By's Musings – Page 12

October 19, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Words: I’m finding that trying to hit a moving target, while still forging my message, is a full-time job.

“O words, words! Wherefore art thou words?”…” Belonging to a man. O, be some other word! What’s in a word? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet…” paraphrased from Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 33 – 49.

Recently, I have had the feeling that my aphasia is kicking up again. After more than six months of no headaches and the luxury of having ideas and words flowing almost as easily as they did before my TBIs in 2009, I have very recently hit a dry spell. During the past several weeks, I have found myself in numerous situations where I can’t find the word that I am seeking. Draft after draft finds its way into the trash bin of my computer or the wastebasket in my office. What a waste of time and paper! What’s been just as disappointing and disconcerting is that these spells have coincided with an increase in the number of health concerns. I have started having problems with my right knee (the one that is my original knee; not the replacement knee), a recurrence of extended headaches, and an all-out war with increasing fatigue and my new BIPAP. It seems that I am heading back to the place I was immediately before my knee replacement surgery. There has been no decrease in the generation of new ideas. I am just having to fight to find the right words to communicate the ideas that I clearly see in my head. I can’t write or talk without words.

Through thoughtful and helpful conversations with several friends about my recurring difficulties with words, I have isolated two conditions that I believe are my biggest problems. How is someone with a mild case of aphasia suppose to convey his ideas meaningfully when he finds himself fighting against a double edged sword? The first source of difficulty is strictly internal. With a slicing forehand, the first swipe of the sword attempts to destroy my ability to communicate. How am I to communicate when words that I have used my entire life suddenly disappear? I stubbornly search but I can’t find them in the crevices of my mind? If you will look at one of my earliest posts Words Are More Like Cats Than Dogs (December, 2010), I used a metaphor involving dogs and cats to describe how some words were easily recalled like dogs, while others were as stubborn as cats and just would not come to me. In another early post, Gazing into the Abyss; a Deux (November 2011), I described the hard work of searching for words was very similar to the process of digging for coal on one’s hands and knees, in the deep recesses of a mine. However at the end of the shift, I come out of the mine with an empty coal cart.

The second source of difficulty is primarily external. Even when I find a word that seems right to me, I find it no longer means what I thought it did. Thinking back on my target shooting and hunting days, almost all of the time, stationary targets were easier marks to hit. It becomes much more difficult when the words start acting like moving targets. If the first edge of the sword is battling lost words in my head, then the second edge of the sword strikes me on a backhand swing. The words that do pop into my head no longer have the same meanings and connotations as when I first encountered them. I know that this is not a new phenomenon. The meanings of words have evolved for centuries. For example the word senile comes to us from the Latin senex, meaning “old age.” In ancient Rome, the Senate was the group of wise, old men who were the figurehead government of the empire. The Senate, after careful and considerable deliberations, approved or vetoed laws legislated by the Populous Council of citizens of Rome. Thus by the 14th Century, senile was introduced into the English language as an adjective that simply meant “aged” or “mature.” In those terms, “a senile, old man” is actually a redundancy. In today’s English, senile carries the connotation of having lost cognitive ability. In this sense, senility can kick in at any chronological age. As is the case with many things in today’s world, the rate of change of meanings seems to be increasing exponentially. How do you find the right word when its meaning changes almost daily? It’s like throwing darts at a moving target, while you’re moving also. Even though our character below is right on top of the target, he is still having trouble hitting the bull’s eye.

Fighting this double edged sword is compounding my difficulties in successfully communicating the myriad of ideas that keep flooding into my head. I found myself having to hammer out a message like the famous smithy from the 1840 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “The Village Blacksmith”

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns what’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear the bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his might sledge,
With measure beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar.
And catch the flaming sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter’s voice,
Singing in the choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like his mother’s voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hands he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toilng, — rejoicing, — sorrowing,
Onward in life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned his night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou has taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

