Philosophy

May 4, 2019 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Some Mathematicians Are Different

This is a modified page scan of “The Ugly Duckling” a story from “Fairy tales and stories” by Hans Christian Anderson, translated by Hans Lien Brækstad, with illustrations by Hans Tegner. The book was originally published in 1900. and as such is in the Public Domain. Image is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

From the comments I received after I published the recent post Are All Mathematicians Crazy?, it is obvious that I didn’t convince many readers that some mathematicians are almost normal. I readily admit that some mathematicians are off the chart on the eccentric side of the normality continuum. These famous curve busters make it difficult for the rest of us. There are mathematicians who indeed were strange birds and didn’t always fit the normal mode. They were different and stood out from their peers. Through the years, these unconventional mavericks have gotten most of the press coverage. Once you admit that you are a mathematician, you are automatically branded as different.

In a series of posts, I will discuss some of the more stranger mathematicians among us. The earliest outlier that I want to discuss is Pythagoras of Samos (c. 570 – c. 495 BC). He has been called by many the leading philosopher and ethicist of his day. Since there is no record of Pythagoras ever putting quill to papyrus, we have none of his works in his own words. All that we know of him and his teachings are what others have recorded. If half of the legends concerning Pythagoras are true, then in today’s vernacular, he could easily be labeled “a strange duck.”

Cropped photograph of the bust of Pythagoras in the Vatican Museum. Pythagoras is portrayed as a tired old man. This photograph was uploaded to English Wikipedia by Andargor in March 2008. Andragor released the image to the public domain. Image courtesy of Andragor and Wikimedia Commons.

Although he influenced many great philosophers, ethicists, and mathematicians, he is probably best known for the formula bearing his name, the Pythagorean Theorem, which states that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. However, Pythagoras didn’t discover this formula since it was used in construction in Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations at least one millennium before he lived. It bears his name because Pythagoras is credited with the first generalized proof of this relationship, which is the proof I referenced in my previous post Are All Mathematicians Crazy?.

In terms of Pythagoras’ life, there are many contradictory stories. We believe he was born on Samos, a Greek Island in the Aegean Sea near modern day Turkey. His father most likely was a European merchant living and trading on Samos. Legend has it that Pythagoras, as a child and young man, traveled extensively throughout Asia, Asia Minor, Europe, and Africa. He reportedly sat under the tutelage of the best teachers and priests in Asia Minor, India, Egypt, and Greece.

Photograph of a page from the book “The Story of the greatest nations” by Ellis and Horn, published in 1913. The scene depicts the Pythagorean School in Croton. Since the book was published before 1924, it is in the Public Domain. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

We know that he was a gifted thinker and a great teacher. People traveled from all over the world to sit at his feet and learn from the master. He started a school known as the Semicircle since that was the shape of the Pythagorean classroom. This classroom model is still very common in college settings today. Pythagoras would take center stage with a clear view of all students, while the students could see all other students and direct answers and questions directly to them as well as the teacher. However, students have always been students. Notice the lack of attention on the face of the one student in the foreground, staring off into space. Even the great teacher Pythagoras couldn’t keep her attention.

In the illustration of the Pythagorean School, most of the students depicted are women. Pythagoras was the first Greek philosopher or teacher who advocated education for women. He was also the first prominent Greek to promote monogamy within marriage. His influence on women’s rights and the education of women was felt for centuries.

From his time in an Egyptian temple, he may have picked up his ideas on metempsychosis, the belief in reincarnation. It is reported that Pythagoras could recall all of his former lives. He entertained his students and followers for hours on end with stories of his former lives. Since he believed that he was there in one of his former lives, he supposedly enthralled his listeners with vivid accounts of the great battle and fall of Troy. In at least one incarnation, Pythagoras was supposedly a beautiful courtesan, a prostitute who lived an unhappy and unfulfilled life in the lap of luxury, courtesy of her wealthy customers. Some writers attribute his high regard for women to the time he spent as this oppressed woman with few rights.

