Monday, February 28, 2011

Getting Out More

Many of us are active in organizations and on boards of other not-for-profits as part of our community service orientation.  I very much believe in the responsibility of faculty, administrators, and students to contribute their time and resources (if possible) in support of providing a better  quality of life for members of our community.  And over the years I have been active in many very worthwhile organizations including my present service on the board of ProjectGrad Long Island.  ProjectGrad has on Long Island and nationally partnered with economically disadvantaged school districts to provide extra support and enhance the chances of success for these students. I am not only active myself in organizations like this but I encourage my colleagues to also become involved in support of the community (broadly defined).

Every board I serve on also provides me with an enhanced education for myself.  I learn by serving, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot more.  About two years ago, some school board members in the district in which I live asked me to run for the school board.  I actually already had school board service at a local Quaker school but I also already had continuing community service commitments.  I ultimately said yes—how can you say no to helping enhance the schools in your own community and where your kids and their friends go to school ?  The other board members are very smart, very dedicated, very focused on the kids, which for me are all positives; the time commitment, however, is more than I expected.  But what also is much more than I expected is my learning about k-12 education and school finance.  Especially daunting are the looming financial issues compounded by many unfunded state mandates.  For example, New York’s new governor is talking about a 2% property tax cap which makes sense; however, at the same time mandatory increases in school district contributions to the state (defined benefit) pension plan  plus increases in the cost of health care will also equal approximately 2%. But in any school budget there are likely other increasing costs such as compensation for all employees as well as steps and lane changes for teachers.  Especially fascinating are the issues of more accurately measuring learning, increasing learning, and the impact of teachers on that learning.   All of this gives me a much better understanding of teacher education and  educational leadership, two key areas in our School of Education, Health and Human Services.  And none of us in higher education should forget for even a moment that what we can accomplish in providing students with a first rate higher education is inextricably interwoven with what they have accomplished in their k-12 education.

Service to the community is part of giving back which we all should do.  But it is also involves educating ourselves in ways that enhance our understanding of complex issues and our job performance.  Doing our jobs as well as they can be done clearly requires to be involved in more than our jobs.  We all need to get out more.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Athletic Success

This past Tuesday evening, February 15,  was special for a number of reasons.  Hofstra played William & Mary in a great basketball game with a last second overtime victory by Hofstra.  For the last ten minutes of the game, all eyes were riveted on the court with great basketball, great drama; and (especially since I am a Hofstra person) a great conclusion.   But equal to the game, was the halftime happening.

Was it a halftime Superbowl type of show that captured my attention?  Not at all.  There was no show; instead this time was used to recognize the athletes who earned at least a B or better GPA in the previous year.  The group recognized included more than 50 % of our athletes with a significant presence by every team, and 10% of the athletes who were recognized had perfect 4.0 (A) grade point averages.  I was enormously proud of each and every athlete who earned GPAs between 3.0 and 4.0.

Being an athlete requires tremendous discipline.  Being a good student and a good athlete besides requires much more discipline.  Many of our students who are athletes, as well as many of our students who work at one or more part-time jobs or are active in volunteer and other co-curricular work, all demonstrate that discipline that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.  Time management is an enormous skill.  Without it, even the smartest person or the best athlete may not succeed; with time management it is far easier to fulfill your potential.

When I started in higher education, athletics and scholarship were often viewed as the oil and vinegar.  They simply didn’t mix; there was no intersection.  There were very few conversations. And no scholar athlete recognition event.  Many faculty viewed athletes in a less than positive light; and a significant number of coaches viewed academic s as a distraction to their top talent.  Thankfully, for the most part, the world has changed and continues to change.

Thanks to the efforts of the NCAA, thanks to a more student-centered philosophy of education, thanks to a new breed of coaches, thanks to a world where stereotyping is less the norm, we now find much greater collaboration and cooperation between academics and athletics.  And nothing could be better for the students involved.  Being on a team is a great experience but at the end of the day, very few college athletes enter the pros.  It is therefore especially important that they succeed as students so that they graduate and have more options available to them.  As faculty, administrators, and staff, we get great pleasure from our athletes and as faculty, administrators, and staff we have an obligation to our athletes and all our students, to see that they succeed and graduate.  There is still work to be done in this area but nights like last Tuesday convince me we continue to make great progress.  The goal is in sight and team work can get us there. 

