Monthly Archives: September 2012

Great boards recognize the difference that David Leslie has pointed out between a good governance structure (which properly gives them the ultimate authority over all aspects of the college) and good governing (in which boards defer some of that decision-making to internal groups or individuals that have far more expertise than they). Boards need an information-driven governing process that operates within a culture of collaboration — among themselves, with the president, and with the faculty. Making decisions too quickly or in isolation often erodes core institutional values.

“Governing Higher Ed Through Balance: Why Cultivating Collaboration Is Crucial, Now More Than Ever,” H. Kim Bottomly

President Obama was elected, at least to some extent, because he called for an end to partisan politics. He’s not quite running on that principle anymore, because experience taught him that the Republican opposition is less interested in making government work and more interested in defeating the first Black President, no matter what the apparent cost to the country, or, indeed, to common sense itself.

Ms. Bottomly, who’s president of Wellesley College, has a very Republican idea of compromise that seems typical of the academic administrator’s brand of bipartisanship. The board of directors, dominated by members “heavy with business experience,” she tells us, should “retain ultimate authority over all aspects of the college” but should also promise, to “defer some of that decision-making to internal groups.” Is that balance and collaboration?

Republican policies destroyed the U.S. economy, as well as many economies around the world, and as long as they keep advocating these policies they should fought off or ignored. The business people on the boards have likewise undermined or even destroyed the foundations of U.S. education, making full-time jobs more and more rare and college so expensive as to be nearly inaccessible. Compromise? I say we kick the bums out.

“We feel this is the watershed moment,” said Richard Garrett, vice president and principal analyst for Eduventures and the report’s author. “After years of endless growth, we’re definitely coming to more of a plateau situation.”

“Mature Market for Online Education,” Paul Fain

I’ve said before that the online higher education system is, in part, driven by a race between the public and not-for-profit tortoises, slow and steady, and the more nimble private hares. The hares are slowing down. I taught at for-profits for several years but, after being laid off by the Art Institute of Pittsburgh Online Division last February, am now teaching exclusively for not-for-profit institutions. It’s not just my impression that the for-profits are not hiring; the facts back me up, at least in the study described by Fain in Inside Higher Education.

Another piece in the IHE (“More Selective For-Profits“)suggests that, while enrollment are down in the for-profits, they are not going away– at least, not all of them. In an emerging market, it’s a free for all because there’s so much growth; everyone can grab a piece of the ever-expanding pie. In a mature market, schools have to compete in a more or less fixed pool of students. The for-profits’ recent bad public press should make it easier for the not-for-profits, including public schools, to make some inroads. The hares could catch up.

The problem, as this debate in California shows (“Who’s in Control?“), is that many of the pubic schools are too mired in budget problems to take full advantage of the moment. The irony is that one of the City College of San Francisco’s main strengths, it’s (relative) reliance on full-time faculty, is under fire. The political temptation will be to balance the budget on the backs of part-time faculty. That should not happen; this is exactly the sort of selling point that public and not-for-profits ought to be using to attract students.