Lodestar – By's Musings

This post has been very difficult to write and has required multiple drafts. Image courtesy of Presenter Media.

American Higher Education (AHE) has lost its lodestar. This post has been a lot harder to write than I thought it would be. At first, I was extremely excited to write this post. However, as I began to compose it, I immediately hit a number of roadblocks.

The first roadblock related to the way I process thoughts and ideas. As many of you know, almost a decade ago two traumatic brain incidents drastically changed my life. After a burst aneurysm caused the implosion of a benign meningioma attached to my right temporal lobe, I started having trouble finding words. I found myself fighting a case of oral aphasia.

Nine months later, I experienced four tonic-clonic seizures within a thirty-minute timespan. When I awoke from a four-day coma, I found myself no longer thinking in terms of words. I was now processing thoughts and ideas in terms of pictures. Words became my second language. Visual images were now my first language. This meant that in order to communicate with people, I had to translate back and forth between pictures and words.

My mind was overflowing with pictures that spoke to this issue of American higher education. However, translating those visuals into words was much more difficult and slower than usual. If I was able to compose other posts, why had this particular post become so problematic?

During my struggles with this post, I had a eureka moment. In the deep recesses of my mind, I found a perfect word, LODESTAR, that covered four aspects of the topic I wanted to address.

First of all, a lodestar is a fixed point of reference, which can be used to describe the position or motion of one object relative to another object.

There have been dramatic changes in both American higher education and society during the past century. AHE needs a lodestar to position itself in relation to American society.

Secondly, as a fixed point, a lodestar can be used as the foundation of a guidance system to help individuals get from one point to another, particularly when they are lost. AHE has lost its way. It needs a GPS.

It is wandering aimlessly from one crisis to the next. Headline after headline decries its loss of effectiveness in serving the needs of American society, its declining support in public circles, and its strident and stubborn insularity.

In article after article, questions are raised about the declining confidence of American society in higher education, and the seeming indifference of AHE to the external demands for change. The internal conflicts among the primary actors within AHE are laid bare to the public, exposing all to criticism and contempt.

Comparisons between education for life and career education are plentiful. The philosophical and theoretical bases for liberal and professional education are made public for everyone to pick a side.

In analysis after analysis critics and proponents explore hypotheses about the rising cost of higher education, the short and long-term effects of the staggering debt load that students and institutions are accumulating, the commercialization of higher education, and the adjunctification of the faculty.

Thirdly, lodestars are models of propriety. They live by fixed values and principles, no matter what the cost to them or their institutions. Currently, it seems that every week brings another scandal to light in American higher education. No segment of AHE has escaped unscathed.

Finally, a lodestar is an inspirational leader. I challenge you to name one individual in educational circles today who inspires others to follow him or her.

Individual campuses may have local lodestars. However, where are the likes of Ernie Boyer, Lee Shulman, John Dewey, Mortimer Adler, Maria Montessori, Paulo Freire, Bertrand Russell, Maxine Greene, B. F. Skinner, James Conant, and Martin Buber? At this junction of time, the enterprise of American higher education has no one individual who stands out ahead of the rest of the field.

As I was pulling my thoughts together for this post, a political/media circus in America made the term lodestar a laughing matter and a joke. How could I seriously use it in this post about American higher education? I decided that I could use it, and must use it because it is the right word to use.

Having settled on the inclusion of the word lodestar, there were still two major stumbling blocks with respect to this post. The first related to the format I have used in all my recent posts. After I translated the pictures in my head into words, I took another step. Since I am not an artist and can’t draw an intelligible sketch of anything, I went and found free pictures that would duplicate as closely as possible the visions in my head. I did this to help my readers understand my thought processes.

In this case, I drew a complete blank. I found nothing that came close to communicating my thoughts. Thus, I have no visual robes to wrap around my verbal thoughts. I decided to go ahead and present the unadorned thoughts to my readers. I do have one question for my readers: Which style do you prefer? The verbal thoughts augmented with pictures, or the naked thoughts by themselves? Please tell me in the comment in the box below. I will use this rough survey to help me determine how I will proceed with my future posts. The second stumbling block was the 1,000-word limit. This will require multiple posts on this topic which will follow in future weeks.

In my next post, scheduled for publication on Tuesday, October 23, I return to my roots as a mathematician and an institutional researcher. I will introduce a new Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that I developed. I call it the Admissions Multiplier Effect. I believe it provides important information that is not otherwise available and should be featured on the dashboard of every institution of higher education.

