By's Musings

College

By Leave a Comment

Michigan Community Colleges Make Push for State Lawmakers to Allow Them to Offer Some Four-Year Programs

A recent article in the Jackson Citizen Patriot was picked up by and featured in the February 23, 2011 e-edition of University Business: http://www.universitybusiness.com/newsletter/daily/dailynewssummary.aspx?newscontenttype=1&newsid=42 .

This article sets the stage for an upcoming fight in the Michigan legislature.

What’s at stake in this battle?  The answer depends upon who is answering. Four-year institutions will argue that academic quality and integrity are at stake. They will argue that two-year institutions are not equipped or staffed to offer “legitimate” four-year programs. The four-year institutions will argue that four-year programs are our forte. That’s what we do. Shouldn’t students get the best education available?

That last question is an interesting question, because students will agree and then say the education that four-year institutions are offering are not available to them. The JCP interviews one such student. Her statements are telling.

Registered nurse, Stephanie Palmer wants to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Jackson Community College. What are the three reasons she gives? 1) Convenience: It’s close to her home.  2) Cost: It’s…”less expensive than a four-year college.” 3) Flexible schedule: JCC offers greater scheduling flexibility for working parents like her.

At this point, the four-year institutions jump up and ask the public:”When you’re sick, do you want a nurse treating you who hasn’t received the best education possible?” I’m sorry but this is in no way meant to disparage Stephanie or any other registered nurse. But all registered nurses have already taken the required clinical courses and passed all the licensure tests to permit them to practice nursing. I would dare say that if you have visited a clinic within the past five years, you have been treated by at least one registered nurse, and that you probably didn’t notice any difference in your treatment.

So why would Stephanie or any other registered nurse want to get a four-year BSN degree? The BSN opens new opportunities to nurses, including specialty training, higher pay and more responsibilities. Many hospitals hire registered nurses but restrict their duties. A recent study by done by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that surgical patients treated by more nurses with bachelor’s degrees had a greater chance of survival than those treated by fewer bachelor trained nurses. Results like this have led some hospitals to require the BSN as a prerequisite for service on post-operative patients.

I have spent more than forty-years at four different institutions overseeing and studying non-traditional adult education programs along with the traditional educational programs at those institutions. During those years, the three reasons given by Stephanie were always the primary reasons adults gave for selecting non-traditional educational programs over traditional academic programs. Interestingly, at one of those institutions, the three primary reasons given by commuters for selecting the on-line alternative over a residential program were: 1) Convenience; 2) Cost; 3) Flexibility of scheduling. For both categories of student, non-traditional learners and commuters, these three characteristics outweighed any perceived difference in program quality when it came to program choice.

The next three most frequent reasons given by adults in program selection were 4) Program meets students’ needs. The curriculum and examples are related to what the students do or want to do. The students see the immediate usefulness of this learning. The students can apply the learning immediately. 5) Program uses pedagogical methods that the students understand and help the students learn. 6) Prospective students believed that the alternative programs provided excellent learning. The students and others who have gone through the program have received work place or other external recognition for things learned through the program.

Four-year programs respond with comments stressing the real worth of a program is not immediate gratification, but long-term usefulness and that students are not the best judges of long-term usefulness. That may well be the case but the four-year institutions have not done enough to convince students of these arguments.

The one argument that is almost never heard in public venues is that if enough students switch to the two-year institutions or alternative learning style programs, the traditional four-year programs will be hurt financially. For public institutions, the second biggest source of income is from the state, county or city, and that is currently based on enrollment. The more students that go elsewhere, the less money these institutions receive. Generally tuition is the main source of income in all institutions, and the fewer the number of students, the less income is available for anything the institutions want or need to do, such as hire or pay faculty. The fewer faculty members hired and the less they are paid, the more unhappy they will be.

