Teaching and Learning

September 17, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Four Lessons from FIve Verses – Part III-B

As indicated in the previous post, Lesson III-Part A , from my Four Lessons from Five Verses series, I took my Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day posts from the first five verses of chapter 2 of Paul’s second letter to his protege Timothy. The first post focused on the attributes of a good soldier taken from verses 3 and 4. The second looked at how to be a winner using verse 5 as the text, while the third began to look at the repetitive, self-sustaining cycle of Biblical Teaching from verse 2. It looked at the office, qualifications and work of a Biblical teacher. This post continues looking at that same verse:

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. (II Timothy 2:2, KJV)

I freely admit that the wording in the KJV of this verse baffled me at first. My initial reading was that Paul was suggesting to Timothy that he concentrate on things that he heard “about” Paul from many people who had observed Paul’s action and preaching. However, Timothy didn’t need to hear about Paul from others, because Timothy had sat directly under Paul’s teaching. He had lived with him, and traveled with him. Timothy had personally witnessed and heard Paul preach and live out the winsome gospel with his own eyes and ears. I believe that Paul is telling Timothy in this passage to concentrate on those things Timothy heard and saw Paul say and live out in the presence of many witnesses.

In the King James Version, this verse begins with the phrase “And the things that thou heard of me among many witnesses,..” The English preposition “of ” comes from the Greek preposition para which together with its variation par appears 200 times in the New Testament. These two Greek words are all purpose prepositions. They are translated at least seven different ways in the King James Version, with another 10 variations in other versions of the Bible. Three things help determine the meaning of the word para in particular situations. We begin with a grammar lesson. A preposition is a word that shows the relationship of the noun or pronoun following the preposition, known as the object of the preposition, and some other word or element in the sentence known as the subject. In II Timothy 2:2, the preposition “of” is describing the relationship between “things,” the subject, and “Paul”, represented by the pronoun “me,” the object. In Greek we have one additional clue to the meaning of a preposition. That clue is found in the grammatical case of the object. In English, the most distinctive use of grammatical case is the Genitive case signifying possession. In the sentence “We are going in my car,” the subject is “We”; the preposition is “in” and the object is “car.” With the possessive pronoun “my”, we know the car belongs to me.

In the Greek, objects following the preposition para (παρά) take three different cases. These cases are the genitive, accusative and dative. In the Greek, the case of a given noun or pronoun can be visibly seen by the form of the word. In English, the case of nouns and pronouns are more generally defined by their usage. The only exception to this is with the genitive case which signifies possession. The genitive pronoun for a male person is “his” while the dative and accusative pronouns take the same form “him.” The accusative case reflects the direct object of a preposition, while the dative case represents the indirect object of a preposition. In II TIm 2:2, in the preposition phrase “things…of me” the Greek word translated “me” is emou (ἐμοῦ) which is in the genitive case. This signifies that the subject of the preposition “things” belonged to or were inherently part of Paul. Thus, it makes more sense to think of the things spoken of here to be the actual words, teachings and life of Paul.

However, there is far more to be gleaned from this verse. Verse 2 also lays out a multi-step family tree that can be extended indefinitely. It begins with Christ, who commissioned and ordained Paul as a master teacher, who received his commissioning and marching orders from Jesus Christ. Timothy was Paul’s student, apprentice and protege. Timothy was in turn destined and charged with the responsibility of becoming a teacher for the next generation of students and teachers. In this passage Paul is giving us God’s plan for the spread of the gospel and his teachings. God was going to raise up a self-sustaining tree of preachers and teachers who would in turn nurture and train the next generation of preachers and teachers.

While Christ was present with the disciples, he could teach them directly. After his resurrection and ascension into heaven, was anyone going to teach and help Paul and the other apostles? God the Father had made provision for that. In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples that he would not always be with them, but that God was not going to leave them alone.

¹⁵If ye love me, keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; ¹⁷Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. ¹⁸I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. ¹⁹Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. ²⁰At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:15-21, KJV)

Through the Holy Spirit, God’s Comforter, Paul and Timothy had direct access to help from God. But this aid was not available to only Paul and Timothy. Since the time of Christ’s ascension, it has available to every Christian, especially those commissioned as teachers.

