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April 27, 2019 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

KPI – Part XI: Era of Expansion and Disruption in American Higher Education

Some historians of American Higher Education call the era between the American Civil War and WWII the Gilded Age of American Higher Education. When I look at it, I see a period of unparalleled expansion, confusing disruptions, and bewildering rearrangements. It is also a period rife with widespread uncertainties and inescapable paradoxes. It is a period of unprecedented diversification.

A schematic view of the American Higher Education Family Tree, with the four main branches (University, College, Institute, and Faith-Based Schools), and their many intertwined connections. This schematic was created by the blog’s author using ClickChart Software.

During the Civil War, much of American higher education shut down. Many colleges were forced to cease operations due to a lack of students. In both the North and the South, many young men of military age either enlisted or were drafted. Since this group formed the overwhelming majority of college students, the potential student population was almost completely depleted.

Photograph of Rev. John M.P. Atkinson, 10th President of Hampden-Sydney College, and Captain of the Hampden-Sydney boys, part of the Virginia Militia. Image is in the Public Domain since it was published prior to 1924. Image courtesy of Alfred Morrison, Hampden-Sydney College, and Wikimedia Commons

The stories of what four institutions. Hampden-Sydney (with its sister school Union Theological Seminary), the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, went through during the Civil War Period are so interesting I will address them in a separate, future post.

Since much of the actual fighting in the Civil War occurred in the territory of the Confederacy, a large number of colleges in the South found themselves in battle zones. A few colleges in the North, like Pennsylvania College (since 1921, known as Gettysburg College) and its sister institution Lutheran Theological Seminary, were also put in dangerous situations. This placed students and faculty at severe risk. Travel was treacherous at best. Students from the Confederate States who were studying in the Union States, and vice versa, were prohibited from crossing territorial or battlelines and were forced to withdraw from their colleges.

During the eight decades between the Civil War and WWII, the current structure of American higher education began to take shape. Prior to the Revolutionary War, all colonial colleges were begun with a religious emphasis by individual clergy or denominations. These schools were founded to provide an educated clergy for the church. Studying the early days of these institutions, we also see that they were not in the business of changing the social stratification of the colonies.

Most of the colleges established between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars were built to maintain the status quo. They only enrolled white, males. They were expensive, residential institutions, which meant that the “lower class” families could not afford the luxury of doing without the income supplied by the family sons. Entrance requirements of many were rigorous and only within the reach of the wealthy few who had the advantage of a demanding secondary education.

The few female colleges were also expensive, residential colleges that trained girls to be “ladies”. These schools were beyond the reach of most families and didn’t fit the long-term goals of most girls in America.

Prior to the Civil War, there were very few coed colleges. There were also very few female applicants who could meet the admissions requirements. There were only a handful of colleges open to African-Americans. Colleges prior to the Civil War were the great sustainers of an elite hierarchy with white males at the top of the ladder. Many obstacles were placed in the paths of others trying to ascend the ladder of social mobility.

The cover of the catalog of Pennsylvania Female College (now known as Chatham University) in 1886. Since it was published before 1924, it is in the public domain. Image courtesy of Chatham University and Wikimedia Commons.

Immediately after the Civil War, the dams of restrictive access were leaking a little, before they finally burst. In those early post-war days, a number of changes occurred. It became more acceptable for women to attend college. More women colleges were opened, and more colleges permitted men and women to sit in the same classrooms.

A second new stream of students consisted of the returning soldiers. Their war experience awakened new dreams. They saw that the only difference between them and many of their “educated” officers was formal education. The rank and file soldiers found that they were just as smart as their officers. They began to question why had they been deprived of an opportunity to advance themselves. They demanded the right to go to college, and some colleges opened their doors to these new students. However, more than college for themselves, they demanded college for their children so that they could better themselves and not be limited to the status of a lackey or foot soldier in the future.

Jubilee Hall, oldest permanent building on the campus of Fisk University (an HBCU in Nashville, TN). It was opened in 1876. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. Image courtesy of Fisk University, National Park Services and Wikimedia Commons.

A third stream formed with the opening of colleges for African-Americans. At first, this was a small stream because these students had many deficits to fill in from their lack of education prior to the Civil War.

In 1860, there were less than 10 institutions of higher education which were open to African-American students. By 1900, there more than 100 institutions that were dedicated primarily to the education of African-American individuals. These schools became known as Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

First-year students in cadaver lab of Univ. of Penn Medical School in 1890. The image is in the Public Domain since it was first published prior to 1924. Image is courtesy of Amy Hutchens, University of Pennsylvania and Wikimedia Commons.

