occupy space in a university which had been denied accreditation and whose administrators were found guilty of criminal behavior in fiscal management. There was also internal leadership within Dillard’s family to relocate the university to Atlanta.

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It was my heart’s desire to overpower political forces and return Dillard University to its home in New Orleans. It was a huge challenge, but the battle was won to return to New Orleans, despite the fact that our campus was not available in January due to its total devastation. Thus, we chose the Hilton Riverside Hotel in downtown New Orleans as our home, effective January 3 – July 1, 2006. The president, administration, faculty, staff and students lived and learned together there for seven months. I had promised students during the numerous town hall meetings conducted around the country from September 2005 – December 23, 2005, that if they trusted me to find a place for them to live in New Orleans, I would honor the long-standing tradition of conducting commencement on campus in the summer of Universities will need 2006, and they would celebrate the tradition to require protection of to “march through the Oaks.” There were records in order to fulfill outpouring cheers and standing ovations and sustain their future. when I promised that they would “march Students’ records must be through the Oaks.” I kept that promise. For retrievable and faculty the first time since Katrina, Dillard opened research must be safely its gates on July 1, 2006, and graduates secured. “marched through the Oaks.” Every graduate carried a prominently displayed “thank you” flag naming the institution that hosted her or him for the first semester. For all of us in the processional and in the audience, it was an awe-inspiring ceremony. Our tears were tears of joy that our courage and determination withstood challenges, and we returned to our home in New Orleans.

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Technology in Education

Technology is central to the educational enterprise and it

will maintain that position of centrality. Thus, it is expected that education will become increasingly technologically dependent.

Universities will need to require protection of records in order to fulfill and sustain their future. Students’ records must be retrievable and faculty research must be safely secured.

University records – budgets, administrative records, faculty records, research storage and all essential materials – require special attention for the sustainability and security of education.

They are the heart of the institution, and their security must not be compromised. Universities will require permanence in all communication systems, and constant upgrading will be essential.

Below are a few tips to guide technological actions.

•• Organize online classes to offer learning continuity for all students when emergencies occur.

•• Prepare and protect the integrity of physical and intellectual assets and properties.

•• When evacuating the campus consider the following: ··Are there shut-down procedures? ··Are there audible alerts via civil defense standard storm notification? ··Is there electronic, voice and web-based communication? ··Are there technological teaching and learning modules prepared by faculty to deliver education to students?

•• Are there alternative communication modalities? ··Are there lock-down procedures?

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··Are there satellite phones for appropriate

communication? ··Is an off-campus site located for emergencies? ··Is text messaging functional? ··Are there telephonic connections outside the university’s area code?

Universities are advised to conduct audits of their emergency preparedness plans to assure that those in charge are fully aware of their duties and that all equipment is functional.

Emergency Preparedness in Universities and the Law

While emergency preparedness is both an expectation and

an ethical responsibility, it is far more than that. It is also the law, particularly in relation to the immediate timeline of reporting incidences, the expectations of public disclosure of relevant information, and the maintenance of public records. Serious financial consequences are absorbed by universities that do not adhere to the law.

Individuals within the university must set aside any agenda to protect themselves or others in the administration. Their motivation to protect the rights of the campus community and the rights of the public to know and have access to the facts must be paramount.

The Clery Act

The Jeanne Clery Act, introduced in 1990, requires colleges

and universities that participate in federal financial aid programs to keep and disclose statistics about crime on or near the campus.

It is required that institutions keep the most recent three years of crime statistics that occurred on campus, in residential facilities, in campus buildings, or on public property adjacent to the university. Institutions are obligated to distribute and publish

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an annual Campus Security Report to current and prospective students.

The act requires institutions to report to students and employees on a timely basis “crimes considered to be a threat to other students and employees.” Such reports must be provided in a timely fashion to aid prevention of future occurrences.

“Hate crimes” must also be included in this report. Institutions are required to maintain a public crime log containing the most recent information for the past 60 days. The log must be open to public inspection within two business days of the initial report, and new information must be added within two days after being made available to police unless one of the following conditions is present: •• disclosure of such information is prohibited by law; •• disclosure will jeopardize confidentiality of the victim; or •• clear and compelling evidence exists that releasing the evidence would jeopardize an investigation of safety.

Crime logs must be kept for seven (7) years, and logs older than 60 days must be retrievable within two business days.