Many of life’s important lessons are found in these 8 stanzas, 48 lines and 286 words. We find the physical and spiritual aspects of mankind. We find the human feelings of joy, sadness, exhaustion, and love. We find the virtues of hard work, honesty, humbleness, plainness, strength, perseverance, and stability. The blacksmith is a role model to the whole village, but especially the children. In the face of a multitude of competing forces, he balances his commitments to work, family, and community. The blacksmith is the symbolic “every man.” He stands as the iconic craftsman, standing upright before the onslaught of the coming industrial age. In the face of the inevitable, Longfellow wanted to make sure that we did not forget the agricultural age that birthed his current age. The smithy’s forge is a precursor to the steel furnaces of the 20th Century cities, spewing out the sparks of modernization. The community feel of the village stands in stark contrast to the rash of social isolation that is rampant in the sprawling cities that would soon develop. This poem is an American history and sociology lesson that all of us should remember and take to heart.

October 12, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Broken Business Model of American Higher Education, Part VII: Exponential Growth Will Require Disruptive Action

In the most recent post of this series, Broken Model of American Higher Education, Part VI: Incremental Growth Will Not Be Enough, I left American Higher Education (AHE) hanging on the edge of a cliff by its fingernails. In that post, I claimed that American higher education will need exponential growth to meet the demands and expectations of those in the economic, political and higher education arenas, as well as the American general public.

I also implied that historically, exponential growth has only occurred in American higher education as a result of disruptive actions, either on the national or international stage. In other words, exponential growth hasn’t occurred naturally. It has required a little help from our friends (or enemies).

As I continue to fight off the remnants of a battle with mild aphasia, I was using the word disruption in a positive way. My initial reaction was that the word disruption wasn’t necessarily a negative term. Thus, in my mind, I was having a full-fledged battle over the idea that disruptive innovations were automatically bad. I was envisioning a number of positive results from the numerous discontinuities that I saw coming. From what I could remember, I thought disruption was a term that just meant a break in a continuum. However, as I researched the word I found that it has a much darker and more violent past. The word is derived from the compound Latin word, disrumpere, which comes from the Latin prefix dis- which means “apart” and the Latin verb rumpere which means “to forcefully break.” Thus, the word disruption implies an emphatic, hostile action on the part of someone or something. Therefore, I will admit that labeling something as a disruptive innovation is tantamount to throwing it under a bus or on a trash pile of junk.

With that background, I am beginning to see why the word disruption has recently engendered as much negative press in higher education and political circles as it has. In higher education and political circles, disruptions are seen as major threats to the status quo. When you are part of the status quo, disruptions are particularly annoying and bothersome. Throughout history, disruptive individuals have been compared to gadflies, those persistent, irritating insects that rove around biting humans and farm animals, stinging sharply, sucking blood and transmitting diseases to their victims.

Drawing by Pearson Scott Foresman, placed in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the earliest written reference to gadfly may be the prophet Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 46:20 in the King James Version, we read “Egypt is like a very fair heifer, but destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north.” Where is the gadfly in this verse? In the New International Version (NIV), this verse reads “Egypt is a beautiful heifer, but a gadfly is coming against her from the north.” The Hebrew word : קֶ֫רֶץ , transliterated as qarats, which is translated as destruction in the KJV, occurs only this one time in the Bible. Somewhat surprisingly, the KJV does use the verb gad one time. It is in Jeremiah 2:36, as part of the word of rebuke that the Lord had given Jeremiah for the people of Israel. Jeremiah asks the Israelites, “Why gaddest thou about so much to change thy way? thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.“ However, the English translation “gaddest about so much to change thy way” is really לְשַׁנּ֣וֹת מְאֹ֖ד תֵּזְלִ֥י in Hebrew. The transliteration lə·šan·nō·wṯ mə·’ōḏ tê·zə·lî literally means “you go about so much changing your ways.” Thus, this reference is is not directed at the gadfly, whose sole purpose is to cause problems. It refers to an individual who roams from place to place in an irresponsible manner, without a fixed physical or ethical mooring.

From non Biblical sources, in addition to the connotation of extermination or utter destruction, qarats may also be translated as nipping or biting, hence the translation “gadfly.” Another ancient reference to the gadfly occurs in Plato’s Apology where Socrates describes himself as a social gadfly that flies around and stings the lazy horse that is Athens. Socrates was trying to speed up the stalled change that he thought was absolutely necessary if Athens was to maintain its place as a world leader. Where is the modern day Socrates, prodding the seemingly intractable American higher education into action so that it can maintain its place as a world leader? Does the above make those of us who are saying that American higher education must change if it is to maintain its place as a world leader and the agent of social improvement into gadflies? If so, I am ready to accept that mantle.