A photograph of the Temple at Luxor in 1867 by Félix Bonfils. This image is in the public domain since Bonfils died in 1885 and the copyright subsequently expired. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

While in Egypt, it has been reported that he was admitted into the priesthood at the Temple of Karnak near the cities of Thebes (Greek name: Diospolis – city of the gods) and Luxor. If true, he would have been the only non-Egyptian to have ever been granted this great honor. Supposedly he learned much of his geometry from the Egyptian priests. They also instilled in him their lifestyle and moral codes, which included abstinence from sexual pleasure, and avoidance of clothes made from animal skins. The Theban priests were vegetarians with one quirk. They refused to eat or even touch beans. This unusual behavior was apparently well-engrained into Pythagoras.

Pythagoras studied at Luxor for ten years until Cyrus and the Persian army defeated the Egyptians in 526 BC. In the battle for Thebes, the Persians killed Egyptian Pharoah Psamtik III, son of Amasis II. The Persians were so enamored by the size and beauty of the Luxor Temple that they ordered the defeated Egyptians to rebuild Thebes and repair all damages to the Luxor Temple. The Persians were also impressed with the intelligence of Pythagoras, a Greek they found among the priests at Luxor. They took him captive back to Babylon, where he studied under the wisest sages of Persia for another ten years.

Photograph of a page from an early 16th Century French manuscript drawn by an unknown artist using a pen, brown ink and watercolor on paper. It depicts Pythagoras repulsed by fava beans. The manuscript was a gift of Andrea Woodner to the National Museum of Art, Washington, D.C. Image courtesy of the Woodner Collection, National Museum of Art, and Wikimedia Commons.

Many historians believe that after leaving Egypt, Pythagoras had a life-long battle with an irrational fear of beans. If the legends are correct, his leguminophobia may have cost him his life. Years later when his school at Croton in Italy was attacked and destroyed, Pythagoras supposedly escaped. While running away from the attackers, he stumbled upon a field of beans. He froze in his tracks and would not go any further. According to one legend, the rioters found him terror-stricken, cowering at the edge of the field he had refused to enter. They proceeded to beat and club the old man to death.

According to a second legend, the rioters knew Pythagoras was deathly afraid of beans. Thus, they never searched for him in the vicinity of the bean field because they knew that Pythagoras would have never approached it. After hiding in the weeds on the edge of the bean field for a long time, Pythagoras returned to his school. Seeing that it was destroyed and many of his students killed, he left Croton for Metapontum to escape persecution for his anti-democracy teachings. In Metapontum, he supposedly hid in the Temple of the Muses. He reframed from eating because the priests of the Temple didn’t provide the vegetarian diet he requested. They offered him meat and beans. After 40 days of a self-imposed hunger strike, he died of starvation in the temple.

There are many other stories and legends of the exploits of Pythagoras. If only a small fraction of them were true, Pythagoras was indeed different and could be considered a strange duck. The next unusual mathematician that I will consider is Archimedes. In the meantime, I will return to my series on the changing scene in American higher education.

October 16, 2018 By B. Baylis 4 Comments

American Higher Education Has Lost Its Lodestar!

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.

June 11, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Importance of Investing in Real Knowledge

Benjamin Franklin reportedly said: “If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays best interest.” This particular quote emphasizes the importance for an individual to acquire knowledge at any price. In some ways it is analogous to Christ’s teaching from the sermon on the mount:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6: 19-21, KJV)

Both were teaching that there are things that are more valuable than material wealth. Whereas Christ was teaching the supremacy of spiritual things, Franklin raised the flag of intellectualism. However, it seems both teachings were lost on much of American culture for the first 150 years of this country’s existence. The predominant, driving force in the United States from 1776 until 1929 was materialism, the accumulation of wealth and material things.

