BENTON–There are things that happen in life, even though hard to explain, that can be passed off as coincidence. And then there are other things, regardless of how much a person tries to reason, that simply have no explanation. Such was the case recently in Benton when a simple phone call produced a chain of events that could only be described as eerie.

The odyssey began Thursday when Benton High School athletic director Don Smith contacted Benton businessman David Severin looking for 40 small flags to place at Tabor Field for Friday night’s football game.

Severin explained to Smith that he also had been trying to locate flags for his store, All Stars n’ Stitches, that’s located on the Benton square. Severin told Smith, in the aftermath of what had taken place in New York City and Washington D.C., everybody was sold out of flags.

Approximately 30 minutes after the phone call Severin received another call, this time from his mother.

“The first thing she asked me was if I knew anybody that might be looking for some flags,” Severin said. “I asked her how many flags she had and she said 40.”

Severin explained that his mother had been going through the personal belongings of his father, the Rev. George Severin, who passed away two months ago, and came upon the flags that had never been unwrapped.

Severin immediately traveled to his mother’s home and what he saw, in his words, gave him “goose bumps.”

“My dad loved to decorate with flags so it wasn’t uncommon that he’d ordered them,” Severin said. “But when I looked at the sales ticket I noticed that he had ordered the flags more than 30 years ago.”

The flags were shipped, Severin said, from New York City on Sept. 11, 1970 – exactly 31 years to the day that New York City was attacked by terrorists.

“Totally unbelievable,” Severin said. “When I saw the date and where the flags were shipped from … I couldn’t believe it – what’s the chances?”

And if that’s not enough for any skeptics in the audience who want to say ‘merely a coincidence’ there’s one final piece to this puzzle.

According to the sales ticket the flags were shipped to the house where the Rev. George Severin lived in 1970 – the address was 337 South Main Street in Benton — which happens to be the same house where Don Smith, the person that made the original phone call about the flags, currently lives.

 

Richard Wagner and Paul Lingenfelter are distinguished educational leaders, with a view towards better addressing the needs of higher education in Illinois. Recently they presented a case for a statewide model of higher education that is clear and rational. A piece originally posted on August 19, 2011 (slightly modified below) presents a perspective different in degree only.

States universities should revisit the history of Performance-Based Funding of higher education.   There must be as many performance models as there are universities in a state.  While attainable, this is an especially challenging goal.

“Some states have applied such standards to public colleges and universities, where they have often met stiff resistance. Academic leaders argue that there is no uniform agreement on the measures for evaluating performance in higher education and that yearly redistribution of funds based on such measures could make long-term planning impossible.”
– Kenneth Ashworth, Former Executive Director of the Texas Board of Higher Education, Change 1994

Former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed performance-funding legislation for universities. Virginia is implementing a tailored statewide process that will fund universities based on measurable outcomes and performance.  Ohio is working on a “charter” university concept.  Other states, too numerous to mention, are proposing funding based on various formulas and performance targets. Voucher systems for public higher education may be next…like the GI Bill… and would give students the dollars and let them vote with their feet.

Performance funding has been tried with mixed results over the last three decades.  Of the twenty-six states that have dabbled in performance-based funding, half have dropped it and several started it up again.   Often these approaches had some positive results in various areas of university performance, from the cost of attendance and the value of a degree, to the impact of universities on the intellectual capital of the state.

This is all to the good.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

On the downside, leadership may set up performance measures with a one-size-fits-all model that drives them to thresholds of acceptability rather than excellence.  No matter the model institutional effectiveness in mission attainment must be the key factor in the equation.

Measures must be distinctive for each university. To be well served, students testing at the 90th percentile require a different course of action than students at the 50th percentile. The quality of the graduate schools to which degree holders are accepted to might be a more fitting measure for undergraduate education at a research university than simple graduation rates.  But meeting the expectation of graduation doesn’t say anything about the success of the research university in doing its job. Universities are responsible for developing talents, not just branding students like cattle.