In some circles within American higher education the concept of disruptive innovation has almost become synonymous with the picture of the heinous, atrocious, and monstrous and despicable leper who must be banished from the clean society of tradition-bound higher education. In Ancient Israel, lepers were required to warn “clean citizens” of their presence and the danger that they represented. Lepers were isolated from clean society so as not to infect the general population with this insidious condition. In the 17th Century woodcut below depicting the cleansing of the ten lepers by Christ, the lepers are shown with warning clappers, letting everyone know that they were unclean. Were these clappers the precursors to today’s trigger warnings, which many in educational circles find aggravating and totally unnecessary?

Woodcut of ten lepers with clappers approaching Christ and His disciples; image in public domain and is made available from the historical holdings of the world-renowned Wellcome Library, the images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

In a number of recent conversations I have complained bitterly to friends that society and culture are pulling words “right out from under my feet.” I thought that disruption was going to be an excellent example. However, I was mistaken and I must apologize to those friends with whom I argued. It wasn’t society that was changing or evolving the definition of words. My mind was playing tricks on me. If I can’t use the word disruption, what term can I use? My search for a replacement has been arduous and without much success. The best alternative that I have so far is discontinuity. So instead of disruptive innovations, going forward I will talk and write about discontinuous innovations. However, I am not completely satisfied with this choice. It almost sound superfluous and doesn’t have the ring of disruptive innovations. Readers, do you have any suggestions?

In looking at the history of American higher education, what were the innovations or events that created discontinuities in the fabric of American higher education? When the United States federal government instituted land grant colleges in the last half of the 19th century, that created a huge discontinuity in traditional, liberal arts education. When the unemployment rate in the United States shot up from less than 5% in 1928 to more than 20% in the early 1930s, that was another discontinuity. When the United States entered World War II, that caused another tear in the continuum of American higher education. When more than 10 million soldiers returned to civilian life after World War II, looking for jobs, that was a discontinuity. The G.I. Bill providing them the wherewithal to go to college was an innovation that created a huge discontinuity that had lasting effects for years.

Are there pedological changes and technological advances that will challenge the stubborn fabric of American higher education? The rise of the for-profit educational sector, online education, and andragogy have opened the eyes of a large segment of Americans, seemingly forgotten by traditional American higher education, the non-traditional students which are in dire need of education. It has created a pented up demand for educational opportunities previously unavailable and seemingly withheld from these individuals. This has opened the door for another possible huge discontinuity in American higher education.

The Barnes & Noble College report Achieving Success for Non-Traditional Students: Exploring the Changing Face of Today’s Student Population predicts that between 2016 and 2022, there will be an 8.7% growth in traditional students, but a 21.7% growth in non-traditional students. The report goes on to suggest that non-traditional students are two times more likely to prefer on-line courses over the face-to-face courses preferred by traditional students.

The Barnes & Noble (B&N) study defined at risk students as students who met at least one of three conditions. The conditions were: 1) a low sense of connection to the school; 2) low confidence of completing the program; and 3) negative feelings about current situations at school. The B&N study found that 29% of current (2015) non-traditional students were at risk while only 17% of traditional students were at risk. This difference was statistically significant.

The B&N Study also suggested that schools could maximize their effectiveness in helping all students complete programs if they would address six key challenges. These challenges were: 1) know your “at-risk” students;” 2) increase access to affordable materials/learning solutions; 3) offer expanded career counseling support; 4) offer services that will help students deal with their stresses; 5) act as their support system and help engage more deeply; and 6) provide clear, proactive communication and information about the support services offered. All of these challenges make eminent sense. Schools that best mitigate the challenges of at risk students will help more of them complete programs.

