Economist Joseph Schumpeter described the entrepreneur this way:
"An innovation implies an innovator--- someone who is responsible for combining the factors of production in new ways. This is obviously not a 'normal' businessman, following established routines. The person who introduces change into economic life is a representative of another class--- or more accurately, another group, because innovators do not necessarily come from any social class. Schumpeter took an old word from the economic lexicon and used it to describe those revolutionists of production. He called them entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs and their innovating activity were thus the source of profit in the capitalist system." --- Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers (sixth edition) at 296.
Harvard's Clay Christiansen has added to this the notion of disruption. In higher education, for example, disruption --- according to Christiansen --- has been caused primarily by the technology enabling online learning. This has lowered the entry level cost of getting into the business of higher education dramatically. No more the need for sprawling campuses, expensive tenured faculties and all the supporting infrastructure of the traditional college.
Perhaps significantly, Trump was among those entrepreneurs who recognized this... thus Trump University. And, as Schumpeter also pointed out, once the entrepreneur has launched the new enterprise, he quickly loses interest... thus the lawsuits that have emerged against Trump University, not least because the plaintiffs didn't get any direct counsel from its founder as promised.
In the 2016 election the entrepreneurial Trump recognized an unserved market. And he brought Christiansen's principles of disruption to bear on that market. He realized that the new technologies, that have so disrupted traditional higher education, could also be used to disrupt the traditional political parties. Thus, no need for him to kowtow to the GOP establishment.
What we have witnessed is the first successful application of disruption theory in a national election by a consummate entrepreneur.
This same entrepreneur lost interest in Trump University and it came to ruin. Will he lose interest in his new role, once it falls into a routine? Or perhaps there is no such thing as routine in the presidency of the United States and he will remain engaged for the next four years.
Frankly, I'm not sure which would be worse.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
What should we do about the town v. gown gap?
That's what it's traditionally termed: Town v. Gown. It's lampooned in "Animal House." As the Delta's destroy the parade, and much of Main Street with it, we see the mayor strangling Dean Wormer. It's what many "townies" have always wanted to do to us administrators and professors, as well as our students.
I attended college in the second half of the Sixties, something like five years after the time in which the iconic movie was made. And I recall an evening when a group of "townies" showed up at our fraternity --- the animal house of Franklin & Marshall College. The local lads picked the wrong frat house to threaten. Most of my brothers were dedicated jocks and weight lifters. When the leader of the town group confronted our half-dozen biggest brothers and said, "You college guys have it up here but we have it down here," pointing first to his head and then to his body... somebody doused him from a window with a bucket of water. It dampened his ardor for a fist fight.
Personally, I felt sorry for him and his friends.
But back in those days, the townies could look for well-paid manufacturing jobs at plants like Hamilton Watch, which had enormous war contracts on top of its brisk watch and clock business. I myself was a night watchman in a local tool-and-dye plant for a semester or two. Hourly manufacturing jobs were tickets to high wages, good benefits, union security, and a pension.
The gap between town and gown yawned wider and wider as this election day approached. Or maybe it just became more visible than ever before. White voters without college degrees overwhelmingly support Trump. They have abandoned the Democratic party. White college grads are more split, but the majority favor Clinton.
Those without college degrees no longer can count on making a good living that leads eventually to a comfortable retirement. And I have to agree with Trump that both parties... and both the political establishment and Wall Street... have abandoned them. Their grievances are real.
Regardless of who wins today, we in higher education should be asking:
Do we owe anything to the "townies" that the information age has left behind in their rust-belt and rural pockets?
And if you agree with me that we do, what should we be thinking about doing, when we wake up on November 9th?
I attended college in the second half of the Sixties, something like five years after the time in which the iconic movie was made. And I recall an evening when a group of "townies" showed up at our fraternity --- the animal house of Franklin & Marshall College. The local lads picked the wrong frat house to threaten. Most of my brothers were dedicated jocks and weight lifters. When the leader of the town group confronted our half-dozen biggest brothers and said, "You college guys have it up here but we have it down here," pointing first to his head and then to his body... somebody doused him from a window with a bucket of water. It dampened his ardor for a fist fight.
Personally, I felt sorry for him and his friends.
But back in those days, the townies could look for well-paid manufacturing jobs at plants like Hamilton Watch, which had enormous war contracts on top of its brisk watch and clock business. I myself was a night watchman in a local tool-and-dye plant for a semester or two. Hourly manufacturing jobs were tickets to high wages, good benefits, union security, and a pension.