Beginning in the 1930s, American society in general started transitioning from an industrial society to a new type of culture where value was based on technology, information and the use of information. Fritz Machlup was the first economist to popularize the term information society. Following in his foot steps, Peter Drucker was credited by BusinessWeek with the invention of the science of management. In 1966, he was the first author to give currency to the terms knowledge economy and knowledge worker. A knowledge economy is an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality and accessibility of available information, rather than the means of production.

By the year 2000, the concept of the knowledge worker had permeated all levels of all industries. Drucker can easily be seen as a disciple of Franklin…put your money in knowledge. In 2004, in Handbook of Business Strategy, Vol. 5 Iss: 1, George Elliott wrote: “Cognitive excellence: our people are our most important asset.” A year later, Baruch Lev, director of the Intangibles Research Project at New York University Stern School of Business, stated that “people are the most important asset of most companies.” Not only their knowledge, but the people themselves had become assets. This set off a firestorm of arguments. Are people to be treated like material resources?

However, in the 21st century, people are not the only intangible assets. In Lev’s earlier work, he demonstrated that in 1980, the total value of many international corporations was fully accounted for by their tangible assets. Today, he estimates that 80 percent of their value is tied up in intangible assets — brands, patents and trademarks. Note, that he didn’t mention people or intellectual property. Franklin seems to be right. Investing in knowledge, both by individuals investing in their own knowledge and by corporations investing in their employees’ knowledge, pays off most handsomely.

I can’t argue with the main premise of Franklin’s maxim. However, I do think that today we take, and even Franklin in his day took too narrow a definition of knowledge. Franklin was placing his emphasis on “head” or content knowledge. I want to broaden the scope of knowledge to everything that can be an answer to the question, “What can I know?” How many different ways do we fill in the blank in the phrase, “I know ________.”

How many times have we said:

“I know something.” This is the content knowledge of a subject matter. This is what many of our school teachers asked us to learn.
“I know how to do something.” This is a skill that we learned or could do instinctively.
“I know what I like.” These are the values that I hold dear.
“I know myself.” This is personal knowledge that we generally believe that we don’t learn, but just know.
“I know that person.” This is social or relational knowledge.” Sometimes this knowledge is very deep and intense. Other times this knowledge is superficial at best, and is said to be a “nodding acquaintance.”
“I know God.” This is very personal and is on a different level from the material or physical world. This is spiritual or supernatural knowledge.

These six types of knowledge constitute whole or real knowledge. In another post I will more fully examine the six types of knowledge and how one can obtain such knowledge. In the meantime, like the television advertisement suggests, now is the time to start investing more in your future.

May 1, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

The Business Model for Higher Education is Broken, Part II

In Part I of this series on the business model for higher education, we postulated that higher education must be operated as a business. I begin this post by reinforcing that assumption by referring to two articles. The first one is the blog posting According to the Duck Test, Higher Education is a Business that I wrote and published here in By’s Musings in August 2010. I began that post by relating an incident that occurred on the farm next door to our home as I was growing up. I remember vividly one instance when the farmer, completely frustrated with his broken down tractor, was yelling and screaming, and calling the tractor a “piece of junk,.” and threatening to send it to the “tractor graveyard.” From my experiences of watching and working with my father as he fixed broken machines, I learned that nothing was irreparably damaged. He operated under the principle that anything could be fixed. Our heavenly Father operates under this same principle. From scripture we know that if we confess our sins, truly repent of them, then God the Father will forgive us, cleanse us, repair us and not condemn us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9, KJV) and There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1, KJV) When my facial and body expressions questioned the farmer’s judgment, he proceeded to teach me a lesson that I never forgot, and one that I have used many times since then.

The farmer looked at me and said, “Son, do you know the Duck Test?” I hesitated a little and finally said sheepishly, “No Sir, I don’t.” The farmer, with a condescending glance said, “Well you really should, so let me tell you. When I see an animal in the farm-yard that looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck, I am very confident that animal is a duck.”