The one startling fact that I found missing from the B&N report was any reporting of the current rates of success of students completing programs. From studies by the American Council on Education (ACE) and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we know that the national average of traditional students completing programs is about 55%; while the average completion percentage for non-traditional students is about 33%. If B&N found 17% of traditional students and 29% of non-traditional students were at risk, but we know that at least 45% and 67%, respectively, are not completing programs, why weren’t there 28% more traditional students and 38% more non-traditional students at risk? I would suggest that there are at least this many more current traditional and non-traditional students who are at risk. The difficulty is that we don’t know how to identify them. If we can’t identify them, we certainly can’t help them.

However, identifying these obvious candidates for improving the educational picture in America will not necessarily be the panacea to solving all of our problems. The University of California system of higher education is a prime example of more of the problems within American higher education. The California system says that it is overloaded. With current facilities and staffing, the system claims that it can’t adequately serve the students that it now has. If we have more students completing programs, where will we “teach” these students and who will teach them? If the system doesn’t have the funds to hire more teachers or build more classrooms, where will the state or institutions get that money? I have already offered my take on the idea of how acceptable raising tuition will be with prospective students and those responsible for the tuition bills of these students.

If you are within higher education, be prepared for the coming discontinuities. You may even have to be prepared for disruptions. Without changes, we can’t and will not meet the coming demands and expectations.

September 27, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Where are you? Cultural intelligence and successful leadership in a university context.

Back in April, my friend and former colleague Erik Benson authored the first guest post The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University in By’s Musings. In spite of his very busy summer with international travel and work on several projects, Erik has prepared another offering. This one speaks to the overall university culture and what it means or should mean for leadership. For those of us in the higher education world, he asks the very probing question: WHERE ARE YOU?

Irreconcilable Differences?

This past academic year had some high-profile presidential resignations in higher education. The scandal at Baylor has dominated headlines from mainstream media to sports talk radio. This has overshadowed a number of other such resignations which nonetheless have revealed some rather profound issues in higher education. For example, Simon Newman resigned after a brief and tumultuous tenure at Mount Saint Mary’s University, a Catholic college in Maryland. He had come to “the Mount” with a background as a business executive and consultant, which likely impressed board members perceiving a need for such leadership, but raised faculty suspicions. He roused controversy last fall with a plan to encourage struggling first-year students to drop out, made infamous by his line that one must be willing to “drown the bunnies.” Amidst the resulting backlash from inside and outside the institution, Newman insisted on loyalty, and rashly fired a couple of faculty critics. His subsequent effort to mollify the faculty by offering to reinstate those terminated did not head off a vote of no-confidence. Despite support amongst the student body and the board, he ultimately resigned, leaving behind an institution seeking “healing.”

Such an episode is hardly unprecedented. Lawrence Summers was effectively forced out of Harvard in 2006 in the wake of a faculty no-confidence vote stemming from clashes with high-profile faculty and controversial comments about gender imbalance in fields such as math. Yet such instances of campus politics only infrequently make national or even local news. It is safe to say that every year numerous unpopular presidents are ousted at institutions large and small. Such events may take place under the guise of “moving on” to new opportunities, “promotion” (e.g. to chancellor), or “personal reasons.” Many more presidents find themselves languishing at institutions, holding a position but struggling to lead effectively.

We might regard this as a silent epidemic of sorts, one that does not invite scrutiny of failed administrations. It seems that only when there is a high-profile failure, such as Newman’s, that questions get asked. Even then, neither the questions (nor the answers) may be correct. In Newman’s case, faculty criticisms pointed to his corporate background as the problem, asserting that business leaders are simply not capable of leading universities. Such views are not limited to the Mount, as evidenced in Jack Stripling’s article for The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “The Mount St. Mary’s Presidency Was a Corporate Test Case. It Failed Miserably.” On the other hand, Newman’s supporters at the Mount blamed the faculty for naively (and improperly) opposing needed change. Outside the Mount, Scott Jaschik notes in an article for Inside Higher Ed, Newman’s resignation will hardly dissuade many college boards from hiring presidents from outside academia, as they remain convinced that higher education needs to be informed by “real world” business models.

Talking past each other…

Obviously, if faculty are convinced that leadership rooted in a non-academic (e.g. “business”) model is flawed, and boards insist on imposing such leadership, the potential for misunderstanding and conflict is high, to the detriment of institutions both parties are supposed to serve. Both have responsibility to mitigate this, but it is the administrators who need to recognize and address the situation. They are the ones “caught in the middle” between board and faculty. They have the most to lose; much like coaches of sports teams, they often end up ousted if things are going badly. In short, they are the ones who are positioned to make things work, and most need them to work.

