Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Here, According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Are the "Great Colleges to Work For"

http://chronicle.com/interactives/greatcolleges16?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=4cdd4587a16b476ea0c40c0e6c64351b&elq=16531f39fa6742b9ae66d1107087ea81&elqaid=9906&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=3641

Let's face it.  We all hate these ratings games, whether it's the infamous US News & World Report rankings, or the Princeton Review's Best Colleges  publication... or this one.

And, let's be honest, we all watch for the results with eagerness and anxiety, and blow our horns loudly if we come out near the top.

How does the Chronicle conduct it's survey?

"This year The Chronicle’s Great Colleges to Work For survey is based on responses from more than 46,000 people at 281 institutions: 189 four-year colleges and universities (109 private and 80 public), and 92 two-year colleges. All accredited institutions in the United States with an enrollment of at least 500 were invited to participate, at no cost to them."

A company called Modern Think LLC did the survey for the Chronicle.

Fact is, I've been in higher education almost my entire working life, since I got out of the service back in 1973.  With the exception of a decade in the private practice of the law with a major Philly law firm, I've been


  1. Director of University Communications at Case Western Reserve
  2. Assistant Professor of Business Law at UT-Austin  
  3. Professor of Legal Methods at the Widener Law School
  4. And for 20 years, the Associate Provost at my current institution
  5. Plus stints as an adjunct faculty member in Penn's Wharton School and (currently) Drexel's law school
All told, I bring 30 years of higher ed experience to this blog.  What general observations do three decades lead me to make?

First, I still consider higher education the best industry in which to spend one's working life in terms of a quality experience.

Second, I can say in the same breath that it isn't nearly as enjoyable or easy to work at a university, as it was 40 years ago, when I first took an editor/writer job at CWRU, fresh from the Coast Guard.

My reasons for the first comment include:


  • the pleasure of coming to a beautiful campus every day
  • the bright and lovely colleagues with whom I get to interact
  • the stimulation of a workplace where most people are of above-average intelligence, above-average civility, and actually interested in ideas
  • the joy of preparing young people to succeed
  • the challenges this entails
My reasons for the second comment include:

  • the relentless financial difficulties we now encounter
  • the helicopter (some say "Velcro") parents
  • the DOE's conversion of our administrations to police, judges and juries in sexual assault cases and the litigation that seems inevitably to ensue
On balance, for me these challenges do not even come close to outweighing the "positives" that keep me coming to work every morning with a sense of anticipation.  To the contrary, meeting the financial challenges, while serving our students (and, yes, their parents), and eradicating the menace of sexual assault, all actually add to the satisfaction of the job more often than not.

And I don't even work at one of the alleged "Great Colleges to Work For."

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