Funding should follow success relative to a school’s mission.  For nationally competitive research universities, retention and graduation rates should not even be in the equation at the state level.  Success in graduation is expected, not meritorious, behavior.  Research and endowment funding, or Graduate Record Examination scores of graduating seniors says more about institutional quality in research universities.

On the other hand, schools that focus on providing opportunities to academically challenged students should be rewarded if students graduate on time, or for placing graduates in appropriate jobs related to their studies. Universities will produce what the state rewards.  Since universities have different missions in a well-designed state system, funding should be calibrated to the goals of each institution. Additionally, universities should be rewarded for encouraging and achieving changes in student performance.

Bureaucracies understand sufficiency, not excellence.  A committed and enlightened Board of Regents or Trustees must address the statewide concerns of higher education and the distinctiveness of the university for which they have fiduciary responsibility.  This requires strong academic leadership.

Aside from funding, rewards for performance should also include loosening of regulatory oversight by the state.  Effective university leaders would likely choose the latter over the former.  Creative people want to solve problems, not work in an academic environment gauged by thresholds rather than rooftops.  The freedom to innovate is a powerful motivator in strong institutions, and anathema in weak ones.

Since no two universities in a state should have exactly the same mission, it makes no sense that they should be measured on the same scale.  Success will present itself differently in different settings.  Establish challenging, forward-looking missions for our institutions one-at-a-time, and support the schools that meet their mission.

Meeting threshold standards, no matter how well intended, will dumb universities down, not lift them up.

 

 

 

Last week the staff of the Federal Reserve Board of New York published a report, “Credit Supply and the Rise in College Tuition,” tracing the relationship between a cheap, seemingly never-ending, supply of cash and the interminable increases in college tuition and fees.

Without a degree in economics or even the introductory course, Econ 101, a casual reader would see the upward spiral caused by subsidized lending on education costs. The findings of the Federal Reserve Study however are compounded by a two-way-street-reality. As college costs increase, the desirability (everybody wants a college education whether or not they need one) also increases, strengthening addictions by institution and individual to the elixir of low cost loans.

The concoction spreads like a disease.

If students perceive they are paying little or nothing for an education it is likely they will invest little or nothing in the opportunity. It’s free, and many see ubiquitous loans as keys to happiness with little consequences for long term debt’s responsibilities. Unfortunately this mirage is exacerbated by elected officials, who want constituents educated by state institutions to share their values.  In addition, campaign contributions may follow lobbyist pressure to support more lending, powered by more political chatter regarding education’s inevitable pathway to Nirvana. All the while, colleges clamor for protected income streams. An exacerbating factor is the budding promise of free community college. Econ 101 teaches what costs little is valued little and what costs nothing may have no durable value at all.

The chickens are coming home to roost.  Two-year and four-year colleges are impacted. Institutions — public and private, large and small, sectarian and religious — all suffer the ever growing effects of cheap money on educational costs. The especially hard hit for-profit giant, the University of Phoenix, laid off 900 staff as enrollments evaporated.  But, the same chickens roost at the campus gate of every post-secondary institution.

This phenomenon tracks the housing bubble:  The road to home-ownership-hell was paved with good intentions.  Federally guaranteed housing loans, sometimes at submarket interest rates, exploded the cost of housing.  The burdens spawned by relaxed borrowing standards, borne by those wanting their piece of the American Dream, are high. This healthy aspiration destroyed families, disrupted employment patterns, caused loss of savings and retirement income, and even contributed to the high cost of educational loans as festering home mortgages limit available resources for college.  Realtors like it.  According to Zillow, recent low interest rates have created a 15% jump in housing sales.

In the higher education borrowing market, new loan originations grew from $53 billion in 2001 to $120 billion in 2012. Even more troubling 90% of the originations during this timeframe were hatched through federally sponsored programs.  Econ 101 again:  during the same period tuition and fees doubled.