Chart created by author using ClickChart Professional

What was Paul’s responsibility as a Master Teacher? According to I Corinthians and Ephesians, Paul was to follow Christ and faithfully teach the next generation. What was the responsibility of the next generation? They were to remember what Paul did and taught. They were to keep the ordinances that Paul delivered unto them. They were to help teach and perfect the next generation so that they would mature in faith. They were not just to strive to resemble Paul. They were to be like Christ.

Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. (I Corinthians 11: 1 & 2, KJV)

But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4: 7 – 15, KJV)

In the two centuries since Christ taught and commissioned that first level of teachers, we have seen more than 60 levels of students, turned teachers. We no longer have the physical presence of Christ or Paul to follow. However, we have the scriptures and we have the Holy Spirit to guide in our study and interpretation of the Word of God. We also have the stories and the lives of the saints who have gone on before us.

I end this post with Paul’s statement about scriptures to Timothy:

But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. (II Timothy 3:14-17, KJV)

We need to remember a big part of “all good works” is teaching and leading the next generation.

September 6, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Four Lessons from Five Verses: Lesson III-Part A

Structural diagram of II Timothy 2:2, created by author using ClickCharts Professional

I took my Memorial Day and Independence Day Posts from the first five verses of chapter 2 of Paul’s second letter to his protege Timothy. One focused on the attributes of a good soldier, while the second looked at how to be a winner. I didn’t plan this series of posts to be a holiday series. However, the first two coincided with Memorial Day and Independence Day. This post coincides with Labor Day, which may be very appropriate, as verse 2 opens the door for us to look at the office, qualifications and work of a teacher. It also opens the door for us to look at much more than we can cover in one post. Thus, this post will become a wormhole for us to investigate more fascinating topics dealing with the process and responsibilities of teachers, and the cyclic, self-sustaining patterns of biblical teaching.

It seems very appropriate to look at teaching this Labor Day, since many have declared teaching to be a labor of love. The dictionary definition of a labor of love is work “done as an end onto itself, rather than a means to an end. It is work that benefits others rather than significantly rewarding the laborer materially.” In Paul’s case, it was definitely a labor of love. He did it out of his love of his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul also did it for the heavenly reward or benefit that others might receive.

Love is central to all of Christian theology. We love God because He first loved us (I John 4:19). In fact, God loved us so much that he sent His Son to die for us and be a propitiation for our sins. (I John 4:10). Propitation is a big word that means “turning away one’s wrath.” Christ’s sacrifice on the cross satisfied the demands of a righteous God, turning away his wrath against our sin. As demonstrated in I John, the Apostle John could be called the disciple of love. In his gospel, after Mary Magdalene discovered the empty tomb, she ran to Peter and “to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved.”

However, love is just as central to Paul’s view of theology, as it was for John. In Romans 5:8, Paul wrote, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In his first letter to the Christians in Corinth, Paul wrote what’s known as the Love Chapter. He begins Chapter 13, with these words “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” and ends it with “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity,” The word translated “charity ” could just as easily have been translated “love.” Without love, there is no harmony, only discord.

We are to love as Christ loved. However, our love doesn’t originate in us. We can’t generate our own love. It is a reflection of God’s love, as Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:1-2, “Be ye therefore followers [imitators] of God, as dear [beloved] children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.” The Ephesian 5 passage is not the only time Paul talked about imitating Christ. Paul begins Chapter 11 of I Corinthians with these words, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” Do you see the repetitive pattern starting to form? Follow Paul, as Paul followed Christ. Teach others to follow you, as you follow Christ.

So just as Christ taught his disciples how to love God, Paul is teaching Timothy “the same things.” So what is Timothy to do? He is to find faithful men, capable of teaching others, these “same things.” It is the cyclic, repetitive, self-sustaining pattern of Biblical teaching. It is a labor of love.

August 24, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

The Business Model of All of Higher Education Is Broken–Part V Increasing Enrollments Is Not Enough

For some in American higher education, the headline College enrollments to double in next decade that appeared in the July 12, 2016, edition of Education DIVE, a daily online newsletter of news from all aspects of education, may have seemed like the message from on high that they desperately wanted to see and hear. However, if American Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) are counting on this touted coming influx of students for the future health of their institutions, they are going to be sadly mistaken.