Monday, February 14, 2011

Plans

We are in the process of preparing our next five-year plan which will cover the years 2012-2017.  Our previous plan focused on providing additional resources to enhance the academic profile of the University and very substantial progress was made in enhancing undergraduate student quality as well as adding additional faculty lines and other resources.  This new plan will again have an academic orientation but not the luxury of focusing just on what we would like to add.

Our previous plan predated the current economic recession.  This  new plan is taking shape as we are hopefully slowly pulling out of the economic decline.  But as we all know the landscape has changed. There is more family and student financial need and consequently many institutions are responding by increasing need-based scholarships and increasing their discount rate. This money needs to be budgeted and some of the funds are reallocated from other present expenditure items in the budget.  Some of this reallocation will come almost inevitably from the academic budget.

But if the economy is really improving can’t we go back to business as usual; won’t reallocations be reversed and need-based scholarships (and discounting) decline?  I don’t think so.  The expectations of need based scholarships and of tuition discounting are now so firmly implanted in the hearts and minds of our students and their families that we will need to continue our present discounting practices.  But there is good news.  An improving economy will allow for additional revenues and that includes tuition revenues as well as fund raising.  We will have funding for new academic initiatives but we are still constrained. 

New academic initiatives are the lifeblood of an institution but the usual practice is to implement the new without a careful look at everything we are presently doing, and whether the need still exists for every program that is being offered.  As educators, I think we know we are likely offering some majors and some courses where there is not a critical mass of students (or a critical mass of faculty to teach the program).  We are also likely still awarding some stipends or released time based on what existed before that doesn’t necessarily still exist today. We need, in preparing new five-year plans (and planning for the future in general), to look at everything we are presently offering.  If the student demand isn’t there, if our resources are being overly diluted because of too many programs, if we have an ambitious agenda for moving the institution forward but not all the new resources we need to accomplish the goal,  we need to be  prepared to make the tough decisions. I am sure we have made some already but I am also fairly sure there are more that can and should be made.

We all know that it is easier to give resources than to reduce resources.  But the age old definition of economics still holds true—we are dealing with the allocation of scarce resources among alternative ends.  Scarcity is a fact of life.  Our test is how well we manage in this reality.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Leaving the Comfort Zone

Last Saturday, I took my older daughter and her best friend to a performance of Nearly Lear at New York’s New Victory Theater.  The show stars Susanna Hamnett as the Fool.  She also plays every other role in this adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy and she and Edith Tankus wrote the play besides.  I am a major fan of the work done by the New Victory and have been taking my kids to shows there regularly for the last ten years, but I really hesitated to buy tickets to this show.  I first read King Lear in high school and have seen it performed multiple times.  Tragedies are not my favorite form of entertainment even when the story is brilliantly developed as it is in King Lear.  And for a Saturday excursion with my daughter and her friend, something upbeat tends to create a more upbeat mood and a more fun day. I was going to the show but clearly this was outside of my comfort zone.

Susanna Hamnett was terrific. The show was terrific and with good humor and great talent Ms. Hamnett told the tale from beginning to end playing the Fool, King Lear, Cordelia, Regan, Goneril, and various other parts. Everyone died on schedule but we all laughed throughout.  And this adaptation served to remind me of the mastery present throughout Shakespeare’s work.

Unrelated to Shakespeare, King Lear, or Nearly Lear, I was at a lunch at the beginning this week where one of the participants was a very sophisticated high tech person.  During the conversation, she mentioned that when she found software or hardware that she liked or was helpful to her, she stayed with that product. And she completed the thought by saying she preferred to stay in her comfort zone. And to some extent we all do.  I took my time to make the switch from a blackboard/whiteboard with overhead slides to PowerPoint.  Now I couldn’t even tell you why I hesitated other than I was in my comfort zone.  Human nature prevails.

Higher education is being challenged as never before.  In a weakened economy, there are fewer family resources as well as less government and philanthropic support.  But economies improve and we will in time weather that challenge.  More serious, on-line delivery of education and/or for-profit companies providing education plus more international competition have turned our industry upside down and their presence will not diminish over time.  Business as usual may be our comfort zone but it isn’t our future.  As I have said for a number of years, we need to change, maintaining our quality and our integrity and responding assertively and expeditiously to these changing times.  The last thing we want is to have our industry described the same way we describe the King Lear story.