In my 2010 post, I went on to delineate many of the ways that Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) resemble businesses. Relying on the duck test, my argument that institutions of higher education (IHEs) are businesses consisted of the following premises:

IHEs must be incorporated or chartered by the state.
IHEs own or rent property.
IHEs pay taxes or users’ fees.
IHEs have employees, who form or threaten to form unions to gain bargaining power against an entrenched management known as the administration.
IHEs must pay their employees wages at or above the federal or local minimum wage.
IHEs must pay FICA for all employees, except those excluded legally. If the institution doesn’t pay FICA, the employees are required to pay FICA as self-employed individuals, making those individuals businesses.
IHEs must provide medical insurance consistent with federal or local laws.
IHEs must meet all federal and local compliance regulations placed upon businesses.
IHEs offer products or services to individuals. Whether, you label those products or services courses, credit hours, instruction or an education, the institutions collect money in exchange for those products or services.
IHEs compete for students (just like businesses compete for customers).
Just like a business, the expenses of a given IHE can only exceed its revenue for a limited period of time. It doesn’t matter whether the IHE is classified as a not-for-profit or for-profit organization. If its expenses exceed its revenue for too long, the IHE can be forced to declare bankruptcy and close down.
IHEs are required to undergo annual audits of finances including balance sheets and cash flow sheets, and submit them to the appropriate federal departments, including the Department of Education. In some states, these audits must be submitted to the Department of Commerce.

Since institutions of higher education look, act and speak like businesses, I am very confident that according to the duck test, IHEs are businesses.

The second article I mentioned in my introduction, A University Is Not a Business (and Other Fantasies) is probably the more powerful of the two articles. It was written by Milton Greenberg and appeared in EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 2 (March/April 2004): 10–16. Professor Greenberg was professor emeritus of government at American University until his death in 2015. He previously served as provost and interim president at American University, and as such devoted much of his work to developing and rewarding high-quality faculty. Greenberg once said, “College and university teaching represents more than expertise in a scholarly discipline. It means that you are privileged to be part of an extended community that constitutes one of the most important professions in the world.” Provost Greenberg was also known as the most eloquent expert on and spokesperson for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, also known as the “G.I. Bill,” which gave veterans across the country access to federal money to pay for higher education after it was passed in 1944.

In Greenberg’s article, he wastes little time in laying out the opposing positions in this war. His opening paragraph sets the stage for the epic battle that was to ensue. The battle lines are clearly drawn.

Academe emerges from—and largely remains within—a culture that sees only a remote and sometimes hostile relationship between its activities and the economic system. This view takes the form of an often-heard campus expression: “A university is not a business.”

Greenberg begins his attack with the two Washington Post December 2003 articles, “The Lesson Colleges Need to Learn,” and “An Educating Use of Business Practices.” These articles were written by one of their leading business columnists, Steve Pearlstein. Pearlstein committed the “ultimate sin” in the eyes of the academy by questioning the efficiency of teaching the “same course” on many different campuses using many different faculty of varying calibre. Pearlstein suggested the unthinkable: greater efficiency and perhaps better learning could occur by using a simple technology like CDs to provide the same superior lectures by superior lecturers to all students across the many different campuses. Pearlstein came under general hostility and heavy fire from the higher education establishment, which considered learning “too special to be run like a crass business enterprise.” You can’t use the word efficiency in the same sentence with learning.

Greenberg continued by noting that although the usual readers of the EDUCAUSE Review had probably heard, and possibly even uttered, that same thought many times, this was most likely the first time it appeared on the front page of the business section of a leading U.S. newspaper. Pearlstein had done the unthinkable. He challenged one of the basic tenets of the academy right in front of the general public. How dare he do this? Higher education was one of the untouchable foundational columns of our society. It was beyond the pale of criticism or suspicion. It held such a position of high esteem that people didn’t dare question the academy or what it did. They trusted the academy. However, here was one of the leading newspapers in the country, raising doubt. This was treason! This was war! Faculty took to the streets, and joined the barricades. They raised their torches of the “true light” and shook their fists at this interloper who had the courage to question their legitimacy. How could higher education be a business? The guiding principle of the business world was antithetical to everything for which academy stood. What standard was this pariah attempting to foist on the academy? Simply stated the principle was “the hierarchical and orderly management of people, property, productivity, and finance for profit.” Greenberg didn’t let up his attack. He continued by noting that in his observation, the ” ‘not a business’ mantra arises on a campus whenever an administrator expresses concern over a program that is losing money or whenever a governing board suggests that the faculty be better managed or supervised in their work. Any mention of such matters will call forth the faculty judgment that the administration has a corporate mentality and is treating the university like a business, the ultimate sin.” The implication was clear. Faculty had the truth. Everyone else, especially those outside the academy, had to have faith in them and trust them. Here we had the first chink in the armour, the first admission from someone of stature, that essentially all IHEs were essentially faith-based institutions.