This installment is the fifth part in a series on the economic conditions in American higher education. The preceding installment, The Business Model of All of Higher Education is Broken: Part IV — Tuition and Fees, dealt with the general trend of increasing the share that tuition must cover of an institution’s Education and Related Costs (E & R Costs). However, in The Business Model of All of Higher Education is Broken: Part III — Tuition and Fees, we saw that students and their families are resisting any and all suggestions that increasing individual students’ tuition and fees should provide a possible solution to higher education’s financial difficulties. Students and families are saying, “Enough is enough! We’ve paid our fair share!” This thought is only reinforced by politicians saying that four years of public college education should be free for every one or at least the overwhelming majority of the American public. This means that to realistically get more money out of the Tuition & Fees Bucket, institutions must increase the number of students paying the current or possibly even lower tuition charges. If institutions are counting on many new students saving them from financial disaster, there are several significant holes in this strategy.

In spite of the bold headline, the first hole in this strategy is what I believe is the mistaken belief of many leaders in the American higher education megaplex that there is a seemingly unending and ever expanding supply of students who will pay any price to be part of the American higher education scene. The preceding post in this series presented some of the arguments against raising tuition. Two recent articles in education press circles clearly show the strategy of counting on continuously growing enrollments may soon blow up in the face of traditional IHEs. While the Education DIVE headline appears to bolster the claim that there is a growing supply of fresh bodies for American IHEs, it conveniently omitted the fact that the article was referring to “the number of students in colleges and universities across the globe will double by 2025.” As you read the article, it does admit that enrollments at U.S. colleges are falling. Are they trying to rain on the parade of educational expansionists?

In the Nineteenth Century, the history of college enrollments in the United States had been one of relatively consistent, but slow growth. The rate of growth increased slightly for the first half of the Twentieth-Century, before taking off like a rocket ship in the latter half of the Twentieth-Century. In the early years of the Twenty-First Century, the growth has sputtered and even dropped for several years. This is the context for the statement in the Education DIVE concerning falling enrollments. The article references the CNN report College enrollment is dropping. Bad sign? This article begins by pointing out that college enrollment in the United States “peaked in 2010 at just over 21 million students. Attendance has dropped every year since. By the fall of 2014 — the most recent year that government data is available from the Digest of Educational Statistics published by the National Center for Educational Statistics–there were 812,069 fewer students walking around college campuses.” Is this the first sign of trouble on the horizon? I think that it is a clear warning sign and should be taken very seriously by American IHEs.

However, the CNN article tries to assuage fears of impending doom by suggesting that this decline is primarily due to improvement in the economy. “More people are going back to work instead of signing up for additional degrees. ‘Historically, as the economy improves and Americans get back to work, college enrollment declines,’ says U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell.” The unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics lend some credence to this explanation, since the unemployment rate in 2010 was almost twice the unemployment in 2014. However, current federal and state administrations predict continued low unemployment rates, while predicting and pushing more students into higher education. Are IHEs and the federal and local governments trying to “have their cake and eat it too?”

Chart 1 below presents Total U.S. College Enrollments and Projections from 1870 to 2025. The data has been extracted from several sources including the report, 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait, published by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), and the 2016 Digest of Educational Statistics also published by NCES. This graph gives the reader the sense of the enormity of the growth of American higher education in the last century compared to its early days.

Chart I Total U.S. College Enrollments from 1870 to 2025

However, because of the scale of the graph, it is difficult to get a perspective on some of the early growth of American higher education. Thus in Chart 2, I emphasize the growth of enrollment in the years 1870 to 1920.

Chart 2: U.S. College Enrollments from 1870 to 1920

Is the headline claim of enrollment doubling totally unreasonable? In the history of U.S. higher education, doubling of enrollment within one decade has never happened. The closest occurred from 1870, when the first doubling of enrollment took just over a decade. The next doubling of enrollments took approximately two decades. Looking at both Charts 1 and 2, we see that the next six doublings of enrollment took approximately 15 years each. Then in 1980, the brakes on enrollment growth began to slow down growth considerably. If there were to be another doubling of enrollment the NCES projections predict that it would take approximately five decades.