This might seem like a tall order in this day and age. Many boards and faculties are simply not on the same page about how an institution should function and what it should do. Add in that presidents have to deal with students, parents, donors, alumni, politicians…it is hard for an administrator to avoid upsetting someone. Furthermore, many entering academic administration are lacking in background and training. Those who have followed the “traditional” path of being a professor, then moving up to chair, dean, etc. have to learn basic administrative functions, such as budgeting. Those who have come from the outside, whether business, government, or ministry, have to learn about such things as academic freedom and due process. It is only in recent years that there has been academic training in higher education administration, and even these programs can be sadly lacking in vital areas. In short, academic administration requires a lot of “on the job” learning.

No “Ugly Americans (or Administrators)”

Yet this does not mean that someone entering academic administration needs to enter it blindly, hoping to avoid stepping on a proverbial landmine. One can prepare to avoid some basic missteps, and be better attuned to what he or she needs to be looking for and learning as he or she goes. One needs to approach it as he or she should approach visiting another country and culture.

Of course, some people go to other countries and fulfill the stereotype of the “ugly American.” This is the person who arrives in another country, presumes to know everything about everything, treats his or her values and ideas as superior to those of the “locals,” insists on having his or her way, and becomes belligerent when he or she doesn’t get it. Such travelers are often blissfully unaware of their foibles, which makes them all the more outstanding to others who witness them. Of course, no reasonable person would argue that this is at all ideal. Put more bluntly, we’d all rather those type of people not travel. In much the same way, we ought not to want administrators who arrive on campus with all the answers, demanding others blindly follow, and retaliating against those that don’t.

In all fairness to both American tourists and college administrators, there are many who don’t fulfill this stereotype. A number of reports have shown, contrary to many Americans own view of themselves, that they do not rank as the worst tourists. By the same token, many college administrators render credible, even outstanding, service to institutions. Moreover, it is not just on administrators to better understand institutions and make them functional. That said, as noted, administrators are the ones who this expectation typically “lands on,” and they tend to come “from the outside,” making the need to better understand the culture they’re entering more pertinent to them.

Cultural Intelligence

Cultural Intelligence (“CQ”) is an emerging field, one that is being applied in education, government, and business. Being better informed about a culture one is entering has obvious potential benefits for students, diplomats, and business people. One of the leading figures in the field is David Livermore, president of the Cultural Intelligence Center (USA). Livermore has pioneered much of the work in CQ, embedding the field in sound research. He has authored numerous books and taught at multiple universities.

In his book Leading With Cultural Intelligence, Livermore relates an experience he had while on a trip to Monroevia, Liberia. He was scheduled to meet with the president of a local college, about whom a Liberian friend had related some troubling reports. Before the meeting, he had the opportunity to talk to another Liberian who was connected to the institution. He decided to ask some direct questions, but got only evasive answers. When he left the meeting, his friend (who had been in the room) explained that the person he had just questioned would not answer directly with another Liberian in the room—it would have been culturally taboo. Moreover, the man was a childhood friend of the college president. Livermore realized that his “usual” approaches to such situations were not going to work in this context; he had to adapt them in order to achieve his objectives.

Livermore’s anecdote points to some insights, both explicit and implicit, for those who travel abroad, or those who enter the culture of higher education. The most obvious and overarching point is that one needs to know the cultural context in which one is operating. In Livermore’s case, he needed to know what someone would be willing to say in what company. He also needed to be aware of the specific factors at work—in this case, a personal relationship.

