Residents of Illinois have sadly become used to seeing their great state lampooned on late night comedy shows about the rampant corruption, abuse of power and total mismanagement of state funds.

It goes without saying anymore that Illinois is the poster child across the nation for political corruption at the state level.  With the past two governors in prison and four of the last seven governors serving jail time and with three current members of the General Assembly under indictment I would dare anybody to argue with the previous sentence.

It would be very easy to say that what we see daily in Springfield is a ‘joke’ but a ‘joke’ is supposed to be funny, and clearly this is no laughing matter.

Illinois has the most underfunded pension system in the nation that now totals close to $100 billion and more than $6.5 billion in unpaid bills.  I find it mind-boggling that the state has more than 200,000 pay vounchers that go unpaid day after day.

With those numbers in mind and with countless people’s lives literally hanging in the balance, how totally incompetent is it that Gov. Pat Quinn and the General Assembly are fiddling over issues like driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and gay marriage — while the state burns down around them.

But, Illinois voters must like what they are getting because they continue to send the same people back to Springfield, somehow believing that things will change.  As I have said often when referring to state government in Illinois, it fits the precise definition of the word ‘insanity’ — which of course is to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again while expecting a different result.

In short, we are sending the same people back to Springfield expecting them to fix the problems they created and the end result is that the situation gets worse every day.  Insanity?  I think so!

I saw a segment on the local news within the past 24 hours that I think shows that neither party really wants any substantial change in Springfield.  Oh, they give us lip service about change but really it’s a ‘Good Ol’ Boy’s Club’ and that’s how it’s designed to stay.

Let me explain.

The news segment I’m referring to was on WSIL and it was about legislation introduced by newly-elected state Rep. Charlie Meier (R-Okawville) that says (in a nutshell) that state office holders and members of the General Assembly won’t get paid until vendors, doctors, pharmacies, etc. that the state owes money does gets paid. Remember that $6.5 billion and those 200,000-plus unpaid vendors?  That’s what Rep. Meier is referring to.

I talked about this last week on my Wednesday night radio show Sound Off (WQRL 106.3 or wqrlradio.com) and Rep. Meier will be my guest this week.
I love the idea and applaud the effort of a freshman state legislator who is not afraid to rock the political boat in Springfield.  At least Rep. Meier is attempting to do something to change the climate and to draw attention to the fact that the state is on a fiscal cliff and path that cannot be sustained.

As I watched the WSIL segment I found the comments of two longtime members of the General Assembly both interesting and disappointing.

State Rep. Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) said the amount of money being paid to lawmakers and office holders is only a fraction of the amount owed so he didn’t support the legislation. It seems to me that Rep. Bost is missing the point.  In my conversation with Rep. Meier this week he is quite aware that the amount of money being paid to elected officials is a mere drop-in-the-bucket to the billions owed.  The point of Rep. Meier’s legislation is that it is not fair that a do-nothing General Assembly continues to draw a hefty paycheck every two weeks — for a part-time job — while businesses are going unpaid month after month after month.

I’m betting that state lawmakers missing a few paychecks would expedite the situation.

During the segment state Rep. Brandon Phelps said he didn’t think the legislation was constitutional because the Illinois Constitution sets the pay for state office holders and for elected officials.

I heard those comments and it immediately came to me that I believe the Constitution also requires that the state of Illinois will have a balanced budget each year … and when was the last time that happened in Illinois.

Rep. Meier is exactly what we need more of in Springfield – somebody who is not afraid to speak up and change the current badly broken system.  Somebody who is not afraid to say that the status quo is not working and things have to change, sooner rather than later.  Somebody who will call out every member of the General Assembly and say ‘you shouldn’t get a paycheck, you don’t deserve a paycheck until you do the job you were elected to do.’

Rep. Meier might be the new kid on the block in Springfield but I believe he ‘gets it.’  He understands that Illinois residents are worn out with politics as usual and the public be damned.  And before the partisan police start squawking … I’m referring to both Democrats and Republicans, period.