Evan Schofer and John W. Meyer in their paper The World-Wide Expansion of Higher Education in the Twentieth-Century present some very startling results. They show that even though the higher education enrollments in the United States were expanding at what seemed to be break-neck speed in the last half of the Twentieth-Century, the United States’ share of the world’s higher education market fell from 50% to a meager 20%. With no apparent let-up in world-wide higher education enrollments, at least in the analysis of UNESCO and the independent scholars, Schofer and Meyer, it is a very small leap of faith to postulate that they could easily top 250 million by 2025. This would mean that the U.S. share of the world market falls to approximately 10%. The United States is no longer the top dog. The two countries of China and India have surpassed the U.S. share of the world market, with Europe, Africa and Latin America nipping at its heels.

I don’t believe that the future is much brighter for U.S. higher Education. This is especially true if U.S. colleges stick to their well-ingrained bias of focusing their offerings in a full-time, face-to-face format to late adolescents. This population has peaked in the United States and will be in decline over the next 20 years as the following chart from the U.S. Census Bureau indicates.

Enrollment peaked in 2011. In July of 2011, there were about 18.1 million people in the prime college years of 18-21. In June of 2014, that number was down to 17.4 million – nearly 700,000 fewer young people. U.S. colleges enrolling 300,000 fewer students last year suddenly makes a lot of sense. Not only are other options opening up for high school grads, but there are also just fewer warm bodies to go around.If we think about the graduating high school seniors who might be entering college, there would have been close to 4.6 million 18 year-olds in 2009. Five years later, there were only 4.2 million – And the 17 year-olds preparing for college are the smallest age cohort younger than 35 – at 4,176,000. The next set of them (current 16 year-olds) will be even smaller. In fact, we should expect a slowly declining pool of college-aged students for the foreseeable future, as illustrated by the graph below.

Data is extracted from the US Census and presented in an understandable format by Demographic Research Group at UVA

This has not been a very upbeat posting. My next post will attempt to analyze the problems and difficulties facing the U.S. higher education system. I will then propose some possible solutions. I can’t guarantee that the proposed solutions will work. In fact, the only thing that I can guarantee is that some of my readers will find these proposed solutions completely untenable.

June 11, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Importance of Investing in Real Knowledge

Benjamin Franklin reportedly said: “If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays best interest.” This particular quote emphasizes the importance for an individual to acquire knowledge at any price. In some ways it is analogous to Christ’s teaching from the sermon on the mount:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6: 19-21, KJV)

Both were teaching that there are things that are more valuable than material wealth. Whereas Christ was teaching the supremacy of spiritual things, Franklin raised the flag of intellectualism. However, it seems both teachings were lost on much of American culture for the first 150 years of this country’s existence. The predominant, driving force in the United States from 1776 until 1929 was materialism, the accumulation of wealth and material things.

Beginning in the 1930s, American society in general started transitioning from an industrial society to a new type of culture where value was based on technology, information and the use of information. Fritz Machlup was the first economist to popularize the term information society. Following in his foot steps, Peter Drucker was credited by BusinessWeek with the invention of the science of management. In 1966, he was the first author to give currency to the terms knowledge economy and knowledge worker. A knowledge economy is an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality and accessibility of available information, rather than the means of production.

By the year 2000, the concept of the knowledge worker had permeated all levels of all industries. Drucker can easily be seen as a disciple of Franklin…put your money in knowledge. In 2004, in Handbook of Business Strategy, Vol. 5 Iss: 1, George Elliott wrote: “Cognitive excellence: our people are our most important asset.” A year later, Baruch Lev, director of the Intangibles Research Project at New York University Stern School of Business, stated that “people are the most important asset of most companies.” Not only their knowledge, but the people themselves had become assets. This set off a firestorm of arguments. Are people to be treated like material resources?

However, in the 21st century, people are not the only intangible assets. In Lev’s earlier work, he demonstrated that in 1980, the total value of many international corporations was fully accounted for by their tangible assets. Today, he estimates that 80 percent of their value is tied up in intangible assets — brands, patents and trademarks. Note, that he didn’t mention people or intellectual property. Franklin seems to be right. Investing in knowledge, both by individuals investing in their own knowledge and by corporations investing in their employees’ knowledge, pays off most handsomely.

I can’t argue with the main premise of Franklin’s maxim. However, I do think that today we take, and even Franklin in his day took too narrow a definition of knowledge. Franklin was placing his emphasis on “head” or content knowledge. I want to broaden the scope of knowledge to everything that can be an answer to the question, “What can I know?” How many different ways do we fill in the blank in the phrase, “I know ________.”