By Leave a Comment

Distance Eduction Begins at Twelve Feet

Most people think of distance education requires instructor and students to be physically separated by time, distance or both. I would like to offer a new definition that permits instructors and students to be in the same room at the same time. Under my definition, in addition to being separated in time and space, the separation may also include psychological separation, also known as cognitive distance. I have indicated this by suggesting that this psychological separation can typically begin at twelve feet. Why twelve feet? Twelve feet is the usual distance between the teacher’s station and the second row of seats in a typical lecture style classroom with tablet-arm chairs. Many instructors find it difficult to generate and keep cognitive connection with students outside the front row of a class. Most instructors have found that if a class has “open seating, without assigned seats,” the students who sit in the front row are usually very interested in the class. Students who are less interested will tend to sit further back in the classroom. This means instructors will have to work harder to keep those students connected, interested and learning in the class.

Most surveys of faculty and students indicate that the lecture modality is the most used course delivery system today. There are other modalities, such as discussion, seminar classes and blended modalities that are gaining in popularity, but lectures are still number 1. In the 1970’s, surveys of students and faculty suggested that in as many as 90% of all courses, the predominant teaching mode was the lecture. Even with the emphases of the 1990’s on active learning and using teaching styles geared to student learning styles, as late as 2000, surveys of students and faculty were showing that still in approximately 75% of all courses, the dominant teaching mode was the lecture.

A straight lecture modality can be characterized as a “jug and mugs” approach. In such an approach, the instructor brings a jug that is full of ideas or content to the classroom and has the students hold out their individual mugs, and the instructor fills them up from the big jug. It has derisively been described as the transfers of knowledge from the instructor’s notes to the students’ notes without touching the minds of either. If we really consider the operational aspects of this approach, there is no necessity for the instructor to be physically present. Why have faculty remained loyal to the lecture? I believe the lecture is the most popular modality because instructors are most comfortable with this style. It was the way they were taught and the way they learned. They are just modeling what their instructors and mentors did. Plus, there are few rewards to experiment with different modalities. Instructors have little or no access to developmental resources to do something different. Short of no preparation, where the instructor goes into class and “wings it,” the lecture is the easiest modality for which to prepare and to use. It is hard work trying to come up with learning artifacts or objects to engage students in compelling problems that direct their learning in other ways toward the desired goal of learning specific things or ideas.

The “jug and mugs” pedagogy grows out of a “tabula rasa” or “blank slate” approach to teaching, where the teacher has all of the knowledge and the students possess blank slates that the teacher then writes on. This model of education is not congruent with the best of today’s or even yesterday’s theories of learning. From brain and learning theory research, we know that students are more apt to remember and understand things in which they have a real interest and things of which they have had some experience. We have to link new knowledge to current knowledge and we need a reason to do so. Brain research also suggests that we are more able to make connections if we perform activities related to the item or idea. Confucius knew this 2500 years ago when he said, “If I read or hear something, I forget it, if I see it, I remember it. If I do it, I understand it.” Current research with well-functioning adults has found that after three months, these adults retain only 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50 % of what they see and hear, and 70% of what they say or write. These are great rules of thumb to use in the preparation of lesson plans and presentations. If you can involve the audience in the topic, they will have a much greater chance of remembering what you were trying to say. However, the research goes on to show that these adults will retain more than 90% of what they say while doing something that illustrates it. This should become our guiding force in the preparation of learning assignments.

Dr. William Pfohl, former president of the National Association of School Psychologists in discussing how adults and children learn has said, “The best process to ensure learning take places is to guarantee the individual sees it, hears it, and then gets some experience using it. And that way it’s most likely to stick.”

If distance learning begins at twelve feet because it is difficult to connect with students in the second row when they are in the same room, then wouldn’t that suggest that distance learning via other means is impossible?  I don’t think so. There is a whole body of literature that speaks to engaging students via distance learning technologies. Conversely, if we can engage students that are hundreds of miles away, why can’t we engage students, that are physically in our presence in the same classroom? We can and must do a better job in both venues.

