In many rural areas, even those with a university, there is a pervasive sense that economic vitality is impossible, the challenges too great, rewards too limited and regional poverty too persistent.  This is a costly misconception.
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”
— Edmund Burke —
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While all universities have the potential to contribute to regional economies, rural universities have an especially challenging role. History insistently testifies:  Universities focused on academic achievement will have a positive economic impact.

A 2010 study by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Nonmetropolitan Outmigration Counties: Some Are Poor, Many Are Prosperous,” shows half of the nonmetropolitan counties in the nation lost population over the past few decades. In 700 of those, declines were 10% or more.  Moreover, nonmetropolitan counties fall into two categories.

On the one hand poverty rates are high, high school completion rates are low, and unemployment is above national averages.  On the other hand some nonmetropolitan counties post high educational attainment and lower unemployment, typically the case in rural counties with universities.  Nevertheless, to rely solely on universities to address outmigration is shortsighted.

Further complicating the scenario, rural universities may contribute to outmigration by elevating aspirations of local students.  The green grass of opportunity grows in distant pastures.  Exodus due to the paucity of local possibilities seems inevitable.

Desperation for any job-creating enterprise may cause snap, short-term decision-making absent appreciation of long-term costs and implications. The Bakken shale formation of North Dakota created an explosion of horizontal drilling for harvesting oil and gas leading to jobs and growth.  Last week in a post on the dailyyonder.com website, Fracking Jobs Come With Costs, Paper Says, Tim Marema suggests that while the immediate benefits of employment are real, there may be long-term challenges for local economies.  The boom of energy related employment may wane when resources play out.   Even with strict environmental safeguards to alleviate pollution associated with recklessly executed and/or leniently regulated fracking, economic impacts may remain indefinitely.

The yo-yo effect of sporadic cycles of activity and inactivity associated with some industries could be modulated by stabilizing employment and development opportunities nurtured through an engaged university.  Exceptional community/institutional collaboration are essential. The Illinois Soybean Center, housed at SIU Carbondale is an example of industry/university collaboration for distinctive regional and community benefit.  It builds on a tradition of faculty student research, and public/private funding.

Well led universities should dampen fluctuations of job creation and job loss in regions where economic activity is seasonal or cyclical such as agriculture and mineral extraction. Understanding the rural economic dynamic and the nature of its impact on a university’s academic mission is the key to success — made especially confounding because no two regions or universities are the same.

“All politics are local,” said Tip O’Neill.  All economies are local too.

In my university community this discussion is ongoing but not new. While fracking is a relatively recent phenomenon, the coal industry in southern Illinois has a long and pervasive impact on every aspect of life. It stands the region in stark contrast to the northern extremities of the state, Chicago and the trade and commerce related collar counties.  Georgia’s metropolitan Atlanta, upstate and downstate New York, coastal California and the San Joaquin Valley all represent distinctive and occasionally competing regions with sundry economic opportunities that create a “two-state” reality.

The challenges are numerous.  A National Agriculture and Rural Development Policy Center research paper by Mark Partridge and Amanda Weinstein of the Ohio State University, suggests natural resource abundance may be a hindrance to economic development in rural regions. Unchecked or poorly configured economic development could be an encumbrance, but any manifestation of a natural resource: scenic beauty, game, fertile soil, oil, or natural gas is of great benefit to any region if exploited responsibly.

Michael Porter of the Harvard Business School, in “Colleges and Universities in Regional Economic Development: A Strategic Perspective,” says universities can have positive long-term economic impacts. Porter’s posit, “A region’s competitiveness is determined by how productively it uses its human, capital, and natural resources; that productivity sets the regions standard of living to its effect on wages, returns on capital and returns on natural resources.”

Rural universities should promote economic development in response to regional distinctiveness, university strength, and shared aspirations.