In much the same way, one entering academia needs to be aware of the general culture into which they are entering. For example, someone coming from a business background is used to a workplace culture that is typically “top-down” in administration, with someone at the top of a chain of command making decisions which are then passed down the ranks for execution. If working groups are formed to study issues and provide recommendations, they do so only at the commission of those at the top. Furthermore, in many businesses, there is a certain urgency in decision making—put simply, things happen fast (often for good reason). For those coming from such a background, the decision-making process in higher education often seems maddening. Higher education does not typically follow a “top-down” model. Unlike employees at most firms, faculty have a well-established expectation of “shared governance.” In short, they get a vote on a number of initiatives. Typically, they are highly educated, intellectual people, which means they have to be convinced to support something, and are not hesitant to reject that which they don’t support. Such convincing often involves numerous committees, faculty senate meetings, discussions, and votes, which takes time. One might be tempted to simply try to change the culture by imposing a top-down model, but such a course of action would be foolish for a number of reasons. One, it will almost certainly produce resistance that will ultimately undermine the administrator’s position (as Newman discovered). Two, it overlooks a simple fact—the person or people at the top are often not the best informed about higher education. Unlike business, higher education has a myriad of expectations and requirements (e.g. accreditation) best understood and handled by those with experience in the field, e.g. faculty. Examples abound of administrative initiatives that suddenly run afoul of an external restriction or requirement unknown to them. In short, many cultural norms in higher education are not just a reality, but exist for a reason. Thus, it behooves an administrator coming from the outside not only to realize, but to understand and respect them.

As Livermore discovered, there are also specifics in any context, such as a relationship. In the case of institutions, there are specific histories, politics, and relational dynamics. This reality means that not just those coming from outside higher education, but also those coming from the “inside” (e.g. another institution) need to approach their new institution as they would a foreign country. Each school has its own history, norms, issues, etc. Someone who has not been privy to these could be surprised by an unknown stumbling block. Has there been a history of poor administration—faculty relations? If so, presuming that faculty will support initiatives right out of the gate would be foolish; there is a need to first build credibility and confidence. (Whoever assumes the presidency of Mount St. Mary’s will definitely need to dedicate him- or herself to this.) This might run contrary to one’s own norms, but one must remember that he or she are in a new culture. This doesn’t mean things cannot be accomplished or even changed at an institution; it simply means that to do so, one has to adapt.

Obviously, this isn’t an exhaustive study of the applications of CQ to leadership in higher education. We could delve into a number of topics, such as how to identify who can really help get things done at an institution, how to engage the “locals,” or how to “learn the language” of higher education. Frankly, someone who is transitioning into higher education from another field, or even someone who is merely moving from one institution to another, ought to have a consultant/coach who can help in this process. This would help smooth the transition, and thus benefit the institution and all involved. There would be fewer administrators who would fail coming out of the gate, and it wouldn’t be necessary to drown those “bunnies.”

References:

Scott Jaschik, “Last Nonacademic President? Not a Chance,” Inside Higher Ed (2 March 2016). https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/02/experts-doubt-debacle-mount-st-marys-will-diminish-board-interest-nontraditional?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=2e5937c71d-DNU20160302&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-2e5937c71d-198412081#.VtdEjMheC28.mailto (Accessed 2 March 2016).

David Livermore, Leading With Cultural Intelligence: The Real Secret to Success (New York: AMACOM, 2015).

Jack Stripling, “The Mount St. Mary’s Presidency Was a Corporate Test Case. It Failed Miserably,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (2 March 2016). http://chronicle.com/article/The-Mount-St-Mary-s/235558 (Accessed 3 March 2016).

September 22, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Four Lessons from Five Verses: Part IV

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 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. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully. (II TImothy 2:1-5, KJV)

St. Paul in Prison, by Rembrandt [Public domain],1627, via Wikimedia Commons

This is the final installment of lessons from five verses in the second chapter of Paul’s second epistle to Timothy. In this post we concentrate on the first verse, Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (II Timothy 2:1, KJV)

Paul begins the second chapter with the conjunction “Therefore.” In doing this, he is telling TImothy to “be strong” because of what he said in Chapter 1. What did Paul say in Chapter 1 that should prompt Timothy to be strong? I see at least three things.

