Economics is the only field in which two people can
get a Nobel Prize for saying exactly the opposite thing.
Economist Jokes ---
http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/JokEc.html
Jensen in a Blue Suit: The head is somewhat familiar but where
did that body come from?
September 26, 2005 message from David Albrecht
[albrecht@PROFALBRECHT.COM]
Amy,
I agree with you, we wouldn't want Bob any
other way. Bob is so energetic, he sends out links to all the
interesting and related sites that I could ever possibly use. I recall
when Ed tatooed a Nike swoosh on Bob's forehead. I've come to think of
Bob as Superman in a crew cut. Can anybody come up with this image?
David Albrecht
September 27, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Amy and David,
Thank you for the kudos. I hate to take too much credit for some
things that are mostly due to circumstance.
My wife is in New Hampshire awaiting my retirement from teaching in
May. Aside from short visits once each month this fall and less next
spring due to risks of blizzards in the mountains, I don't have much
else to do besides work seven days per week. I've never really handled
leisure very well.
I'm too old (and too poor) to chase wild women, and my single malt
allotment is one ounce per day. In some ways the AECM is my therapy.
Many years ago I was a library crawler in the stacks. I'm still a
library crawler, but the stacks I wander through are now on the Web.
The example that I'm trying to set in academe is one of open sharing.
My hope that some of our many lurkers will be become sharers in the
likes of Jensen, Dunbar, Albrecht, Beresford, Fordham, Williams,
Jagdish 1, Jagdish 2, Bonicker, Sansing, Campbell, Scribner, and the
various others who weekly make the AECM something special. I include in
this list the many of you who make less frequent but often more useful
comments/replies on the AECM. I am truly grateful when we hear from
subscribers outside the United States (even you Mac) who help to make
this a smaller world and closer world.
And what I really like is the academic way in which we can vigorously
debate issues without taking anything personally, even when Fordham and
Williams go off on lengthy and sometimes emotional tangents (I love it).
I'm actually grateful when Sansing, Williams, and others point out my
errors and shortcomings. They do a great service to me personally by
helping me to learn and to keep me from spreading long-lasting errors on
the AECM.
What often disappoints me is that some lurkers need to be
specifically prodded to share. They only tell us about their experiences
with a type of software or database when a Dunbar or somebody else
specifically requests a response. It would be better if they shared
their experiences early on with new software and databases and
interesting Websites before being prompted to reply on the AECM. Richard
Campbell is very good about early-on sharing with software.
And I would truly like to inspire some of our younger and newer
members of this profession to share more frequently with us. It seems
like our most active contributors are getting along somewhat in years.
We need to learn more from younger whippersnappers. I also wish that
more of the leading current researchers in our top journals more openly
shared on the AECM. It would be great if they discussed their research
with us.
I'm forever grateful the Barry Rice for starting this listserv and
the rest of you who truly work at making it one of the better forums in
the world in terms of adding value to our teaching, our research, and
even our entertainment.
Thanks for the good times,
Please turn up your speakers and
Imagine All the People ---
http://www.jessiesweb.com/imagine.htm
If the sound does not commence after 30 seconds, scroll to the bottom of
the page and turn it on
Bob Jensen
September 27, reply from David Albrecht (using a picture provided by Ed
Scribner)
Ed,
I believe you have captured the vision I have
of Bob!
Dave
At 05:41 PM 9/27/2005 -0600, Ed Scribner wrote:
Stupid questions you may be asked in interviews
"Stupid Interview Questions," by Liz Ryan, Business Week,
September 21, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/StupidIQ
Where do you see yourself in five
years?
This is the great-granddaddy of goofy questions, and I give
you permission, if you have any misgivings about a job
opportunity, to walk out the door when you hear it. It's
such a time-waster that only the most hidebound interviewers
will utter it, but it lives on.
Here's why it's dumb. No company will guarantee you a job
for five years, much less a career path. To construct such a
plan for yourself, you'd have to make predictions about
industries, companies, and your likes and dislikes that
could only serve to constrain your choices. And in any case,
why is it so all-fired important to have a dang career plan
in mind? Every successful entrepreneur and many top
corporate people will tell you their key to success: I did
what I felt driven to do at the moment.
