Monday, August 29, 2011

Hurricane Rhetoric


On Saturday just before Hurricane Irene hits Long Island, I venture, very early in the morning, into the local supermarket to make sure I have extra bread at home.  My food passions are dark chocolate and good bread and if I’m going to be stuck at home, I may as well have the necessary comfort foods.  As I am waiting to pay, there is a middle age man nearby loudly complaining and getting a sympathetic response from those around him.  The complaint is in regard to the technological progress we have made in this man’s lifetime and before, and the fact that we have not yet learned how to tame the weather.  And the bottom line of the rhetoric is that we are no better off in regard to Mother Nature then we were 50 or 100 years ago.

My goal that Saturday morning was to do what I needed to do in terms of getting ready.  I was anxious to get back home to move the deck furniture into the garage and therefore I chose not to enter the conversation. In reality, it’s not my style to enter into someone else’s conversation, especially given I didn’t know the man doing most of the talking nor did I know the individuals that were now also part of the conversation.

On the Thursday before Hurricane Irene hits Long Island, our president convened the first of a series of meetings to coordinate the University’s efforts in regard to Hurricane Irene, and it is clear that much work has already been done.  We are fortunate that the fall semester doesn’t start until the Tuesday after Labor Day, and therefore there is only a small minority of our students on campus. Nevertheless, we spend considerable time reviewing measures to ensure the safety of the students on campus, we review communications to all members of our community, we review facilities and we talk through that all contingency plans are in place.  We listen to all the latest weather briefings and we are clearly well prepared.  Subsequently, we also use our emergency communication procedures to reach out to our entire community via phone calls, text messages, as well as our website, Facebook and Twitter. 

Listening to the Mayor of New York, and the County Executives of Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties, it is clear that careful planning for all likely contingencies has taken place throughout the area ( and throughout the entire east coast ).  I don’t remember any other time in my lifetime when area mass transit as well as all local airports were all shutdown and closed. And Broadway being dark for weather related reasons for two days is also another first as is the mandatory evacuation of substantial areas on Long Island and in New York City. Safety concerns were clearly a top priority.

But the key to all this careful preparation is the much more precise knowledge we have in regard to hurricanes, and the much more sophisticated technology we have to reach out to members of our university communities as well as the larger area communities.  Our tracking of storms is impressive and together with proper planning, the much more sophisticated communications capability makes an enormous positive difference, especially in terms of safety.  We also have much more information available much more quickly to assess and respond to what has happened.  Mother Nature hasn’t changed but we have—thanks in great measure to technology.  

Monday, August 22, 2011

Well Protected

With the growth of on-line services has come a wealth of convenience.  I log into the Hofstra portal and my email around the globe. I rarely step inside of a bank.  I purchase more and more products on-line, I pay more and more bills on-line, and I even access much of the national, regional and higher education news on-line.  The rapidly increasing transition to more and more on-line products and services in the last decade has been a welcome change.  I know I am more productive and efficient as a result and I even believe I have slightly more discretionary time.

Along with all the enhanced usage, there is clearly an increased need for security.  My emails, what I buy, what I pay, and what I read is my business.  Therefore with more and more of my accounts, there is a password along with the log-in ID and this is also as it should be.  Initially, my approach was to use the same ID and the same password for almost all of my accounts.  In a very few cases, there were password parameters that required I make changes and I did so whenever the need arose…but not more than that.  As the accounts multiplied, it became clear to me that having so much reliance on one log-in and on one password diminished my security and increased my vulnerability; and so I began to vary both on a regular basis and to even change passwords on a regular basis. In all cases, I did stick to basic themes for both the ID and the password and so I ended up with many, many variations on a theme. I was clearly responding effectively to security concerns and to add further to the level of protection, I never wrote down any password and relied on my memory which served me well.