How many times have we said:

“I know something.” This is the content knowledge of a subject matter. This is what many of our school teachers asked us to learn.
“I know how to do something.” This is a skill that we learned or could do instinctively.
“I know what I like.” These are the values that I hold dear.
“I know myself.” This is personal knowledge that we generally believe that we don’t learn, but just know.
“I know that person.” This is social or relational knowledge.” Sometimes this knowledge is very deep and intense. Other times this knowledge is superficial at best, and is said to be a “nodding acquaintance.”
“I know God.” This is very personal and is on a different level from the material or physical world. This is spiritual or supernatural knowledge.

These six types of knowledge constitute whole or real knowledge. In another post I will more fully examine the six types of knowledge and how one can obtain such knowledge. In the meantime, like the television advertisement suggests, now is the time to start investing more in your future.

May 7, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

The Business Model for All of Higher Education is Broken

I recently came across a very thoughtful and extremely well-written blog post This Needs to Be Run More Like A Business written by Jason McNeal. In this post, Jason gives an impassioned plea for a different approach to private education since “the business model approach to higher education is helping to discourage giving.” Jason suggests that board members and I would assume he would include administrators should know better than to say, “Our business model in higher education is broken.” I am sorry Jason, but “The Business Model for All of Higher Education is Broken.” I say this as an administrator with 40 years of effective service in private higher education. I have also spent considerable time praying, studying, thinking and writing about higher education. You do make a valid point when you imply a criticism of the board member’s statement, “I simply do not understand why our tuition and fees are not sufficient to cover our costs.” In the worlds of private, non-profit, higher education and public, higher education, no traditional college or university covers its education and general costs with just tuition and fees. It is like one individual in a sinking rowboat trying to bail out the boat, with other sitting by, just watching and doing nothing to help. This model is broken. However, the model of using a leaking boat to try to get across a lake is also broken.

Why do we want to get across the lake? We want to build an excellent education that works for students, faculty, and the general public. This education must be affordable for everyone involved, including the students, faculty and the general public. This education must be sustainable not only in the short run but for the long run. I, for one, see problems in all the current approaches that we are using to reach these goals. For 40 years, I tried to work toward these goals in the best way that I could. I had some successes, but I also had some failures. I will discuss some of both in future posts. Why? Because we can learn from both our successes and failures. When Thomas Edison was asked about thousands of experiments on light bulbs that didn’t work, he is reported to have said, “We haven’t failed. We now know a thousand things that won’t work, so we are much closer to finding what will.” When we find something that partially works, we should try to determine why and what we could do to make it work better. These are the steps to success. Let’s work together to bail out the leaky boat, find the leak and fix it. Then we can row together across the lake to the land of success, where we will have excellent, affordable and sustainable education for all.

We can begin by looking at two partial successes. The two areas where we see tuition and fees possibly covering all the costs of fulfilling the educational mission of the institution are non-traditional higher education and proprietary, for-profit, higher education. I say “possibly” because more than half of the non-traditional programs or for-profit institutions lose money and eventually fail. The traditional higher education institutions have been variously described as time and location fixed, brick-and-mortar, bastions of teacher-centric delivery of education to late adolescents recently graduated from high school. Non-traditional education disrupts one or more characteristic of traditional higher education. In other blog posts, I will speak more about the differences between traditional and non-traditional higher education.

Institutions of higher education have five sources of revenue. I am sorry if I offend educational purists who do not want to use business terminology to describe operations within higher education. In using the term “revenue”, I did resist the temptation to use the more highly-charged business term “income.” Thus, I will label money coming into the institution to pay for the operations of the institution as “revenue.” There can be no argument that colleges are required to pay operating expenses like salaries, fringe benefits, construction and maintenance costs, utility and insurance costs, supply, equipment and service costs. Since I am focusing on the revenue side of the institution in this post, I will reserve discussion of the expense side to other posts.

There are four sources of revenue for the not-for-profit segment of higher education. There is a fifth source for public institutions.The five sources of revenue are:

Tuition and fees;
Fund raising, advancement or development efforts;
Endowment income, appreciation, interest or dividends;
Auxiliary enterprises;
Governmental appropriations (Reserved for public institutions).