By Larry Miller

I am writing this article on Wednesday and I am certainly hoping that the following information concerning the Farm Bill is out of date. At this time the House and Senate have both passed it and we are now waiting for the President to put his signature on it. The following came from the IFB:

“We’re extremely pleased to see the Senate follow the House of Representatives’ example and pass a five-year farm bill. Illinois farmers are finally on a path to seeing some long-term certainty and stability in an increasingly risky and uncertain business.

“The bill now before the president strengthens the federal crop insurance program, which is the most important risk management tool available to farmers. Livestock producers also will benefit from the risk management provisions included in the bill, and we encourage the USDA to expedite implementation of those disaster assistance provisions. Finally, it maintains resources for cost-share, working land conservation programs that allow farmers to improve water quality, and helps farmers adapt to tightening regulations.

“This legislation is not only fiscally responsible, but helps Illinois farmers put a much needed five-year plan in place to help manage their risk.  We applaud Senators Durbin and Kirk for supporting Illinois farmers by voting ‘yes’ on this bill and urge President Obama to sign the legislation quickly so the USDA can begin implementing the bill as soon as possible.”

We had invited Doug Yoder, Director of Risk Management at Illinois Farm Bureau to come have breakfast with us and discuss the new and recurring issues with crop insurance. We had several people in attendance and Doug answered many questions. “With grain prices significantly lower than they’ve been in the past 5-6 years, it is vital that farmers maximize their crop insurance coverage,” Doug informed everyone.

One if the issues before farmers for spring will be whether to plant corn or soybeans. With the prices today it seems that soybeans may be a more lucrative crop. It costs approximately $540 with an average production level of 150 bushel per acre to plant an acre of corn but it cost $340 with an average production of 50 bushel per acre to plant an acre of soybeans – this does not take into consideration if the farmer has to pay out cash rent.

The February corn price is close to $4.50 per bushel with soybeans selling at $11.35. There are many more factors involved in this equation and this is just one of the many questions that farmers must ask themselves every year. Farming is definitely not for the weak at heart – with so much at risk they must also be very good businessmen not just be able to drive a tractor.

An ill-timed propane shortage has forced area businesses and residents to make tough decisions in the dead of winter. The price of propane jumped from $1.50 a gallon on average in the state in November to about $5 a gallon in December.  The shortage also forced Gov. Pat Quinn to declare a statewide propane emergency last week, easing driving regulations on trucks delivering propane from other states.

The first Illinois crop update of 2014 released Tuesday found the seemingly endless series of snowstorms this winter has helped recharge soil moisture just weeks from planting. As of this week, the state’s farmers rated 69 percent of topsoil as having adequate moisture compared with 40 percent at the end of October. Deeper subsoil moisture was rated 62 percent adequate this week.

We still have pecans in the office – $8.00 for chocolate covered and $9.00 for regular.

Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.

Position, profit, and power are too frequently both seed corn and fruit of exercised leadership.  Purpose, passion, and perseverance ignite the fires of leadership, consuming the old and creating the new.
For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose of his own soul?

— Jesus Christ —
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Occasionally, leadership is so vibrant that it changes the world. In the 20th century, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had a seminal impact on our nation and world. Vestiges of his leadership values came in an April 16, 1963 epistle entitled, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

The circumstances around this letter are important and should never be forgotten, but will not be rehearsed here. Rather, in recognition of King’s illustrious leadership abilities in the face of difficulties nearly unimaginable to many in the 21st century, highlighting principles of leadership espoused in this letter might prove useful — for people in leadership positions, in government, other public service, education, industry, commerce, and families.
Here are five principles:

Recognition of High Purpose: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  All effective leaders are called to action in service to something larger than self. Social units from families to nations are guided by the recognition that an outpouring of service through leadership profoundly affects those led.

Communication of the Importance of the Work at Hand:  “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’” There is in all valuable leadership a sense of urgency. It must be real rather than manufactured. It must be clear to any thinking human being. It must for these reasons be of the utmost importance and the highest necessity.

Commitment in Spite of Personal Cost: “One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’” A common failing of contemporary leadership, whether in a family, or a nation, is a recurring sense that leadership serves itself.  Such leadership becomes the ultimate expression of greed rather than generosity. Leadership requires tilling new soil, taking an organization where it has not been, or has had difficulty going, in spite of the cost to the leader.