Serious legal and fiscal consequences accrue to campuses that violate the Clery Act. Fundraising

In major challenges, such as the Katrina disaster which

was estimated to cost $400 million for reconstruction of Dillard University, experienced fundraisers, who are very knowledgeable of capital campaigns, are very important. At Dillard, all sources or prospects for contributions were cultivated. Those included foundations, churches, universities, corporations, individuals and the federal government. The systems that pose serious political challenges may be the federal government (where politics

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inevitably emerge even in crises), the work with FEMA (which is noted for sluggish actions and repetitive demands), and your insurance companies (which choose not to deliver according to the contract). Lawsuits are appropriate to mitigate disputes. We await outcomes of court ruling in October 2008.

At Dillard, we crafted a unique request from the federal government for a loan of 0% interest. The prevailing decision, after much deliberation, resulted in 0% interest and principle for three years, and 1% interest plus principle thereafter. Gifts from the government had been limited, except for financial aid forgiveness, but the loan we crafted will significantly aid in our recovery. The verdict on FEMA’s performance is not yet predictable. Our insurance company has only partially delivered. We have, therefore, The increasing complexities filed two lawsuits against them. We won the and diversities in our first and await the outcome of a $55 million national and international lawsuit in 2008. societies and the vast shifts in the universe in climate changes and global warming signal a need to carefully consider adjustments and reactions which may reduce and even prevent problems in terms of emergency preparedness.

Recommendations

The

increasing complexities and diversities in our national and international societies and the vast shifts in the universe in climate changes and global warming signal a need to carefully consider adjustments and reactions which may reduce and even prevent problems in terms of emergency preparedness. Thus, the recommendations which follow are offered, resulting from recent experiences associated with Hurricane Katrina and other earlier experiences in the profession.

Recommendation #1: Special legislation for emergencies in higher education is needed in the federal government,

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particularly. The status of institutions in crises cannot be dependent upon political decisions. Universities must be exempt from FEMA’s severe bureaucracies and non-performance.

Leaders of education must join forces to depoliticize funding for recovery and create legislation to protect higher education when institutions are devastated. Education is too important to our future society to postpone or withhold funding to sustain it.

A set-aside initiative is needed to guarantee rapid responses for troubled campuses.

The federal government has repeatedly demonstrated that political leadership does not work for universities in crises.

Funding support is politicized and universities suffer through the bureaucracy. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as a university in the midst of the inertia, it was distressing to observe the staunch difference between funding that was appropriated to other geographical areas on the Gulf Coast as compared to New Orleans, where the severe damage occurred. Within Louisiana the politics of funding distribution among public and private universities were divisive and inequitable.

The further ineptness of FEMA exacerbated the problems and continues to do so. Funding for recovery must be swift in order to make a difference. The areas that beg for funding to sustain an institution that is severely damaged are: 1) remediation, reconstruction, and construction; 2) faculty incentives to remain; 3) enhanced scholarships for students; and 4) recruitment and retention for administration, faculty and students.

Recommendation #2: Universities are responsible for the safety and security of their community members while they are on campus. It is, therefore, important that a sound Emergency Preparedness Plan becomes a regularly reviewed and practical part of the institutional culture. The entire university

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community must be educated, alert and aware of the plan and of the university’s systems of communication. The team of implementers will need to know exactly what their roles are and where they must position themselves. The campus managers are held accountable for guidelines set forth in the Clery Act. Recommendation #3: The federal, state and local governments have a role to play in responding to emergencies. A relationship with the government, on all levels, should be cultivated. On a local level, city police officers, energy companies and organizations that aid in crises may play major roles in responding to and securing the community. City police are especially vital in critical periods on campus.

The state and federal government have an obligation to aid campuses in distress. The federal government typically declares “a state of emergency� to entitle citizens to special assistance and financial support. As currently structured, however, support to universities can become mired in politics, as was the case of Hurricane Katrina.

The state, local and federal political machines collided in New Orleans, creating an unsafe, leaderless, and chaotic state of emergency that was unduly protracted, and causing permanent and irrevocable damage to the city and to its organizations.

Recommendation #4: There are 7,310,000 students in the United States in public four-year degree-granting postsecondary institutions and 18,351,000 in all degree-granting postsecondary institutions (American Council on Education). Each university should declare a special day to focus on the unfortunate circumstances of a university that suddenly encounters a crisis. If fiscal support is needed, universities are positioned to give aid, as a few select universities did for Dillard. If every student donated

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one dollar, that would amount to $25,661,000. A multiplier of ten would provide $256,610,000 to the distressed campus.

