Faculty at Work

 

Our university has an excellent architecture program.

 

Architecture students have ACT scores that are over two points higher than the university average.  We are oversubscribed and turn away applicants.  Bringing in more students than can be properly intellectually challenged is anathema to quality and will never, under any circumstance or scenario, help the program or our university.

 

Amazingly, in ten years, the architecture program went from a two-year degree, to a four-year degree, and now offers a new professional masters degree that, when accredited, will meet requirements for licensure in all 50 states. 

 

At breakfast, I reflected on our desires for better space, equipment, computing hardware and software, and a number of other pressing needs and thought, “How can this modest program be as good as it is in such a resource constrained environment?”

 

Could it be excellent leadership?  Yes, that was part of it, but that all happened years ago and over an extended period of time.  People looked ahead, thought about how to make something better and set out, step by step, to do that.  Now the leadership is changed but the same process is at work.

 

Could it be our excellent students?  They are good, very good, and the best of them compete at other graduate programs and in the workplace with students from anywhere, under any circumstance, without explanation, equivocation or qualification.  But they alone won’t make the program excellent; although without them it would never succeed.

 

Could it be the resources that have been available to us?  I don’t think so. Although the university has made a great effort to support the school we are about as frugal as this type of program can be.  I have had experience at some of the best architectural programs in the nation and ours is a good one at considerably less cost.

 

With this reflection, in a sober moment, I was again reminded about what it is that makes an excellent academic program.

 

Faculty.

 

No matter how much money is available for facilities, equipment and support, even scholarships and assistantships, and other means of attracting the best students, without excellent faculty no real substance is possible.  Barriers of space and equipment, studios and laboratories, computers and travel budgets notwithstanding, if the students are not challenged intellectually, nothing else matters.

 

Our faculty is diverse, with many backgrounds but with uncommon passion for serving students, the region, the profession and our university. 

 

We have some faculty who wear themselves out finding summer employment opportunity for our students, who in turn tell their friends, their parents and high school teachers about the program and the caring faculty, and the result is more interest.

 

Others are committed scholars who study and write and share insights around the world, and bring all that to bear every day in the classroom or studio. 

 

A few can make computers sing and dance with images and ideas, and communicate complex concepts.

 

Yet others drag students all over the world to show them what the past teaches and the future holds; bring youngsters in during the summer for a firsthand look at what architects do; and still others toil as artists and craftspeople demonstrating a love and appreciation of form and material.

 

On an early tour of Columbia, the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States, and now merely President of Columbia University, Dwight Eisenhower commented on how pleased he was to meet so many employees of the university.  Professor I. I. Rabi, a distinguished professor and soon to be Nobel prizewinner said, “Sir, the faculty are not the employees of Columbia University, the faculty is Columbia University.”

 

When faculty work to change the world with their students, as those in the School of Architecture do, Professor Rabi had it just right. Without that passion, there is no “Our University.”

 

Thankfully, while I consider the Architecture program uncommonly strong, it is not unique at our university.

Our University – Reducing Costs for College Students

I have previously commented on the various ways that families can reduce the cost of attending university.  In my own case, I attended a community college and completed my AAS degree earning 70 hours… almost all of which transferred to a senior institution.  There is not a single action that a family can take that will have such a positive impact on diminishing the high cost of attending university.  Community colleges are cheaper to run, and therefore cheaper to attend.  

 

No magic, no smoke, no mirrors.

 

Additionally, dual enrollment programs are growing in popularity.  They allow high school students to begin taking courses that count for credit at a sponsoring community college, and simultaneously for high school graduation.  Students may be able to secure significant course credits at a community college before graduating from high school. In one case, a young woman graduated from community college and high school in the same month:  a zero cost community college degree.  While rare, it is not is unique.

 

Coupling dual enrollment with highly articulated transfer arrangements between the community college and the local university has the impact of reducing the cost of a bachelor’s degree by 50%.  The idea of cutting the cost of a university education in half is real and achievable. 

 

A two year baccalaureate degree.  Time is money too: out of high school and at work in two.  The system can work for motivated families and students. 

 

This arithmetic is impossible to refute and will serve some students exceedingly well.  The result of this seamless relationship between high school, community college, and university creates high efficiency and lower costs for students and faamilies.  This is more potent than any loan program for students and more effective than any grant program for taxpayers.  It requires no intervention on anyone’s part, just the exercise of existing opportunity.