So when you get asked this question, you can say: "I intend
to be happy and productive five years from now, working at a
job I love in a company that values my talents" and leave it
at that. Or you can give the expected answer and say: "I
hope to be three levels up the ladder, here at Happy Corp."
Or you can say: "I hope to own this company," just to shake
things up.
But for an interviewer to ask the question at all is a bad
sign. Come on, people! There are millions of thoughts in the
human brain. Can we change the ones we use in job interviews
every decade or so?
If you were an animal/a can of soup/some other random
object, which one would you be?
This is a question typically asked of new grads, because
it's considered cute. It's supposed to test how people
think. But it's asinine. You can pretend to think about your
answer for a moment (eyes to the ceiling, chin resting on
hand) and then come up with something. Or stare blankly at
the interviewer and say, deadpan: "Are you serious?" Or try
one of these answers:
(Animal) "Oh, any crepuscular animal would do well for me --
a rabbit or a bat, perhaps." (Crepuscular means most active
during dawn and dusk, so you'll get to show off your
extensive vocab.)
(Soup) "Probably the low-sodium chicken broth." Fix the
interviewer with a penetrating gaze -- she won't know
whether you're mocking her imbecilic question or are deadly
serious.
What are your weaknesses?
By now, such a large percentage of the job-seeking public
has gotten clued in on the politically correct answer to
this one -- which is, "I'm a hopeless workaholic" -- that
the question's utility is limited. But it's also offensive.
This is a job interview, not a psychological exam. It's one
thing for an interviewer to ask you what you do particularly
well. It's another thing to ask what you don't do well and
expect to get a forthright answer -- in a context where it's
clear to both parties that you're being weeded in or out.
The most honest answer might be this: "That's for me to know
and you to find out." But that won't help your chances.
So if you can't bear to repeat the "workaholic" line, I'd
say something that is true of yourself but also terribly
common -- like the fact that you get bored easily, or prefer
numbers to people or vice versa. None of these is actually a
weakness, but that's O.K.
What in particular interested you about our company?
Now, on one level this is a reasonable question. If you say:
"I'm interested in this job because it's three blocks from
my apartment," you might not be the world's best candidate.
But the disingenuous, and therefore offensive, aspect of
this question is that it assumes that you have unlimited job
opportunities and have pinpointed this one because of some
dazzling aspect of the role or the company.
I mean, please. Most of the job-seeking population is living
on the lower two-thirds of Maslow's pyramid, where the most
appealing thing about any job is that you got the darned
interview. Why am I interested? Because you guys called me
back. But you can't say that, so you have to rhapsodize
about the company's wonderful products and services and the
world-class management team and so on.
Now, it's important to show that you know a lot about the
company. But you have lots of ways to demonstrate that in an
interview (and lots of ways for the interviewer to ask you
to do so) without pretending that the company had to fight
every employer in town to get an audience with you.
Everybody involved knows the company is shredding 10 times
the number of résumés it's reading, so let's not pretend it
was your breathtaking credentials that got you the
interview. It was the fact that the company responded
to your overture, unlike 90% of the employers you contacted.
Below the director level or so, where it might be reasonable
to assume you sought out the company for particular
job-hunting attention, it's not necessary to pretend that
you carefully chose it from a raft of others pursuing you.
So unless you approached the outfit in the absence of a
posted job opportunity, it's just silly to ask: "Why us?"
Rather, the interviewer can say: "When you saw our ad on
Monster.com, what made you respond?" And, of course, the
logical answer is: "Because I know I can do the job that was
posted." Duh. No one said job-hunting was easy.
What would your past managers say about you?
This is a fine question, but it's not a true interview
question. It's an intelligence question. It's like the
question on one of those "honesty" tests that are becoming
more and more popular in the hiring process (to add insult
to injury, they're often called Personality Profiles): "Do
you think it's O.K. to steal from your employer?"