The discussion on the subject has consumed statehouses during the 21st century. Too few are willing to risk political futures on the truth of Econ 101.  It stinks like a bloated, but simultaneously starving, fixed benefit pension system.

The price of truth in the education market reveals too little value for too much spending.  The signs of recovery in the value of a college education are not as easy to see as they are in a reluctantly rebounding housing market. Real property, even when devalued, has value.  An education loan for a “cheap” degree – or no degree at all too frequently — is only profitable to bankers and politicians.  The “chump” holding the bad paper is just that evidently.  You can “kick the tires” on a house.  The utilization of knowledge and insight gained in the educational process is less tangible.

Institutions, public and private, have been unwilling to reinforce this reality, as have lenders and elected officials. Every student and family in a responsibility centered educational/financial environment should be confronted with the best guess estimates of employment opportunities, anticipated annual earnings, and the real costs of the degree. Mistakes and changing markets might occur, but genuine good intentions should be at work.

Universities that encourage students to borrow money in an ill-conceived, status-quo-protecting, self-serving, cartel-style “business” model built on more “customers” at any price or cost, drives down institutional quality and increases student debt.  Econ 101 rears its ugly head again.

Transparency and institutional foresight are required to achieve strong student focused service in 21st century higher education.

(Editor’s Note: This is a column I wrote 11 years ago about the most glaring mistake I made in nearly 25 years in the the newspaper business. I had a friend contact me this morning about this story and I dug this out of the archives. It’s good for a chuckle and there is also a great lesson about the joy of forgiveness and a sense of humor. Hope you enjoy.  JM)

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Lewis Cushman died last week and even though I read the obituary in the newspaper I still attended the wake just to make sure.

I’m certainly not making light of the matter, but I have every reason to be a little bit apprehensive about the death of Lewis Cushman. Medically speaking Cushman has only expired once, but journalistically speaking he’s died twice and the first time I was responsible.

The 84-year-old Cushman and his wife Angie ran Benton Baking Company for more than three decades, an old fashioned bakery that made great homemade bread and an assortment of other fine pastries.

Several years ago when I was working at another newspaper I wrote a story about the Cushman’s daughter Connie (Peterson) who is married and lives in central Illinois. The story revolved around a prestigious award that Peterson and her husband had won on their farm/ranch and a news article that had appeared in a national magazine.

I conducted the interview over the phone and still recall that it was a story that was easy to write, a feel-good feature that are frequently in newspapers about a small town girl making good. The only problem I experienced with the story was that I forgot to ask Connie Peterson if both her parents were still alive.

After several unsuccessful attempts to reach the Petersons and the Cushmans and with a deadline bearing down on me I had a brief conversation with others in the newsroom and it was decided that Angie was alive but that Lewis had passed away a couple of years earlier. So, the story ended by saying: “Connie Peterson is the daughter of Angie and the late Lewis Cushman.”

The day the story ran I was out of the office in the early afternoon and returned around 3 p.m., about an hour after the paper hit the street. The first thing I noticed was a note on my desk written in bold letters that were underlined: ‘CALL LEWIS CUSHMAN!” The phone number was listed, also in large print.

I can still recall the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and the cold sweat on my forehead as I dialed Cushman’s number to take the scolding and the heat that I knew was forthcoming.

To my amazement though, Lewis and Angie Cushman proved to be good-natured and took my mistake quite well, even making a few jokes about it. They did ask me to correct the mistake the next day, though.

Using a lead I’m certain has been used many times by other harried newspaper writers the following day’s paper had a correction that began: “Much like Mark Twain, news of the death of Lewis Cushman is greatly exaggerated…”

Perhaps one of the funniest lines I’ve ever heard came a few days later when Angie Cushman called to tell me about the reception Lewis received from the elderly gentlemen that he drank coffee with every morning at a local restaurant.

She said the second Lewis walked in one gentleman commented about the speed at which he’d returned to life after his demise was reported a day earlier in the local newspaper.