A fourth stream formed with the demand for specialized training and education. Career colleges, business schools, technical and engineering institutions, art schools, research universities, Bible colleges and seminaries, agricultural schools, medical specialty colleges, nursing schools, and law schools began popping up in every corner of the growing country.

Another new strand of higher education emerged in the first decade of the 20th century, the community or junior college. These colleges were designed to offer the first two years of a general college education and permit their graduates to then transfer to the four-year colleges and universities. Joliet Junior College in Illinois was the first public junior college. It opened in 1901.

A publicity card depicting the two founders, Sam Knight and William Baine, of Central City Commercial College in Waco, Texas. Image courtesy of the William Baines Papers of the Texas Collection at Baylor University.

Previously, colleges were primarily residential and located in rural or semi-rural settings. But now urban students demanded and got schools in the middle of cities. These students didn’t want the residential experience, so a new type of commuter college was invented.

Schools like Central City Commercial College (4C), which opened in Waco, Texas, in 1924, met the need of urban residents for training in employable skills or retraining in new skills. In 1935, 4C expanded its evening programs in order to accommodate shift workers who wanted to learn new skills.

Prior to the Civil War, most colleges were founded under the flag of religion. By the time the Civil War began, many of these institutions had drifted from their religious moorings. Some had become secular institutions, while others had their ownership assumed by governmental agencies and had become public institutions.

The Honorable Justin Smith Morrill, Senate sponsor of the Morrill Act of 1862. The photograph was taken between 1865 and 1880. The image is courtesy of Brady-Handy Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). It is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpbh.04981.

After the Civil War, three separate strands of institutional control were formally recognized. The first strand was public institutions, which were primarily funded by governmental agencies such as states, counties, or cities. These institutions were kick-started by the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, also known as the Land-Grant Acts. These pieces of legislation provided grants of land to states to finance the establishment of colleges specializing in Agriculture, Home Economics, the Mechanical Arts, and other useful professions. Public institutions began to dominate higher education with their seemingly untouchable advantage of an apparently unending supply of tax revenue.

The second strand consisted of private, non-profit institutions. These were chartered by states, but controlled by independent boards. Some of these were sectarian in nature. They were founded by, controlled by denominations or churches, and funded through the religious founders. Others were non-sectarian, without any particular religious bent.

The third strand was the proprietary schools. These consisted of schools typically founded by an entrepreneur who viewed the institution as a profit-making venture. They were chartered by states, but controlled by the founder or a board of trustees, similar to a corporation. These three strands still dominate the higher education scene of the 21st century.

Diversity in these colleges was not just limited to the type of control, students, programs offered, or geographic location. Students began choosing colleges for more reasons than particular academic programs. They began including in their selection processes non-academic programs like athletics, debate teams, musical opportunities, both vocal and instrumental, and social organizations.

In the opening game at Michigan Stadium, Michigan beat Ohio State in October 1927 before a crowd of 84,000. This image is courtesy of Kaufmann & Fabry Co. – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID pan.6a28995. See Commons: Licensing for more information., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2348814

Rutgers University defeated Princeton in the first intercollegiate football game on November 6, 1869. The University of Michigan’s football stadium, Michigan Stadium (known as the Big House), was built in 1927 with a capacity of 72,000. It soon outgrew it and added 10,000 more seats within five years. The stadium was formally dedicated on October 22, 1927, when Michigan beat Ohio State before a standing-room-only crowd that exceeded 84,400 people. College sports had become a big-time business. Colleges began recruiting athletes to attend their school in order to play for them.

Intracollegiate debating on college campuses seems to have originated in literary societies as early as 1830. The first recorded intercollegiate debate may have been between Wake Forest University and Trinity College (later known as Duke University) in 1897. Soon debate teams were touring the country, holding matches and tournaments. The movie “The Great Debaters” memorializes a 1935 debate team of African-American students from Wiley College (Marshall, TX) which supposedly traveled to Harvard University, and defeated the reigning national championship debating team. In reality, the debaters from Wiley did not debate Harvard. They debated and defeated the reigning national debate team from the University of Southern California. However, the Wiley team could not declare themselves victors because African-Americans were not permitted to join the Debate Society until after WWII.

James Farmer, Jr., was recruited as a 14-year old freshman by Melvin Tolson, the founder, and coach of the Wiley College Debate Team to become a valuable member of this formidable debating powerhouse. He went on to a have distinguished career in civil rights work in the United States in the middle of the 20th century.

