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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

May 8, 2008

Presidential Lifespan

Make a list of the constituencies on most college or university campuses by their population size, and you’ll find students at the head of the list, representing the largest component, followed by the faculty, then staff, and at the tail will be the administrators, the smallest cohort. Rank the various groups by their visibility in the media, and you’ll find the smallest group — the administrators (most often represented by the president) — is at the head, a result no doubt of the rephrased quip, “here is where the buck stops and the headlines begin.” Most often the president, as the official spokesperson of the campus, is the one quoted in a campus story — in part because of the media’s search for a reliable (accountable) source and also because campus directors of public affairs are well trained to put the face and word of their president out front. Read about Harvard, and Drew Faust is somewhere in the story; likewise, Lee Bollinger at Columbia.

Lately, news accounts mentioning university presidents are not only about the schools, but are about the presidents themselves; who are not just in the story, but are the story.

The legendary Boston University president, John Silber, took me out for a drink in 1977, a couple of days before I left B.U., where I’d been a vice president, to assume the presidency of the University of Hartford. He had some advice and observed that when he had been dean of Arts & Sciences at the University of Texas, he’d been fired by the chairman of the board, Frank Erwin, who, when he told Silber what he was about to do, began by saying, “John, I’m about to make you famous.” Silber went on to point out that after he was dismissed, hundreds upon hundreds of students and faculty protested the action, signed petitions, and otherwise demonstrated their pro-Silber sentiments. Nevertheless, he was out. He contrasted that situation with the one at Boston University, where in 1977, six years after his arrival, students and faculty had repeatedly called for his ouster. And as the legend tells us, where he was retained for what ultimately became a notable, record-setting tenure.

“What lesson do you take from this, Trachtenberg?” he rhetorically asked and continued, “The first thing to do when you get to Connecticut is figure out who does the hiring and who does the firing.” Silber’s sound advice has come to mind many times in the last 30 years, most sharply this morning as I was watching events unfold in West Virginia, where a faculty group has called for the president of the state university to step down in the wake of a scandal having to do with the governor’s daughter receiving an M.B.A. degree without actually having completed the necessary requirements. The faculty senate called for President Michael Garrison’s ouster with a “no confidence” vote urging his resignation for the good of the institution. It would appear, perhaps understandably, that the president of the university has had a relationship with the governor and much is being read into that.

An independent review sharply criticized the issuance of the unearned M.B.A. degree to Heather Bresch, and heads have rolled. The provost and the dean of the business school have resigned (although both will keep their faculty appointments) and the challenged M.B.A. degree was cancelled. But faculty sentiments not withstanding, as of now there is no reported evidence linking President Garrison to Bresch’s degree, and the board of trustees’ backing of Garrison demonstrates the wisdom of Silber’s observation: Keep an eye on who does the hiring and who does the firing.

Lately, two groups of presidents have been in the news: those retiring after completing their terms in office and those leaving their posts in haste, before either they or their boards expected that to occur. I’m trying to figure out if there’s something to be learned from all the high-visibility short-term presidential comings and goings of late. The other day, the president of Simmons College stepped down unexpectedly after only two years; the president of William and Mary departed before his three-year term ran out this semester; and similar situations at other schools come to mind in the not too distant past: Cornell, Trinity College, and Occidental. One need only mention Lawrence Summers to define the issue I’m trying to get my head around. It seems to me that when I go online every morning I can regularly find news of some presidential personnel problem; the unhappy story of a DUI episode by the president of Mary Washington University comes to mind, as it reappeared in the press this past week.

And then there is the speculation about why. Is the university presidency flawed in some way? Does it make demands on people that are unreasonable? I don’t mean just where there are inappropriate matches. Do we have some minimum goals in mind when we elect presidents? Yesterday, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst named Robert Holub chancellor. He’s got ambitious plans for the institution as he brings his experience from the University of Tennessee to New England. Will Holub get the resources and support he needs? Will his chemistry and the campus environment mesh?