“You know Lewis, it took Jesus three days to resurrect,” he said. “But you made it back for coffee the next morning.”

Since that forgettable day 10 years ago I’ve seen the Cushmans on countless occasions and we always shared a laugh about the glaring mistake that I made. And in the event that I would see Angie without Lewis I would always inquire, with somewhat of an exaggerated worried tone, how her husband was feeling.

“Lewis is ALIVE and doing quite well,” Angie would always reply with a wide smile.

While I’ll readily admit that I’ve made an occasional mistake with dates, places, and times during my tenure as a writer, reporting the erroneous death and subsequent resurrection of Lewis Cushman remains my biggest blunder.

And while it might be a small token, I hope it’s some source of comfort to readers to know that in the event that I mistakenly kill you on the front page one day … I can bring you back to life within 24 hours.

I stood at Lewis Cushman’s casket last week only a few minutes before the start of his funeral and talked with Angie and her children and we once again recalled and shared a laugh about that infamous day more than a decade ago when I reported his very premature death.

After I exited the church that day the thought crossed my mind that all those laughs and smiles through the years that I enjoyed with the Cushmans happened solely because they had a forgiving nature and a keen sense of humor. If they had blasted me, all those smiles and friendly greetings and even this column would never have happened. We should all be so fortunate when we pass on that people would remember us for those two qualities.

As an epitaph to this story I feel that I should say thanks, Lewis, for taking it easy on me after I erroneously reported your death on the front page of the local newspaper. But more importantly thanks for a classic story and the warm memories and the many smiles we shared.

 

 

 

 

 

Senator Bill Brady’s legislation, SB1565 for changing the nature of higher education boards in Illinois, will be difficult to endorse: Large government organizations loathe change. George Will observed it’s not so much that organizations are “too big to fail” but that they are “Too Big To Maintain.”

The status quo becomes the goal for all large government bureaucracies, and it dominates university thinking. Students don’t need the status quo. They are hampered by it. Curricula and approaches to teaching and learning have remained substantially unchanged for 1,000 years. The oldest is The University of Bologna. There is a baby in the bathwater and we better find it and pitch the rest.

Why don’t universities offer courses on weekends, and in the evenings, and all summer long, and in a combined framework of on-campus and online instructional settings? Each of these modest scheduling modifications could change the nature of American higher education. In testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Veronique De Rugy identified the challenges, and “the unhealthy marriage between government and interest groups,” drives costs up and innovation down.

“Academic Impressions” identified four small colleges that thrive in a “disruptive” environment. The universities are largely free from oversight beyond their own boards. They exist in various settings. They break the molds of the whining and complaining that black-magically transform innovation into calcification. St. Leo University, Bay Path University, Brandon University, and Lynn University are all entrepreneurial, private, growing, and student serving. They are not too big to maintain, they are not too big to fail, and they are agile, not sluggish.

These four “little-engines-that-could” pay attention to students, faculty, and mission – their collective “interest group.”

Additionally, and this where many large universities in contemporary environments fail, they experiment. Arizona State University is moving forward dancing lightly around complex challenges. Michael Crow, the president, attracted national attention when he teamed up with Starbucks to provide Starbucks employees an opportunity for an accessible, cost-conscious Sun Devil degree. No matter the long term results, it is a worthy experiment.

ASU has DNA that is similar to General Motors’ Institute, originally established in 1919. GMI became Kettering University in 1998. It changed from an arm of GM to a free standing, not for profit institution at the same time. It is now ranked 14th nationally among universities of its type by US News and World Report. Kettering, unapologetically, trains people in applied disciplines where jobs and productive careers are available.

Its evolution demonstrates responsiveness to a changing world, changing students, changing faculty, and changing concentrations of commerce and industry, both nationally and internationally. In short, Kettering experiments.