These are intelligence questions because you have to have
the intelligence to know the answer in order to be smart
enough to go and get a job.
The trick here is to say something sufficiently witty or
pithy to make you stand out from the crowd, because the
standard answers are so tired: My managers would say that
I'm hard-working, loyal, reliable, and a great team player.
Snoozeville.
Why not try: My past managers would say that I was an
outstanding individual contributor who also supported the
team 100%. Or: My managers would say that I came up with
breakthrough solutions while never losing track of the
bottom line. You can probably dream up something better.
The point is, this is a softball: Don't think too much about
it. It says more about the interviewer (who lacks the moxie
to think up unique or penetrating questions) than it ever
will about you.
The secret of good job interviewers is that they never ask
traditional, dorky interview questions. They don't need to.
They jump into a business conversation that does three
powerful things in a one-hour chat:
a) Gets you excited about this opportunity (or, as valuably,
makes it clear that you and this job are not a good fit)
b) Reveals to the interviewer how you'll fit into the role
and the company, based on your background, perspective,
temperament, and ideas
c) Gives you a ton of new information about the job, the
management, the goals, the culture, and what life at this
joint would be like.
If any of this doesn't happen, it's a problem. If you're
lukewarm on the job when you leave the interview, or if you
don't feel you've had a chance to show what you know and how
you think, or -- worst of all -- if the interviewer used
your time together to satisfy his need for more information
about you while sharing almost nothing about the job, that's
an enormous red flag.
And if you get called back for a second interview while
you're still information-deprived, say so. "I'm interested
in learning more about the opportunity before a second
interview," you can say. "Would a phone call with the hiring
manager be an effective way to help me get up to speed?"
That kind of suggestion respects the hiring manager's time
and won't waste yours on a second, no-new-data interview.
Try it. You might save yourself some aggravation -- along
with some extra time you can use to work on your five-year
career plan and on tackling those pesky weaknesses of yours
before the next interview.
Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher
Education
If we are really concerned about academic
standards, then we should apply those standards uniformly to the University
of Phoenix and the major universities now listed in the Top 25 NCAA Division
1 football, basketball, and baseball rankings.
Battle Over Academic Standards Weighs On For-Profit Colleges
Now Congress appears poised to pass legislation
that favors the for-profits, a group of heavily marketed schools that are
often owned by publicly traded companies. Traditional colleges -- the public
and private nonprofit institutions from the Ivy League to state universities
that long have formed the backbone of U.S. higher education -- are fighting
the changes. The traditional colleges question the rigor of many of these
newer rivals, which offer degrees in such subjects as auto repair and
massage therapy but have also branched out into business and other courses
of study. The eight regional associations that have long set standards for
traditional colleges recognize only a few of the thousands of for-profit
colleges. These gatekeepers evaluate everything from the faculty's level of
preparedness to the quality of libraries. Meanwhile, some for-profit
graduates have been left with heavy debts and unfulfilled goals.
John Hechinger, "Battle Over Academic Standards Weighs On For-Profit
Colleges: Many Traditional Schools Don't Accept Degrees; Congress
Ponders New Law," The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2005;
Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112804419660556426,00.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Jensen Comment
I remind readers that there is a definitional definitional difference
between the commercialization of colleges and the corporate (or for-profit)
colleges. Commercialization of not-for-profit colleges is in many ways
a much more serious (at least much bigger) problem as is noted by former
Harvard President Derek Bok ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q3.htm#EducationCommercialization
The debate is really not over distance versus non-distance education
except from the standpoint where both non-profit (even Harvard) and
for-profit (notably the University of Phoenix) might try to cut costs and
use distance education as a cash cow. Bok lists this as one of his
three most serious problems with the commercialization of non-profit
universities. For example, the 100,000 online students at the
University of Wisconsin provide a serious source of revenue.