There are two very distinct ways to look at these sources of revenue. The first is how the general public sees these categories of revenue. The second is how colleges and universities are legally required to report them in audit statements. (OOPS, another hint at the trouble lurking within the presence of the higher education business model) In this post, I will restrict my attention to how the general public understands these five sources of revenue. In future posts, I will discuss how colleges are forced to handle and report the revenues associated with these categories.

Tuition and fees: These are the charges (I apologize for another business term) the institution individually imposes upon students for the privilege of attending and obtaining an education, and possibly a degree or some other credential. By “tuition” I mean that portion of the financial obligation imposed upon students for enrolling in classes. By “fees” I mean extra charges for a number of other things such as student services or activities, laboratory, clinical, internship, practica, music, travel, technology, special class charges, health or insurance fees, parking fees, and a myriad of other add-ons such as application, matriculation, course change, graduation and transcript fees, . I also throw into this category “Room and board charges” because these charges are individually assessed to participating students. These are the financial obligations imposed upon students who reside and eat in college-owned or operated facilities. The students and their parents see these charges on their college bill (a residue of a business model). Student and their parents refer to these charges as the total cost or the price of attending. I haven’t yet considered financial aid. Whether the financial aid is not from the institution or comes directly to the student as a government appropriation, it is usually considered a discount by the students and their parents Either way, when we get to the accounting of financial aid, it must be treated as a cost to the institution(another business model problem lurking in the forest).
from Presenter Media
Fundraising, advancement or development efforts: For the private, non-profit, and public segments of higher education, this category includes all charitable gifts and donations. These gifts may be in the form of cash, stocks, bonds, or physical property, including real estate, art, supplies, or equipment. They may also include services in lieu of payment. This category seems to be the area about which Jason is most concerned. From reading Jason’s blog, I know he doesn’t consider fundraising and development work as begging. However, in the eyes of many of the general public, this is what it comes across as. In the for-profit segment of higher education, this category also includes what is known in financial circles as the investment of assets. Investments are the purchase of assets with the hope of generating a profit. Investments are not always profitable and may incur a loss. Many colleges and universities, across all segments of higher education, raise funds through gifts that are known as grants. Grants are funds or products that do not have to be repaid given by the grant maker, which can be a government department, corporation, foundation or trust to a recipient. Usually, grants are awarded after the recipient has made a written request for funding of a specific project through a process that is known as grant writing. Most grants that are awarded will require of the recipient some level of verifiable compliance and reporting of outcomes. In future posts, I will consider the topic of university fundraising, including its rewards and perils.
from Presenter Media
Endowment income, appreciation, interest or dividends: By an endowment, I mean a financial asset, which normally came into the possession of the institution in the form of a gift or donation. Endowments may or may not have a stated purpose at the bequest of the donor. This category of revenues also includes the return or dividends on the investment of charitable donations. It also includes the appreciation in value of the gifts that the colleges and universities are holding in “trust.” Most endowments are designed to keep the principal amount intact while using the investment income from interest or dividends for the “charitable” efforts of the institution. By “charitable” efforts, I mean those efforts which contribute to the stated primary mission or purpose of the not-for-profit institution. This category also includes what are commonly known as “quasi-endowments.” These are funds set aside by the institution from institutional funds. These funds may have come from donors or excess institutional funds. As with “endowments” the principal of quasi-endowments are reserved, and only the interest or dividends are expended. The management of endowment principals and investment demands close scrutiny on the part of professional managers, whether internal or external to the organization. In future posts, I will deal with the topic of endowments and their management.
courtesy of GrahpicStock
Auxiliary enterprises: Auxiliary enterprises are entities that exist to furnish fee-based goods and services to the general public, students, faculty or staff, acting in a personal capacity and not as an agent of the institution. Auxiliary enterprises should be self-supporting in the sense that the revenue covers the full direct and indirect costs of providing the goods and services. Some definitions of auxiliary enterprises exclude areas that are outside the core functions of an academic institution. For all academic institutions, core functions would include teaching and learning activities. For many, they would include research activities. For some, they would also include service activities. such as agricultural extensions for land-grant institutions. There are many possible uses of the wealth of physical facilities associated with a college or university, which could be used outside the core functions of the college. There is an army of experts at a college which could be deployed to service students and the general public in areas outside the core functions of the college. When auxiliary enterprises produce a surplus of revenue over expenses, those surpluses may be used to offset budgetary deficits in any area of the institution, including areas essential to the mission of the institution. Although there are many calls for colleges and universities to stick to their knitting, and stay clear of auxiliary enterprises, these programs may be a way for a college to fill in some budget gaps. I will speak to this argument in a future post.
from Presentation Media
Governmental appropriations: With recent rulings of federal and state courts, Departments of Justice and General Accounting Offices, this category may seem to be reserved for public institutions. Because education is not mentioned in the United States Constitution, including its ByLaws, it is one of the areas reserved for the prerogative of the states. However, Congress has enacted certain laws with which all employers and public buildings must comply. In addition, there is a federal Department of Education (DOE). The DOE exists primarily to safeguard the federal investment in education. This investment comes from the billions of dollars over the years that have been designated for educational concerns by Executive Orders and Federal Appropriations approved by the US Congress. These monies have been augmented by state and local appropriations. Although direct appropriations primarily only go to public institutions, the federal and state loans and grants to individual students greatly affect the well being of most private institutions. With the acceptance of federal and state funding, colleges and universities must also accept certain increased levels of governmental oversight. Compliance regulations control what colleges can and must do in many disparate areas. These areas include human subject research compliance, environmental health and safety compliance related to research, animal research compliance, export controls compliance, conflict of interest, technology transfer requirements, research misconduct requirements, accreditation, financial aid, FERPA, sexual misconduct (Title IX), Clery Act, drug and alcohol prevention, IPEDS reporting requirements, Title IX athletics administration, gainful employment, state authorization, and equity in athletics data analysis (EADA), immigration, disability, anti-discrimination, and environmental health and safety regulations outside of those related to research. Uncle Sam surfing the dollar is in control. The perverse version of the “Golden Rule: He who holds the gold, makes the rules,” dominates the day here. In future posts, I will discuss governmental funding and compliance issues in higher education.