An aversion to risk infects public universities. But leadership starts at the top.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has committed $500 million to prop up research at Texas universities, and one aspect of the proposal is to work diligently to bring Nobel Laureates to the state. Some say, “What about us who have loyally labored, are we chopped liver?” Here is an economic truism: when the whole enterprise is elevated by the pursuit of excellence and attention to quality, so are each of its members.

I can hear the retort, “But, Texas is rolling in dough, they can afford this.” Maybe. But, just maybe, leadership, enterprise, a freer market that recognizes accomplishment and excellence rather than the status quo is the cause for “Texas to be rolling in dough.”

Responsiveness and agility create organizations that positively challenge the people who populate them. If Governor Abbott tries to micromanage the hiring of excellent scientists, the experiment will fail. If cronies are placed in the position of developing intellectual capital, rather than proven performers, it will be a bad joke. If protection of a position becomes central to the process, rather than the generation of ideas, the whole effort will go off course.

Leaders and boards must have the intellectual and political discipline to let the organizations work, and to keep the politics in the Statehouse. This in part is what guides my hope in the discussion in Illinois that will be fueled Senator Bill Brady’s SB 1565.

An experiment it is. Illinois is gasping for the air of innovation in higher education, and everywhere else.

 

 

 

Fourth in a series on public/private higher education.

A common fear regarding Illinois Senator Brady’s idea (SB1565) for transitioning from public to private higher education in Illinois is that it will drive universities to elitism and homogeneity. Wrong on both counts. Brady’s concept will drive universities toward academically effective programs offered to the people they serve.

Market places are guided by individually perceived value and little else.

The intellectual and social costs and benefits of colleges vary widely. No reliable evidence shows that a public institution, guided by legislative mandate, better serves diverse student aspirations. On the other hand, there is substantial evidence that an institution can be diverse — to whatever benefit that yields — and be of high academic quality.

Rutgers Newark campus is identified by USNWR to be the most ethnically diverse research university in America. That is not surprising considering New Jersey demographics are boiled over from Manhattan: The cauldron of melting pots suspended over a crackling fire of free enterprise.

The next three schools on the list are surprising. Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan is number two, ahead of Stanford and St. John’s. Keeping score? Three fourths of the most ethnically diverse universities are private. Andrews is about halfway between Grand Rapids and Chicago in rural Oronoko Township. Don’t believe the hacks and charlatans blaming away university quality, enrollment, demographics, or performance on geography. University purpose and leadership determine institutional constitution and success.

The 2014 College Niche Ranking for diversity is more inclusive than USNWR, extending to faculty and student gender, in/out-of-state students, international students, and student opinion polls. MIT is first and Chaminade University of Honolulu is tenth.   Not a single public institution appears at the top.

The University of Chicago, fourteenth nationally on the Niche list, leads Illinois universities in diversity. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is tenth in the state. My institution, SIU, shows up in the sixteenth spot between McKendree University and Benedictine University.

Maybe all these institutions are committed to serving ethnically diverse populations as part of their mission. Maybe mission-focused academic excellence is the motivating force for every action taken. Maybe social consciousness, driven by a sense of service and need, rather than political regulation, contributes to heterogeneity.

Maybe it’s dumb luck. Maybe it’s leadership.

In a dozen ranking systems of every type, private institutions dominate when measuring diversity.

Economically diverse colleges dispel common preconceptions, according to a New York Times study of academically effective colleges. Vassar tops the list, although it is normally considered to be a monolithic, elitist institution catering to the likes of Jackie Onassis and Ellen Swallow Richards. An NYT’s Upshot study charts the number of students on Pell Grants, the net price to low and middle income families, college accessibility and the endowment per student. The only public in the top ten is UNC Chapel Hill. The same collection of institutions populates most diversity indices.

According to Wide Open Education’s assessment of the least diverse institutions in America, three are private and seven are public.

I don’t trust any of these studies. They are laden with methodological flaws and biased findings. However, collectively and intuitively, I guardedly trust all of them. And the message is clear: private universities are more diverse in many measures than their public counterparts.