To be fair, Greenberg attempts to present another side to this argument by appealing again to the Washington Post for his ammunition. This time he turns to an October 2003 op-ed piece, “When States Pay Less, Guess Who Pays More?” by two economists, Robert Archibald and David Feldman. In their article they claim, “Our universities are not inefficient institutions on a bad business plan. Their administrators understand that a college degree is the ticket to the 21st-century economy. There is a crisis in higher education today, but it’s not well-publicized tuition spikes. It’s the long-term decline in political and financial support for the idea that all students should have access to higher education, regardless of ability to pay.” At this point Greenberg leaves the revenue side of the equation and focuses his attention on the expenditure side. Since we’re not looking at the expenditure side in this blog post, we’ll leave Greenberg’s arguments for later posts, However, to whet your appetite for a good debate, at this point I include his closing statements: “…how the academy perceives itself matters. If higher education is to lead its own renewal, it must think about its people, its property, and its productivity in business terms.”

I am sorry Professors Archibald and Feldman, but our universities are grossly inefficient and operate on a very bad business plan. If you consistently have more expenditures than revenues, and you know your projections for increases in expenditures far outstrip projections for increases in revenues, then you have a bad business plan. We can (and probably will) debate why your education model is the very best model available. Before we proceed to the expenditure side of the equation, we will still have much to discuss concerning the revenue side. I am sure that we will end up debating many questions about the sources and potential magnitude of revenue sources. The debates will continue to expenditures as we argue about the manner in which we are using our given resources and, possibly of greater importance, how we should use them. To my readers, I apologize for adding argument after argument, seemingly complexifying this issue unnessarily. However, I am very interested in this topic and feel very strongly about it. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. reportedly said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Friends I am seeking simplicity, but I am afraid we will have to battle through complexity to get there.

April 13, 2016 By B. Baylis 2 Comments

The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University

I have invited a friend and former colleague, Erik Benson, to offer the first guest post on By’s Musings. I first met Erik when I hired him at Cornerstone University in 2005. I was immediately impressed with this history instructor who brought history to life in the classroom and in the field. Less than one year later when I started CELT, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Cornerstone University, he was an obvious choice to be part of the faculty leadership group. He has continued to impress students and colleagues at CU, where in 2013, he was voted “Professor of the Year.” He is currently Associate Professor of History, at CU, and Principal of ipsative, a company focusing on educational consulting and faculty development. If you would like to find out more about ipsative, please visit their website at ipsative.

This post grew out of a challenge that I set before Erik. Since I have been working on a project attempting to represent the many cultures that come together to form a university, I asked him to describe the ideal culture of history within the university setting. He eagerly took the challenge and expanded it to set history within the broader category of humanities and the liberal arts. This is the Erik that I knew at Cornerstone University. At least once a month, he would come by my office near the close of the day, stand in the open doorway, and ask, “Do you have a minute?” I almost always said, “Yes”, even though I know that the minute would end up more like an hour. Erik always had challenging questions about higher education in general and our university in particular. Together, we were working toward solutions for the tough, intractable problems facing higher education and our students. Some of those discussions are among my most memorable memories of my days at CU.

Without further ado, here is Erik’s post.

For what it’s worth: the value of the liberal arts to the university.