Civil Right Activists including Martin Luther King Jr, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and James Farmer Jr in the White House on January 18, 1964. The picture is in the public domain because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. Image is courtesy of the LBJ Presidential Library and Wikimedia.Commons

James Farmer Jr. was considered one of the “Big 4” in the civil rights world. The first of the other three was Martin Luther King Jr. (1948 graduate of Morehouse College an HBCU institution in Atlanta, GA), and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The second was Whitney M. Young Jr. (1941 graduate of Kentucky State University and HBCU institution in Frankfort KY) who served as the Executive Director of the National Urban League, transforming it from a passive organization into an aggressive force working to give socioeconomic access to all individuals who had been historically disenfranchised. The third member of the group was Roy Wilkins (1923 graduate of the University of Minnesota which had a long history of accepting African-American scholars and students), who was Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 1955 to 1977. Roy Wilkins was one of the primary organizers of the 1963 March on Washington. In 1967, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian decoration.

Postcard publicizing the Carlton College Glee Club itinerary for the 1913 season. The image is in the public domain since it was published prior to 1924. Image is courtesy of Carlton College and Wikimedia Commons.

Glee Clubs were small choral groups dedicated to singing glees, short secular choral songs, which were written or arranged for several vocal parts. These clubs originated in London in the late 18th century and made their way to the American college campuses in the mid-19th century. The first documented American collegiate glee club was founded at Harvard University in 1858.

By 1910, there were more than 100 colleges hosting Glee Clubs. Many of these co-curricular clubs were replaced on campuses by larger choral groups and formal choirs which performed under the auspices of the music department or school. Many of the colleges would sponsor the Glee Club tours for fundraising and student recruiting purposes.

The Purdue Marching Band “Block P” formation from 1922 football game. Image in the Public Domain since it was published prior to 1924. Image is courtesy of Purdue University and Wikimedia Commons

Historically marching bands were associated with military ventures. They consisted primarily of wind, brass, and percussion instruments. By the middle of the 19th century, they found their way onto college campuses. The first official collegiate marching band was the University of Notre Dame Band of the Fighting Irish, founded in 1845. It first performed at a football game in 1887. By the end of the 19th century, hundreds of American colleges and universities hosted marching bands and orchestras. In 1907, the Purdue All-American Marching Band unveiled the first pictorial formation on a football field with their rendition of the Purdue “Block P.” Not to be outdone, later that year, the University of Illinois Marching Illini band performed the first full halftime show at the football game between the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago.

Colleges and universities began recruiting students to perform in their vocal and instrumental musical groups. Other performing arts, like drama and dance, soon followed. Colleges and universities became cultural centers, not only for students but for the communities in which they were located.

Fraternities, sororities, and other social clubs dated their beginning on American campuses from December 5, 1776, with the founding of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the College of William and Mary. Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, fraternities and sororities developed slowly. They were primarily centered in the Northeast quadrant of the United States.

A photograph of the monument in Lexington, VA commemorating the founding of three Panhellenic fraternities in that town. SuperNova at the English Wikipedia, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publishes it under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Image courtesy of Super Nova and Wikimedia Commons.

After the Civil War, with the great expansion of colleges and universities, fraternities and sororities also flourished. The American higher education system began encountering racial, religious, and gender diversity and new colleges were founded or reformed throughout the south and west. Growth in the fraternity system overall during this period would lead some to label the last third of the 19th century as “The Golden Age of Fraternities.”

However, the diversity of institutions which engendered a diversity of students also had a darker, hidden side. Students looked to the fraternities and sororities not as vehicles to encourage diversity, but as avenues of escape and as a way to avoid associating with large numbers of particular types of students. They became vehicles of discrimination.

Thus the period between the Civil War and WWII was an era of growth in terms of the number of students and the diversity of types of institutions, types of campus activities, and diversity of students within the system as a whole. Paradoxically, it was also an era of rampant discrimination and exclusion. WWII produced another pause in the development of the American higher education system. We pick up that story in the next post.

June 7, 2017 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Education’s Big Lie, Part V: Every Student Is Important! No Student Should Be Forgotten!

I began this series of posts on Education’s Big Lie more than three months ago with the post Education’s Big Lie, Part I – Introduction. In attempting to make my first point I highlighted Procrustian’s aphorism “one size fits all.”

Caricature from 19th century German satirical magazine “Berliner Wespen” (Berlin Wasps) – Title: Procrustes. Caption: Bismarck: As I see, Lady Liberty is somewhat too large – we want to change this immediately to her contention. (He chops away her legs.) – Inscription on the bed: Socialist Law. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; in Public Domain

To address the question of whether the American systems of elementary, secondary and higher education are forgetting or ignoring students, I turn now to Henry David Thoreau, Albert Einstein, and Lyndon Johnson. This extremely disparate group of individuals might seem to be an unusual choice of spokespersons.