The so-called corporate model is simply a form of ownership that allows
newer colleges and training schools to raise equity capital for financing
new operations. I personally don't think the model is necessarily bad
per se. Some corporate universities are quite rigorous and
prestigious. These typically are affiliated with prestigious
corporations and consulting firms that help draw quality students into the
programs. The problem is that most for-profit schools are newer
institutions that do not have established reputations required for drawing
top students. A university can never have academic respect without
quality students. In spite of Jay Leno's continued snide remarks about
community college students, some of these students have great abilities and
become outstanding students. Jay now has dug himself into a hole on
this one by ignoring appeals from community colleges to cease and desist.
My bottom line advice is to be careful about definitions.
Commercialization is an enormous problem for academic standards, curricula,
and program growth/decline in not-for-profit as well as for-profit colleges.
So is the problem of academic standards when full-time basketball players
from UCLA sue the university after four years because they still can't read.
If we are really concerned about academic standards, then we should apply
those standards uniformly to the University of Phoenix and the major
universities now listed in the Top 25 NCAA Division 1 football, basketball,
and baseball rankings.
My added comments on this are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/book05q3.htm#EducationCommercialization
Community colleges are upset with Jay Leno
Leno had perturbed leaders of two-year colleges
with his occasional cracks and gibes questioning the intelligence of those
who’ve attended the institutions, and by ignoring
letters they’d written urging him to stop. So in
June, Young, president of Ohio’s Northwest State Community College, hit upon an
idea: inviting (daring?) Leno to hop on one of his Harley-Davidsons and ride
with the motorcycle-driving Young while talking about community colleges. The
comedian (or, more likely, his publicists) ignored that invitation, too, and so
last month, the college announced that Young and some of her aides would head
out to Hollywood, where Leno tapes “The Tonight Show,” on a seven-day swing in
which they would also tout the crucial role that two-year institutions in
preparing workers and educating lifelong learners.
Doug Lederman, "Letting Leno Have It (Gently)," Inside Higher Ed,
September 29, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/29/leno
How can you play 70 games of baseball, half of which are out of town, and
pretend to go to class?
"The Brutal Truth about College Sports," by
Skip Rozin, The Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2005; Page D7 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112673590440041002,00.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep
Big time college sports are a mess. While headlines
hype the new football season and speculate on an eventual champion, accounts
surface daily of athletes' stealing, assaulting women and getting busted on
alcohol and drug charges. And when a title game is played, shadowing the
coverage will be news of woeful graduation rates.
Meanwhile, the juggernaut that is college sports
keeps getting bigger, with more television networks airing more games, not
just on weekends but during the week, and colleges expanding their seasons
to meet TV's unquenchable thirst -- up to 40 games each basketball season
and 70 in baseball.
. . .
College sports' current crisis has generated
unprecedented reform efforts by groups inside and outside the establishment.
The Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics and the 16-year-old Knight
Commission on Intercollegiate Athletes, for example, both work in
cooperation with the NCAA. The Drake Group has bypassed the NCAA; its plan
for full disclosure of all classes taken by athletes was read into the
Congressional Record in March by Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky in hopes of
getting Congress involved.
Their combined efforts have netted tougher NCAA
academic requirements, but reform energy still gets bogged down in issues
like the political correctness of team names. Substantive improvement has
been minimal. The system is broken, and the impact is far reaching.
"The transgressions that universities commit in the
name of winning sports undermine the values of the institution," says Derek
Bok, former president of Harvard. "In all too many cases, they tarnish the
reputation of the university by compromising its admissions standards, its
grading practices, and the academic integrity of its curriculum."
To create winning teams, reformers believe,
universities break rules on training, on the allocation of funds to
athletics, and most frequently on athletes' eligibility. Deception begins
early, when schools recruit sports prodigies who are ill-equipped -- or
uninterested -- in academics. Popular rhetoric maintains that these students
are preparing for pro careers, just as medical students are training to be
doctors. This is naïve thinking. The best 1% to 3% may become professionals,
but far too many of the rest are left with no degree and a clouded future.
"The biggest problem is recruiting fine athletes
who should not be in college," says Andy Geiger, who retired this summer as
Ohio State's athletic director after 11 years that included a national
football championship and scandals in football and basketball. "Do we really
want a gifted athlete at our school for any reason other than our own gain?