How should we improve or fix a broken structure? All images in this post are courtesy of Presenter Media.

This is the initial post in my Point versus Counterpoint thread. The proposal that I wish to address is the following: “When faced with the profound challenge of making significant changes to an existing program, facility or policy, what is the best approach for an institution to take?” Should the organization remodel the existing structure, or tear it down and completely rebuild a new structure from the ground up?

What happens when the pieces don’t fit together just right? You get a lot of pushing back and forth.

I have seen battles over this question severely divide more than one campus. Many times within education, these battles degenerate into classic clashes between traditionalists and disrupters, between evolutionists and innovators, or between the old guard and the young Turks.

In the quintessential debate approach of Point versus Counterpoint, it would be incumbent upon me to select a side on the “Repurpose or Build Anew” question. During my 50 years in the academy, I have been known as a traditionalist who studied and revered the best aspects of education’s rich history.

During 35+ years as a college administrator, I also had a reputation as being an approachable leader who listened carefully and made thoughtful decisions based upon all the evidence. These two characteristics might suggest that I should assume a role as a supporter of the “repurpose” side.

However, throughout my career, I have been acknowledged as an educational entrepreneur. I have been recognized for my ability to think outside the box while still accommodating those inside the box. Often I championed new and different approaches to problem-solving when the old methods were not working. I have been known for pushing for innovation and change when change is needed.

On the Rogers Adoption/Innovation Curve most of my former colleagues would place me in the Innovator or Early Adopter segments. I have always been known as someone who was eager to find new solutions to long-standing problems and pushed the limits on how the technology could help. These characteristics would suggest that I should assume the role of a supporter of the “build anew” side.

Even though I have had a 60+ year love affair with education, I am deeply concerned about its future. Given my recent work on the financial models of education and my research into the demise of more than 1600 American colleges or campuses since 1950, I see so much that is broken in American higher education that I often wondered where it is heading.

Since this is my blog, I will take an owner’s prerogative and assume the compromise position of favoring “Building Anew, Except in Very Limited Cases, When Repurposing Is Appropriate and the Most Feasible Approach.”

Why do I believe that “building anew” is the best choice for American higher education? Let me count the ways that I believe American higher education is in trouble.

American higher education has lost its lodestar. Where is the inspirational, values-based, principled leadership that developed the most advanced, highest quality system of higher education in the world?
The three segments of American higher education (public, non-profit private, and proprietary) treat each other as enemies and competitors rather than allies.
The basic financial model of American higher education is broken. How can a system survive that relies on billions of dollars annually from endowment and donors, and complains when those donors ask for something in return? How can a system take billions of dollars from public coffers and then balk at questions of accountability? How can a principled-system saddle its consumers (students) with more than $1.3 Trillion in debt load?
The internal structure of most institutions of higher education in American consists of isolated silos which have little to no communication with each other. Within most colleges, the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing.
American higher education has seemingly pushed the individuals who should be the most important persons in the system, the students, to the periphery. Investors are only interested in their Return on Investment (ROI). Administrators and faculty bicker constantly, bitterly accusing each other of sabotaging the enterprise and only looking out for their own self-interests. Students and parents complain incessantly that no one is listening to them.
Many students, parents, and politicians act as if education is an entitlement rather than a labor-intensive, responsibility. Debates on whether students should be given the rewards of education without the expending the hard work to earn them are waged privately across campuses and publicly in the media.
American education has fallen into the trap of the “Procrustean Bed” thinking one form of education fits all students and one measuring stick is sufficient for all institutions.
Society rallies around the banner of American higher education raised as the clarion call for social mobility. Community leaders then throw their hands up in despair when the data show it is not working. They conveniently forget that history suggests and the data show that education institutions tend to be excellent reflections of our society and not particularly effective change agents. Yes, there are individual victories. However, there have been too few to change our society as a whole.

Do you have a piece of the puzzle that I have missed. Please let me know what it is.

Readers, it is now your turn to engage in this conversation. Are there problem areas that I have missed? Please let me know now. In future posts, I intend to individually address each of the above areas. Readers, if you have a different take on those areas, you will an opportunity to weigh in on those areas at that time.

My next post, scheduled for Tuesday, October 16, will begin to address the issue of the lost lodestar of American higher education. Thank you for joining this journey. Enjoy your coffee and the conversation.