Thoreau was a 19th-century American writer and transcendental thinker. He is probably most well-known for his book “Walden; or, Life in the Woods“, a treatise on the simple life and self-sufficiency. The key tenets of transcendentalism included the inherent goodness of nature and individuals. Followers of this world view believed that our culture, society and its institutions had corrupted the purity with which each of us was born. To return to our best, natural state, we should withdraw from society.

Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American artist, writer and intellectual (1817 – 1862) This image is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.

Thoreau is reported to have made the following comment concerning a child’s potential:

Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything.

I picked Thoreau because he could see the future in the eyes of a child playing with a jar of paint. Most people only see the child making a mess. To Thoreau, that child was envisioning a masterpiece on the epic scale of the Sistine Chapel.

This photo of a baby playing with yellow paint by Dutch artist Peter Klashorst is entitled “Experimental”. Image courtesy of Peter Klashorst and Wikimedia Commons. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

In December 1999, Time Magazine named Albert Einstein the Person of the Century. The editors proclaimed him to be a “genius, political refugee, humanitarian, locksmith of the mysteries of the atom and the universe.” They further explained their somewhat controversial choice by saying, “He was the pre-eminent scientist in a century dominated by science. The touchstones of the era–the Bomb, the Big Bang, quantum physics and electronics–all bear his imprint.”

Albert Einstein German-American scientist (1879 – 1955), lecturing in Vienna in 1921, the year he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Photo by Ferdinand Schmutzer. Image in Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons”

Einstein often spoke of the importance and significance of the individual. The following quote is generally attributed to him: manner:

The person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen before.

Solitary hiker on virgin snow. The photo was taken March 23, 2014, by Tapas Biswas near Sandakphu, West Bengal’s highest peak. The image is licensed by Biswas under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Image courtesy of Tapas Biswas and Wikimedia Commons.

I picked Einstein and this quote denigrating the process of following the masses because Einstein was a person who set out on his own most of his life. He separated himself from the crowd and concentrated his attention on what he saw, heard and thought. These were things that people who took the shoveled path never saw.

Lyndon Johnson was elected Vice President of the United States in 1960 when John Kennedy won the presidency over Richard Nixon. When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Johnson became the 36th President of the United States. Under Johnson’s leadership, a series of domestic legislative programs called the Great Society and the War on Poverty were enacted. They included Medicare and Medicaid, and a significant increase in federal spending on education, the arts, urban and rural development, and public services. There was also a dramatic increase in governmental attention to the civil rights of individuals.

The signing ceremony on April 11, 1965, for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) at the Former Junction Elementary School in Johnson City, Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson is seated at a table with his childhood schoolteacher, Ms. Kate Deadrich Loney. The President took the opportunity to deliver prepared remarks about educating American youth. This image is the work of Frank Wolfe, White House photographer, an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U. S. federal government, the image is in the **public domain**. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In President’s Johnson prepared remarks he said,

By passing this bill, we bridge the gap between helplessness and hope for more than five million educationally deprived children.

We put into the hands of our youth more than 30 million new books, and into many of our schools their first libraries.

We reduce the terrible time lag in bringing new teaching techniques into the nation’s classrooms.

We strengthen state and local agencies which bear the burden and the challenge of better education.

And we rekindle the revolution–the revolution of the spirit against the tyranny of ignorance.

As a son of a tenant farmer, I know that education is the only valid passport from poverty.

As a former teacher–and, I hope, a future one–I have great expectations of what this law will mean for all of our young people.

As President of the United States, I believe deeply no law I have signed or will ever sign means more to the future of America.

To each and everyone who contributed to this day, the nation is indebted.

What an awesome responsibility to place on one law:

Bridge the gap between helplessness and hope
Put new books and libraries in our nation’s schools
Reduce the time lag in bringing new teaching techniques into our classrooms
Rekindle the revolution against the tyranny of ignorance
Provide a valid passport from poverty
Give young people great expectations for their futures

In the half a century since ESEA was signed into law, there have been a few victories. One of the first to occur in the late 1960’s was the concept of magnet schools. These schools were introduced as an educational reform model of public school choice as a way to address educational inequity. Magnet schools are based on the premise that students do not learn in the same way or at the same rate; that if we find a unifying theme or a different organizational structure for students of similar interest, students will learn more in all areas. In other words, if a magnet school voluntarily attracts students and teachers, it will succeed because, more than for any other reason, those in attendance want to be there. They will have chosen that school. These schools usually have superior facilities and staff and offer a specialized curriculum designed to attract pupils from any school throughout a city or district. Magnet schools have been created centered around STEM fields, the arts, and the classics.