We can only wish him and other new presidents well but still question why institutions of higher education seem to be having such revolving doors in their executive suites given the careful processes by which presidents are selected. Search committees, after all, take as much as a year to seek a president. Often assisted by professional search firms, they are composed of representatives of every constituency and stakeholder in the academic community and yet … and yet … they seem to frequently misfire.

Is it the people, the governance system, or is it the standard to which university leaders are being held? The average term in the job is now 8.5 years, up from six only a few years ago, according to the American Council on Education. Short, certainly, by the standard length of faculty tenure, and not nearly as long as may be in the best interest of institutions. Directing an institution as slow to react as is a university requires patience, trust, and a long life cycle. But presidents tire, get bored, feel frustrated, yearn for the excitement and challenge of a new campus rather than the ongoing maintenance of their existing one — in each case, it is probably some and all of the above.

What if anything can be done to ensure that administrative departures are not unexpected or untimely, but rather are orderly, at a point after sound accomplishments have been piled one upon another? What can we do to protect presidents from their personnel frailties, or the embarrassing misdeeds of other colleagues? We worry, and rightfully, about the professoriate (full time and adjunct) and about the welfare of the student body. Increasingly we worry, and rightly, about the staff. Who’s worrying about the president and ultimately, about the place of and capacity in leadership of the academy? It is in our self-interest to do so.

Comment [5]

May 6, 2008

Education Reporters

It has been recently observed that as newspapers downsize their budgets reporting on education has been suffering. There are fewer and fewer reporters whose beats are institutions of learning. Coverage of education, including schools as well as colleges and universities, is increasingly thinner on the ground. And, the truth be told, except for a few places like Boston, where higher education is a local industry, or New York City and Washington (cities were multiple colleges reside), the coverage has never been all that good.

For many years, a troika of women have been writing cogently about education in those three cities: Marcella Bombardieri, The Boston Globe; Karen Aronson, The New York Times; and Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post. On too many papers, all too often, editors view education as an entry-level position. Likewise, the reporters covering education often view themselves on a prerequisite steppingstone to a move up the professional ladder, for example, away from Metro and on to the National or International Desk. Not surprisingly, turnover in these positions is high. Fortunately, Bombardieri, Aronson, and Strauss’ work on education has been thoughtful, thorough, engaging, and dogged.

That said, it is important to note with regret the departure from The New York Times of Karen W. Arenson. I want to associate myself with the observations previously made by my fellow poster, Stan Katz. Ms. Arenson’s departure diminishes the Times and the conversation about higher education in America in general. One can only hope she will find time to do the occasional column and that we may see some books come from her hand in the years to come.

Comment

May 5, 2008

Seeking Education Gurus

Recently, the Wall Street Journal posted a list of the 20 most influential “gurus” (a word used interchangeably with “thinkers”) in the business world, the 19 men (and one woman) that CEO’s and other business executives say they have found give them “easily digestible advice,” primarily on three hot themes, “globalization, motivation and innovation.”

For those of you who also like easily digestible tidbits and may not have time to click on the link to read the full article, here are the top five on the list and their latest books: Gary Hamel, The Future of Management; Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat and Crowded (out this summer); Bill Gates, Business @ the Speed of Thought; Malcolm Gladwell, Blink; and Howard Gardner, Responsibility at Work (editor).

Included as a sidebar is an explanation of the methodology used by Professor Thomas Davenport from Babson College to produce the list of 20, which, by the way, includes seven professors. One of Davenport’s intriguing quotes in the piece is that he believes “traditional business gurus writing ‘weighty tomes’ are in decline.” He doesn’t define weighty but I take it to mean, academic and theoretical. What a sad statement about readers. This list of 20 is an update of one Davenport produced four years ago, and like similar ranking systems, some people moved up, others down, and a few fell off the list altogether even as new ones appeared on the scene. He’s given us a slice of contemporary sociological news, a quick take on the 15 minutes of fame awarded to a slice of the society by another segment, a group of leaders who collectively steer the economic ship of the American economy.