By Leave a Comment

Moody’s Investors Service’s Take on Higher Education

The headline for the January 16, 2011 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education , ” Financial Outlook is Brighter for Some Colleges,but Still Negative for Most” doesn’t tell the whole story. This story may be found at http://chronicle.com/article/Financial-Outlook-Is-Brighter/125973/?sid=at  (Note: YOu may need a subscription to The Chronicle of Higher Education to view the article.) If the bright side is that a “relatively small number of colleges may be stable (no worse than what they have been), what the down side? The down side is that the financial outlook for most college will be worse. The Moody’s report will be available to Moody subcribers later this week.

What does Moody’s think is the secret to do as well as you did before? You must be well-managed and be diversified, i.e., not too dependent upon one source of income, such as tuition, advancement dollars, auxiliary enterprises or state support.

If the outlook for the have’s is stability, what’s the outlook for the have-nots’? Moody’s suggests that it will be a very bumpy road. They are projecting a number of institutions will have to retrench, merge or fold completely.

According to Moody’s the primary three factors driving the 2011 outlook for colleges are:

1. “Weakened prospects for net tuition growth because of a market preference for low-cost or higher-reputation competitors.

2. “differing degrees of pressure on non-tuition revenues” such as philanthropy or research money.

3. A “need for stronger management of operating costs, balance-sheet risks and capital plans.”

For all who don’t think that higher education is or should be a business, all these negative signs are closely tied to operations of a business. Moody is suggesting that if we don’t operate our colleges as well-run business, we may not be operating at all.

By Leave a Comment

After hundreds of years of debate, we finally have a defintion of a religious institution of higher education

What is a religious institution of higher education? After centuries of arguments and debates, finally, we have a definition. It comes to us from an impeccable source. An Acting Regional DIrector, of Region 2, (NYC, NY) of the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB was forced to define a religious institution because of a suit brought against Manhattan College by it Adjunct Faculty Union, supported by the New York State United Teachers, AFT?NEA/AFL-CIO.

The core of the matter was that the adjunct faculty of Manhattan College sought to unionize, but Manhattan College argued that because they were a  Catholic institution, they did not have to recognize an employee union.

After listening to the arguments from both sides and reading hundreds of pages of material published by Manhattan College, the NLRB ruled that Manhattan College was really not a Catholic institution. Manhattan for its entire existence has claimed to be a Catholic institution in the Lasalian order.

However, the NLRB based its ruling on evidence provided by Manhattan that attempted to described it religious ties in wording so vague that most secular institutions could use to describe their missions. Manhattan described the Lasalian philosophy as a belief in “excellence in teaching, respect for individual dignity, and commitment to social justice.”

The Regional NLRB continued by stating that  the primary hallmarks of an authentic Catholic college or university are exclusionary hiring, a proselytizing atmosphere, and dogmatic inflexibility in the curriculum. If this ruling stands, these could become the guidelines for judging whether an institution is a religious institution or not.

Why do I believe that this is not the final word on this issue?

By Leave a Comment

Charcteristics of an Ideal Major

Characteristics of an Ideal Major
What does the ideal major look like? Almost all undergraduate programs today consist of three parts: General Education, Major, Electives. The major is the primary area of study that the student wishes to pursue. In forty years of academic work, I have had the privilege of helping many programs or departments design and construct majors. In any building job, contractors and builders will tell you that it is absolutely necessary to have a plan before you start building. Those plans may be hand-drawn or put together by architects. In either case, the drawer or the architect begins the plans with a style or a philosophy from which to work. My philosophy of building an ideal major includes the following characteristics.

Definition: a major is a combination of related courses and competency requirements that upon completion will permit the student to pursue further study in the area or obtain an entry job in the area.