Students at Parkland Aero Technology Magnet School in Rockville, MD are shown using a device called a Sunspotter to track sunspots. Talking to the students is Research Scientist Daniel Mueller. He is explaining what they are seeing. Mueller from the European Space Agency is working with the Solar and Heliosphere Observatory (SOHO) of NASA. The photograph was taken in June 2016 by a NASA employee. *This image is in the **public domain** in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. Image courtesy of NASA and Wikimedia Commons.*

A number of school districts have been very successful at putting new books and new technologies into libraries and the hands of our students. For example, the Port Charlotte school district on the Gulf Coast of Florida, approximately half way between Sarasota and Fort Myers, has a new combination library and media center that rivals many college facilities in its equipment and attractiveness. Its mission reflects the goals of President Johnson and the EASA legislation.

The Mission of the Port Charlotte High School Media Center is to encourage our students to develop a love of reading, to appreciate the many kinds of literature available, and to ensure that students become effective users of ideas and information. We aim to provide a comprehensive program of service, print and non-print materials, equipment and technology that will help meet the students’ academic and leisure needs. Our resources and instruction support the educational goals of Port Charlotte High School.

Port Charlotte High School Media Center in Port Charlotte, Florida. This image was posted to Wikimedia Commons by its author, identified as PCHS-NJROTC, on May 12, 2010, It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Image courtesy of PCHS-NJROTC and Wikimedia Commons.

Before we get too excited and get the idea that most public school libraries look like this, we must take note that Port Charlotte is a wealthy suburban district where the median price of homes in mid-2017 is over $235,000. It was ranked as the 15th best public school district in Florida by NICHE, a small firm that is comprised of data scientists, engineers, and parents, who are passionate about helping people discover the schools and neighborhoods that are right for them and their children. The total 2016 fiscal year budget for the Port Charlotte School District was $247million, of which $30million was appropriated for capital improvement projects.

There are many other successful school districts across the United States. However, the failures have far outnumbered the successes. To find examples of these failures, all one has to do is read the daily or weekly news reports coming out of Washington and many other cities and towns around the United States. In my next post, I will highlight some of those failures. Having been a participant in and observer of education for more than 65 years, I have seen at least six types of students who have been and are being ignored by American public K-12 education as a system and by individual teachers within the system. In subsequent posts, I will highlight these types of students and make some suggestions concerning what I believe needs to be done to bring these students into the mainstream.

September 17, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Four Lessons from FIve Verses – Part III-B

As indicated in the previous post, Lesson III-Part A , from my Four Lessons from Five Verses series, I took my Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day posts from the first five verses of chapter 2 of Paul’s second letter to his protege Timothy. The first post focused on the attributes of a good soldier taken from verses 3 and 4. The second looked at how to be a winner using verse 5 as the text, while the third began to look at the repetitive, self-sustaining cycle of Biblical Teaching from verse 2. It looked at the office, qualifications and work of a Biblical teacher. This post continues looking at that same verse:

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. (II Timothy 2:2, KJV)

I freely admit that the wording in the KJV of this verse baffled me at first. My initial reading was that Paul was suggesting to Timothy that he concentrate on things that he heard “about” Paul from many people who had observed Paul’s action and preaching. However, Timothy didn’t need to hear about Paul from others, because Timothy had sat directly under Paul’s teaching. He had lived with him, and traveled with him. Timothy had personally witnessed and heard Paul preach and live out the winsome gospel with his own eyes and ears. I believe that Paul is telling Timothy in this passage to concentrate on those things Timothy heard and saw Paul say and live out in the presence of many witnesses.

In the King James Version, this verse begins with the phrase “And the things that thou heard of me among many witnesses,..” The English preposition “of ” comes from the Greek preposition para which together with its variation par appears 200 times in the New Testament. These two Greek words are all purpose prepositions. They are translated at least seven different ways in the King James Version, with another 10 variations in other versions of the Bible. Three things help determine the meaning of the word para in particular situations. We begin with a grammar lesson. A preposition is a word that shows the relationship of the noun or pronoun following the preposition, known as the object of the preposition, and some other word or element in the sentence known as the subject. In II Timothy 2:2, the preposition “of” is describing the relationship between “things,” the subject, and “Paul”, represented by the pronoun “me,” the object. In Greek we have one additional clue to the meaning of a preposition. That clue is found in the grammatical case of the object. In English, the most distinctive use of grammatical case is the Genitive case signifying possession. In the sentence “We are going in my car,” the subject is “We”; the preposition is “in” and the object is “car.” With the possessive pronoun “my”, we know the car belongs to me.