The gap between town and gown yawned wider and wider as this election day approached. Or maybe it just became more visible than ever before. White voters without college degrees overwhelmingly support Trump. They have abandoned the Democratic party. White college grads are more split, but the majority favor Clinton.
Those without college degrees no longer can count on making a good living that leads eventually to a comfortable retirement. And I have to agree with Trump that both parties... and both the political establishment and Wall Street... have abandoned them. Their grievances are real.
Regardless of who wins today, we in higher education should be asking:
Do we owe anything to the "townies" that the information age has left behind in their rust-belt and rural pockets?
And if you agree with me that we do, what should we be thinking about doing, when we wake up on November 9th?
Monday, November 7, 2016
Tomorrow's Election, the Threat of Fascism, and the Great Disruption
Fifteen years ago, only a few months prior to 9/11, I argued in an article in Change Magazine http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ635340 that with the precipitous decline of organized labor and the shift from genuine news reporting on TV to info-tainment, it fell to higher education to champion "Truth, Justice and the American Way."
A decade and a half, and a War on Terror, later... the Internet has changed the paradigm yet again. The World Wide Web has eliminated the filters through which the liars and the crazies had to pass in their efforts to get their lies and their mad ravings through to the ignorant and the gullible. Now they come to the American people directly and unedited.
Professor Clay Christiansen has made a fat living as the prophet of disruption theory. He has pronounced on-line learning to be the technology that will disrupt higher education as we know it. And, while many forces are at work undermining higher education as we have known it since WWII, the Internet is indeed the most disruptive force.
This has been clear to me for some time. What was not clear to me until this election is how disruptive of democratic discourse the Internet is. We foolishly thought it was a facilitator of free speech: every man, woman and child her/his own free press. Instead, in the cacophony of fools and ignorami and charlatans and nuts, a demi-god --- in Lenin's words, a "useful fool" --- has been able to rise and reduce political campaign rhetoric to vulgar, insulting, offensive and insensitive gibberish. And he has been able to reach the gates of the White House in the process.
If those of us disinclined toward fascism vote in large enough numbers tomorrow, we may drive the barbarians from the White House gates... this time. But the fascist urge is flowing in the blood of tens of millions of our fellow Americans. Their blood will grow hotter, not cooler, in defeat. We --- and I mean especially we in higher education --- must gird ourselves to counter that challenge to our liberties and our Democracy.
But first we have to win. Get out there and vote!
A decade and a half, and a War on Terror, later... the Internet has changed the paradigm yet again. The World Wide Web has eliminated the filters through which the liars and the crazies had to pass in their efforts to get their lies and their mad ravings through to the ignorant and the gullible. Now they come to the American people directly and unedited.
Professor Clay Christiansen has made a fat living as the prophet of disruption theory. He has pronounced on-line learning to be the technology that will disrupt higher education as we know it. And, while many forces are at work undermining higher education as we have known it since WWII, the Internet is indeed the most disruptive force.
This has been clear to me for some time. What was not clear to me until this election is how disruptive of democratic discourse the Internet is. We foolishly thought it was a facilitator of free speech: every man, woman and child her/his own free press. Instead, in the cacophony of fools and ignorami and charlatans and nuts, a demi-god --- in Lenin's words, a "useful fool" --- has been able to rise and reduce political campaign rhetoric to vulgar, insulting, offensive and insensitive gibberish. And he has been able to reach the gates of the White House in the process.
If those of us disinclined toward fascism vote in large enough numbers tomorrow, we may drive the barbarians from the White House gates... this time. But the fascist urge is flowing in the blood of tens of millions of our fellow Americans. Their blood will grow hotter, not cooler, in defeat. We --- and I mean especially we in higher education --- must gird ourselves to counter that challenge to our liberties and our Democracy.
But first we have to win. Get out there and vote!
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Is the REAL Problem Solvable?
In the end it's always about economics.
Hitler came to power by persuading the Germans that an international Jewish-banker conspiracy had robbed them of victory and prosperity.
NPR ran an interesting segment on Brexit and Trump this morning as I drove to work. Many of the proponents of Brexit and Trump's supporters are people in pockets of England and the US that suffer from endemic depression. The NPR piece focused on southwestern Pennsylvania and southeastern England. In the former, the demise of steel and the decline of coal are the culprits. In the latter, the demise of the tourist industry and an influx of immigrants are the villains.