As with any living organism, colleges and universities ingest monetary resources in order to perform the life functions of growing or producing fruit. For colleges, the desired fruit includes student learning, research and scholarship, and community service. The five categories listed above are the life-giving resources upon which colleges and universities depend. They are the food and water of colleges. If colleges and universities do not get enough funds for their nutritional needs over extended periods of time, they will starve to death. Thus, in higher education, we have three choices. We can 1) increase funding from these sources; 2) cut expenditures, or 3) do a combination of increased revenue and decreased spending. To me, this sounds like a business model. If we look more closely at each of the five funding sources, we will easily find huge difficulties in getting significantly more funds from any of these sources. Due to the length of this post, I will look at those difficulties in future posts.

April 15, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

We’re Back in Business, Part II

As promised Higher Ed By Baylis LLC (HEBB) is officially back in business. This post is a continuation of Today is April 11! This is no April Fools’ joke. We’re Back in Business. So I begin this post with the third and fourth announcements which I had planned to make.

The above picture of a store front with a Grand Reopening sign is only symbolic. HEBB doesn’t yet have a physical building. However, we are in the process of building a new viable, and vital business entity. I have placed emphasis on several words and concepts in the preceding sentence.The emphasis is on the word we. From January 2013, the official beginning of Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, By Baylis was the only investor and only operating consultant. My loving, loyal and responsible wife of 47 years, had access to all records of the HEBB, including the finances. I took this prudent step in case something happened to me, since twice in 2009, I entered a hospital as a member of the ABB (All But Bagged) Club. What does “All But Bagged” mean? The best description I can give probably came from the doctor that greeted Elaine when she got to the hospital when I first experienced the exploding artery, imploding tumor, and what looked liked a stroke. The doctor truly thought that I would leave the hospital in a body bag. When Elaine was introduced to the attending doctor, the doctor told her to call the family together. Elaine asked for an explanation. The doctor said, “If he survives the operation, he’ll never be the same.”