Support from some universities has been hugely uplifting, including donations derived from cake bakes, musical concerts, use of campus space and monetary contributions. The most prevalent campus contributions came from the many students from universities throughout the United States who donated thousands of volunteer hours for rebuilding and for other civic engagement projects.

Cash donations were forwarded from the University of Miami (Florida) and Arizona State University. In the former case, Miami’s football team and students collected money during games and forwarded $40,000. Arizona State University’s president forwarded an unexpected check for nearly $100,000.

All of these gestures strengthened my resolve to rebuild Dillard University.

Dillard University has trained an emergency team and will create an initiative to serve others. Dillard is developing a plan to catalyze campus programs for environmental actions to respond to the global warming issues nationally and internationally.

Recommendation #5: Professional development for faculty, staff and students regarding management of difficult cases would prepare the university to make early diagnosis of troubled community members and enable them to communicate about these cases and plan management strategies. Most cases are amenable to treatment and can be managed.

Recommendation #6: Universities are encouraged to be mindful of the immediate and lingering issues regarding mental and physical health of members within the university community.

Stress and post-traumatic stress are real and natural human

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reactions. Special care is needed and should be legitimized for all members of the community.

These recommendations are provided to reduce the ineffectiveness existing in our current system. There is much to be learned and so much to share with colleagues. Information enables others to plan better and to manage and prevent crises.

Conclusion

It would be easy to despair when your total campus is

destroyed, and the initial temptation is to do just that. I opted to demonstrate to Dillard’s students, parents, alumni/ae and the world the power of courage, tenacity, determination and the power of purpose. Together, we are rising beyond the total devastation and are well underway to recovery.

Brown University and Princeton University staffed offices on their campuses to aid us during the crisis. We took advantage of their pool of expertise – librarians, architects, scientists, planners and fiscal analysts to get us through the struggle. Now these two universities, Brown and Princeton, have requested that we sustain the partnership, and we are in the midst of planning our future together. We are grateful to Tulane University for sharing its space and programs to aid Dillard. Xavier University and the University of New Orleans made their libraries available for three years while we continue the massive reconstruction efforts on campus.

Much remains to be done at Dillard, but our courage has been strengthened, our vision is clearer, our commitment has grown, and our spirits are looking into the future. We are much stronger and more purposeful than we ever imagined possible.

Copyright © 2008 Marvalene Hughes. All Rights Reserved.

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Marvalene Hughes, Ph.D., serves as the eighth and first woman president of Dillard University in New Orleans, a historically black liberal arts college established in 1869. Prior to beginning her tenure at Dillard University in 2005, Dr. Hughes served as president of California State University, Stanislaus for 11 years. In addition, she has served at major research institutions including the University of Minnesota, the University of Toledo, Arizona State University, and San Diego State University.

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Letters to the next president

Free Inquiry, Not Ideology: The Philosophical Foundations of Successful University Presidencies John Silber

Although a successful college president may come from

any academic field or none at all, his success will depend on the guidance of the fundamental philosophical principles underlying intellectual inquiry, knowledge, and wisdom.

First, there must be humility before logic. If one persists in claiming that bachelors are at the same time both married and single, there is no point in arguing further. One must either abide by the requirements of logic or give up the pursuit of knowledge.

Second, one must be humble before the facts. If one insists that it is a bright, sunny day despite the fact that he is getting wet in a driving rain, he has abandoned the pursuit of knowledge. Third, shared experience is essential. We must always remain receptive to all relevant data supplied in part from the experience of others.

If we exclude consideration of possibly contravening evidence, we make the attainment of knowledge impossible.

These three principles are habits of mind that are essential in the process of learning and rational inquiry. Together they form the ethos of successful academic pursuits. Only those scholars who submit their hypotheses to the rigors of logic and who are willing to consider the evidence of others deserve to enjoy the privileges of academic freedom.

Scholarly life, in other words, is fundamentally a common enterprise dependent on views from many quarters. In The Republic, Socrates outlines the way in which objective knowledge can be attained through dialogue. By bringing many perspectives together, Socrates believes, human beings, limited as they are, can 205

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come to the most likely account of the truth—that is, to a view of the nature of things that can withstand more effectively than any other the counter-arguments of the best touchstones, persons with wide experience, candor, and goodwill.