The last year has seen a seemingly endless stream of controversies in higher education. Among these were proposals to channel more government aid to students studying in “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, at the expense of those studying in the liberal arts. In Kentucky, the governor recently suggested that students studying “French literature” should not receive any state financial aid.

Debt, jobs, and basements…
The arguments are pretty straightforward. STEM fields are more promising in terms of jobs for graduates, and there is an unmet demand in the US for people trained in these fields. Amidst public concerns about escalating college costs and the resulting student debt, governments ought to insure that they fund fields best suited to meet the needs of both employers and graduates.
There is a certain logic to this. The public concern about tuition and student debt is undeniable. Furthermore, evidence abounds that there is indeed a demand for workers in STEM fields that promise large salaries upon graduation. (In fact, there is high demand for workers in skilled trades that do not require a college degree at all. A Michigan factory owner recently told me recently that he cannot hire enough skilled tradespeople, even though he actively recruits throughout the US and abroad.) In turn, the numbers are less promising for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. The anecdote of the humanities graduate moving back into the parents’ basement has become popular lore. In sum, the desire to channel students toward STEM majors seems a perfectly reasonable response.

Not so fast…
Yet in fact this response is ill-considered. For one thing, it is based on the premise that US colleges are churning out a slew of (unemployed) liberal arts majors. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, between 1971 and 2012, the number of graduates with degrees in English fell from 7.6 to 3.0 percent; the number of business graduates rose from 13.7 to 20.5 percent. Only one-third of all degrees were in fields that could be classified as “liberal arts,” and this number was matched by business and health majors alone. In short, the stories of hordes of unemployed liberal arts graduates living in their parents’ basements are exaggerated.
Beyond this dubious premise, the fact is that the liberal arts approach in American higher education has served students well. Zakaria contrasts it with European higher education systems, in which students are channeled into specific vocations well before they reach college age; those that go to college are few, and they receive a rather narrowly focused training in a field. In the US, college education has historically been more “general” in focus due to being in a dynamic, changing economy and society. In short, the liberal arts have prepared American graduates to be more responsive and flexible in a changing world.
Zakaria points to a real strength of the American liberal arts education, as both anecdotal and statistical evidence attests. Numerous studies reveal that graduates with liberal arts degrees actually have fiscally rewarding careers. One such study, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, found that while liberal arts graduates initially lagged behind professional and pre-professional peers in salaries, over time they caught up and passed them. The study noted that this was due in no small part to graduate degrees earned by liberal arts majors, which enhanced their earning ability. (Interestingly, even in pre-professional and professional fields, a comparable percentage had a graduate degree, suggesting they too received an earnings boost from this.) Still, only the most short-sighted of people would argue a degree outside the liberal arts is a better financial bet; in fact, considering the investment a college education entails, one ought to be considering long-term earnings forecasts rather than merely the entry-level job, which seems to be the focus of the moment.

On second thought…
Why liberal arts degrees offer such long-term earning possibilities is an interesting question. The answer seems to lie in what Zakaria points out—they better prepare one for a changing environment. Vocationally focused educations prepare one for a specific job or career track that can be lucrative at the entry level, but may limit one’s advancement possibilities over time. (Put simply, one might be trained to press certain buttons, but that likely will not lead to workplace advancement.) Worse, as technological and business advances change the workplace, jobs and entire career tracks can come and go. As Thomas Friedman points out in The Earth is Flat, many programming jobs in the US have easily been outsourced to Asia, and won’t be coming back any time soon in light of the cost differentials. This is why many who train in narrowly tailored fields have found it necessary to return to college later in life—their education did not prepare them for the change. Lest we think we can anticipate much of this change, consider how many jobs and fields exist today that educators and politicians could not even fathom 20 years ago. As a senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges and Universities admitted, “We are not good at predicting what jobs are going to be required in five years and 10 years down the road.” It is simply not a reasonable expectation.
My wife’s career experience attests to many of the above points. A graduate of a liberal arts college with a major in history and international studies, she went on to earn an M.A. in Mass Communication. She since has worked in both higher education and marketing, and currently has a thriving business in content strategy and writing. Her mass communication degree offered her hands-on experience in the then-emerging field of web design and development, which cued her into the new forms of media. That said, a significant portion of the technical knowledge she gained is now outdated because of the rapid advances in the last decade. She actually points to her B.A. as being more valuable and foundational for her career. Her studies in history and global culture ingrained in her a broader, more strategic perspective. She also credits them for making her a good writer, which is her “bread and butter” today. Finally, they made her more self-aware and confident, all of which led her to easily transition between jobs and career tracks without need of returning to school. In short, she epitomizes what Zakaria says about the liberals arts—it made her responsive and adaptable in a changing world.