I began to ponder a similar list for higher education. Who are the people that are writing about our enterprise, the people we should all be reading in order to understand where we are, how we got here, and what we should do in the future?

Let me know your choices.

Comment [23]

April 27, 2008

New Visa Fees Would Send the Wrong Signal

Almost all of us can remember America’s reaction to 9/11. In the days following the horrendous event many defensive initiatives were taken and, since two of the perpetrators were foreign students, one reaction was to restrict access to America’s colleges and universities. Barriers were imposed overseas, visas became difficult if not impossible to get. Personnel in American embassies were frosty, if not outright rude, to inquiries from those interested in enrolling as undergraduate or graduate students. While traveling in China numerous students told me about their visa problems. Later, in a meeting in Beijing with our ambassador he acknowledged the unusual circumstances and the problems they were causing both for his staff and Chinese nationals.

I myself received calls from several Middle Eastern ambassadors to the U.S. asking if I couldn’t be helpful to their constituents. The U.S. authorities stood firm. Students who had contemplated studying in the U.S. redirected themselves to schools in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom and other more welcoming English speaking countries.

Time passed and little by little, with the help of university presidents, dedicated public servants and leadership in the Departments of Commerce and State, and interested members of Congress in both the House and the Senate, steps were taken to rationalize our hospitality. We recognized the need for prudence, we understood the case for security, but we also perceived the role that universities played in articulating American’s foreign policy, and incidentally, as an export industry. It was important that persons from other countries studying in the U.S. come to know our values and return home able to make the case for America; it was also important that our campuses have the benefit of students from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and all other parts of the World.

In the years that have passed since the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, accommodations have been made and, even as we’ve remained vigilant, we’ve found ways to slowly restore the number of international students in our ranks, which had been depleted. Applications to graduate schools, in particular, have been coming back year-by-year. Last year was particularly robust; China and India have been sending students to our shores with renewed vigor. Conservative U.S. visa practices seem to have become more flexible. And it appeared that a return to normal, pre Osama bin Laden, conditions might be in our future.

This seemed to be a good thing, one of the too few areas where America and the rest of the world might be successfully working together. You can imagine my surprise when I read the other day that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is considering doubling the fee that international students were going to be required to pay when they applied for visas. The numbers aren’t consequential in the larger scheme of things, going from $100 to $200. Some will argue that the differential is not going to be dispositive, and I agree. But at a time when American universities are being asked to control their tuition increases, the optics seems to me so contrary to avowed sentiments that they are quite maddening. Have we been abandoned by Madison Avenue?

Apparently the money is to help offset the expense of keeping track of where international students are once they’ve entered the country. A good idea badly executed. Our new efforts at internal surveillance and accounting for people in the U.S. on F-1 visas and J-1 visas have run up some costs. The increased fees would compensate for the expense and upgrading of the Student Exchange Visitor Program Information System, an automated database. Surely the money involved cannot be significant compared to the cost of the symbolism. Just as enrollments of foreign students in our universities are beginning to flourish, we contemplate a negative initiative, something likely to discourage however modestly rather than encourage consideration of study in the 50 states (plus the District of Columbia).

It may not be too late for us to help our government perfect their planning in this regard. The idea is still in gestation and may still be addressed by offering public commentary until June 30th to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They are asking for you to tell them what you think by going to the www.regulations.gov website or by fax at 866-466-5370. The new rates are to go live on October 1, 2008.

Uncle Sam needs you.

Comment [1]

Students Want More of Everything -- Except Reading

Last week I commented on students’ demands for “more” — greater and immediate access to faculty, more choices in residential living and dining, and better support services. The more students pay in tuition and fees, the greater the sense of entitlement.

But lately I’ve started to be concerned about something students don’t seem to want and that is, to use a vernacular phrase, homework. For the most part, students don’t mind coming to class but what they aren’t too keen on is reading.

