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Alumni Life Cycle: Part I — Introduction

I begin this series of posts with a shout out of thanks to a former colleague, Rebekah Basinger, for a post on her blog Generous Matters  entitled 10 time-proven laws of fundraising. Rebekah’s post began with a statement that had a very familiar ring. “While cleaning out a file cabinet that hasn’t been touched for several years, I came across…” Within the past two years, I have had to pack up my library and 40 years of work files. As I carefully examined the books and files, “I came across” many books and files that I had not thought about for years. Although the ideas from these items were not at the front of my mind, nor on the tip of my tongue, they were not foreign to me. I had saved these books and files for a reason, and as I scanned them, those reasons came back to me.

Rebekah’s found treasure was an article dated 2003, entitled The Ten Immutable Laws of the (fundraising) Universe. She continued her post with a comment which constantly rings true in the academy: “I’m reminded that the more things change in our world, the more they stay the same.” Experience teaches us that the near future is closely tied to the immediate past. In an upcoming series of posts that I have tentatively entitled, “The Future of the Academy,” I will be playing off of that idea in discussions of the structure, form, purpose, economics and outcomes of higher education.

Rebekah’s post quotes Carl Richardson, the author of the original article, by suggesting that fundraising is “guided by certain provable statements.” Rebekah brings the topic up-to-date by observing that Richardson’s time-tested laws still determine the success of today’s fundraising efforts.

My initial reaction to the Ten Laws of Fundraising was that these ten principles were applicable to three other aspects of academic life. These laws could be applied directly to admissions, retention and alumni relations. As I thought about these three aspects of academic life, I was drawn to an analogy of the life stages of butterflies to the development of successful and engaged alumni. I then constructed my metaphor comparing prospective students, students, and alumni to caterpillars, pupa, and butterflies. These developmental levels represent the life stages of alumni and butterflies.

In order to keep each of my posts to a reasonable length which makes them easier to read on mobile devices, I have decided that I must extend this series of posts to at least 15 posts. The current plan is to have Part II as the development of the metaphor comparing alumni development to the life cycle of butterflies. Part III will be a synopsis of the ten laws of fund raising that sparked my original interest in this topic, with some comments reflecting my thoughts on fundraising.

In Parts IV through XIII, I will address each of the ten laws as it relates to the three groups of people of special interest to colleges.  For each of the laws, I will note similarities and differences in how colleges must interact with prospective students, students, and alumni.

In Parts XIV and XV, I plan to return to a discussion of how a college or university can implement a coordinated program to develop successful and engaged alumni. Since many of these posts are already written, I should be able to complete the publication of this series of posts within the next three weeks.

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What Can the Academy Learn From Temple Grandin and Her Cattle Chute Designs?

Who is Temple Grandin? She is the author of Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism, the subject of the HBO film “Temple Grandin”, and the designer of one-third of the livestock-handling facilities used in the United States today. According to the flyleaf of her book, Thinking in Pictures:
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who…also lectures widely on autism—because Temple Grandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from the country of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinary human being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulf between her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of our common identity.

So what? My question remains: “What can the academy learn from Temple Grandin and her cattle chute designs?” I am persuaded that we can learn much. However, I don’t believe I will be suggesting what you’re probably thinking right now. I am convinced that many people reading this are saying to themselves: “The obvious purpose of cattle chutes is to herd cattle in an inexpensive and efficient way into or out of holding pens, with the last set of chutes leading to the slaughter house.” The above analogy would suggest that students are cattle and that institutions of higher learning are either holding pens or slaughter houses. Although I have heard people seriously make those comparisons, I am not going there.
I want to focus on several ethical values, design principles and practices that Temple Grandin employed in her work that were highlighted in the book and movie. I originally picked up the book because of neurological changes in my life. Due to several traumatic brain episodes, I have found myself living in the land of metaphors instead of the land of words and analytic, quantitative and sequential thinking in which I grew up and resided for more than 40 years of work in the academy. As I read the book and watched the video, a number of images jumped out of the book and off the screen, and caught my attention. If we were to use Grandin’s values, principles and practices as we design and operate our institutions of higher learning, I believe that they would be more humane, inexpensive, efficient and more effective in producing the learning in our students that we all desire.