I recall a meeting with the CEO of Shell Oil in Houston in 1997. At the time Texas was under a Fifth Circuit Court (Hopwood v. Texas) ruling disallowing racial considerations in college admissions. Shell’s chieftain suggested that Shell needed diversity because the marketplace it served was diverse and getting more so. He knew that regulation would not produce the desired result. Shell wanted to provide scholarships to underrepresented students. Corporate interests were attended to by managers, workers and leaders who were reflective of, and responsive to, the population being served.

Privatized, market responsive, Affirmative Action.

Heterogeneity is not guaranteed by public institutions. Private universities serve the public good by responding to individual students in a market place screaming for results, not onerous bureaucracies mumbling fecklessly directing organizations to “approved” social consciousness.

The only homogeneity that rightfully exists in any university is the intellectual skill and mental acumen of graduates.  All else? Chatter.

 

By Walter V. Wendler

State Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, started a discussion with SB1565 that could return the prestige of the higher education enterprise to one of the best in the nation. The not-ready-for-prime-time proposal calls for a conversion of universities to a funding model more like the American Heart Association or the American Cancer Association: not-for-profit organizations intended for public benefit to operate at the direction of a board of directors towards the public good. That sounds like a university to me.

Additionally, Brady’s concept proposes that the current state allocation of $1.2 billion to universities be directed to qualified students to attend institutions of choice, rather than directing appropriations to institutions.

It creates competition and complexities that Adam Smith’s market place will sort out.

This embryonic idea regarding higher education and public benefit parallels the evolution of the GI Bill; legislation that struggled to life, adapted to changing circumstances, and is nearly unanimously regarded as the Petri dish of the American middle class; the success of Kennedy’s loudly proclaimed aspiration to put a man on the moon; and the progenitor of the information revolution through the instigation of modern digital computing.

The GI Bill was hotly debated, and passed through Congress by a single vote. On a warm summer day while the D-Day invasion was at full throttle, Rep. John Gibson of Georgia made his way from his sickbed into the U. S. Capitol to vote “yea” and broke the deadlock, allowing FDR to sign the bill on June 22, 1944. It transformed a nation. The divisions of opinion evidenced in the deliberation of the GI Bill will likewise occur regarding Brady’s proposal.

A brigade of the status quo is already digging trenches in response to Brady’s suggestion. Shamefully, platoons of reactionaries don’t believe the average citizen can grasp the power of the idea. It is daring and challenges the rut-worn road of conventional thought to be sure. Thoughtfully, Brady’s postulation assumes the average Illinoisan, and the families from whom they spring, have the intelligence to make sound educational and economic decisions given the opportunity.

In six short years of experience, slightly more than an average gubernatorial term in our state, the GI Bill of 1944 was subject to significant modification proposed by the VA and the Bureau of the Budget, supported by a number of congressional studies: The original bill sent funding directly to universities but proposals to provide resources directly to qualified students by 1950 subjected the blueprint to a national debate.

It seems that in post-WWII America some universities, and fly-by-night post secondary institutions of every stripe, public and private, were bilking, milking, and sapping the system for personal gain all the while beating veterans out of earned benefits, and taxpayers out of tax dollars. If this doesn’t sound like the current deceptions perpetuated by the likes of Corinthian Colleges, soon to be defunct for bilking, milking and sapping, or the lackluster academic performance of the University of Phoenix, Kaplan, other for-profit, or incompetent not-for-profit providers, even some public institutions, we are myopically not paying attention.

Unscrupulous lenders are involved making loans to students who are unprepared but accepted by universities into too many low value programs — not for their individual or community potential — but for their bulging pockets packed with government loan guarantees. Hard working students who meet the grade deserve a chance, not a mirage fogged by institutionally hyped hope.

Adam Smith’s academic market place, driven by student self-interest, has more state and national value in determining resource flows than institutional interests driven by maintaining “what is” rather than seeking what’s best.