Socrates recognized that reason depended not only on forms of argument, but on the Only those scholars who faithful reporting of accurate observations. submit their hypotheses to In this, Socrates adumbrated the methods of the rigors of logic and who natural science which lead not to certainty are willing to consider the or absolute truth, but rather to the likeliest evidence of others deserve account of the nature of things—that is, to enjoy the privileges of to the closest approximation of truth. academic freedom.

Confidence in the outcome of a Socratic argument or of a scientific experiment derives not from a direct proof, but rather from the absence of refutation or disproof. The scientific method of indirect verification, employing as it does the fallacy of affirming the consequent, delivers the likeliest account. But the result may require revision based on further evidence or argument. Because prior results are never proved with absolute certainty, the discovery of their inadequacy does not constitute a reductio ad absurdum of the entire scientific enterprise.

Unfortunately some disciplines, especially those in the humanities and the social sciences, have abandoned the common pursuit of truth and endorsed instead privileged perspectives on human experience determined by gender, race, or economic forces. This relativism calls into question the very possibility of objective knowledge. Others have even denied that objective knowledge is even possible.

In asserting that God is dead, Nietzsche denied any objective standard and called into question not only the central tenets of

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the Enlightenment but also the very nature of the enterprise in which philosophers had been engaged since the pre-Socratics. He denied in effect that there was an objective reality to be known, or a spirit or mind that might know it and reveal it, however imperfectly. He held that to the extent that knowledge is possible, knowledge is perspectival, to be pursued not only from varying perspectives, but through a variety of tropes, knowledge itself being an expression of art. Post-Enlightenment philosophy, or what is now “post-modern” philosophy, was underway.

Nietzsche’s assertion of relativism and the denial of objective truth gives rise to a central conundrum: Can one affirm Nietzsche’s point of view without self-contradiction and easy refutation? Does not the assertion of an unlimited number of perspectives and modes of expression deny validity or privileged access to any one of them, thus giving equal authority to the view that rejects his central thesis outright and asserts an objective basis for knowledge?

Another source of self-refuting relativism emerged with Karl Marx’s substitution of ideology for truth. Marx, like Nietzsche, holds that opinions are inherently perspectival. Once one asserts, however, that the knower’s ideas are derived not from an objective examination of facts and rational arguments, but from the perspective or bias of his class or his relationship to the means of production, are not objectivity and truth lost? Are we not left only with competing ideologies?

Marx, like Nietzsche, laced his epistemology with selfrefuting elements. If one is determined by his class or economic position to conclude that Marx is wrong, is not his rejection as valid as Marx’s assertion? If there is no truth grounded on fact and argument, any view is as ideologically proper as its opposite. None is privileged by argument or evidence; the true

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ideology (an oxymoron par excellence) is established not by fact or argument, but ultimately only by force, whether economic, military, psychological, or academic.

Marx and his “post-modern” followers wish to assert an independent scientific basis for his views, unlike Nietzsche, who accepts the uncertainties that inevitably follow from his perspectival view of truth. But, having undermined the possibility of knowing in any objective way, they cannot explain how they alone have been able to achieve the objectivity necessary to make scientific claims.

Freud contributed further to the eclipse of reason by declaring the ego no longer master in its own house. But to the extent that Freud left the knower at the mercy of his psychoses or neuroses, he left his own view open to refutation. For if my id, my ego, and my superego force me to conclude that Freud is wrong, why is my thought any less authoritative than his?

In both Freud and Marx, we confront the self-refuting implications of the determinist view of mind. Only when the mind is free to reason and to assess evidence, to hypothesize, to devise experiments by which to test hypotheses and to evaluate the results of those experiments, can one hold with consistency theories about the necessary sequence of events in the physical world. But when Marx and Freud assert that mind and thought are themselves determined—whether historically, socially, economically, or psychologically—reason is eclipsed and knowledge is impossible. We are left with nothing more than the conflict between equally inevitable opinions. The will to power of whatever sort is the only arbiter. The distinction between truth or right and power is lost—a reductio ad absurdum of any position from which this conclusion follows.