NPR also did a piece on the Philippines, where hundreds of thousands have been arrested as small-time drug dealers. So, it seems, a tenth of the country is selling drugs and the other 90 percent are high. Why? Poverty... no jobs... no opportunities.
So what's up? Seems to me it's fundamental... simple... and intractable.
Too many people... too few jobs.
And as the world population continues to grow, scientists and engineers are working furiously to create more and better robots. This contributes mightily to the widening gap between rich and poor.
The southern hemisphere pushes relentlessly up against the northern hemisphere. Is unrestricted immigration the answer? No... it will only spread the southern hemisphere's troubles to the north, while failing to solve them in the south. I saw this happen in my birthplace of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which became briefly famous in legal circles in the 1990s when it passed an ordinance to limit immigration, which became a cause celeb in the federal courts for a time.
There may be no solutions to humanity's fundamental problems. Or the solutions may be so draconian as to be unpalatable to people with any humanity in them.
One thing for sure: neither Brexit nor Trump is the solution.
Hitler came to power by persuading the Germans that an international Jewish-banker conspiracy had robbed them of victory and prosperity.
NPR ran an interesting segment on Brexit and Trump this morning as I drove to work. Many of the proponents of Brexit and Trump's supporters are people in pockets of England and the US that suffer from endemic depression. The NPR piece focused on southwestern Pennsylvania and southeastern England. In the former, the demise of steel and the decline of coal are the culprits. In the latter, the demise of the tourist industry and an influx of immigrants are the villains.
NPR also did a piece on the Philippines, where hundreds of thousands have been arrested as small-time drug dealers. So, it seems, a tenth of the country is selling drugs and the other 90 percent are high. Why? Poverty... no jobs... no opportunities.
So what's up? Seems to me it's fundamental... simple... and intractable.
Too many people... too few jobs.
And as the world population continues to grow, scientists and engineers are working furiously to create more and better robots. This contributes mightily to the widening gap between rich and poor.
The southern hemisphere pushes relentlessly up against the northern hemisphere. Is unrestricted immigration the answer? No... it will only spread the southern hemisphere's troubles to the north, while failing to solve them in the south. I saw this happen in my birthplace of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which became briefly famous in legal circles in the 1990s when it passed an ordinance to limit immigration, which became a cause celeb in the federal courts for a time.
There may be no solutions to humanity's fundamental problems. Or the solutions may be so draconian as to be unpalatable to people with any humanity in them.
One thing for sure: neither Brexit nor Trump is the solution.
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
Horseshoe Nails, Pupperoni, and the End of Civilization: a Fantasy (I hope)
“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”
--- Benjamin Franklin
So a friend of mine has a dog. And she had a pizza box with a couple of slices left over. She put the box on top of her gas stove. The dog began jumping and smacking at the pizza box with its paws. In the process the dog turned on the stove. Goodbye kitchen.
A possible scenario:
Because Weiner was a pervert...
and because his wife worked for the Clinton campaign...
and because Weiner's laptop revealed more Clinton emails...
and because the director of the FBI chose to write a cryptic letter to Congress about them...
the failing Trump campaign was revitalized...
and an infantile madman became President of the United States...
and in his first term in office pushed the nuclear button...
and human civilization ended in the second decade of the 21st century.
The moral of each of these stories: it sometimes doesn't take much to create a disaster.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Why do we over-build?
The three-day strike at the 14 schools in Pennsylvania's state-university system is over. But the financial troubles at these 14 former teachers' colleges are far from over.
In 2010 the system suffered a $90 million cut in state support, only a third of which has been clawed back since Democrat Tom Wolfe took over the governor's mansion. Meanwhile, for a system that is 85 % dependent on in-state traditional-age students, declining high-school graduation numbers in the Commonwealth are aggravating the fiscal issue.
But what seems utterly incomprehensible to me is how Penn State University was allowed over the past decade and a half to expand many of its 19 branch campuses into 4-year operations, many of which are in direct competition with the 14 so called PASSHE schools. Penn State's urge for hegemony in the Keystone State has also put pressure on the many private colleges scattered across the Commonwealth. To me this suggests a vacuum of leadership and a dearth of planning in Harrisburg, the state capital.