The first is Timothy’s faith and God’s priceless gifts. Immediately after Paul’s salutation, he reminds Timothy of his faith and the upbringing and grounding in God that his faith has given him. “When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (II TImothy 1:5-7, KJV) What were those precious gifts? “the spirit of…power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

The second point relates to the circumstances under which Paul was writing the letter. Many scholars believe that Paul wrote this letter to Timothy during his second imprisonment in Rome. Three times in chapter 1, Paul mentions prison, suffering, afflictions or chains: “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;” (II Timothy 1:8, KJV); “For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” (II Timothy 1:12, KJV); and “The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain:” (II Timothy 1:16. KJV). Paul was telling TImothy that because of his faith and service to Christ, he was suffering in ways similar to how Christ suffered. So Paul didn’t want TImothy to be discouraged or get caught off guard,when he was called upon to suffer for Christ’s sake. Suffering for Christ is our reasonable duty since Christ died for us.

The third point is God’s grace that is bestowed not only on Timothy, and Paul, but on everyone who is saved. Paul writes “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:” (I Timothy 1:9&10, KJV). This passage echos the thoughts of Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, of which Timothy was the minister.

“Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:5-10; KJV)

Our Christian life all comes down to God’s grace, which is wrapped up in Jesus Christ, who through his sinless life, death and resurrection secured our salvation. We need to live strong in that thought. However, it’s not our strength. It is Christ living in us. As Paul said in his letter to the church in Galatia, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20, KJV).

Image courtesy of Wikimedia-Creative-Commons-Attribution-2.0-Generic-license.-e1466009718389

Have you ever heard the expression, “the elephant in the room?” In the picture above, you can’t miss the elephant in the room, even though it is upholstered with the same fabric as the curtains hanging at the window. The picket fence in the room would be no hinderance to a real elephant, if that animal wanted to get out of the room. Thus the phrase and the image are obviously meant to be facetious allegories of a situation or truth that many people wish to avoid. The truth of Galatians 2:20 that many people hope to avoid is the idea that we must die to ourselves to partake in the eternal life offered in Christ by grace through faith. The elephant allegory may be facetious, but the truth that stands behind it is sharply and unmistakably real and has devastating consequence for those who avoid the truth in this world. They will not avoid it in the next one.

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 10, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Broken Business Model of American Higher Education, Part VI: Incremental Growth Will Not Be Enough

I am finally returning to my series on the broken business model of American higher education. In previous installments of this series, I have indicated that I believe the sprawling educational multiplex on which the United States relies and to which much of the world admiringly looks for leadership is sputtering and struggling to catch its breath, I think American higher education is caught between a rock and a hard place. I am convinced that it has reached an important fork in its road. Which way should we go? The future prosperity of American higher education is potentially at stake.

I suspect many of you are cringing at my use of the word prosperity with respect to higher education. I intentially used the business term “prosperity” in this context. I can hear people screaming at their computer screens: “Higher education is not a business.” Folks, other than in the form of a vigorous denial, you won’t hear that expression from me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Higher education is a business.” See my previous post, According to the Duck Test, Higher Education is a Business. If you see an animal in the barnyard that has feathers like a duck, flies like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it is a very safe bet that it is a duck.

I believe that much of the difficulty and confusion comes from the fact that education is more than a business. In addition to being required to operate as a business, it is a ministry, an agency of service to individuals, communities, our country and the world. It provides a public and private good. It offers aid, assistance, help and utility. I put it in the same pigeon hole as the fields of medicine, and charitable service enterprises. All of these enterprises offer indispensable assistance and benefits to their clients, communities and the human race. I have heard many call for these initiatives to be held to higher standards of accountability than we demand of the companies from which we obtain our meals and groceries. We seem to have far fewer problems with businesses offering inferior services to customers or clients, than requiring service organizations to maintain their obligations to operate according to the legal requirements that all businesses are suppose to meet.

The past several postings in this series have been about growing enrollment. I believe that American higher education has reached a point of decision at which it must pick between two very different paths. This choice will define unique and important historical options that will have far reaching consequences. If you are completely turned off by the idea that higher education should be described in business and economic terms, will you allow me to use the medical analogy of the health of American higher education? Have we reached a point where the future health of American higher education may conceivably be at stake? Is it time to check its temperature, heart rhythm, AIC, cholesterol levels, BMI and the electrical activity of the brain?

Most educational pundits, critics and commentators, friendly or otherwise, readily admit that American higher education has come through some very trying times and will definitely face some more problems, and possibly even crises in its immediate future. The decisions that American higher education must make can be formulated in a number of different terms. The problems facing American higher education are complex and multifaceted. This means that we must be prepared to wade through knee-deep, involved puddles of mud to get close to understanding the problem before we can formulate and begin to implement a remedy that will alleviate the current difficulties.