Necessary Characteristics:

1. Discipline: A major should be built upon a recognized academic discipline, interdisciplinary area or multidisciplinary combination.
2. Structure: The basic structural design of a major is linear, with a beginning, middle and end.
a. Beginning: Foundational courses introduce students to the primary subdivision of the discipline, and the prerequisite content and skills necessary for success in the discipline.
b. Middle: Core courses build upon the introductory courses providing breadth and depth in the discipline. These courses should include work with the literature, history, philosophical foundations, aesthetics, culture and language of the discipline. They should include increasing development of content, methodologies and skills of the discipline.
c. End: Capstone courses permit students to engage in in-depth work within the discipline. They should also introduce and engage the student in the process of integration of the discipline with other disciplines. Since all of my work has been at faith-based institutions, in the context of these institutions this integration should include the integration of faith and the discipline.
3. Coherence/Cohesiveness/Connectedness/Current: Each major should be designed in such a way that the requirements and topics studied are coherent (logically consistent and holding together as a harmonious and credible whole), cohesive (the requirements and topics studied stick or hold together working as a united whole), and connected (requirements and topics are joined or linked firmly together, having something in common). Each major should also represent the most recent views and interpretations of the discipline.
4. Breadth: The major should permit students to see and explore the breadth of the discipline in terms of content sub-divisions, and in terms of the literature, history, philosophical foundations, aesthetics, culture, language, methodologies, skills and values associated with the discipline
5. Depth: The major should provide enough in-depth work to permit students upon the completion of the major, the opportunity to begin engagement in graduate study within the discipline or a closely related discipline, or to obtain employment in an initial position.
6. Experiential Learning: Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to participate in an experiential learning component within the framework of the major. The major should develop experiential learning components that include a foundation for the experience, the experience itself which is based upon well-defined learning objectives, and a reflective component after the experience that provides an opportunity to tie together the achieved learning objectives. If credit is given, it is not to be given for the experience itself. It should be given for the completion of specified learning objectives in connection with the reflective component.
7. Service Learning: Each major should introduce the general principles of service learning and the specific principles of service associated with the particular discipline. Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to engage in service learning within the framework of the discipline, and encourage students to participate in a service learning experience. If credit is given it is not to be given just for the service; it is to be given for the learning component of the service learning experience.
8. Leadership: Each major should introduce the general principles of leadership and the specific principles of leadership associated with the particular discipline. Each major should provide an opportunity for every student to test his or her leadership potential, and encourage every student to aspire to appropriate leadership positions.
9. Multi-cultural/Cross-Cultural: Each major should provide students with the opportunity to become involved in a multicultural/cross-cultural or global experience within the framework of the discipline. Each major should encourage every student to take advantage of these offered experiences.
10. Thinking Skills: Each major should provide students with an understanding of and practice in the critical and creative thinking skills associate with the discipline. Upon completion of the major, each student should have been exposed to and required to demonstrate appropriate skill in the higher level thinking skills of evaluation, synthesis, analysis, application and understanding within the context of the discipline. Each student should have had adequate practice in creating, evaluating, analyzing, applying and understanding within the context of the discipline.
11. Communication Skills: Each major should provide students with an introduction to and practice in the various communication modes indigenous to the discipline. At a minimum, the major should have at least one writing intensive course required of all students. At a minimum, the major should have at least one course in which the student is required to make oral presentations.
12. Problem Solving Skills: Each major should introduce students to the main problem solving methodologies used by the discipline. Students should have adequate practice in solving typical problems of the disciplines.
13. Cooperative Learning/Collaboration: Each major should provide students with opportunities to engage in cooperative learning. Students should be encouraged to collaborate within the normal framework of the discipline.
14. Research Skills/Scholarship: Each major should introduce the students to the normal research practices of the disciplines. Students should be encouraged to engage in scholarship within the bounds of the discipline.
15. Career Planning: Each major should introduce the students to the normal career paths of individuals working within the disciplines. Each major should provide opportunities for students to career shadow a professional within the discipline. All students within the major should be encouraged to tentatively lay out career plans for themselves.
16. Portfolio Development: Each major should introduce students to the typical portfolio designs used within the discipline. Students should be encouraged to begin a professional portfolio that they could begin to use after graduation.
17. Ethical Concerns of the Discipline: Each major should introduce the students to the primary ethical concerns of the discipline. Students should be introduced to and required to read something from the primary authors who address ethical concerns within the discipline. All students should be required to begin to think about what position or positions they should take related to the primary ethical concerns of the discipline.
18. Lifelong Learning: Each major should encourage and instill within every student the understanding of the necessity for and the desire to engage in lifelong learning.
19. Citizenship within the Discipline: Each major should introduce students to the expectations of behavior of professionals within the discipline toward each other and toward the community. Students should be given opportunities to practice aspects of citizenship before they graduate.
20. Economical: Each major should be designed in such a way that it is as efficient and economical as possible for both student and faculty. It should offer the necessary courses to achieve the mission and goals of the major, but not require, or even offer a proliferation of unnecessary courses.
21. Resources: Each major should have the necessary resources (personnel, facilities, equipment, library material, and technology) to achieve its goals and mission and satisfy the fulfillment of these characteristics.
Since my entire career has been in faith-based institutions, for such institutions I would add another characteristic.
22. Integration of Faith and Learning: Integration of faith and learning refers to the process of combining a discipline and one’s faith in such a way that the process gives meaning to or helps interpret isolated facts or makes connections between one’s faith and the discipline. It is an attempt to synthesize knowledge. Integration approaches knowledge and problems from interdisciplinary and/or multi-disciplinary points of view. The key questions in integration are: a)”What do the findings mean?”and b)”How do they provide a larger, more comprehensive understanding of the discipline and/or one’s faith? The major should not only help the student to begin the process of integration of faith and learning, but should also help the student engage in the process in some meaningful way.