This was the wisdom of the U.S. Congress in evaluating and finally retooling the GI Bill in 1952 that directed government support in the form of educational disbursements to individuals rather than institutions following the second Great War where blood was spilled to protect individual liberty. While in its infancy, Brady’s bill with its nascent ideas has muscular genes. It deserves careful consideration by people inside and outside the education/financial complex.

The status quo in higher education is going to hell in a backpack. Costs to states are too high, students too indebted, degrees of too little value and charlatans too prevalent.

There is a meritorious idea on the table. Illinoisans owe it a serious, no-holds-barred, discussion.

Student Leadership

Overwhelmingly, the 7400 state lawmakers nationwide attended and graduated from public universities. Again overwhelmingly, these elected officials attended schools in their home states. All but four of the 535 members of the United States Congress have a post-secondary education.   A sound bite from Ted Cruz’s announcement of his intention to seek the U.S. presidency last week reveals that he participated in “student council.”

Universities, by default or design, have a role to play in educating leaders, of encouraging participation in the processes of representative governments and the complexities of participatory democracy. And elected officialdom in the United States currently needs help. According to a 2012 poll by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute of Southern Illinois University Carbondale Illinoisans believe, “political corruption is the norm for both federal and state governments…” Likewise, a Rasmussen poll shows that voter confidence in the U.S. Congress is still at dismally low levels. Are universities responsible for this confidence deficit? Not solely, but they have a role to play.

The University of Phoenix, where enrollment is sinking like a rock, makes no serious claim for educating students to become leaders. Rather, it claims to effectively prepare people for jobs. I believe the differences between these two goals, workforce preparation and leadership capability, are nil. In those with whom I work, students, faculty and staff of every stripe, I see a remarkable congruence between people who are capable in their own areas of expertise, and have a propensity to participate, manage, and lead the extended community. Every residential university website that I have visited addresses leadership opportunities for students in order to prepare them for the opportunities and responsibilities in a free society. And rightly so.

Unfortunately, the institutional success rate for engaging students is not a point of pride. Nationally less than 4% of the student population participates in student elections according to the American Student Government Association. Typically the majority of student leaders do not fulfill their term of office. On my campus, nearly 10 years ago, Nate Brown, an energetic student government president conducted a study and found the majority of undergraduate student senators never appeared on the ballot, but were appointed because of a lack of participation. Only a few students in 100 could identify the student senator who represented them.

These trends haven’t changed much in the last decade. Recently, at the University of Memphis, 1,524 students voted in campus wide elections, less than 8% of the student population. The reasons for lack of participation sound astonishingly familiar to declarations on 24-hour-a-day cable outlets and major network news. Apathy, ignorance, belief of no impact, and a multitude of other frail excuses explicate voter absence.

The anti-Semitism exhibited at UCLA recently, and the apparent racism seen at the University of Oklahoma, put an exclamation point on the importance of the cultural impact of campus climate. Anti-semitism, racism and other unacceptable forms of discrimination exist but are not rampant on college campuses. Thankfully, generalizations don’t work.

I teach in a classroom that has students from Nepal, Benin, Moscow, Vietnam, and China, as well as first-generation Americans of Mexican descent, Polish descent, second-generation Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, German-Americans, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, people of diverse sexual orientation and a fellow in a wheelchair – every persuasion of the human condition. In this setting I find inquisitiveness and appreciation for different worldviews, religions, races, ethnicities, and other defining characteristics of individualism required for a free and open society: And each seems to learn from all. The young man from Hoyleton, Illinois, population 531, is as wide-eyed as I am sometimes. And all this variety from 27 souls, including me and the guy from Hoyleton.

This is a crockpot for student leadership and 21^st century citizenship, not a pressure cooker of rules, regulations, canon and code; but a simmering of various conditions, ideas, and perspectives in ways that provide appreciated insight while not detracting from distinctive perspectives. Life gets juice from the poaching that occurs here, and the sense of appreciation that I get in engaging this heterogeneous group of people as they become part of something larger than themselves is hard to describe, but powerfully important for me and them.