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One might have thought that the influence of Marx would wane following the obvious failure of Marxism as an economic and political system. But we see his continuing influence along with Nietzsche’s as many contemporary academics continue to support a variety of There is no longer a search ideological and perspectival approaches, for truth or the likeliest many of which preserve essential features account, but rather the of the Marxist epistemology. If one’s pursuit of a particular relation to the means of production no ideology based on the longer provides the ideologically correct perspective of a particular perspective, scholars offer other putatively individual which can make authoritative approaches based on gender, no claim on the intellectual race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. The assent of any other mind. most individualistic may follow Derrida in programs of deconstructionism.

The common feature in all these approaches is relativism.

There is no longer a search for truth or the likeliest account, but rather the pursuit of a particular ideology based on the perspective of a particular individual which can make no claim on the intellectual assent of any other mind. In our relativistic age, each individual asserts not only the right to his own opinion, but in the manner of Protagoras the view that everyone’s opinion is right. As Socrates demonstrated in the Theaetetus, if every opinion is right, since opinions contradict one another, none is.

What, for example, is “Feminist ethical theory” or “Feminist epistemology”? How do feminists know that an ethical system different from that appropriate to men exists for women? How do feminists know that women have an essentially different epistemology from men? How do they know that men lack their insight into ethics or epistemology? When feminists claim that women can know and feel what men cannot know or feel, either

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directly or through imagination, they assert an intellectual and affective power for the female sex that they deny all males. But what is the rational foundation of this dogmatic claim of onedirectional transcendence? Unlike men, women, according to some feminists, have the capacity to transcend the limitations of self in the knowledge of others. But what is the authority for their claim that men lack this capacity? If only women can understand women, presumably only men can understand men. How then do women discover the limitations on male knowledge?

Similar objections can be raised whenever a member of a minority claims that no one outside his or her race or ethnic group can understand the nature and burdens of that group or its hopes, fears, and dreams. The claim that only women can understand women is echoed in the claim that only members of a race can understand other members. Those who take this approach share an epistemology which denies the transcendence on which knowledge and even the assertion of the limitations of knowledge depend.

It is easy to see how blinding racial and feminist ideologies can be. Witness the reaction of some female faculty members to Dr. Larry Summers who, while president of Harvard University, had the courage to suggest that bias may not be the sole reason that men have been far more successful in the sciences than women.

Summers did not declare women inferior to men in any respect.

Instead, he cautioned against easy answers and called for more research. “What we’ve learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years,” Summers said, “has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization.” He did not reach any conclusion regarding differences in innate capacities or make any assertion.

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Even Summers’ suggestion that we might investigate the biological foundation of differences between the mental abilities of men and women was too much for some of his fellow university presidents. In an opinion piece published in the Boston Globe, the presidents of MIT, Princeton, and Stanford fretted that “speculation that ‘innate differences’ may be a significant cause for the under-representation of women in science and engineering may rejuvenate old myths and reinforce negative stereotypes and biases.” It was of no concern to Summers’ peers that he had made no such speculation. The witch hunt was on.

Summers attempted to appease his critics by apologizing and by budgeting more funds for women in science, but his enemies rightly interpreted Summers’ obeisance as weakness and forced him from office within a year. Let his example serve as a warning to university presidents who have the courage to challenge political correctness but who have no stomach for a long fight.

The surest way to doom one’s cause is to apologize for being right.

In attempting to bring objective study to an issue that had been poisoned by feminist subjectivism, Larry Summers had merely made one noble attempt to rescue our common intellectual life from the divisions of perspectivalism. Ultimately, all forms of one-directional transcendence lead to solipsism.

Bertrand Russell recalled a woman who wrote him to say that she was a solipsist and she wondered, “Why aren’t there more of us?”

Her inconsistency has a similar structure to that of individuals who claim a unilateral ability on behalf of their class, their race, or their gender to understand those of different classes, races, or genders. All these positions derive from a denial of the shared experience of a world that by constraining our fancy makes knowledge possible. Those who take this position, overcome

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perhaps by ideological zeal, press their concerns into the realm of hyperbole that leads to absurdity. These positions, to paraphrase a remark attributed to Orwell, are nonsense so bad that only an intellectual could believe them.

The recent attacks on reason in the name of this or that ideology or “ism” do not strengthen but rather weaken the foundations of equality for women and minorities established through the use of reason. Scholars—male and female of all races—may take justifiable pride in having, by rational argument, been agents of liberation for women and minorities.