A few weeks ago, I needed to enter an important program on my hard drive that I had last accessed over a year ago.  I open the program and get ready to enter the password but can’t remember exactly what the password is.  And so I start to enter possible/likely passwords and nothing works.  I even wrote down passwords as I try them since as I mentioned above, my passwords are close variations.  Here too, nothing works.  Periodically I come back to this program and to date nothing has worked.  But I do feel confident that my data is secure.  I have also opened two new accounts during this time and in each case have written down the ID and password information.

Since the technology exists I am ready for the ID/login function to be replaced by a thumb print or an eye scan.  In the meantime I have started writing down this information for existing as well as new accounts on a secure site.  I’ve learned my lesson.  My memory is excellent but my many, many logins and passwords are more than a match.  Maintaining security is critical but without accessibility, it leaves something to be desired.  Having written this blog, I am feeling optimistic and heading right back to finding the right combination to access my data.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Administration 101

A middle level administrator I know was faced with a dilemma.  The person had agreed to make a program recommendation and immediately after sending the very strong recommendation began to have serious reservations about the program.  To some extent these reservations were the result of information that became available subsequent to the recommendation being sent.  And to some extent the reservations were the result of a more careful look by the administrator at the program being recommended.  The end result was a 180 degree change from recommend to really can’t recommend.

But what does the middle level administrator do at that point?  One possible response is to go back to the program developers and indicate that given this and that, the administrator can no longer support going forward.  Another related possibility is that the administrator withdraws the positive recommendation.  If one or both of these courses of action are your responses, you get Administration 101 advanced standing credit. However, what if this is not the response? What if instead the response is to contact the person the administrator reports to, and ask that person to turn down the recommendation?  In that way, the administrator could go back to the program developer and indicate with sincerity that it was a higher-up that deserves the blame since the administrator had made a positive recommendation.  With this scenario, what if the higher up refused to play this role?

Are there other alternatives?  The administrator could write a detailed memo to the higher up indicating the flaws in the original recommendation and once again indicate that the higher up should turn down the recommendation.  Why not at this point just rescind the original recommendation?  The explanation could be that the administrator is still not comfortable saying to the program developers that the original positive recommendation was flawed and should be withdrawn.  Once again, what if the higher up refused to play the role of nay sayer?  What if the higher up very clearly indicated to the administrator that if there are such serious doubts the recommender should contact the program developers, explain the reassessment, and withdraw the recommendation?

One resulting possibility is that the administrator emails the program developers directly, spelling out in detail the concerns about the program.  It should and could be a well thought out email. The conclusion, at this point, might go in one of two ways, with one punch line being that for the reasons noted above, the University had decided not to go forward.  The other alternative would be for the administrator to state that it is he or she that is withdrawing the recommendation.

There are clearly moments in time when a recommendation looks sound initially and subsequently turns out to be very flawed.  I think we are all aware of such situations. Absent extenuating circumstances, my Administration 101 advice is that the recommender should just go back to all involved and indicate that given all the information now available, that he or she can no longer make a positive recommendation.  Think about it. Asking someone else to do your work or suggesting that someone else has made your decision, serves no purpose and more than likely is counterproductive to long term administrative advancement.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Moving Forward


In my early days in administration, many years ago, I had the opportunity to serve on negotiating committees for various labor contracts and the position I held on these committees was the exalted chair-filler position. A chair filler has minimal involvement with the actual negotiations so expertise is not necessarily a prerequisite.  Instead a chair-filler is selected based on his or her ability to fill a chair and look both intelligent and engaged at the same time.  I did the best I could to meet these standards, and though I wondered initially why it was necessary to have such a position, I nevertheless found it to be a valuable experience.  The “why” in my opinion is simply because if one side has a large number of individuals on their team, the other side needs an almost equal number to show it is at least equally engaged.

The reason I found these early career experiences to be invaluable is that almost at the beginning of  the process I was able to gauge with a high level of accuracy exactly what the settlement would be.  In an environment where everyone realizes that bargaining is a mutual benefit equation, it is not that hard to predict the conclusion.  I believe the likely conclusion is known by the individuals heading the negotiations and those associated with the negotiations well in advance of the deadline date and perhaps even well in advance of the start of formal negotiation. However, the widely held belief is, if you settle too early, you are really not doing all you can to have your positions prevail.