The principle that drove Temple’s designs was that form was to follow function. First we define what we want to do. Then we design our processes and instruments to achieve the desired end.
The first value to be emphasized was respect for life. Temple respected cattle and pushed cattle ranchers and meat packers to respect the cattle. By force of her will, she was able to demonstrate that respecting cattle produced better and more efficient results in moving cattle from one place to another, right up and through the point of slaughter. Our students are alive. Shouldn’t we respect them?
The first of Temple’s practices I want to emphasize is the practice of looking at the product or process through the eyes of the intended user. In designing her cattle chutes, she got down on her hands and knees and crawled through the operating chutes to see what the cattle saw and encountered. In this way, she was able to find the places where the cattle stumbled, where they were confused, where they balked, and where things went smoothly. How many of us have crawled through the obstacle courses that we run our students through? Do we know where the path is too dark to see the potholes? Do we know where outside light confuses our students?

The second of Temple’s practices involved changes that Temple made to the then prevalent chute design. Temple changed the design of her chutes from straight lines with right-angle turns to curved lines. How did she figure this out? She studied how cattle behaved. She noticed that they were calmer and more responsive when moving in arcs rather than straight lines. How many of us have studied our students’ behavior and changed our pedagogy to get more responses from our students?
A second change Temple made in chute design was to replace slatted sidewalls with solid side walls. Why? Because she noticed that the cattle were distracted by outside interference like uneven sunshine producing glares and shadows that the cattle didn’t understand or recognize. Temple was challenged on this change by the cattlemen because of costs (solid walls were more expensive to build) and the fact that the slatted walls gave the handlers the opportunity to prod the cattle along when they got all tangled up. Her response was measured. She pointed out that since the cattle liked the arc movement and solid walls, there would be far fewer roadblocks, meaning less work for the handlers and more contented cows which meant more and better beef.
So what can the academy learn from Temple Grandin’s design of cattle chutes? We can learn: 1) Respect for our students, 2) Define our desired outcome and design our forms to achieve the desired functions, 3) Study our students, and look at learning through their eyes. 4) Remove unnecessary obstacles to make not only their life easier, but ours also. 5) Contented students will produce more and better learning.

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Skeletons in the Closet–The Academy as a Metaphor

I began this series of postings with the intent of following the historical development of liberal education and colleges. The first posting focused on the ancient Greeks and a difference of understanding among some of the leading ancient Greek philosophers as to what constituted liberal education and for whom it was designed.

         In that first posting I indicated that I would continue the series by looking at the development of liberal arts through the early Roman civilization, the medieval times and the European Renaissance. However, I have found that I must take several small detours.

There are several reasons I have decided on these detours. The first reason is that as I have become more accustomed to my metaphoric world I have discovered how deeply our language is built on metaphors. In my exploration of metaphors, I came across a real eye opener of an information source in James Geary’s book, “I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World.” Geary is a journalist and also New York Times Bestselling author of “The World in a Phrase.”

In preparation for his books, Geary did extensive study of language and the way we use it. As a result of that study, he concludes that metaphors are as old as language itself. As I have studied learning theory, I believe we must conclude that we learn by comparing and linking the unknown and new with the known and old. Therefore, metaphor was a way of thought long before it was a way with words.

As one of his major sources of information and examples in “I is an Other,” Geary relied on the archaeologist and expert on ancient languages, A. H. Sayce. Sayce estimated that three-fourths of our language consists of metaphors; some of which are active, while many are worn-out or whose origins are buried. The worn out metaphors could also be labeled as dormant. I was very skeptical of Sayce’s estimate of the extent of metaphors until I looked at the examples Sayce and Geary presented. I began to see how almost everything I said was based on a metaphor, long before I took up residence in a metaphoric world.

         I should not have been surprised that three-quarters of our words have a metaphor somewhere in their history. Learning theory tells us that we learn by tying something new and unknown to something old and known. A metaphor attempts to help us understand one thing or concept by comparing it to something we already know. Thus we build new concepts and words via a metaphoric process.

         If three-quarters of our words are based on metaphors, what are the implications for our understanding of liberal arts colleges? Thus, my first detour will be to investigate the metaphors upon which liberal arts education is built. In my investigation, I found that all of the followings words are built on metaphors: liberal, arts, sciences, literal, truth, academic, scholastic, education, knowledge, idea, conceives, and college. In my next posting, I will look at the metaphoric foundations of these terms.