From previous posts in this series, I have tried to present the argument that American higher education is facing financial problems and pressures. The enterprise doesn’t have enough money to do what it’s currently doing. It is also far short of having the funds to do what it and seemingly most of the American public wants it to do. In this series I have proposed that American higher education has five sources of revenue. In the first post of the series, The Business Model of All of Higher Education is Broken, I listed five possible sources of revenue for American higher education:

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

Previously in this series, I have concentrated on revenues from tuition and fees. The two easiest ways to enlarge this revenue pot are either by increasing the tuition and fees charged each student, or by growing enrollment, i.e., increasing the number of students paying the tuition and fees. I have attempted to show that institutions would be fighting a losing battle if they attempted to increase the tuition and fee charges sufficiently to cover their current needs or future desires. Student, families, politicians and the general public already believe that tuition and fees are too high. In the most recent post in this series, The Business Model of All of Higher Education is Broken, Part V: Increasing Enrollments is Not Enough, I began to consider the difficulties in increasing enrollments to gain more revenue. I continue that line of reasoning in this post.

Business strategists, economists and mathematicians typically talk about two types of growth: incremental and exponential. Incremental growth is normally represented on a graph by a straight line. With this type of growth, the number grows by approximately the same amount in each period of time. Its graph is best approximated by a linear function. On the other hand, exponential growth is an upward-opening, concave curved line. In exponential growth, the number grows at a rate that is proportional to the number’s current value, resulting in its growth with time being an exponential function. Its graph is best approximated by an exponential function, with a leading exponent of the independent variable equal to 2 or greater. To illustrate the difference, consider the following fabricated example of college enrollments in a fictitious country.

Enrollment in fictitious country to illustrate the problems with incremental growth. Chart created by author using Google Sheets

The graph begins at a point in the history of our fictitious country where the current enrollment is 20 million students. If our country does nothing different year after year, the enrollment would tend to stay constant (bright green line on the graph). The incremental growth graph (red line) is approximated by a straight line with a slope of positive 1. This means that for each year, the enrollment grows by 1 million students.. The exponential growth graph (blue line) is approximated by a quadratic function. The quadratic growth model represents a disruptive change, such as switching to online degree programs, which at first causes a slight decline in enrollment before the exponential growth kicks in. Our Combination Model (the purple line) represents a combination of adding the online program plus the incremental growth from adding students to the traditional programs.

The enrollment numbers for this fictitious country are not completely unimaginable. The current enrollment in the United States is approximately 20 million. According to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), it is expected to growth by almost 5 million students in the next 5 years. For the first 200 years of American higher education, enrollment did double approximately every 10 to 15 years. If you dig into those statistics you will find that those staggering enrollment increases followed disruptive changes in American society and higher education. There were earth shaking events and government reforms that contributed mightily to the enrollment growths. The slow down and eventual leveling off enrollment growths of the past half century would require new earth shaking events or changes to American higher education to put it back on the path to doubling enrollment every 10 to 15 years. However, this growth is exactly what political and educational pundits desire and suggest that American society must have. We have both presidential candidates of the major political parties suggesting that the economic recovery of the United States must be built on the backs of high tech jobs and increased educational opportunities. Both have suggested that we must double the number of college graduates in the next decade. I only see two ways to double the number of graduates in the next decade. FIrstly, we must either improve our college completion rate from approximately 50% to essentially 100%. We haven’t really come close to that goal with high school education and look at all the flak that secondary education is receiving over graduating unprepared students. The second approach is to essentially double the number of students entering college. For my response to this, see my first point.

However, it is not just Americans crying for these increases in higher education enrollments. You have Education Dive’s headline of August 12 blaring out College enrollments to double in next decade. I invite you read this article for yourself and follow the leads in the article to their sources. It is not a pretty picture the author, Jarrett Carter, is painting concerning American higher education. What’s American higher education to do? As with any work of suspense, I break off my story with our hero hanging by his fingers from the edge of the cliff and leave the resolution for another installment. Please stay tuned.