In the Greek, objects following the preposition para (παρά) take three different cases. These cases are the genitive, accusative and dative. In the Greek, the case of a given noun or pronoun can be visibly seen by the form of the word. In English, the case of nouns and pronouns are more generally defined by their usage. The only exception to this is with the genitive case which signifies possession. The genitive pronoun for a male person is “his” while the dative and accusative pronouns take the same form “him.” The accusative case reflects the direct object of a preposition, while the dative case represents the indirect object of a preposition. In II TIm 2:2, in the preposition phrase “things…of me” the Greek word translated “me” is emou (ἐμοῦ) which is in the genitive case. This signifies that the subject of the preposition “things” belonged to or were inherently part of Paul. Thus, it makes more sense to think of the things spoken of here to be the actual words, teachings and life of Paul.

However, there is far more to be gleaned from this verse. Verse 2 also lays out a multi-step family tree that can be extended indefinitely. It begins with Christ, who commissioned and ordained Paul as a master teacher, who received his commissioning and marching orders from Jesus Christ. Timothy was Paul’s student, apprentice and protege. Timothy was in turn destined and charged with the responsibility of becoming a teacher for the next generation of students and teachers. In this passage Paul is giving us God’s plan for the spread of the gospel and his teachings. God was going to raise up a self-sustaining tree of preachers and teachers who would in turn nurture and train the next generation of preachers and teachers.

While Christ was present with the disciples, he could teach them directly. After his resurrection and ascension into heaven, was anyone going to teach and help Paul and the other apostles? God the Father had made provision for that. In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples that he would not always be with them, but that God was not going to leave them alone.

¹⁵If ye love me, keep my commandments. ¹⁶And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; ¹⁷Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. ¹⁸I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. ¹⁹Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. ²⁰At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. (John 14:15-21, KJV)

Through the Holy Spirit, God’s Comforter, Paul and Timothy had direct access to help from God. But this aid was not available to only Paul and Timothy. Since the time of Christ’s ascension, it has available to every Christian, especially those commissioned as teachers.

Chart created by author using ClickChart Professional

What was Paul’s responsibility as a Master Teacher? According to I Corinthians and Ephesians, Paul was to follow Christ and faithfully teach the next generation. What was the responsibility of the next generation? They were to remember what Paul did and taught. They were to keep the ordinances that Paul delivered unto them. They were to help teach and perfect the next generation so that they would mature in faith. They were not just to strive to resemble Paul. They were to be like Christ.

Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you. (I Corinthians 11: 1 & 2, KJV)

But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4: 7 – 15, KJV)

In the two centuries since Christ taught and commissioned that first level of teachers, we have seen more than 60 levels of students, turned teachers. We no longer have the physical presence of Christ or Paul to follow. However, we have the scriptures and we have the Holy Spirit to guide in our study and interpretation of the Word of God. We also have the stories and the lives of the saints who have gone on before us.

I end this post with Paul’s statement about scriptures 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)

We need to remember a big part of “all good works” is teaching and leading the next generation.

September 10, 2016 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Broken Business Model of American Higher Education, Part VI: Incremental Growth Will Not Be Enough

I am finally returning to my series on the broken business model of American higher education. In previous installments of this series, I have indicated that I believe the sprawling educational multiplex on which the United States relies and to which much of the world admiringly looks for leadership is sputtering and struggling to catch its breath, I think American higher education is caught between a rock and a hard place. I am convinced that it has reached an important fork in its road. Which way should we go? The future prosperity of American higher education is potentially at stake.

I suspect many of you are cringing at my use of the word prosperity with respect to higher education. I intentially used the business term “prosperity” in this context. I can hear people screaming at their computer screens: “Higher education is not a business.” Folks, other than in the form of a vigorous denial, you won’t hear that expression from me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: “Higher education is a business.” See my previous post, According to the Duck Test, Higher Education is a Business. If you see an animal in the barnyard that has feathers like a duck, flies like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it is a very safe bet that it is a duck.

I believe that much of the difficulty and confusion comes from the fact that education is more than a business. In addition to being required to operate as a business, it is a ministry, an agency of service to individuals, communities, our country and the world. It provides a public and private good. It offers aid, assistance, help and utility. I put it in the same pigeon hole as the fields of medicine, and charitable service enterprises. All of these enterprises offer indispensable assistance and benefits to their clients, communities and the human race. I have heard many call for these initiatives to be held to higher standards of accountability than we demand of the companies from which we obtain our meals and groceries. We seem to have far fewer problems with businesses offering inferior services to customers or clients, than requiring service organizations to maintain their obligations to operate according to the legal requirements that all businesses are suppose to meet.