My standard is my own freshman year, and the rigors of Columbia College’s core curriculum, the heart of which is Contemporary Civilization. We read continuously for 30 weeks, day and night, weekends included, in order to keep up with the syllabus. Devouring the classics (alas, in translation, though a few classmates, like Henry Ebel, taught themselves Greek for fun), reading our way through history, it was a tour de force for a first generation kid, something that opened my eyes to what college was all about, as well as to the foundation of Western intellectual thought.

But when I listen to students today chat (not, I hasten to point out, the ones in my very own class who are all good looking, strong, and above average) about their classes, I too often hear criticism of the work load rather than excitement about the subject matter, a complaint about the hours taken from meeting with friends or playing sports rather than engaging in debate, deciphering philosophy, history or a good poem. “Keep it neat, simple and to the point,” my faculty colleagues tell me. If I assign too much work, they say, students will write negative comments and the following semester enrollment will plummet.

When I asked my current class for their advice about how many books they thought I could assign next year when I reinvent the course, I began like an auctioneer with the number 14 — one for each week. “What do you think?” I asked. Not a single person agreed. How about 12, 10 or eight?” Reflecting on their colleague’s appetites, somewhere between 6 and 8, they advised. That felt about right to them. To me, however, it seems skimpy, thin, not rigorous enough. Maybe I’ll list eight and then “sneak” in extra readings along the way — handouts, journals, novellas, and a few little extras. “Where’s the beef?” may be the slogan for the dining hall but it isn’t the current cry for the classroom.

I’m not yet prepared to to give in to reading lite in the fashion of nouvelle cuisine. There is an academic joke that says the higher the tuition the more vacation days each semester. Perhaps to that we should add, and also the fewest pages per credit hour.

Comment [6]

April 21, 2008

Why Is This Holiday Different From All Other Holidays?

Each year at the Passover Seder I take our family through a service that recalls the story of Exodus. And as many of you will recall, Moses led his people out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, through the desert and to the edge of Canaan. Because of misdeeds committed along the way, Moses is denied access to his people’s future homeland. Its story has been told religiously for millennia, and cinematically for over half a century. This year, the modern Moses died; Charlton Heston has finally entered the Promised Land.

Biblical epics orchestrated by Hollywood are indelibly etched into the psyches of movie-goers. Pyramids and Tutankhamen’s tomb aside, it remains difficult to visualize a Pharaoh who doesn’t resemble Yul Brenner or a Moses other than Heston, as portrayed in the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments. The story continues with Steven Spielberg’s 1981 story of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the search by the Nazis for the ark and tabernacle built by Moses. In 2005, a French-Israeli cinematic team produced, Go, Live, and Become, the tale of a young boy, Shlomo, who was part of the Israeli “Operation Moses” that rescued and air-lifted thousands of Ethiopian Jews who fled the their home country, were stranded in the Sudan, and were brought to Israel. The story’s non-Jewish child was “placed” by his mother into the hands of a Jewish woman whose own child had died, and this adopted pair travel together in the modern exodus. As the child boards the Israeli plane, his birth mother says, “Go, live, and become.” What Moses was denied, Sholmo was permitted.

Cinema aside, Passover is one of my favorite Jewish holidays, in part because of the gathering of family around a table for ritual, special symbolic foods such as matzah (unleavened bread), and a focused conversation about the meaning of the holiday evoked by the components of the meal. We celebrate the message that links, from generation to generation, all people in search of liberty. Each year we recall those around the world struggling to be free. Each year we retell the story with some innovative message so that it does not become stale, so we never forget the trials of bondage and the blessing of freedom, so that we ourselves feel as if we were personally part of the exodus.

This year, I experienced a Rashomon moment on the Friday afternoon preceding the first Seder. Invited to a luncheon sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, I went to break bread with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Arab Republic of Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. I sat with a law-school classmate, also Jewish, and we marveled at history that stretched over 5,000 years, tracing our heritage from Egypt to Washington, D.C.; from slavery to freedom; to my mother’s immigration to Israel in 1918 from Odessa; to his marriage over 40 years ago to an Israeli woman from Haifa; to the dozens of trips we have both made to Jewish communities around the world; to a signed peace accord between Israel and Egypt; to a visit I made to Cairo in 2001; to an uneasy border with the Palestinians living in Gaza; to the rise of fundamentalism within Egypt’s border; to the diplomatic hope of détente (Shalom still seems far off).