Sometimes such leadership is seen as radicalism, when in fact it may be the most profound statement of moral purpose that an individual can make.
Challenging Predispositions:  “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” Because leadership requires a new path, it simultaneously must confront the well-worn path of the status quo.  Such patchwork requires something much stronger than indifference to the way things are, and a basic rejection of the concepts that keep an organization the way it is. We see in political circles a consistent and disturbing unwillingness to change a course of action. Any comfort with how things are in spite of the fact that things don’t work. As Dr. King suggested the greatest sin is “lukewarm acceptance.”

Willingness to Criticize “The Family”: “I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.”  People in groups that need and demand leadership must accept criticism and question what has gone before. The people who must be willing to withstand most sturdily the challenge of leadership are those closest to the center of the group, for “the family” resists change most stridently.
Martin Luther King Jr. displayed genius-like abilities to understand leadership immersed in society’s most vexing questions. He was uniquely predisposed by experience, birth, and by a willingness to follow his God, to be a pivotal social force of the 20th century.

Our universities similarly demand a form of leadership that demonstrates this same kind of commitment and passion towards purpose. Without insight seats of learning will stumble into the mid 21st century.

Everyone recognizes the problem of the increasing cost and diminishing returns on a college education.  There are steps that anyone can take to reduce cost and increase effectiveness.
“We’ve got a crisis in terms of college affordability and student debt.”
—  Barak Obama —
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For potential college students these resolutions have some merit.

Be it resolved:  If my high school has dual enrollment opportunities with a community college or university, I will use them and attain high school credits and university credits simultaneously.  This may seem like rushing things but many 16 year olds are capable of college work.  Usually dual enrollment courses are free and if they articulate with a senior institution, in your chosen field of study, you can save $1,000 per course, maybe double if living costs are considered.  An Orlando Sentinel story by Erica Rodriguez, chronicles the efforts of Max Rock dual graduation, from high school and community college concurrently.  A 50% reduction in the cost a bachelor’s degree could be realized.

Be it resolved:  Since I am a graduating senior it may be too late for the dual enrollment, or maybe it’s not available, I will check out community colleges that have 2 + 2 articulation agreements with senior institutions.  But, don’t trust the published literature from the community college or the senior institution. If possible visit both institutions. Talk to advisors.  Be sure your long-term aspirations are clear and everyone agrees the community college courses will fit into your chosen degree program.
Here’s the reality. Many institutions will honestly tell you that 60 hours of community college courses will transfer. However, they may not transfer into your chosen major. For example if you are interested in mathematics, and take 15 hours of introductory math courses at a community college it’s possible that none would transfer into the math major but all would transfer into the university. Challenge everyone for honesty and clarity.

Be it resolved: I will not take electives at a community college, an online education provider, or any institution that don’t fit directly into my chosen field of study.  That sounds limiting.  However, if you are interested in 16th century art, but want to study biology, engage the interest in art through the internet or library, where you can access a range of expertise and insight for free.
Intellectual growth is the purpose of education.   But, on borrowed or scarce funds you must make economic decisions. You can become educated through personal study.  Some of the world’s great thinkers never enrolled in a college course.  They were autodidacts.

Be it resolved:   Since graduation rates from online degree programs are very low, and tuition’s not, I will coldly review the cost/benefits. Be wary of online degrees unless you visit the campus and meet faculty members and students. Don’t even take individual online courses unless they are taught by a faculty expert, bear university credit, count in your degree plan, and they are free or nearly so. There are too many cost-effective alternatives.

Be it resolved:  I will ruthlessly review job opportunities, and graduate school options, based on my career aspirations and my academic abilities.  Make sure they are sensible for you. Believe no one except your own experience, family, teachers, counselors, and people you know and trust. Too many colleges market degrees with low value in the workplace and little intellectual substance to boot. You can make the choice to study anything but it must be your decision made on ice-cold economic analysis.