Are we only in it to use these kids and then spit them out?"
At the core of the college sports problem is an
obsession with winning. Winning is admittedly the goal in all competitions
and is a treasured American characteristic, but universities are supposed to
live by different standards from those that govern big business, the New
York Yankees, or war.
Continued in article
September 15, 2005 reply from Carol Flowers
[cflowers@OCC.CCCD.EDU]
Having gone through this with a son in sports, I
find the whole thing a joke. I applauded the requirement of 12 units of C to
stay eligible. However, I didn't realize they are not at class most of the
semester -- they seem to be at away games most of the time. Scholarship
offers came with tutorial help (tutoring turns out to be all but non
existent (not to mention that you need to be in the area for the tutor to
tutor). Sports and education don't mix. I only observed one team whose coach
I respected for trying to enforce eligilbility (after the ball game the
athletes went to dinner, then had a mandatory study hall from 8-9 pm at away
games). However, I questioned how much the students absorbed at that hour
and after a big game and dinner!!! But, kudos to the coach for attempting to
keep "education" in the college experience.
Carol
Jensen Comment
I think the problem lies heavily with professional sports team owners.
College is a free way that they can filter out the best athletes who are
put to the test and dump the majority of others who just don’t quite cut it.
It would be analogous to sending all young people to war and then making
professional soldiers out of the ones that win medals.
I think sports are important to the physical and social development of
young people as well as giving them confidence and pride. But I like the way
Trinity does it in NCAA Division 3 where there are no athletic scholarships
and athletes are not dreaming of professional contracts.
Bob Jensen
September 15, 2005 reply from Paul Williams
Carol, et al,
You have pointed out the real problem in college
athletics for the athlete. Of course it is
hypocritical for the Wall Street Journal to
harumph about college sports. College athletics is big business increasingly
funded and promoted by big business. At NC State we have completed a third
phase of a four phase renovation of the football stadium -- total projected
cost over $100 million dollars. It sits beside the RBC Center (named after a
corporation), where the Wolfpack plays basketball (and the Carolina
Hurricanes play hockey) -- total cost $170 million. When all is said and
done, there will be $300 million dollars invested in two college sports.
Both facilities are plastered with ads for corporations and the luxury
seating (the biggest cost of the facilities) is rented by corporations for
the purpose of entertaining clients. Major college sports are entertainment,
merely a medium for advertising and corporate promotion. Wealthy alumni and
the business community are the prime movers behind the enormous investment
in athletic facilities and the prime providers of the money. The university
goes along because it has Title IX obligations it must finance and the big
revenue sports are what fund it. Women's la crosse does not generate time on
ESPN. And before we bash Title IX, the explosion in women's participation in
sports at the collegiate level indicates that all women lacked was
opportunity. Women crave the opportunity to participate in sport. Women and
the men in the minor sports play for the love of playing. No lucrative pro
career awaits a woman or man playing la crosse, but they work as hard at it
as any of the revenue players.
What to do for the athletes since no university
administrator is going to say let's just scrap our $300 million investment
in facilities -- the alumni would have their head. Let's just quit being
hypocritical about the "student athlete." Much of the problem is the NCAA
and its rules that have a rather Victorian smell to them. Trivial behavior
is criminalized by the NCAA in a vain attempt to foster a prissy rectitude
that has never existed in the history of humankind.
When Tiger Woods was still a college player at
Stanford he played at Bay Hill in Florida. Arnold Palmer wanted to meet with
him, took him to lunch in the grill room, picked up the tab for a burger and
fries and voila put Arnie, Tiger and Stanford in violation of NCAA rules.
The tab was less than $20. There is no longer the amateur athlete -- look
who competes for the US during the Olympics. The problem for the athlete is
being a student AND an athlete at the same time.
Why don't we face the reality of big time college
athletics and take the pressure off of the athlete? During the season, let
the athletes play their sports -- why do they have to be a students at the
same time? Every sport can have a season that corresponds to one semester or
another. Football is played during the fall semester and the bowl season
ends before the start of the second semester. So football players play
football in the fall and are full time students during spring and summer.