As I previously indicated, I thought following the development of liberal arts and liberal arts colleges through history would be a straight path. However, as I looked at the history of liberal arts throughout history, I found it more resembled a cow path meandering through a pasture, among Western and non-Western civilizations. Living next to farms for many years, the only two times I ever saw a cow walk in a straight line were: 1) when it was feeding time and new food had just been dumped into the feed trough; and 2) when cows were entering the barn at milking time and they headed straight for their assigned milking stations.

If the history of liberal arts does not flow in a straight line, to more fully understand liberal arts and liberal arts colleges and follow their development, I have decided that I needed to meander through history and non-Western civilizations with them. Some of my upcoming postings will feature those meanderings. As with most detours, I believe that we will eventually end up at the desired location.

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Higher Education Lessons Learned from Toys–Part II

Part I of this series discussed the lessons my grandchildren’s toys taught me about higher education. In this posting I will discuss what I learned about higher education when I reflected on my own childhood toys.

The first images that come to my mind when I think about my own toys were images of a large card board cylinder with a set of Lincoln Logs with which I played. Lincoln Logs were very different from Lego’s. Lincoln Logs only came in one basic color, bark color, and in one shape and a limited number of different sizes. You could build a cabin, if you put the logs together in precisely one way. You could put in doors and windows only if you had the framing pieces for the doors and windows. Lincoln Log cabins were essentially identical. They all looked the same. In some branches of higher education, the institutions are like the Lincoln Log cabins. They can only be put together in one way, and they all look identical. You can’t tell the difference as you go from one institution to another.

I also had a large cardboard chest that contained an Erector Set, with all the different sized beams, and extra nuts and bolts. This set included the extra wheels, axels, gears and a small electric motor to drive the axels. With this Erector Set I could build anything, or so I thought. I could put together cranes, skyscrapers, airplanes, cars, and trucks. Although these objects were all different, because they were put together using the same parts and using the same methods, they all had a similar appearance. Because many institutions of higher education are built in this way, using the same parts and construction methodology, they all appear to be the same.

I also had two Lionel Train sets for which my father and I built a train board to display my two train sets. The board consisted of two 4’x8’ sheets of plywood, that contained two villages complete with streets and lighted streets lights, roads with working traffic lights, rail crossings with working rail road gates at the points where the tracks intersected the painted roads on the board, and several industrial sites with loading and unloading equipment for specialty cars in my two train sets. The train board also had mountains, one of which included a train tunnel, several painted streams complete with rail bridges, and a train depot complete with a powered round table. I even had an engineer’s cap which I wore when I played with the trains. The train board and extras made the experience seem realistic. However, the trains never got anywhere and never accomplished anything. All they ever did was go around in circles. This is very similar to some institutions of higher education, Lots of action, all the bells and whistles, but they never go anywhere, except around in circles.

My fourth toy was an extra large Gilbert toy science set. It came in a fold out metal case. It included a lighted microscope with slides, instructions and material to prepare them. It included a small telescope with a map of the northern sky. The microscope opened the small world to me, while the telescope opened the vast expanses of the universe to me. It also included the basic tools of a chemistry lab such as test tubes, beakers, and chemicals. As a concession to safety, the Bunsen burner was a candle instead of a gas burner. The set also included a small handbook filled of Dos and Don’ts, and safety suggestions. If you only used the chemicals that came with the set, you could never get into trouble. It was only when you struck out on your own, did you run the risk of a major accident or explosion. This is very similar to higher education. If you stick to what is given to you within the curriculum, you’ll never run the risk of a major accident. However, how many of us are the compliant children that do everything that we are told, and avoid the forbidden areas? I can remember a few times when I went beyond the safe instructions, and I had messes to clean up in my mother’s kitchen.

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Higher Education Lessons Learned from Toys–Part I

Whenever I spend time with my two daughters and their families, I find it very entertaining and educational watching my grandchildren play with their toys. For years, my youngest grandchildren enjoyed playing with Lego’s. They had several sets of blocks of varying colors, sizes and shapes. My younger grandson is currently into Bionicles, fantasy warriors with interchangeable parts. The second type of toys that he spends hours with is transformers, a toy with parts that you rearrange to form two or more recognizable forms that are very different.