For some of the 14 sister institutions, it may be too late to step back from the brink, Chester (PA)'s Cheyney University, founded way back in 1837, is on life support. Here's what a 2014 audit found:
Cheyney, a historically black school that is the smallest of the system’s 14 universities, is located in Delaware County. Supporters of the school in October announced they had resurrected a decades-old civil rights lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia claiming Cheyney does not receive equitable resources.
Mr. DePasquale found that total operating expenses at Cheyney the last three years of the audit period outstripped revenues, leaving Cheyney with a negative net position equal to $12.3 million on operating expenses of $46.6 million. Its budget for 2014-15 projects a shortfall of $5.5 million, the auditor general found.
Cheyney’s current liabilities as of June 30, 2013, totaled $8,992,867, compared with current revenues of $6,001,508, meaning the school had a dollar in current liabilities for every 67 cents in assets.
Cheyney’s full- and part-time enrollment as reported by the State System this fall stood at 1,022, down 16 percent from last year and 36 percent from 2010. The audit as well found significant student declines when using a different enrollment benchmark -- the total equivalent of full-time students, which is projected this year to be down by 28 percent from the 2008-09 academic year.
Absent significant cash infusions from the state, it's hard to see Cheyney surviving.
Look here... I'm not opposed to weak, poor-quality colleges being winnowed from the herd. What I am questioning here is the trend, at least in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, toward massive funding and concomitant expansion, of selected schools to the detriment of other well-established, historically successful institutions in the same geographic regions. Witness across the Delaware in the garden State the extraordinary growth of Rowan University.
In 2010 the system suffered a $90 million cut in state support, only a third of which has been clawed back since Democrat Tom Wolfe took over the governor's mansion. Meanwhile, for a system that is 85 % dependent on in-state traditional-age students, declining high-school graduation numbers in the Commonwealth are aggravating the fiscal issue.
But what seems utterly incomprehensible to me is how Penn State University was allowed over the past decade and a half to expand many of its 19 branch campuses into 4-year operations, many of which are in direct competition with the 14 so called PASSHE schools. Penn State's urge for hegemony in the Keystone State has also put pressure on the many private colleges scattered across the Commonwealth. To me this suggests a vacuum of leadership and a dearth of planning in Harrisburg, the state capital.
For some of the 14 sister institutions, it may be too late to step back from the brink, Chester (PA)'s Cheyney University, founded way back in 1837, is on life support. Here's what a 2014 audit found:
Cheyney, a historically black school that is the smallest of the system’s 14 universities, is located in Delaware County. Supporters of the school in October announced they had resurrected a decades-old civil rights lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia claiming Cheyney does not receive equitable resources.
Mr. DePasquale found that total operating expenses at Cheyney the last three years of the audit period outstripped revenues, leaving Cheyney with a negative net position equal to $12.3 million on operating expenses of $46.6 million. Its budget for 2014-15 projects a shortfall of $5.5 million, the auditor general found.
Cheyney’s current liabilities as of June 30, 2013, totaled $8,992,867, compared with current revenues of $6,001,508, meaning the school had a dollar in current liabilities for every 67 cents in assets.
Cheyney’s full- and part-time enrollment as reported by the State System this fall stood at 1,022, down 16 percent from last year and 36 percent from 2010. The audit as well found significant student declines when using a different enrollment benchmark -- the total equivalent of full-time students, which is projected this year to be down by 28 percent from the 2008-09 academic year.
Absent significant cash infusions from the state, it's hard to see Cheyney surviving.
Look here... I'm not opposed to weak, poor-quality colleges being winnowed from the herd. What I am questioning here is the trend, at least in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, toward massive funding and concomitant expansion, of selected schools to the detriment of other well-established, historically successful institutions in the same geographic regions. Witness across the Delaware in the garden State the extraordinary growth of Rowan University.
Rowan nears enrollment target years ahead of schedule
Author: Jonathan Lai Staff Writer Date: February 13, 2016 Publication: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Page: B01
Just two years into
an ambitious 10-year growth plan that included increasing full-time
undergraduate enrollment by nearly 30 percent, Rowan University has
nearly met that goal, though it has fallen slightly behind in others.
Rowan's president, Ali A. Houshmand, set the goal of having 12,000 full-time undergraduate students in the 2023-24 school year. That number was to be reached through controlled growth from 9,348 students in fall 2013.
Rowan's president, Ali A. Houshmand, set the goal of having 12,000 full-time undergraduate students in the 2023-24 school year. That number was to be reached through controlled growth from 9,348 students in fall 2013.