Making the case…
While studies exist of the earning power of the liberal arts, and many faculty can cite numerous anecdotes of successful graduates, there has been a general failure to “sell” this to politicians and the public. Many in “liberal arts” fields lack an interest in informing potential students, their parents, and the public at large the career possibilities (or even proudly resist the idea). Too often, the “case” consists of rather ethereal assertions about the value of the liberal arts, the “life of the mind,” and avoiding vocational obsession, none of which are wrong, but which are not applicable for many considering college, with its expense and commitment. In short, we need to do a better job making the case.
In my case, I have occasion to meet with prospective students and parents who visit our campus. I emphasize that the study of history offers them much in terms of “life of the mind,” but also in terms of career preparation. In addition to citing studies on earnings (which many do not know), I explain specifically what history offers to them—highly transferable skills in research, critical thinking, and communication which will be proven useful over time in a constantly changing job market. I point out that these not only work for someone who might pursue a traditional career in the field (e.g. academia), but also someone working in marketing or government. I encourage them to think of how they might pair the study of history with a major or minor in another field, such as business. I even encourage students in other majors (such as business) to meet credit requirements with an applicable history course; I’ve had a number of graduates tell me this turned out to be one of the most useful things they did in college. In short, I can show them the practical benefits of their study—and they usually come to see the value.
Ultimately, in considering the issue of financing higher education and the liberal arts, the real consideration ought not be mere cost, but value. People will pay more for something they believe is worth it; they are bothered when they feel they have paid for something that is not worth it. We in academics need to make a better case for the value of the liberal arts to students.

References:
Patricia Cohen, “A Rising Call to Promote STEM Education and Cut Liberal Arts Funding,” New York Times (22 February 2016), B1.

Thomas Friedman, The Earth is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2006).

Beckie Supiano, “How Liberal-Arts Majors Fare over the Long Haul,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (22 January 2014). http://chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fare/144133 (Accessed 1 March 2016).

Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (W.W. Norton and Co., 2015).

November 16, 2015 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

What Is the Difference Between Ethics and Ethical Behavior?

The past two weeks have been a huge struggle for me. I spent much of that time fighting the pain from an infected tooth which had a broken root. It took me several days to get an “emergency” appointment with my dentist. During that appointment the determination was quickly made that the very loose and painful tooth had to be extracted. Because of the infection, I had to take a full week run of antibiotics. In addition, I had to be taken off my blood thinners slowly. Thus, I had to wait another full week for the oral surgery. During that time, in the periods of calm generated by acetaminophen and benzocaine, I struggled with this post.

The question, “Why do people do what they do?” kept hitting me in the face.

When not sleeping, eating or working at my computer, I watched sports and newscasts on television. What did I see? 1) Two Presidential debates with candidates questioning the behavior of rivals and impugning their ethics; 2) A report of an automotive manufacturer installing software in its cars that only shuts off high carbon emissions when the car is being tested for those emissions; 3) A report of another automotive manufacturer not acting on knowledge of dangerous defects in its cars for years; 4) A report on dozens of judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys passing around hundreds of emails with pornographic pictures and offensive stories; 5) A report on a State Attorney General indicted for leaking Grand Jury information and the commission of perjury by lying about it; 6) A report on a township supervisor voting positively on a zoning petition and building permit for a family member’s project; 7) A report on what appears to be wholesale, systematic doping by a country’s sports infrastructure in a recent Olympics; and 8) A popular race car driver appearing to intentionally wreck another popular driver in retaliation for a perceived intentional wreck the previous week.