Within the liturgy of the Passover Haggadah is the practice of asking and answering four questions, beginning with “why is this night different from all other nights?” — and responding in a manner appropriate for four hypothetical children: wise, simple, wicked, and too young to know how to ask.

For someone who has spent most of his professional life in the academy, I have always relished the challenge of answering a question so that anyone — everyone — can understand its answer, or its message. It is the ultimate teaching moment, the professor’s “test,” so to speak: to be clear but not simplistic, to be thorough but not pedantic, to expound but not dictate, to broaden but not overstate; and mostly, to enrich the dialogue. The beauty of Passover is that all participants are engaged, all questions deserving of response, and all interpretations worthy of consideration. It elevates the ceremony into a seminar. Diaynu.

Comment

Mixed Signals

If you follow the media coverage of campuses from day to day, you find two alternative realities in conflict. We want it cheap. We want it gold-plated.

On one side, the students and their families appear to be overwhelmed with tuitions and the student-loan crisis. Who can blame them for expressing their concern? Lenders are tightening up the cash, tuition and fees for next fall are due to the bursars in only a couple of months, and the students have no place to turn. The Chronicle tells us that we are experiencing the highest level of anxiety over college prices in the past 35 years. Even with the relief offered by a handful of the wealthiest colleges to families earning six figures a year, the middle class is clearly caught in a vise. Congress is in the midst of trying to pass loan-guarantee legislation to protect lenders who in turn will assist students. But it is not over until it is over.

By contrast, students and their families are increasing their demands that colleges deliver more and better, near-luxury services and accommodation over and above anything required for a “quality college experience.” Universities are being driven to provide an extraordinary level of material support — campus food approaching Michelin standards. It won’t surprise me if we soon see a star and knife and fork rating system listed on the front page of college catalogs — following the lead of the Princeton Review. According to The New York Times, incoming students are requesting such things as organic vegetarian alternatives, farmer’s market produce, and spa waters with flavorings from mint to watermelon when they tour prospective colleges. The daily choices available in many college cafeterias show a diversity of cuisines that rival many restaurants. Apparently at one night’s dinner, Bowdoin College offered Dijon-crusted chicken, Vietnamese noodle soup, and spicy orange beef as three of the five entrée choices. How many students eat like that at home? I remember a one-dollar Sunday night dinner at a little restaurant down the street from Columbia: a bowl of rice covered with brown sauce and a little mystery meat, a slice of toast, a cup of coffee.

Today gymnasiums are approaching beauty-spa status, with masseuse and personal trainers offered, as well as state-of-the-art equipment to tone every part of the body. Classroom activities hone the mind, and during after-school hours, the body is pampered. We see a world that compares favorably to gated communities in Palm Beach.

If you are a student paying a high tuition — figures that reaches into the stratosphere — then it follows that, like Johnny Rocco in Key Largo, you ask for “more”: more choices in the dining room, better work-out equipment, and larger and better dorm rooms. And if you’re the college, and prospective students tell you they will only enroll in your classes if you give them more and more — then you feel compelled to accommodate while raising tuition in order to have funds to pay for all the customer demands.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Comment [15]

April 18, 2008

Higher Education Governance: Stewardship or Sham?

ACTA, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, recently hosted a gathering at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. for people interested in education issues within the local public policy community. In the audience were folks from special-interest groups, think tanks, government agencies, non-government organizations, the media and others. The announced agenda was “Higher Education Governance: Stewardship or Sham?”