Basketball doesn't need to start in November. It could start after final
exams in the fall and, instead of March madness, we could have April
madness. Basketball players would be students in fall and summer semesters.
There is no sport whose season could not be accommodated to just one school
term or another. If a student wanted to and could take classes during the
season, then all well and good. But they shouldn't be made to take them.
As Bernie Sliger, president of FSU when I was
there, harped on constantly, "The more successful the athletic program, the
more money people give to academics." It may be a brutal truth about college
athletics, but most of the brutality is absorbed by the athletes because of
archaic notions of the "scholar/athlete." And we on the academic side
benefit as well. Those athletes bring a lot of resources to us academics,
too. Perhaps a lot of the "crimes" athletic programs commit could be
alleviated if we let young people be a scholar sometime and an athlete
sometime, but quite expecting them to be both.
Paul Williams
September 15, 2005 reply from Bob Jensen
Hi Paul,
Well said about the new NCS Stadium. This reminds me of Rochester/Simon
School's new investment in "games" intended to lift its US News MBA program
ranking from 26th into the Top 10 or Top 5. Has the Wolfpack ever made it
into the media's Top 5 in basketball or football? Perhaps your new $300
million investment will pay off --- if that's the real anticipated payoff.
Also, I think you just made my point when choosing the word "hypocritical"
when the WSJ reported a position harmful of big business. The WSJ is really
two newspapers wrapped into one, where one of those "papers" is allowed to
roam free and call it like some very good reporters roaming about.
In my September 14 edition of Tidbits, I wrote the following ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2005/tidbits050914.htm
How can the media and professors achieve greater credibility?
You probably observed that I quote a lot from both The Wall Street
Journal (WSJ) and The New York Times (NYT). Both have
credibility in spite of their opposing biases on the editorial pages.
The WSJ is unapologetic in its biases for financial institutions and
business enterprises. And yet the WSJ is the best place to look for
damning criticism of particular accounting firms, financial
institutions, and corporations. CEOs live in fear of WSJ reporters.
For example, when Enron was riding high, before the Watkins memo, WSJ
reporters did some very clever investigations and wrote articles that
commenced the slide of Enron share prices (particularly dogged reporters
named John Emshwiller and Jonathan Weil). The NYT sometimes has
editorials that make me want to vomit. But the Business Section of the
NYT is one of the best places to go for balanced coverage of business
and finance news.
Certainly not all of my accounting professor friends agree with me about the
WSJ. David's Fordham's book length reply is just too long to paste in
here. Some others like Bobbi Lee agree with him.
The proof is in the pressure to change grades: Repeating
the same frauds year after year in academe
Louisiana State University has settled
a lawsuit by a former instructor who said that she was pressured
to change the grades of football players, the
Associated Press reported. No
details of the settlement were released and the university
denied wrongdoing. Last year, LSU settled a similar suit for
$150,000.
Inside Higher Ed, September 19, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/19/qt
Coach Takes the Test
More evidence that many universities are losing (or never had) quality
control on athlete admissions and grading
The National Collegiate Athletic Association
punished Texas Christian University’s men’s track program on Thursday for a
set of rules violations that included some of the most egregious and unusual
examples of academic fraud in recent history. They included an instance in
which a former assistant coach took a final examination alongside a track
athlete — with the consent of the faculty member in the course — and then
swapped his version of the test with the athlete’s, allowing him to pass.
Doug Lederman, "NCAA Finds Fraud at TCU," Inside Higher Ed, September
23, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/23/tcu
Derek.Bock,
Universities in the Marketplace: The
Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Pr.,
2003. 233p. alk. paper, $22.95 (ISBN 0691114129). LC 2002-29267.
Reviews are provided from many sources. One review is at
http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlpubs/crljournal/crl2004/backjan2004/bokbookreview.htm
Athletics is the first area subject to Bok’s
critique. Candidly and mercilessly, he summarizes the ugly history of
intercollegiate football—its failed promise to "build character," its
unsupportable claim to have helped minorities achieve a high-quality
education, and its grievous undermining of academic standards. Students
whose academic achievement and potential would hardly qualify them for
careers in any learned profession are not only routinely admitted to
universities of every quality but are even turned into national celebrities.