The past several postings in this series have been about growing enrollment. I believe that American higher education has reached a point of decision at which it must pick between two very different paths. This choice will define unique and important historical options that will have far reaching consequences. If you are completely turned off by the idea that higher education should be described in business and economic terms, will you allow me to use the medical analogy of the health of American higher education? Have we reached a point where the future health of American higher education may conceivably be at stake? Is it time to check its temperature, heart rhythm, AIC, cholesterol levels, BMI and the electrical activity of the brain?

Most educational pundits, critics and commentators, friendly or otherwise, readily admit that American higher education has come through some very trying times and will definitely face some more problems, and possibly even crises in its immediate future. The decisions that American higher education must make can be formulated in a number of different terms. The problems facing American higher education are complex and multifaceted. This means that we must be prepared to wade through knee-deep, involved puddles of mud to get close to understanding the problem before we can formulate and begin to implement a remedy that will alleviate the current difficulties.

From previous posts in this series, I have tried to present the argument that American higher education is facing financial problems and pressures. The enterprise doesn’t have enough money to do what it’s currently doing. It is also far short of having the funds to do what it and seemingly most of the American public wants it to do. In this series I have proposed that American higher education has five sources of revenue. In the first post of the series, The Business Model of All of Higher Education is Broken, I listed five possible sources of revenue for American higher education:

Tuition and fees;
Fundraising, advancement or development efforts;
Endowment income, appreciation, interest or dividends;
Auxiliary enterprises; and
Government appropriations (Reserved for public institutions).

Previously in this series, I have concentrated on revenues from tuition and fees. The two easiest ways to enlarge this revenue pot are either by increasing the tuition and fees charged each student, or by growing enrollment, i.e., increasing the number of students paying the tuition and fees. I have attempted to show that institutions would be fighting a losing battle if they attempted to increase the tuition and fee charges sufficiently to cover their current needs or future desires. Student, families, politicians and the general public already believe that tuition and fees are too high. In the most recent post in this series, The Business Model of All of Higher Education is Broken, Part V: Increasing Enrollments is Not Enough, I began to consider the difficulties in increasing enrollments to gain more revenue. I continue that line of reasoning in this post.

Business strategists, economists and mathematicians typically talk about two types of growth: incremental and exponential. Incremental growth is normally represented on a graph by a straight line. With this type of growth, the number grows by approximately the same amount in each period of time. Its graph is best approximated by a linear function. On the other hand, exponential growth is an upward-opening, concave curved line. In exponential growth, the number grows at a rate that is proportional to the number’s current value, resulting in its growth with time being an exponential function. Its graph is best approximated by an exponential function, with a leading exponent of the independent variable equal to 2 or greater. To illustrate the difference, consider the following fabricated example of college enrollments in a fictitious country.

Enrollment in fictitious country to illustrate the problems with incremental growth. Chart created by author using Google Sheets

The graph begins at a point in the history of our fictitious country where the current enrollment is 20 million students. If our country does nothing different year after year, the enrollment would tend to stay constant (bright green line on the graph). The incremental growth graph (red line) is approximated by a straight line with a slope of positive 1. This means that for each year, the enrollment grows by 1 million students.. The exponential growth graph (blue line) is approximated by a quadratic function. The quadratic growth model represents a disruptive change, such as switching to online degree programs, which at first causes a slight decline in enrollment before the exponential growth kicks in. Our Combination Model (the purple line) represents a combination of adding the online program plus the incremental growth from adding students to the traditional programs.

The enrollment numbers for this fictitious country are not completely unimaginable. The current enrollment in the United States is approximately 20 million. According to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), it is expected to growth by almost 5 million students in the next 5 years. For the first 200 years of American higher education, enrollment did double approximately every 10 to 15 years. If you dig into those statistics you will find that those staggering enrollment increases followed disruptive changes in American society and higher education. There were earth shaking events and government reforms that contributed mightily to the enrollment growths. The slow down and eventual leveling off enrollment growths of the past half century would require new earth shaking events or changes to American higher education to put it back on the path to doubling enrollment every 10 to 15 years. However, this growth is exactly what political and educational pundits desire and suggest that American society must have. We have both presidential candidates of the major political parties suggesting that the economic recovery of the United States must be built on the backs of high tech jobs and increased educational opportunities. Both have suggested that we must double the number of college graduates in the next decade. I only see two ways to double the number of graduates in the next decade. FIrstly, we must either improve our college completion rate from approximately 50% to essentially 100%. We haven’t really come close to that goal with high school education and look at all the flak that secondary education is receiving over graduating unprepared students. The second approach is to essentially double the number of students entering college. For my response to this, see my first point.