The preface to the agenda reminded us of an assortment of controversies which arose in the last couple of years on America’s university campuses that gained national attention. Cited were the usual: the famous resignation in 2005 over the use of university funds by American University president Benjamin Ladner; the struggle over the governance of Dartmouth College, in which the board of trustees disputed the size and role of their membership; and, most immediately, the issues over student loans and study-abroad programs suggesting that academic administrators were behaving in questionable if not felonious ways. It promised to be a full morning.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is generally thought of as a conservative group, critical of many contemporary campus practices, so I went anticipating an agenda with a pre-determined point of view and attitude, and I was pleased to discover that the questions raised and the speakers’ dialogues were mostly objective — something not always the case in Washington, where partisanship and advocacy sometimes trumps fair-mindedness.

The first panel, moderated by Frederick Hess from AEI, addressed the question, “Why all the Scandals?” Michael Dannenberg of the New America Foundation, Benjamin Lawsky of New York State’s Attorney General’s office, and Paul Fain from The Chronicle spoke to that question. I came away thinking that in some ways universities are suffering from the introduction of higher standards than had ever previously prevailed. Behavior that was either condoned or ignored in the past is now viewed in our post-Enron environment with a keener eye. While technically Sarbanes-Oxley standards do not apply to not-for-profit organizations, trustees — particularly lawyers and corporate executives who serve on university boards — are bringing their professional perspective to their work as trustees, and the performance expectations have become more refined and articulated. Those responsible for the oversight of institutions of higher education are more and more sensitive to their fiduciary responsibilities and expect their university administrators to behave sympathetically. Moreover, government officials at the federal and state levels, both out of a sense of responsibility and political opportunity, have institutions of higher education in their sights.

This isn’t to say that all colleges have been operating in some sort of shoddy manner. On the contrary, most administrations are extremely fastidious. However, the parameters of what was considered normative have constricted and new boundaries are in place, ones that at first blush seem to limit administrations and faculties. Of course, once the new becomes the norm, it will be old hat. We need to be careful, however, not to over-react, not to quash donor generosity, or mindlessly desist from doing business with all trustees or listening to self-interested third parties. We do need to be careful when doing any of these things, to keep a careful eye on full-disclosure, transparency, on seeking advice and getting a second opinion, of not having single sources for purchases, services, hires, and the like.

The second panel, moderated by Anne Neal of ACTA, asked, “Where are the trustees?” Richard Legon, from the Association of Governing Boards, University of Nevada law professor Nancy Rapoport, and Dartmouth trustee Stephen Smith indicated that trustees were refining and enhancing their oversight roles. This was a natural outgrowth of the first panel, and is particularly imperative because universities are being squeezed by the need for more non-tuition funding on the one hand, and reduced opportunity for finding alternative income on the other (with “the usual” allowances made for the defined generously endowed institutions which are liberated from conventional economic restraints). So the search for revenue and undercapitalization inspires universities to seek resources where they can, even as trustees and their audit committees are keeping a keener eye and acting more vigorously as super-egos of their institutions. Trustees increasingly worry about the bottom line, but they also worry about the good name of the universities they serve, seeking to avoid the sorts of representational embarrassments that have blackened the reputations of various institutions over the past several years. Universities can accommodate sin but they despise scandal.

Batting third was a panel directed again by Fred Hess, who posited, “Where Do We Go From Here?” Ben Adler of Politico; Arthur Rothkopf, former president of Lafayette College and now a trustee of American University; and Jane Tatibouet from the University of Hawaii’s Board of Regents indicated the strong commitment and affection trustees had for their institutions; how their time-consuming work is considered a labor of love, done uncompensated, while they carry the burden of oversight, audit, policy making — a full range of checks and balances. Ultimately, the question raised was, “Exactly for whom are the university trustees stewards, and for what?” Are they responsible to external and/or internal audiences? What structure, what sort of board — what ideal size and make-up — best serves the university’s goals and needs? And, looking at universities and their problems, we were left with the unanswered question, “Why, too often, do smart people do stupid things?”

I came away impressed by the commitment of all of the parties to the preservation and enhancement of the academy, to the perpetuation of the free exchange of ideas, to scholarship and excellence and transparency and accountability and positive reform. Not only the panelists but the audience who participated with Q&A (most often politely but at times perhaps forcefully or even testily, also affirmed their wish for improving the overall health of universities. And while from time to time one can quibble with ACTA’s love of a good headline, I concluded that their commitment to the future of higher education was unreconstructed. The conversation added value for many stakeholders, and if even half the group took the ideas back to the drawing board, perhaps we’ll see some new approaches to governance floated about during the months to come. It is, after all, an election year.