Decisions about what to study have fiscal consequences.  The Daily Californian posted this in a recent story on college graduates:  “According to the General Social Survey, which monitors social change in the United States, the percentage of college-educated Americans who identify as “lower class” increased to 3 percent in 2012, up from 1.7 percent in 2002 and the highest rate since the survey was first taken in 1972. The percentage of college-educated Americans who say their standard of living has gotten worse over the last few years increased 57 percent between 2006 and 2012.”

These five resolutions could decrease cost and increase effectiveness of your education decisions. Our universities should be open and truthful with you as a potential student — your ability to succeed in college, the real costs, and the ultimate benefits. Honesty in both directions is essential.

By Larry Miller

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope that this article finds everyone happy and in good health to begin the New Year.

The year 2013 was a good year for farmers – great weather meant great crops. With the draught of 2012 almost anything would have been better but 2013 brought a fantastic crop to the Franklin County farmers.

Please be aware of new laws taking effect in Illinois after January 1^st – here are just a few of the new laws.

No cell phones while driving unless they’re completely hands free.

Starting in 2014, drivers caught holding cell phones up to their ears could be subject to a $75 fine. Using a BlueTooth headset or speakerphone are both still acceptable as long as they can be activated by a voice command or single-button touch. Please remember that no texting and driving is already a law.

If you’ll be 18 by the General Election, you can vote in the primary.

The idea is that if you’re going to be able to vote in the General Election, you should be able to help select the candidates you will be voting for.

Tired of going 65 on Illinois interstates?

Lawmakers are too, so now you can go 70. Counties in Chicagoland and suburban St. Louis have the ability to opt out.

Littering Fines

Littering will net you a $50 fine. Cigarette butts now count as litter.

Lower penalties when worksite is empty.

Now there are higher penalties for speeding by workers and lower penalties when the worksite is empty.

School bus cameras

Buses will have cameras to record if anyone passes them. These tapes will be shared with the police.

Veterans Designation

Requires the Secretary of State’s office to ask whether a person applying for a driver’s license is a veteran; if the applicant is a veteran, a veteran’s designation may be added to the license.

The new Conceal & Carry Law went into effect on January 1 as well. If you have any questions you can go the Illinois State Police website and down the left side click on the link for firearms. There is a lot of information listed there. If you need a FOID card be sure and come out the Franklin County Farm Bureau office to apply. For a $5.00 fee we will take your picture and fill out your application and it will be ready to mail.

We also have pecans and chocolate covered pecans left in the office for sale – pecans – $9.00 for a pound bag and chocolate covered pecans – $8.00 for a 12 ozs bag.

Remember we are farmers working together. If we can help let us know.

In the best cases, technical education is not just training.  In the worst cases, training in literature, history, and mathematics is not always education. Oversimplifications do injustice to both pursuits.
“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them.  Instead give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
— R. Buckminster Fuller  —
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By Walter V. Wendler

California community colleges are pressing to offer four-year degrees. According to a CCnewsnow.com story, Brice Harris, Chancellor of the system’s 112 community colleges in California, assembled a group to study the viability of four-year degrees at the two-year schools in fields with high workforce demands. The group argues this way: The California Master Plan for Higher Education, launched in 1960, was based in part on the premise that jobs and the economy of California are the result of first-rate, post-secondary education.  Baccalaureate workforce education is not being fully addressed by the four-year institutions in California.  The community colleges want to fill the void and offer baccalaureate degrees in select fields.  San Diego Community College Chancellor, Constance Carroll and the committee say workforce training is an important part of higher education’s mission and community colleges are ready and willing to do it.  Universities seem unready and/or unwilling.