Where are those students coming from? Just ask the competition.
As the holder of a Ph.D. in American Studies, I might take an historical view of what I'll call the Penn State-Rowan U. phenomenon. The way of the American pioneer was slash and burn, wear out the soil, and move on. In the 1950s and 1960s we abandoned our cities for the suburbs, leaving behind hollow downtowns and ghettos. A nation that has always been blessed with more resources than it really needed, America has frequently been profligate in its use and discarding of those resources. This tendency seems to have found its way into our higher education system at a time when the paradigm of higher education is shifting... which is challenge enough for many us without this seemingly unnecessary competition.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Monday morning ruminations on jobs, careers, and the Singularity
The Chronicle of Higher Education has just posted three related stories on student careers and career counseling:
1. Colleges Must Transform Their Career Counseling
2. Reinventing the Career Center, and
3. How Colleges Can Do Better at Helping Students Get Jobs
Coincidentally, I was ruminating about jobs and careers as I drove to work this morning.
Too little, I think, is said (or even thought) about the advent of AI and robotics as major players in the world of work. "The Singularity" refers to the moment when silicon brains become the equals of carbon brains... when the electronic computer matches our wet computers in brain power. What then?
I once read a sci fi short story in which people no longer worked. Rather, we all owned robots who went off to work for us. Humans were left to fully develop (or not) their personal potentials and enjoy unlimited leisure time.
Of course, that Utopia presupposes a willingness to distribute wealth across society in a way which would be exactly the opposite of the yawning disparity in wealth that characterizes America and most of the rest of the world today.
My wife had occasion on Saturday to complain to the manager of our branch bank about the long lines, resulting from a paucity of tellers. He blithely told her that, while the bank payed its tellers so little that he was unable to hire more, she shouldn't worry. Soon we will be going tellerless, he assured her. All banking will be done on line. I wonder if he considered what job he would have when that happens.
As consumers we seem to embrace every such technological innovation. But we are consumers only because we (or someone in our family circle) are wage earners as well.
During my lifetime I have witnessed:
1. Colleges Must Transform Their Career Counseling
2. Reinventing the Career Center, and
3. How Colleges Can Do Better at Helping Students Get Jobs
Coincidentally, I was ruminating about jobs and careers as I drove to work this morning.
Too little, I think, is said (or even thought) about the advent of AI and robotics as major players in the world of work. "The Singularity" refers to the moment when silicon brains become the equals of carbon brains... when the electronic computer matches our wet computers in brain power. What then?
I once read a sci fi short story in which people no longer worked. Rather, we all owned robots who went off to work for us. Humans were left to fully develop (or not) their personal potentials and enjoy unlimited leisure time.
Of course, that Utopia presupposes a willingness to distribute wealth across society in a way which would be exactly the opposite of the yawning disparity in wealth that characterizes America and most of the rest of the world today.
My wife had occasion on Saturday to complain to the manager of our branch bank about the long lines, resulting from a paucity of tellers. He blithely told her that, while the bank payed its tellers so little that he was unable to hire more, she shouldn't worry. Soon we will be going tellerless, he assured her. All banking will be done on line. I wonder if he considered what job he would have when that happens.
As consumers we seem to embrace every such technological innovation. But we are consumers only because we (or someone in our family circle) are wage earners as well.
During my lifetime I have witnessed:
- the evaporation of most well-paid manufacturing jobs due to relocation of plants off shore and the introduction of robots on the remaining assembly lines
- the shift to low-paid, benefits-free and union-free service jobs for millions of Americans
- the concentration of vast wealth in an ever smaller percentage of Americans at the top of the heap
- the related shift from a high school diploma as the entry level credential to the BA and increasingly now to the MA for jobs and careers with any upward mobility at all, and
- the burdening of college grads with "mortgages" on their diplomas that sometimes seem crushing, as too many of them settle for work that is beneath their levels of preparation.
As I have repeated often on this Blog, higher education is experiencing a paradigm shift of revolutionary proportions. So too is the world of work.
Not long ago I raised this concern with a well-known American Studies professor from Columbia University, who was giving a talk at my home institution. He smiled and replied, "Not to make light of your question (meaning, of course, he was about to make light of my question), but students have always found ways to make a living and I expect the current generation will be no exception."
The trick --- while not becoming Chicken Little --- is to recognize when a cycle is no longer a cycle but is in fact a sea change... to recognize an existential threat when it looks you in the eyes.
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