By Leave a Comment

What does higher education have in common with the watch industry, the chocolate industry and toilet paper manufacturers?

What Can Higher Education Learn From the Watch Industry, the Chocolate Industry and the Toilet Paper Industry?

Bayard Baylis

Many in higher education do not believe that higher education can’t learn anything from any industry since they do not believe that education is an industry. I believe higher education is a very special industry that focuses on knowledge and learning. As such we in higher education have a responsibility to learn as much as we can from any source. We can learn much from these industries and endeavors. Recently, there have been a number of comparisons made between higher education and the automotive industry and the housing boom. I have written one comparing higher education and the automotive industry that is available as another part of this blog.

From the appearance of the first clock in Sumeria around 5000 BC, clock development appeared to be proceeding at a snail’s pace until the 14th century, when large mechanical clocks started to appear in Europe. For the next 300 years clock development slowed to a crawl again until the beginning of the 17th century when Peter Henlein, a scientist from Nuremberg, came up with a design for clocks based upon the use of wound springs, which oscillated at a precise rate. Henlein’s design of a wound spring allowed for small clocks that could be carried by individuals, thus by 1680 people were carrying pocket watches. Over the next century better materials and better production methodologies, driven by the needs of soldiers for a hands-free time device, lead to the creation of the wrist watch. Over the next two centuries, without any major changes in design, the accuracy of clocks was increased to one second per day.  The next major change in clock design occurred in the 1920s when oscillation of quartz crystals was used to generate an electric signal and operate an electronic clock display. Scientific advances of the 1930s and 1940s made possible clocks built on the vibrations of atoms excited by electromagnetic waves.