Looking at the revenue-generating sports, mainly football and basketball,
Bok informs the reader that as of 2001, some thirty coaches were earning in excess of a million dollars
annually, far more than most college and university presidents. Bok strongly
focuses on the almost complete disconnect between athletic prowess and
academic achievement. He builds a powerful indictment:
What can intercollegiate sports teach us about
the hazards of commercialization? First of all, the saga of big-time
athletics reveals that American universities, despite their lofty
ideals, are not above sacrificing academic values—even values as basic
as admission standards and the integrity of their courses—in order to
make money.
Indeed, Bok reaches the conclusion, described by
him as "melancholy," that through their athletic programs, "universities
have compromised the most fundamental purpose of academic institutions."
Turning to his second area, scientific research,
Bok maintains that the record has been no less dismal and the battles
between the worlds of intellect and industry no less ruthless: Scientists
have been prohibited from publishing (or even discussing at conferences)
results unfavorable to their commercial sponsors’ marketing goals. Companies
have punished universities by threatening to withhold promised financial
support should scientists dare to publish data unfavorable to sponsors’
interests. Researchers have been threatened with lawsuits, even grievously
defamed. Companies have imposed a militarylike secrecy upon faculty who work
with them, severely edited scholars’ reports, and even had their own staffs
write slanted drafts to which university researchers were expected to attach
their names. By Bok’s account, some elements of the commercial sector merely
look upon faculty and graduate students as company agents—virtual employees,
hired guns—charged to produce a stream of research from which will follow a
stream of revenue for their businesses. Bok’s charges are not vague hints;
he cites prestigious institutions, names researchers whose careers were
jeopardized or damaged by threats and personal attacks, and provides many
poignant details.
In the third area, higher education itself, Bok
outlines the temptations of easy money, ostensibly available via
universities’ willingness, indeed eagerness, to use the income from distance
education (both domestically and abroad) to finance programs only indirectly
linked to higher education. Bok further suggests that some schools willingly
exploit the Internet more for the money than for any possible social
benefit.
"Is everything in a university for sale if the
price is right?" asks the book jacket. Are universities now ready to accept
advertising within physical facilities and curricula? Will they permit
commercial enterprises to put company names on the stadium, team uniforms,
campus shuttle buses, book jackets sold at the campus bookstore, plastic
cups at food service points, or even on home pages? Will universities sell
the names of entire schools as well as of buildings? Worse yet, will some
schools be tempted to accept endowed professorships to which the sponsors
seek to attach unacceptable or harmful restrictions and conditions? There
appears to be no end to the opportunities.
To respond to these and similar troubling
questions, Bok’s two concluding chapters lay out practical steps the
academic community might consider to avoid sinking into a quagmire of
commercialism in which the academy is sure to lose control of both its
integrity and its autonomy. Throughout his work, Bok reminds his readers of
the obvious, but sometimes camouflaged (or ignored), distinction between the
academy and commerce: The mission of the former is to learn, that of the
latter to earn. Conflict between these missions is inevitable, and should it
disappear, the university as we know it also may vanish. We may not like
what replaces it.
In line
with Bok's "Commercialization of Higher Education," a newer
(2005) book explores the role of market forces in changing
higher education — and the danger of market forces having too
much influenceThree longtime observers of higher
education explore the ways — positive and negative — that
universities are changing in
Remaking the American University
(Rutgers University Press). The authors are Robert Zemsky,
a professor and chair of the Learning Alliance at the University
of Pennsylvania; Gregory R. Wegner, director of program
development at the Great Lakes Colleges Association; and William
F. Massy, a professor emeritus of higher education at Stanford
University and currently president of the Jackson Hole Higher
Education Group. The three authors recently responded (jointly)
to questions about their new book. Scott Jaschik"Remaking the American University,"
Inside
Higher Ed, September 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/21/remaking
Q: Of the trends
you examine, which ones are most worrisome
to you?