The first significant change is that HEBB will very soon officially be a “we” It will no longer be just By Baylis. Over the past several years, as I talked with potential clients about their needs, it became obvious that the needs and the potential solution to these clients’ problems were well beyond the capabilities of one individual. To remedy this deficiency, quoting the Lennon and McCartney song title, I have called for “a little help from my friends“. I have been in discussion with a number of former colleagues and the friends that I have built up over my 40 years of experience in the world of higher education. Out of those discussions, I am pleased to announce that almost a dozen highly qualified, experienced consultants and coaches, have agreed to work with me. There are several possibilities concerning the final cooperative arrangements. In some cases, the individuals may actually join HEBB and become principals. In other situations, HEBB and some consulting/coaching practices may form an alliance and work together cooperatively.

The above discussions are ongoing because they involve intricate legal negotiations. As soon as individual arrangements are finalized, we will make those announcements. I know I am pleased with the caliber of my current, potential partners. I am very confident that potential clients will find the collection of experts that emerges from these discussions to be a powerful force, which can easily and economically help them identify their watershed decisions and find practical and feasible answers to those organizational, world-changing questions.

It is not yet clear what form the final entity will take when it emerges from the above mentioned discussions. I guarantee that the final entity will share the dream that lead to the founding of Higher Ed By Baylis LLC. It was a dream of resilient, welcoming, wise, listening, flexible, entrepreneurial organizations that had a strong sense of integrity, honesty, confidence, determination, and quality. For Christian colleges, this meant they had to have a central anchor of Christ. Emanating from the proposition and relational truth expressed in Christ, were cultures of learning, scholarship, engagement, hospitality, evidence, excellence and worship. A culture is a group of people who have a foundational set of values, beliefs and principles. These people generally or habitually behave in a manner consistent with their values and have developed a collective knowledge base that has grown out of their beliefs and actions. A culture is who the people are, what they know, and how they typically behave. I expressed my dream of 21st Century Christian University in the following diagram that appeared in the 2006 Winter edition of the Cornerstone magazine:

courtesy of By Baylis and Cornerstone University

Returning to a discussion of the words emphasized in opening paragraph of this fourth announcement, some of you may be asking the question, “Don’t the terms viable and vital mean the same thing?” In one sense, they both carry the connotation of being alive. However, in another sense, they mean something very different. I am using the term viable in the sense of being capable of success or continuing effectiveness. I see HEBB as having a good probability of being successful. It can easily be very effective. I am using the term vital in its sense of having remarkable energy, liveliness, or force of personality. I foresee HEBB as a force with which to be reckoned in the coaching and consulting world. The team which we are assembling will be second to none. They will all be recognized as experts in their fields and masters of their trades. It is very important to note the plural designation on the words field and trade. HEBB will be a one-stop shop for organizations seeking help. In the educational arena, we are assembling a team that can cover the waterfront of accreditation, accountability, admissions and recruiting, advancement and fund raising, alumni relations, athletics, curriculum development and management, educational law, facility planning and management, finance, information technology, human resources and professional development, leadership development and succession, planning (including strategic, operational, tactical and master planning), regulatory compliance, and student development. HEBB will be able to work with and help any institution, whether public or private, at any educational level including primary, secondary, or higher education. Do you get the feeling of why I am excited to be back in business? Although the emphasis to this point has been with educational entitities, I foresee in the near future extending the vision of HEBB to service Christian and non-profit public service ministries, since there are many similarities in mission and operations with educational institutions.

If you are an individual who would be interested in joining HEBB as a principal or you represent a coaching/consulting practice that would be interested in collaborating in an alliance with HEBB, I would be very interested in talking with you. Please leave a comment in the reply box with your name, area(s) of expertise, an email address, a phone number, and the best time to contact you. Since I have the protocols set so that I must approve any comments before they appear, your contact information will not be shared with anyone.

The fourth and final announcement in these two blog posts relates to the HEBB website which you can find by clicking here: HEBB. For almost 18 months the website has been effectively shut down. With the reopening of Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, that’s about to change. The website is going to experience extensive remodeling to reflect the changes in HEBB.

The first change you will see is a new welcome page which will introduce people to Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, its mission, vision and core values. There will be a staff page that will introduce people to the HEBB team, a brief bio and their areas of focus. There will be a blog page with links to the blogs written by our people. There will be page of introduction to HEBB services for institutional clients. There will also be a page of introduction to services for individual and family clients. There will be a page of resources available to the general public. There will be a page of the cost of various HEBB services. These changes should be in place by the end of April.