As I watched my younger grandchildren play with their toys, I reflected on some of the toys with which I played when I was growing up. The more I watched and reflected the more similarities that I saw between institutions of higher education and toys.  In this post, I will discuss what I learned about higher education from my grandchildren’s toys. In Part II of this series of posts, I will discuss what I learned from my toys.

         I know some of my former colleagues in higher education will accuse me of falling off the wagon or into the deep end of the pool, if not a cesspool, comparing institutions of higher education to toys. I can hear them saying, “I always knew you were crazy.” I don’t think I’m crazy and I really don’t think that my current residence in the world of metaphors is completely to blame for the similarities that I see between institutions of higher education and toys. I have tried out these metaphors on some other people and they readily agreed that the similarities are patently obvious.

         The buildings that my younger grandson would build with his Lego’s were strange looking. He didn’t have enough blocks of the same color, size or shape to put together a normal looking building. Therefore, his buildings were odd shaped, leaned in various directions, and would fall apart easily. Sometimes her buildings would have wheels. When I asked him about the wheels, he said that the buildings were trailers in which the family could go camping. Sometimes our institutions of higher learning are odd-shaped, lean in various directions, lack permanency, and have wheels which would move the institutions around to different positions on various questions.

         Transformers are an interesting metaphor for institutions of higher learning. Transformers are “two toys in one.” A transformer is made to move back and forth between two recognizable forms that are very different and have very different purposes. Some institutions of higher education move back and forth between two recognizable forms with two very different purposes. You can’t pin the institution down as to what it really is.

         Bionicles are a fascinating metaphor for institutions of higher education. Bionilces are fantasy, warrior creatures with interchangeable parts that capture the imaginations of the builders as they battle other Bionicles and their Masters to save the universe.

As I thought about my grandchildren playing with their toys, I remember the fun that I had as a child when I played with toys. Part II of this series presents my reflections on my toys and institutions of higher education.

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Students Are Paid To Not Attend College

The Chronicle of Higher Education posted an e-version of an article written by Ben WIeder, entitled Thiel Fellowship Pays 24 Talented Students $100,000 Not to Attend College. The Thiel in the title is Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal. The $100,000 Fellowships are meant to encourage 24 very talented students to spend two years developing their business ideas instead.  The whole idea has created a stir in higher education circles.

The whole article may be found at http://chronicle.com/article/Thiel-Fellowship-Pays-24/127622/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

One of the fellowship winners highlighted in the article is Jim Danielson, who was an electrical-engineering student at Purdue. Mr Danielson is quoted as saying he “learned more about his field on his own than in the classroom.”

This comment from Mr. Daniels  reminded me of a portion of Mike Rose’s story, that he tells in his autobiographic book “Lives on the Boundary.” Mr. Rose’s related an incident from his graduate education in creative writing when he became overwhelmed with hour after hours, day after days of studying in the UCLA library, reading essay after essay about the poems they were reading in class. He finally gathered up all his courage and went to see the chairman of the creative writing program. Mr. Rose told the chair that we was learning more about the poems they were reading and studying in class by writing his own poetry. The chair shook his head,smiled and said in effect, “That’s not the way we study poetry here.”  Some institutions will permit and encourage students to learn by doing, others do everything they can to discourage that type of learning activity.

I find this ironic since Aristotle said all free men should be educated in the three forms of knowledge, theorica, poeises and praxis. Theorica was the reflective contemplation of knowledge received through all of our senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching); poeises was the production of objects of value (such as writing poems or painting a picture–poeises is the word from which we get our word poetry); praxis was learning by doing (praxis is the word from which we get our word practice – More than once people have said the only way to learn to teach is to teach, and that you really never learn medicine until you practice medicine.) It seems that poeises and praxis are both learning by doing. What’s the difference? I believe the primary difference is that the goal of poeises is to produce a product of value. It is to create an inanimate object of value; while the goal of praxis to enable the individual to affect changes in people whether oneself or others.

In many of our institutions, particularly liberal arts institutions, the primary, if not the only emphasis, seems to be on theorica. We also tend to restrict our sensory intake to seeing and hearing.  In Ancient Greece, the full orbed theorica was held up as the pinnacle of knowledge. However, beyond a rudimentary introduction to it, further study in  it  was reserved only for superior students, the best of the best. Does this have any implications for our higher education system of today?