Over a century ago, Christopher C. Langdell had to argue stridently as Dean of Harvard Law School that professional education was important and had a place at the university.  His impact on American education changed the nature of modern university’s according to Bruce A. Kimball in The Inception of Modern Professional Education.  Langdell pioneered concepts like meritocracy, measuring student performance, and competitive admission. He believed universities should be rigorous. Nobody — faculty, students, administrators, or alumni — liked his ideas. These collected naysayers thought Langdell’s views would change the university.  They were right.
Some fear an emphasis on skills-based education, with measurable results, is training rather than education and not the purpose of the university.  But Langdell’s thinking paralleled the late 19th century land-grant university phenomenon.  Both changed universities into places where performance mattered and knowledge was applied to solve problems. Both encouraged a form of pragmatism.
Universities have the responsibility to prepare educated and trained graduates in disciplines where a two-year degree is insufficient. Knife edge balance of seemingly competing forces creates an educational experience that provides critical thinking while simultaneously preparing graduates for high-demand jobs. Nursing and many health related disciplines, technically demanding occupations such as aviation, public safety, information systems, and other applied arts, sciences and technologies that have an indelible impact on each of us every day are examples.

In Mutual Subversion: A Short History of the Liberal and the Professional in American Higher Education, David F. Labaree points out, “… over the years professional education has gradually subverted liberal education. The counterpoint is that, over the same period of time, liberal education has gradually subverted professional education.”

On the one hand, concerns about turning the university into a trade school are appropriately voiced by academics who value a strong critical mind with the opportunity for diverse applications of knowledge. On the other hand, faculty in workforce preparation areas, in fields where legitimate baccalaureate studies are required, constantly vie for their place at the academic table.   They are frequently seen as second class university citizens by being too narrowly focused.
The disciplines of applied sciences and arts and workforce education have a legitimate place in university life and a role in economic development. It is hard to imagine Harvard, as the 19th century turned into the 20th, without Christopher Langdell’s calls for enhanced professional education. Likewise it’s hard to imagine the U.S. agricultural and machine-based economy without the applied education provided by the land-grant institutions.
If our universities neglect the concept of workforce preparation and specialized technical skill as necessary and worthy pursuits for universities important possibilities go begging.

An eye-opening column by John Kass.

 

Here’s the link to the column in the Chicago Tribune.

To the Editor:

Tragedy struck Illinois the afternoon of December 3, 2013.  Three of the core fundamental values of democracy were killed in action during a fierce battle Tuesday afternoon in the Illinois General Assembly.  The casualties included the longtime government standards of Truth, Honor, and Integrity.   The victims had provided legendary framework for all branches of government for over two hundred years.  They were ambushed by the sinister forces of incompetent leadership, political ambition and personal greed.  They leave behind thousands of honest, hardworking state and university employees, teachers, and retirees who devoted their lives and careers to the principles they established.  Truth, Honor, and Integrity will be sorely missed by all who knew them as we long for the days when those values guided the Illinois General Assembly.

In every war there are those who distinguish themselves on the field of battle by demonstrating exceptional courage fighting the forces of evil. This battle was no exception.   There are elected Warriors among us who distinguished themselves on the legislative battlefield.  Legislators who refused to abandon Truth, Honor, and Integrity, regardless of the danger they faced from the underhanded legislative warlords. Senator Gary Forby, Senator Dave Luechtefeld, Representative Brandon Phelps, and Representative Mike Bost, fought courageously and refused to abandon their principles even when facing certain political wrath from the chamber god fathers. They are HEROs and deserving of our respect and our thanks. To the legislative Judas’ who abandoned Truth, Honor, and Integrity for some cherished political conquest, remember this. With your vote to rob Illinois’ finest of their earned benefits, you planted a seed. I, along with thousands of dedicated state and university employees, teachers, and retirees, will be eagerly awaiting your day of harvest.

One fundamental core value remains intact as of this writing. Justice is still alive and well. As this legislation makes its way through an imminent constitutional challenge, we must stay true to the values we stand for. The Judicial branch was curiously left out of this legislation and its members suffered none of the losses enacted. However, we must remain confident that Truth, Honor, and Integrity remain alive and well within that honorable institution and that justice will reverse this act of legislative treason.

Brad Warren
West Frankfort Illinois