However, it is not just Americans crying for these increases in higher education enrollments. You have Education Dive’s headline of August 12 blaring out College enrollments to double in next decade. I invite you read this article for yourself and follow the leads in the article to their sources. It is not a pretty picture the author, Jarrett Carter, is painting concerning American higher education. What’s American higher education to do? As with any work of suspense, I break off my story with our hero hanging by his fingers from the edge of the cliff and leave the resolution for another installment. Please stay tuned.

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).

October 26, 2015 By B. Baylis Leave a Comment

Visual Story Board for Manuscript Title, Part V – Student Version

Image from GraphicStock. Used with permission

This post is the last in a series on the development of the title of the manuscript, An Explorer’s Guide to Biblical Life Planning: Student Version, on which I am currently working. By working, I mean interacting with my computer. This process is not as straight forward as it was prior to 2009. I am still generating ideas in my head. After my most serious bout with seizures in December, 2009, the ideas have almost always been in the form of visual images. Since I am not an artist, the coins in the realm of communications are words, I must translate the pictures I see into words.

This translation is a multi-step process. I first do a very rough draft in my head. I then mull over that draft several times before sitting down at my keyboard and inputting a more refined rough draft into the memory banks of my computer. I print out a copy of my work so that I can review it away from that machine that beckons me to investigate all the wonderful new reports on education, sports, world events, food and cars that it has to offer.

I usually leave my office, taking the hard copy of my document to review later. I have found if I try to edit the material immediately, I do not find problems or alternative ways of expressing my ideas. I am too invested in what I have just committed to my computer. I must wait minutes, hours or even days before I can truly edit my own work.

Why do I need the printed paper copy of a document to edit? There are several reasons. The first reason is that I am not a digital native. I will admit that, although I consider myself fairly fluent in digitalese, I am still a digital immigrant. In addition, the aging process has taken away some of my reaction time. Even spoken or hand written communications take much longer now than just 7 years ago.

Aging and other health concerns have also caused changes in how I do things. My middle range vision, i.e., computer screens, is deteriorating. If I enlarge the screen type font large enough to easily read it, some documents will not fit on the screen. In addition, the lines of type do not always run straight across the page for me. I get mixed up as to which line I am reading. With my changing vision, I have had to go to two pairs of glasses. One pair for distance vision and up-close “book” reading, and one pair for middle range (computer screen) and reading distance. I tried trifocals, but I couldn’t use them. They gave me severe headaches. Exchanging glasses has quickly become a pain, especially when I forget where I put the other pair of glasses.

This post concentrates on the phrase Student Version. With this phrase I am attempting to identify the target audience of the book. It is intended for mid-to late-adolescents. This phrase actually comes directly in verbal form from my pre-Traumatic Brain Incident days. As far back as 1990, colleges were looking for ways of addressing those traditional “college-age” individuals whom they were trying to attract to come to their institutions. Colleges had to walk something of a tightrope in addressing these individuals. Officially, in the eyes of the law, most of these individuals were not adults. They were still children in the eyes of many of their parents. Many parents were financially responsible for these individuals. Parents also wanted to protect “their children” from the harsh realities of the real world for as long as they could. The “children” were getting ready to leave the nest. They wanted to be on their own as much as possible. So as not to offend the parents or the young people, colleges started using the term “student.” This gave the young folks a sense of freedom, while still not completely off-putting the parents. In the ’90s at college recruitment or orientation days, we talked to parents about “their students.” When we addressed the prospective students, we used the term “students” to give them a sense of maturation. The term may not have completely satisfied everyone in either group. However, it didn’t disgust them either.

As these prospective students engaged in the college selection and preparation processes, there was one question that kept surfacing:

That’s the primary reason for writing this book. I wanted to help prospective students and their parents answer the questions that arise naturally in the processes of selecting, applying to and preparing for college or careers. This book is addressed to the students. I am also working on a second volume, addressed to the parents. I am intending to call it An Explorer’s Guide to Biblical Life Planning: PG Version. The abbreviation PG stands for Parental Guidance. This is not the parental guidance that the movies rating system suggests. The book is intended to provide guidance to parents as their students navigate their paths to college or a career. The PG Verision will contain all the material in the Student Version, but it will contain additional information. The added bonus material is meant to help guide the parents as they work with their students. I will encourage families to work through the common parts of the books together.