Comment [4]

April 9, 2008

Five Observations About Life in the Dorm

When my children went off to college, I had the parental role of assisting them with their respective moves into the freshman dorms on campus. Two colleges, two experiences. But since both children were healthy and able-bodied young men, the heavy lifting was kept to a minimum, allowing me to mostly observe rather than schlep.

Observation #1 – Freshman dorms have not changed very much in 50 years. Anxiety fills the faces of all the freshmen; parental expressions range from relief (children are now out of the house!) to ambivalence (children are now out of the house?) to concern (who will be watching the children who are now out of the house?). The kids can’t wait for their parents to leave.

Observation #2 – As with many things in life, size doesn’t matter. Dorm rooms are small and getting smaller, or perhaps they remain the same size but more people fill them, I’m not sure. But surely there is more electronic gear that comes with each youngster than I had to cope with way back when. To the best of my knowledge, all dorm rooms come with beds; most but not all have closets (to my shock and dismay, GW once eliminated closets during the value engineering stage of constructing a new dorm!); and a healthy proportion of rooms have desks, but since many colleges seem to believe students study more easily propped up in bed with a pillow than by sitting in a desk chair, several places have eliminated them. All dorm rooms lack adequate outlets and shelves — places to plug in and store audio speakers, chargers for phones, iPods, cameras, laptops, printers, hair dryers, microwaves, under-counter refrigerators and lamps. I stress lamps because one of my sons had a room at Yale that had no lights — no overhead light, not even a bare bulb, no wall sconces, nada — if you didn’t bring the fixture and bulb, you went to sleep at dusk. Or get a Coleman lamp. Yes, yes, all Yale freshmen are illuminating, but not always bright enough to read by.

Observation #3 – The relationships made freshman year last a lifetime and there is no better place to get to know your fellow classmates than the dormitories. It may not be love at first sight upon meeting your roommate but most likely you’ll fall for someone near by, someone who will become a soul mate that will stand by you for decades to come. I don’t necessarily mean a life partner. I mean a best friend, a person who has read what you have read, understands your intellectual roots, your personal foibles; the one that watches the changes within you, semester by semester, from convocation to commencement. The one who drinks with you, eats with you, dates with you, travels with you, comes to be one with you. Even if he is a Republican! Doesn’t matter, for all that is important is friendship.

Observation #4 – Communal living is a growth experience. Being responsible for the laundry, your meals, the mess in your room — not to mention your course work and overall time management — are all part of the transition that comes with going off to a residential college. In the dorm, you pick up pointers: how to separate dark from light socks, roll a funny cigarette, and change a printer cartridge. No matter how much cyberspace socialization takes places — through Ning or facebook or whatever — as John Dewey taught us, learning from doing adds value.

Observation #5 – Loyalty to one’s college or university, the associated feelings — good, bad, or indifferent — and future philanthropy are usually tied to the smallest subgroup you align with: the sports team, fraternity or sorority, club, major, or dorm. It is so much easier to put one’s arms around a tangible — ZBT or intra-mural rugby — than it is to believe that the university treated you well or poorly.

Comment

Commencements Gone Wild

The Final Four have played their last games of the season with fierce competitive spirit, the contest won by the men from Kansas and the women from Tennessee. But the madness of mid-March and early April is not only reserved for the NCAA — for this season is also lead-up to commencement and the sprint to secure the ultimate graduation speaker is underway.