From 1950 to 1980, there were two competing camps in wrist watch production. The first was the mechanical wrist watch design. The second was the electronic watch. Several manufacturers decided to stay with the centuries old design and manufacturing pattern. They believed that  they had a loyal customer base who were willing to pay the higher price for a high quality, hand-crafted time piece that could also be considered a piece of fine jewelry. Doesn’t this sound like higher education, particularly residential, liberal arts colleges? What customer would want a digital display? Didn’t watches have to have a face with hands? Why would people want to change? So the manufacturers didn’t. Their market share held up for a while, but eventually the electronic watches, even with those strange digital displays, overtook the traditional watches with faces and hands. In order to stay viable, many of the older, established watch companies had to start making both kinds of watches.  Even today, there are still people who appreciate and want a prestige watch piece and are willing to pay the price for such a hand-crafted watch. The customers who choose this option can’t say it is for accuracy because the electronic models are more accurate. It is a decision that is based on other factors.

What lessons can we learn from the watch manufacturers? The first lesson is that we need to be open to and continually looking for new ways of doing what we do, particularly ways that are very different from the current way of doing it. Incremental design changes will most likely only make incremental changes in results. To make large changes we have to look for significant design changes. Why is this important for higher education? I would propose that many people inside and most outside of higher education believe that we can do much better in the education of college students. Having done the same thing for a hundred years with the same results, why should we expect a different result if we continue to follow this pattern with only small changes?

The second lesson from the watch manufacturers is that if we are not willing to change we may not have the opportunity to continue to do it the old way. What the traditional watch manufacturers were doing was making art. The product was a piece of art. However, the new design watches and new manufacturers were challenging the market share and viability of the traditional companies. A number of traditional companies decided to go with dual processes and dual products so that they could continue the work of the artisans within the company and still supply the loyal, traditional customers with the traditional product that they wanted.

The third lesson is that we can’t always dictate what the public will want and what the public will purchase. Another way of stating this third lesson is that it is just not all about us. We do need to consider the needs and desires of the individuals we are or should be serving. IS higher education ready to accept this? What did the public want from watches? The traditionalists in the watch manufacturers could not understand how the general public would want or buy the strange new watches. Some of them didn’t even have hands. They had digital displays. They were not works of art. What was the general public telling the watch manufacturers? Art was not the most important thing in the minds of the public. They wanted an inexpensive instrument that would provide them with the time of day. An inexpensive digital display was more than sufficient to do that. What is the general public telling higher education? I believe they are telling us that they want an inexpensive credential that will open the doors to new or better jobs. We had not convinced them that knowing how to think would be important to them and to society as a whole.

What’s so special about chocolate? Almost everyone remembers the famous line from Forrest Gump, “My Mama always said that, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.’” Is Education like a box of chocolates? It is fairly obvious that we can’t predict exactly what is going to happen to each student as he or she goes through the educational process.

What can higher education learn from the chocolate industry? Have you ever walked down Bay Street in San Francisco, CA toward Ghirardelli Square and the Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Manufactory? Several blocks from Ghirardelli Square, you can smell a sweet aroma that you can almost taste. Have you ever walked down Chocolate Avenue in Hershey, PA? You can smell a sweet aroma that is similar to but still different from the aroma in San Francisco. The difference in aromas is not the biggest difference between Ghirardelli and Hershey chocolate. The two companies use different marketing approaches and different pricing structures. They use different recipes and different processes to manufacture their chocolate. However, to truly appreciate the difference you have to taste it.  The difference in flavors from the chocolate of the two companies is easily detected. The two companies represent a truly bifurcated industry. Ghirardelli can be taken as a representative of companies like Dove, Cadbury, Godiva and other gourmet chocolate makers. Hershey can be taken as a representative of companies like Mars, Nestle and other chocolate candy makers. The gourmet chocolate makers do not attempt to infiltrate the customer base of the chocolate candy makers. The gourmet chocolate makers know they can’t compete on price and with some people in terms of the taste. The chocolate candy makers for the most part do not attempt to produce gourmet chocolate. It is not what they are known for. Production of gourmet chocolate would be too expensive. Their customer base would not pay for gourmet chocolate. For example, I greatly enjoy a Cadbury cream filled chocolate egg; however, one of my daughters when she was growing up would not touch a Cadbury egg. She much preferred a Nestle chocolate egg in her Easter basket. Our other daughter was turned onto Dove chocolate at an early age and would turn up her nose to regular chocolate candy in favor of the smooth taste and consistency of the Dove chocolate. To her the difference in taste was well-worth the difference in price, even when she was spending her own money.

