Excellence – By's Musings

In a very unscientific survey, I asked 20 people what was the first thing they thought of when I said the word, “Hallmark.” Almost everyone (95%) said a “card” or “greeting card”, which I assumed to be the same answer. The one person who answered differently said, “A television channel.” We can guess what this individual most often watches on television, and it’s probably not sports on the ESPN network.

Hallmark Cards, Inc. has had a huge impact on American society. It is a brand name that has become almost synonymous with its main product. Its branding phrases are used far beyond the realms of the use of its products. The phrase “Life is a special occasion” summarizes an upbeat, philosophical point of view that is used at joyous occasions and as a celebration of life at those time that may not be completely joyous.

The phrase, “When you care enough to send the very best” has been Hallmark’s official slogan since 1944. It became a pass phrase for excellence, and drove Hallmark to the position of being the number one card company in the world. With the demand for greeting cards it helped develop, this one phrase may have also changed the whole industry of greeting cards. It opened the door to other niche card companies to become successful as well.

What is the original of the name and word Hallmark? There are two primary dictionary definitions of the word. The first is a “signature characteristic.” What does that mean? A signature characteristic is that one distinctive trait that “says it all.” It describes the essence of the object or organization. The second definition is a “mark or indication of excellence, quality or purity.” It is the sign that guarantees the purity, origin or genuineness of an object.

I found the etymology of the word very interesting. It all began with the “Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths”, first chartered in London in 1327. In addition to being a livery company, they were also entrusted with the task of ensuring the quality and purity of gold and silver objects that were sold in Great Britain. The Goldsmith’s Company has operated out of the same location since they built the first of three Goldsmiths’ Halls in 1339. To show people that a particular object had been tested and its purity and origin were verified, a seal of approval was stamped into the object or attached to it. That seal became known as the Hallmark.

Five years ago, I would have loved these word games associated with the term Hallmark. Today thinking visually, I have my own definition of Hallmark. FIrst, what’s a hall? It can be a large building that can serve as a meeting place for large groups of people, or for special purposes such as a classroom building on a college campus. However, a hall is also a passage way within a building to allow people to go from one area to another.

Although I can envisioned a hallway in a college classroom or administration building, the hall to which I was drawn was a hall of a large castle. If one walks down a hall in a castle, what does one see? Scattered on the walls are portraits of family members or ancestors of the family that owns the castle. These portraits celebrate the people of the family and their greatest accomplishments. The second thing one sees as one walks down the hall are mementos of the family celebrating the great events of the family. The portraits and mementos are hallmarks, celebrating the origin, the quality and the excellent achievements of the family of the castle. This is my visual definition of the term hallmark.

A Modest Proposal for the Re-engineering of American Higher Education

By Baylis ?²

For many years, I have been intrigued with any title that begins with a phrase “A Modest Proposal.” Jonathan Swift’s classic satirical essay from 1729 has conditioned everyone to know that what follows is anything but modest, and possibly bordering on sensationalism. I have deliberately used the phrase “A modest proposal” to get people’s attention. However, the heart of the essay is not a satire. I truly believe that American higher education would benefit from adopting some, if not all twenty, of the suggestions that I make in the body of the essay.

I will also admit that I used another sensational term in the title of the essay. “Re-engineering” grabs people’s attention because it has come to mean radical changes that could affect the entire institution. That’s exactly the idea that I wanted to convey.

Education is helping students develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to move them from where they are to where they need or want to be. There are two actors in this process. Each actor has different responsibilities and roles. Students must come to education with goals. They should know what they want to be. The role of faculty is to identify where the students are and the best route to take the students to where they want to or need to be. Faculty need to realize that the students’ goals are important and they should not unnecessarily impose their own goals on students. Faculty should serve as guides in assisting students along the route to reaching their goals. Students need to realize that education is hard work. It is not an entitlement; it is a privilege.
American higher education should adopt a Social Change Model of Education as the foundational philosophy for building its superstructure. The basic tenet of a Social Change Model of Education is that education should be about helping students learn so that they can improve themselves, society, and the community.
Within the framework of a Social Change Model of Education, institutions need to focus the educational process on helping students acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary to live useful lives in order to better themselves and society. An institution must pay attention to all three areas of knowledge, skills, and dispositions. In a 1978 hit song, Michael Lee Aday, commonly known as Meatloaf, suggested that in the area of personal relationships, “Two out of three, ain’t bad” However, in education, “Two out of three, ain’t enough.”
Each institution must have a clearly delineated mission. All individuals involved with the given institution must have a solid understanding of the mission of the institution and a firm commitment to that mission.
The mission of an institution must be clearly communicated to all prospective students and the community at large. The leaders of an institution, especially the president, administrators and faculty, must understand the history of the institution and how that affects the current development of the institution and possible future development.
Institutions need to hire, evaluate and reward faculty in terms of helping students learn. Good teaching should be measured in terms of student learning. Teaching itself is only a means to the end of learning, not an end in itself.
Institutions should consider revamping graduation requirements more in line with competencies instead of credit hours earned in course blocks. What’s more important, the number of credits earned by sitting through the required number of class hours, or what a student knows, can do, and values?
Schools need to consider scrapping the current semester, trimester. or quarter systems that are agriculturally based, in favor of a more flexible schedule that allows or even encourages learning anytime and anywhere, possibly in a 24/7/365 format.
Institutions should be aware and open to the possibility that curricula will evolve. Some new disciplines will emerge while some old disciplines will become obsolete.
Institutions should consider revamping their fiscal model away from the charge for credit hours to one more closely aligned with charging students a credentialing fee based upon completion of competencies.
Faculty must be encouraged to study learning theory with an eye to understanding and using different teaching modalities other than just lecturing. Faculty must be encouraged to experiment with educational pedagogies and technologies appropriate to discipline.
Faculty must know their students. They must be aware of and account for the varying goals of the students they are teaching. It is not the job of faculty to produce clones of the faculty. The job of faculty is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to improve themselves and society.
Institutions should be prepared to provide appropriate learning spaces and resources for faculty and students, including classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and technology.
Institutions should consider paying faculty according to their track record of helping students learn or complete competencies, instead of their degrees and years of service.
Institutions must be prepared to offer developmental resources to faculty to help them use the most appropriate pedagogies and technologies in their teaching.
Faculty should be open to the possibility of unbundling their work. Faculty may have to be open to the idea that faculty governance is too expensive and inefficient.
Faculty need to understand that tenure and academic freedom are not entitlements, but are privileges.
Faculty and institutions need to be abused of their unattainable illusions of grandeur. Not all institutions can be prestigious, research universities. Institutions must get off the academic treadmill of trying to keep up with the institutions that are their neighbors or competitors.
Institutions must realize that not all institutions will look the same. Some institutions will be geared toward a residential clientele. Some institutions will focus on commuter students and some institutions will serve a mixed clientele. Serving these differing collections of student types will mean institutions will have to tailor facilities, curricula, schedules, and teaching modalities to the students they are serving.
Everyone associated with an institution–Board of Trustees, President, administration, faculty, and students–must be held accountable for their part in the well-functioning of the institution and promoting student learning.

I believe the quality academic institutions of the future may look and feel very different from the quality academic institutions of the past. That’s the basis for my modest proposal. We should be ready to embrace the new look of academic institutions and not be afraid of it.