Every lawmaker in Springfield who is truly tired of the daily embarrassment that is called Illinois politics should embrace the efforts of Rep. Meier.

It was announced last week that U.S. Military leaders formally lifted the ban on women serving in combat positions.

In making the announcement Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta noted that women have become an “integral part” of the military and have already demonstrated their willingness to fight during the wars of the last decade.

Of course, that decision opened the floodgates about the role of women in the military and even about a woman’s physical ability to serve in combat. And of course, all that debate started me thinking because one of my favorite topics to muse about in the past has been the differences, as I see them, between the sexes.

In past ramblings I’ve discussed the usual list that includes toilet lids, remote controls, power tools, and men’s refusal to ask directions when they’re hopelessly lost. I’ve also mentioned how women have the ability and technology to spend 20 minutes in front of a mirror and make themselves look 20 years younger while men stumble around looking every year of their age – or perhaps a little older.

And of course I’ve also written about the fact that women, even though most men won’t admit it, are a little smarter than we are.

After reading and listening to the arguments about women’s qualifications for combat duty I recalled a story I read recently that was entitled: “X Chromosome Shows Why Women Differ from Men.”

Certainly, my track record with the opposite sex played into my fascination with this story.

The article stated that a team of scientists has “cracked” the genetic code of the female X chromosome which is linked to more than 300 human diseases and, according to the study, it also explains why women are so different than men. The article went on to say that chromosomes are found in the nucleus of every cell and contain genes that determine the characteristics of an individual. Women have two X chromosomes while men have an X and a Y chromosome, which gives men their male features.

One brief paragraph in the story provided one of those ‘light bulb moments’ for me. It read:

“The research also showed that men’s Y chromosome is an ‘eroded’ version of the X chromosome and contains only a few genes. The X chromosome is also bigger than the Y chromosome and because females have two X chromosomes, one of their X chromosomes is largely switched off or inactivated.”

Wow! Those two sentences provided me with information that I’ve been searching for years to find.

Admittedly, I’m not a person that excelled in science, but it seems to me that those two sentences prove that men are working at a disadvantage when trying to deal with women. Let me try and cut through the scientific mumbo-jumbo and explain it in layman’s terms.

What I gather from that paragraph is that women have two, big strong X chromosomes, while men have one X chromosome and a Y chromosome that is referred to as an “eroded” version of the X chromosome. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it seems that this scientific study shows that men are trying to play the game against a superior opponent and with cheap, faulty, generic equipment, to boot.

And on top of that, one of women’s big, strong X chromosomes is switched off or inactivated. When I read that my first thought was of the playground bully taunting you by saying that he could “whip you with one hand tied behind his back.”

In short, this study tells me that it takes all the X chromosome and the generic Y chromosomes that I have to stumble through the day while women cruise through the day on one X chromosome – that is unless they wants to kick in the other big, strong X chromosome that’s inactive and resting. Men should understand now why they simply say, ‘yes dear’ regardless of what she says. Apparently, we’re not genetically equipped to answer any other way.

But, as I use my one X chromosomes and my cheap-version Y chromosomes to write this column, I think I see a silver lining in this scientific study that could be useful to all men.

Let me explain.

You see, this study provides men with the ultimate excuse we’ve always wanted. The next time your wife, asks why you act the way you do, simply blame it on the Y chromosome.

Men should start to think in these terms: the next time you forget to put the toilet lid down (and you will) – and you’re awakened by the splash of water and a scream in the middle of the night – or the next time you forget to take the trash out (it will happen) … simply blame it on that darned, eroded Y chromosome.

Or, the next time you go to the grocery store and bring home the wrong brand (and again, you will), or drive around for an hour looking for a particular street while refusing to ask directions (it’s a certainty) simply explain that you’re genetically flawed. Speaking solely to the men in the audience, don’t you believe now that women know they’re dealing with an inferior product, they’ll back off a little and not be so demanding?