Higher education is a bifurcated industry. Prestigious, residential liberal arts colleges are expensive and almost universally considered high quality. As suggested by Charles Murray in his book “Real Education” and a number of other higher education writers in a November 8, 2009, Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled, “Are Too Many Students Going to College?”, the residential liberal arts colleges are beyond the academic reach of 85% or more of American high school graduates. These authors are not suggesting that these students give up on college altogether. They are suggesting that the residential liberal arts college model is not the most appropriate model for them. What models are appropriate? The authors are suggesting the local community colleges and smaller comprehensive colleges and universities with technical and developmental programs are less costly and more appropriate options. These authors are not suggesting a decrease of access to quality academic programs for qualified students, but to use academic intelligence and not economic status as a guide to opening the door to higher education. This seems to be consistent with the historical record from ancient Greece. No students, regardless of economic status, were excluded from the educational process. However, the ancient Greeks were academic elitists and seemed to be very strict in their use of academic ability as a measuring stick. Students at a very early age were evaluated. For those who didn’t have the ability to meet minimum requirements were sent off to the guilds to learn a trade. At about age 17, only students with the highest academic qualifications were permitted to continue to the highest form of academic pursuits, the reflective pursuit of theoretical knowledge. Students who did not meet these standards were sent off to military or public service options.

If we look at the chocolate candy industry, we would conclude that the residential, liberal arts colleges and the comprehensive institutions need to “stick to their knitting” and not try to interject themselves into the other’s prime market. Comprehensive institutions, particularly commuter-based institutions, are not well set up to engage in residential liberal arts education in terms of curricula and pedagogy. To switch would be very expensive and time-consuming, with no guarantee of positive results. For these institutions, many of their students are not ready for or open to the different type of education.

So far in this essay I have tried to use common industries and products to help us learn what’s happening in higher education. For my third common product, I wanted to find a product that was a universal product. It had to be available everywhere. I wanted a product that had a distribution system that was effective, efficient and economical. I also wanted a product for which the distribution system had changed drastically from its original form because, in its original form, the distribution system could not keep up with the demand for the product. One obvious choice is toilet paper.

What is the history of toilet paper? Toilet paper seems to have originated in China in the 15th century. Large 2 feet by 3 feet sheets of scented paper were produced for the use of the emperor to clean himself. Sheets of this size are obviously not practical for mass production or wide-spread distribution of the product. By the end of the 16th century, the invention of the flushing toilet and the improvements in community sewers and private septic systems sparked the need for more practical disposable paper cleaners. It was not uncommon for people  to use newspapers and other written material. By the middle of the 19th century perforated rolls of soft paper became available in the USA.  Paper in this form is now universally available and consistent throughout all of the USA and much of the world.

What’s this got to do with education? What are many students seeking from education? I believe that for many students their most important desire is to obtain credentials. How do students obtain credentials? They accumulate the credit hours that colleges are selling. Many students have questions about the cost, convenience and quality of the credentials that are available to them in the current format.

If colleges and universities do not address the concerns of students who wish to obtain credentials, then students will go to other vendors where they can get credentials more conveniently and more economically. If colleges and universities are to be a force in providing credentials to students, they must find ways to distribute appropriate credentials in ways that are effective, efficient and economical. The current means of credential distribution do not seem to be doing this. Colleges and universities must look to possibly new and very different distribution means, just like the toilet paper industry had to come up with a very different approach, going from individual sheets of paper to rolls of perforated paper. What will be the paper roll equivalent in college credentialing?