Universities have a role to play in cultivating leaders who understand complex groups of people with different cultural, ethnic, intellectual, and social perspectives. And while institutional leaders have a central role to play, they cannot do it alone: faculty and staff are live models, and should accept that mantle of leadership for the students who observe them every day in living citizenship. To the extent that universities engage students, they fulfill their responsibility to help students become capable contributors to economic sustainability, individually and collectively, and participants in a free society.

This responsibility should be aggressively pursued as it is a founding and distinguishing characteristic of the U.S. college campus, critical to the continuation of a free society, and the stewpot from which attitudes and ideas are distilled.

“AFTER GOD HAD carried us safe to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and led the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity…” [sic] New England’s First Fruits

By Walter V. Wendler

Quality transfer students can bring positive characteristics to the university, not the least of which is a willingness to work.  Avril Thorne, Professor of Psychology at U.C. Santa Cruz made this observation:

“If I could only choose one student next year, and randomly, it would be a transfer student. They are seriously not kidding around.” _____________________________________________________________________

I have previously reflected on the price/value of community colleges for many students.  Depending on whose count you accept, there are nearly seven million students enrolled in community colleges right now.  Many plan to transfer to senior institutions although only 30% do, according to the U.S. Education Department.

Foundations see the value in helping students through the community college transfer process.  The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Transfer Initiative provides support for students to move from community colleges to some selective four-year institutions such as Amherst, Bucknell, Berkeley, North Carolina, and Michigan, to name a few.

Institutions interested in casting a broad net and creating a campus reflective of the populations they serve should look carefully at community colleges.  The majority of Hispanic and African American students enrolled today are enrolled at community colleges.  Encouraging and supporting them through an intelligent transfer process will yield a more diverse group of university students.

Community college students make up a significant share of learners accessing Pell Grants — two million in 2005: and the numbers continue to grow.  The cost of attending community colleges is about 30% that of attending university, so students who start at a community college leave with less debt per class.

The age of those attending community colleges and universities is increasing.  The shifting economy and the need for retraining them drive students into community colleges so that 33% of the students are over 30. A significant number pursue continued university studies, especially as the economy remains soft in many career fields.

I told a nontraditional student recently, “There is not a better time to be out of the workforce and in the classroom.”

Attentive universities will see these trends, and being responsive will increase their enrollment of good students.  Community college students who transfer have higher graduation and retention rates than those of freshmen who enter four-year institutions directly, so return on investment is high.  It’s good business, but that is not the point:  It is the right way to serve many people who will benefit personally and professionally from the experience of attaining a baccalaureate degree.  In addition, communities and the nation are better served.

The University of California offered admission to 19,607 community college transfer students in 2009, a number that continues to increase annually.  The average acceptance rate for all students in 2008 at the University of California was 74.40%, but for community colleges it was 82.40%.

I would argue that everything above is good news – providing opportunity and service to students is always good.  Now, here are the challenges.

In the state of California, and it is a fairly good predictor of national trends in higher education, only 40% of the community college students who seek four-year degrees are successful, according to the Mercury News.  There are many reasons why, but the senior institutions that figure out how to overcome the challenges will be beneficiaries of dedicated, hardworking students who will increase diversity, retention, and graduation rates.

The community colleges nationwide are overflowing with students. Low costs, unemployment and other factors have created a flood of students.  Full courses delay student ability to meet transfer needs.  As university tuition and fees continue to increase, many students will quit at the community college level for lack of funds.  In some locations the transfer processes are confusing. Some states are responding. For example, the Illinois Articulation Initiative makes the process of transfer between participating institutions nearly seamless.

Innovative and persistent universities that desire to serve transfer students more effectively can do so, but they must focus diligently on a wide range of student needs, and appreciate the complexities that these students must address.