In the recent budget/national debt debate in Washington, even though we came close to defaulting, I think our national leaders (as well as the accompanying chair fillers) knew based on clearly stated positions, exactly what the likely outcome would be. The fact that it took so long was designed to convince the public of how each side worked to have their position prevail.  I think this strategy was a mistake.  With an economy that is struggling, with a faltering economy, it is a serious mis-step to undermine confidence in that economy and not surprisingly in the Washington leadership in both parties.  And yet we have done that.  Would a settlement two weeks or a month sooner have made a difference? I believe it would have and that we would have been better off as a result of that earlier conclusion. 

More and more we seem to be headed for confrontations and for blunt economic solutions.  No changes in taxes, tax caps, and across the board spending cuts are blunt instruments.  There are no doubt tax loopholes that should be closed or tax rates that should be adjusted.  There are no doubt tax caps that will prevent real needs and priorities from being addressed. And across the board federal budget cuts, if it comes to that, will almost inevitably result in changes that undermine the national interest.

As I have said before we do need to contain spending, we do need to get a handle on the national debt and we do need to reduce the tax burden.  But unless we move away from brinkmanship, and also substitute well thought out policy initiatives for blunt economics, these goals will not be achieved or if they are achieved, the costs could rival the gains.  The economy is faltering and the clock is ticking. We need to do better and now is the time.

Monday, August 1, 2011

High on Imagination

One of my favorite birthday gifts given to me this year was a membership to the High Line, and so a few days ago my kids and I went to visit there.  What is the High Line?  Before I answer that question, let me answer the question that should come first—what was the High Line?  It was an elevated freight train structure including of course the tracks, and freight trains ran on this structure until the 1980s.  And as a kid, riding in a car down or up the west side drive, I still remember the trains running.  The High Line, and before that time, surface level tracks, were prominent parts of the west side of Manhattan corridor during the time that railroads were an indispensible mainstay of our transportation infrastructure.  Those days are long gone, and even the rail facilities that continue to exist aren’t treated with the respect that this still important form of transportation should be accorded.

So what happens to the structure and the tracks when the need disappears?  More than likely, in the name of progress, the raised tracks and the necessary elevated structure also disappear.  And that was starting to happen here. But thanks to a group of individuals who had the imagination and the wherewithal to push for a park, the High Line now flourishes.  We entered the High Line on 14th Street.  My kids were not really sure what to expect, and the thought of an elevated park seemed strange to them.  I also had wondered whether this was really a park or was it a gimmick. From the second we got on, and from the walk to Gansevoort Street and then from Gansevoort to 30th Street, we were enthralled.  We walked, we sat, we looked at the sights including the buildings, the plantings, the art display, and the Hudson River; and we were all enthralled.  The kids have already decided that we need to go back soon and take some of their friends along for the experience.

New York was fortunate that much of this structure was not torn down and that this park exists. But the greatest good fortune lies in the imagination of those individuals who pictured the High Line as what it could be rather than what it was.

The emphasis in much of education today is on testing.  Test results carry great weight in evaluating a school district; test results carry great weight in determining where you will be able to go for higher education as well as graduate education. We are all familiar with school districts whose claim to fame is their test results and whose students help populate many of the best colleges and universities. But where does imagination play a role in this equation.  We know it can make all the difference; we know that meaningful change often requires imagination and the ability to see things differently.  I’m an economist.  I think that economics is invaluable but I know that fostering imagination is enormously helped by a meaningful exposure to the arts.  Music and art bring out the creativity and allow the mind to expand.  In this era of constraints, when choices in education may become more limited, we have an obligation to support the arts and to encourage students at all levels to take arts courses.  Test results do matter but test results without imagination lead to the same things being done in the same way.  The arts are one meaningful way of expanding the possible. And for so many of the problems we face today, expanding the possible is the best hope we have for a better quality life for ourselves and the other inhabitants of our world.