 

The Southern Illinois Collegiate Common Market, an association of the community colleges and universities in the region, has been cooperating for many years to facilitate efficient transfer for students.

 

It can be excellent.

 

But the appealing opportunity to save resources for students could undermine the purpose of institutions at every level if not handled carefully. High school can become a course-credentialing activity and the important aspects of becoming part of the community and sharing a common experience may be lost. These aspects have palpable value too, even though they don’t show up on a transcript. 

 

The community colleges may see this as a chance to offer baccalaureate degrees. A fundamental mistake.  The role of offering the most cost effective post secondary coursework should never be sacrificed to compete with universities in offering four year degrees.  It might be possible for a season, but eventually quality will suffer. 

 

If universities try to compete on cost, they will become low quality community colleges while community colleges will become poor quality universities, and high schools… check lists for courses completed.

 

Appropriately choreographed this triune relationship has great power, but if haphazardly approached the negative impacts will be deep.

 

These ideas are captured in the concept of “mission creep.”

 

Each organization must focus on strength of mission in the combined picture, and provide opportunity for some students to meet some personal and societal needs in a way that allows costs to be low and quality acceptable at every level.  This is a complex equation that will work when there is good communication between the student and the three levels of institution, driven by a focus in purpose and service rarely attained by the educational establishment. 

 

Our university should always be open to working for students to help them achieve goals in a cost-effective manner.  Dual enrollments and strong articulation can do that for some, maybe many, but never all.  

 

And a trade off of dramatic savings for low quality is never acceptable.

 

Our University – Entitlement

 

Entitlement is the state of being owed that which you have not earned. We see workers of all kinds, at every level, from classroom teachers to state and national political leaders who suffer from the notion that they are entitled to a perquisite, to employment, to reward or benefit of some kind, because they have sacrificed or labored diligently.  They paid their dues.  And this payment of dues entitles to privilege.

 

Maybe… maybe not. 

 

Elected officials might believe they have served the people well and, through that service, earned the right to something that benefits them personally.  Students have paid tuition and believe that payment guarantees a good grade.

 

Entitlement is to opportunity what arrogance is to talent.  In both cases the former dilutes the latter until a society, or a subgroup within it, begins to believe that position ensures reward or desired result. 

 

I don’t think so.

 

There is always a testing of opportunity that will lead to achievement and recognition for the attainment of certain goals.  I have seen this 3 times a year every year, for the past 33 years at university commencements.  Commencements mark the exercise of opportunity through the attainment of goals.  I fear some days that commencement is anticipated as a foregone conclusion: The price has been paid and the gold ring is waiting.

 

Without the possibility of failure, success is a cheap thing.  Entitlement steals opportunity and with it, quality.

 

I remember a faculty member coming to my office to voice concerns about not receiving a promotion after years of teaching, contributing to the body of knowledge through research and publication, and serving the professional and extended community through service.  He was upset about the results of the process.  Every committee and individual along the way viewed his work in the same way – not up to the standards of the university.

 

 “I work hard, come to the office, teach my classes and publish papers…I deserve to be promoted,” he said.  I told him I understood how he felt but “What you deserve is your paycheck every month, which you received without interruption, and your health insurance, and a good office in which to work, and students, and support, all of which you had, but you had to earn tenure from your peers, and tenure was not an entitlement.”

 

Yet.

 

He was angry with me for my forthrightness.  I understand that too.

 

We see pubic officials who believe that their entitlement extends to actions and privileges not granted but grabbed.  We are entitled to serve and in service earn respect.

 

How sweet it is.

 

In any organization nothing undermines success more than the idea that people within the organization are entitled to something, other than the opportunity to succeed or excel.  Another position, a promotion, a career guarantee, anything which is given by length of service or some equally insubstantial substitute for results – an entitlement – is a sickness. 

 

The cousin of entitlement, patronage, didn’t work in Tammany Hall and shouldn’t work here.  These cousins place people in positions for which they are unqualified.      

 

At our university, we should see entitlement for what it is, acid to our purpose.  We should covet attainment, merit, excellence, and the demonstration of quality in all that is carried out.

 

Excellence is the elixir for entitlement, nothing else works.