“Back in the day,” a phrase I have grown fond of saying now that I’ve entered the current stage of my career, commencement ceremonies were pleasant affairs, designed to honor the students who had completed their course of study and earned their degrees with a modest, if classic, celebration: lines of graduates in academic regalia, processing two-by-two along with members of the faculty and staff, led by the head marshal and her mace, flags waving and Sir Edward Elgar’s music echoing from the instruments of the school’s marching band. At most halls of ivy, a few guests were invited to receive an honorary degree — perhaps the mayor, congressman, prominent alumnus, or benefactor. And the university’s president gave a charge to the class, wishing the students well in their forthcoming endeavors. Parents rarely forgot the moment. Students rarely remembered a word of the speech. On a sunny day, all was right with the world, mellow and full of tradition.

During the late 1960s and early 70s, the ceremonies dramatically changed, they took on a political quality. From coast to coast, as campuses experienced the heated disruptions of the Vietnam War protests, graduations became opportunities for activist, springtime occasions with placards held high and speakers heckled. In some cases entire commencements were canceled due to the concern of potential violence. As a dean, I myself called one off at Boston University after a credible bomb threat. Out of those tumultuous times came two unhappy innovations, the first of which I call signs and symbols: wearing armbands and writing slogans on mortar boards, making statements — sometimes advocating noble causes and sometimes making no social statement at all, just appreciative love. “Hi, Mom and Dad. I made it!”

The second innovation was borrowed from Madison Avenue: the world of public relations. Even from show business. Speakers who were decried by students drew attention to the campus itself. Frustrating a speaker from addressing graduation was seen as challenging the very nature of a university community, which has almost always treasured academic freedom. Free speech. The First Amendment. Alumni responses poured in, the controversies took on a very public air and the press enjoyed the action. After all, there is nothing “newsworthy” about a typical commencement, but give a TV reporter a picture with moving parts, and we were feeding red meat to a lion.

Administrators thought perhaps it would be more agreeable to the students, not to mention themselves, if the school identified some honorees without political baggage, maybe a well-respected writer or a musician, news anchor or media star: Walter Cronkite rather than the white-bread alumnus who happened to be the Secretary of Defense. And on some campuses the students asked for, and were granted, a ballot on speakers. Sometimes, the administration retained control of main ceremony but ceded to students the selection of class-day orators.

I must confess, I fell into that very trap. Each year I wrote to the famous: alumni and those with no institutional affiliations — we would honor them and their presence honored us — a win-win. I was good at it. GW was a draw. And we scored big time. Each year better than the previous one. And the students loved the celebrity and came to expect it. By March, the student newspaper would wonder aloud about the upcoming festivities. Who will speak this year, they asked, and soon they offered their own suggestions. “Get Bono!”

Over the decades, the voices of protest turned from politics to fame or perhaps celebrity. More than once I heard students complain that the speaker at last year’s commencement was “more famous” than the one at their own ceremony and, of course, not only is fame fleeting, but it is relative. Someone adorning the cover of People Magazine often had far more cachet than a person selected from the roster of Nobel Prize winners. Each year the news magazines print a list of speakers on campuses in a manner not unlike the U.S. News and World Report rankings. (Now that’s an idea, how about adding “quality” of commencement speaker to the magazine’s ratings formula?)

Institutions began paying a fee to a graduation speaker for appearing, as if commencement was a Las Vegas gig, a weekend show. The honor of being invited should, of course, be reward enough, not to mention the ego value of the honorary degree. But as I said, headliners — not unlike Final Four selections — make alumni and future applicants very happy. So after 30 years of chasing the headline, last year I almost became one myself when it was announced by the trustees that I would personally give the graduation speech, in the final year that I would preside over a GW commencement. What I heard from undergraduates is, “What, you couldn’t find anyone more famous?” And then there was the killer line, “After paying this tuition, we deserve someone better than you. We have been listening to you for four years!” So I modestly withdrew.

Perhaps I’m becoming a bit more mellow or maybe it is a just a case of old-fashioned sour grapes, but I’ve come to believe that the institutions, like Columbia University and others, who have retained olde ways, the annual commencement address given by the president, without an outside speaker and simply awarding a couple of LL.D. degrees to honorees who accept the parchment in silent gratitude have got it right. Focus belongs on the graduating class before the podium, not on a stranger at the podium.

Go forth, be strong.

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