This achievement should not be jeopardized by the rejection of rational argument and evidence in the name of any currently fashionable movement.

University presidents can University presidents can fulfill their fulfill their obligation to obligation to uphold the proper role and uphold the proper role and purposes of the university by dedicating purposes of the university themselves to objective inquiry and by by dedicating themselves resisting pernicious forms of perspectivalism. to objective inquiry and by resisting pernicious forms of In fulfilling their responsibilities, presidents may be accused of violating what many perspectivalism. wrongly consider the unassailable privileges of “academic freedom.” There are virtually no restrictions on the exercise of freedom of speech, but academic freedom cannot be equated with mere speech. It must be speech supported by civility, evidence, and argument rather than empty rhetoric and shock.

Copyright © 2008 John Silber. All Rights Reserved.

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John Silber is president emeritus of Boston University, where he served as president from 1971–1996 and chancellor from 1996–2003. He was the Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1990. In January 1996, Governor William Weld appointed Silber chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education. He has written widely on philosophy, education, and social and foreign policy. His book Straight Shooting was published in 1989, and Architecture of the Absurd was published in 2007.

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About The Editors

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is chairman of the Education

Specialty Practice for Korn/Ferry International, based in Washington, D.C. In this role, Trachtenberg leverages his decades of higher education experience to work with search committees and boards of the country’s most respected institutions to identify, recruit, and develop leadership talent.

Trachtenberg was the 15th president of The George Washington University since its founding in 1821, serving the university from 1988 to 2007. He combines his role at Korn/ Ferry with his continued responsibilities at the university as president emeritus and university professor of public service.

Trachtenberg was previously president and professor of law and public administration for 11 years at the University of Hartford. Prior to that, he was dean of arts and sciences and vice president at Boston University.

During the Johnson Administration, he served as secretary for a White House Task Force on Education. Trachtenberg was also special assistant to the U.S. Education Commissioner, Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Preceding his academic career, he was an attorney in the New York office of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and an aide to a U.S. congressman.

Trachtenberg’s publications in academic journals and the national media have received wide acclaim. He has written five books and is the coeditor of The Art of Hiring in America’s Colleges and Universities. His most recent book, Big Man on

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Campus, was released by Simon and Schuster in June 2008.

He is currently teaching a graduate course on “The University President in America.” Recognitions for his contributions to education include numerous honorary degrees, most recently from Columbia University. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He holds a juris doctorate from Yale University, a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University, and a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.

Gerald B. Kauvar is a senior consultant in Korn/Ferry

International’s Education Specialty Practice. His office is in Washington, D.C. He has been an administrator and faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, The City College of New York, Boston University, and The George Washington University. He was a fellow of the American Council on Education, and he served as special assistant for education in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as a presidential exchange executive. He has served in a variety of faculty and administrative posts in public and private institutions, including a total of nine years as special assistant to the president at three universities.

Dr. Kauvar served in the Department of Defense for 22 years in a variety of senior executive positions, including deputy director of the Defense Performance Review in the Immediate Office of the Secretary of Defense, and special assistant to the secretary of the Air Force. He conducted a number of studies on ways to improve the performance of

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management headquarters. He also served as the staff director for the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security chaired by Vice President Al Gore. He is a recipient of the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Service.

After retiring from the federal government, Kauvar worked as a senior policy analyst at RAND where he conducted studies on senior leadership development and assignment for both military and civilians in the Air Force, as well as publishing a white paper on aviation safety and security in the wake of September 11, 2001. He has published widely on English and American literature, and on government leadership and management; he has conducted seminars for senior leaders on defense management in Korea, the Netherlands, France, and England at the invitation of those governments.

Kauvar has been active in professional and community organizations, including two terms on the board of directors of the United Way of the National Capital Area and three terms as president of the Washington Area branch of the English Speaking Union. He is a member of the Cosmos Club.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Colorado and his doctorate from Duke University.

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About The Korn/Ferry Institute

The Korn/Ferry Institute was founded to serve as a premier

global voice on a range of talent management and leadership issues. The Institute commissions, originates and publishes groundbreaking research utilizing Korn/Ferry’s unparalleled expertise in executive recruitment and talent development combined with its preeminent behavioral research library. The Institute is dedicated to improving the state of global human capital for businesses of all sizes around the world.

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Copyright Š 2008 Korn/Ferry International.

All rights reserved.

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