No, I don’t think so either, in fact now that women know they are dealing with a flawed product I expect the demands to ratchet up. And sadly, with our weak, eroded Y chromosome there’s nothing we can do about it except utter our standard pathetic answer: ‘yes, dear.’

I had to chuckle when I read the final paragraph of the article. It reads: “These discoveries, made by an international consortium of scientists, shows that females are far more changeable than previously thought and, when it comes to genes, far more complex than men.”

Far more changeable? Far more complex? No kidding?

It didn’t take an international team of scientists to explain that to me. I had that figured out the first week of kindergarten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The changing nature of students, their interests and abilities, requires that our universities change too.  While they do, we must remember the attributes of learning and insight, and the abilities and skills that make the university valuable to all change little, it all. Universities help create cause in students, not effect.
An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.
C. S. Lewis
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The January 2013 report from the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education, “Knocking At the Door: A Projection of High School Graduates,” contains clarifying revelations. The number of blacks and whites finishing high school will decrease in the near future as the number of Asian Americans/Pacific Islander and Latino graduates will increase. Like a tsunami.

Additionally, over the next few years there will be a reduction in the total number of high school graduates produced until the numbers stabilize at around 3.3 million nationally according to Ronald Roche of Diverse Issues in Higher Education in the January 17, 2013 edition.
Some states are particularly challenged.  In Wisconsin two-year enrollments are down. University leaders and state policymakers suggest these realities are due to a 6.3% decline in Wisconsin high school graduates projected from the year 2010 to 2015, according to a story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last October.
The diminishing number of students available to attend universities and the nature of their backgrounds, expectations, and aspirations exacerbate a continuing decrease in university budgets through lower tuition revenue. Cost increases for everything from faculty to football push the prospects of college out of the reach for new and different cadres of students.
Universities have two options.  Bend or break.
Bob Lay, Dean for Enrollment Management at Boston College, suggested that with this shift in demographics produces a larger number of students from less affluent families where college study has not been the norm.  These recent high school graduates participate with less family experience, understanding and support.  Yet, increasing expectations and believed benefits of the university experience abound creating unrealistic expectations for student and institution alike.
Universities will stand and deliver; or lie down and die.
Dean Lay also suggested that “The notion that we are merely gatekeepers for our institutions has thankfully faded in the minds of current leaders in higher education.” His optimism is admirable, but many institutions continue to move too slowly towards a revitalized approach to university life in response to a markedly different group of students.
False hope in the power of distance learning and online instruction to provide a high-quality university experience shifting from classroom to digital experience will fall short. It is effect not cause. The new demographic, like the old demographic, wants contact with interested professionals who take tutelage seriously.
Most freshman classes at state universities are now more representative of the population they serve than at any time in history. This is great news. However the graduating classes revert back to the same old look, with the shifted demographic holding the bag, but not graduating. Hopes die: debt thrives.  Access is encouraged and rewarded with cheap loans, but success is locked up in after-school detention.
It is better not to accept a student unprepared and live in the deceit that they will complete a worthwhile program than to take in a person with the lowest likelihood of graduation.  William Powers, president at the University of Texas suggested many of the students are fully capable, but have not been challenged, nurtured, or tutored in a way that allows them to be successful.  He packages the problem crisply, “Often, they may have gone to a high school where they didn’t have a calculus class or advanced placement classes. The challenges are also financial and what I call cultural. They might be away from home, and they don’t have parents and aunts and uncles who have already been here.”
The times are tough for many universities…but will get tougher yet. Little relief is in sight for universities unwilling to simultaneously hold onto the traditional values of the university experience, enlightened teaching and engaged faculty and staff, while also looking at alternative methods to reduce the total costs and increase the effectiveness of the university experience.
Requiring all students to participate in some form of either low- or no-cost distance education, encouraging students to begin at a community college and reducing costs and scouring out ineffectiveness are all valuable considerations, but none a panacea in isolation.
These actions and others help to address the dramatic demographic shift and the escalation of the expectations that comes with it. At our universities academic leadership that understands cause is required.