I turned off the television and went to my computer. What did I do at my computer? When I was not working on this post, I was cleaning up my email backlog and sitting through three webinars. What did I find in my email newsletters? 1) A report on scholarly authors attempting to “game” the JIF (Journal Impact Factor) by self-citing their own articles, or by bartering citations from friends and colleagues by citing their articles in a pyrimad-type scheme called citation stacking; 2) A report on a scientist who pleaded guilty to fraud for faking data involving a study of HIV vaccine; 3) A report on a recently published article entitled “The Mirage of Prestige: The educational quality of courses in prestigious and non-prestigious institutions” that attempts to measure the difference in academic outcomes between the so-called prestigious and non-prestigious institutions; 4) Reports on several institutions faking data on campus crime statistics, salary information on graduates and admissions profile data; and 5) A report that estimates the costs of complying with federally imposed regulations across the higher education sector to be $27 billion annually.

What did I hear in the webinars?: 1) The first webinar dealt with plagiarism. The primary assumption was that faculty increasingly believe that students do not know what plagiarism is. However, even in the face of that previous assumption, faculty increasingly believe the frequency of plagiarism is increasing and more students are intentionally participating in it; 2) The second webinar was a presentation from the field of professional training. The primary point of this webinar was that compliance training is one of the most difficult areas of professional development in which to produce quality eLearning programs, while at the same time, it is one of the areas of fastest growing demand. In this webinar one question was continually raised: “Should we train people to act ethically or just to meet compliance requirements?” No matter how we answer the previous question, the webinar suggested that the CEO must lead the organization by exhibiting a constant pattern of ethical behavior, because the organization will rise to a level no higher than the one set by its leader. 3) The third webinar focused on the teaching of ethics. One of the foundational assumptions of the webinar presenters was that ethics was only a matter of content knowledge that could and should be taught within the confines of an academic discipline. The presenters kept saying that within a given context, there were rules, regulations and obligations that had to be met. The presenters dismissed any comment or suggestion that there were universal principles that applied across disciplines. Ethics were situational and behaviorally oriented.

I return to my original question, “what is the difference between ethics and ethical behavior?” I admit that I come down on the side of the universalists on this question. I believe that there are universal rules of right and wrong. In this sense one’s ethical behavior is a result of one living ethically. It becomes a matter of living by principles, not according to specific rules that can change when circumstances change. For students and faculty, honesty requires telling the truth, not lying, not stealing or not cheating, no matter the personal consequence, no matter whether every one else is doing it, or whether you can get away without getting caught. Living the principled life means doing the same thing whether someone is watching you or not. The second great commandment “Love your neighbor” is a principle, not a rule dependent upon whether the individual in need is “like you” or is “very different.” The great requirement from Micah 6:8, “what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (KJV) presents us another set of principles. Ethics and ethical behavior are not only matters of content, but of values. They are matters of the head and the heart. They require not only comprehension and accession, but also action by the individual based on the individual’s knowledge and beliefs.

Ethics and ethical behavior are not the same thing. However, ethical behavior should be the outgrowth of ethics. One should act based on one’s principles. How do we discover our principles (ethics) and translate those into actions (ethical behavior)? Two suggestions from Scripture provide us guidance in this endeavor. The first is Paul’s admonition 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) The second is Solomon’s advice to his son: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Proverbs 3: 5&6, KJV)

If we diligently seek God’s principles, He will show them to us and guide us in the way we should go. We can follow in His footsteps on the path to righteousness and salvation.

My next post continues this discussion by raising the suggestion that the CEO of an organization should be its Chief Ethics Officer and Chief Encouragement Officer in addition to being its Chief Executive Officer.