A:
What
worries us most is that universities and
colleges have become so preoccupied with
succeeding in a world of markets that they
too often forget the need to be places of
public purpose as well. We are serious in
arguing that universities and colleges must
be both market smart and mission centered.
Not surprisingly, then, we are troubled by
how often today institutions allow their
pursuit of market success to undermine core
elements of their missions: becoming
preoccupied with collegiate rankings,
surrendering to an admissions arms race,
chasing imagined fortunes through impulsive
investments e-learning, or conferring so
much importance on athletics as to alter the
character of the academic community on
campus.
By far the most
troublesome consequence of markets
displacing mission, though, is the reduced
commitment of universities and colleges to
the fulfillment of public purposes. More
than ever before, these institutions are
content to advance graduates merely in their
private, individual capacities as workers
and professionals. In the rush to achieve
market success, what has fallen to the
wayside for too many institutions is the
concept of educating students as citizens —
graduates who understand their obligations
to contribute to the collective well-being
as active participants in a free and
deliberative society. In the race for
private advantage, market success too often
becomes a proxy for mission attainment.
Q: We’ve just come
through rankings season, with U.S. News
and others unveiling their lists. Do you
have any hope for turning back the ratings
game? Any ideas you would offer to college
presidents who are fed up with it?
A: On this
one there is no turning back — the rankings
are here to stay. Two, frankly contradictory
ideas are worth thinking about. First,
university and college presidents should
accept as fact that the rankings measure
market position rather than quality. An
institution’s ranking is essentially a
predictor of the net price the institution
can charge. The contrary idea is to make the
rankings more about quality by having most
institutions participate in the
National Survey of Student Engagement
and agree to have the
results made public. Even then, we are not
sure that prestige and market position would
not trump student engagement.
Continued in article
In line
with Bok's "Commercialization of Higher Education," a newer
(2005) book explores the role of market forces in changing
higher education — and the danger of market forces having too
much influence
Three longtime observers of higher
education explore the ways — positive and negative — that
universities are changing in
Remaking the American University
(Rutgers University Press). The authors are Robert Zemsky,
a professor and chair of the Learning Alliance at the University
of Pennsylvania; Gregory R. Wegner, director of program
development at the Great Lakes Colleges Association; and William
F. Massy, a professor emeritus of higher education at Stanford
University and currently president of the Jackson Hole Higher
Education Group. The three authors recently responded (jointly)
to questions about their new book.
Scott Jaschik"Remaking the American University,"
Inside
Higher Ed, September 21, 2005 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/09/21/remaking
Q: Of the trends
you examine, which ones are most worrisome
to you?
A: What
worries us most is that universities and
colleges have become so preoccupied with
succeeding in a world of markets that they
too often forget the need to be places of
public purpose as well. We are serious in
arguing that universities and colleges must
be both market smart and mission centered.
Not surprisingly, then, we are troubled by
how often today institutions allow their
pursuit of market success to undermine core
elements of their missions: becoming
preoccupied with collegiate rankings,
surrendering to an admissions arms race,
chasing imagined fortunes through impulsive
investments e-learning, or conferring so
much importance on athletics as to alter the
character of the academic community on
campus.
By far the most
troublesome consequence of markets
displacing mission, though, is the reduced
commitment of universities and colleges to
the fulfillment of public purposes. More
than ever before, these institutions are
content to advance graduates merely in their
private, individual capacities as workers
and professionals. In the rush to achieve
market success, what has fallen to the
wayside for too many institutions is the
concept of educating students as citizens —
graduates who understand their obligations
to contribute to the collective well-being
as active participants in a free and
deliberative society. In the race for
private advantage, market success too often
becomes a proxy for mission attainment.
Q: We’ve just come
through rankings season, with U.S. News
and others unveiling their lists. Do you
have any hope for turning back the ratings
game? Any ideas you would offer to college
presidents who are fed up with it?
A: On this
one there is no turning back — the rankings
are here to stay. Two, frankly contradictory
ideas are worth thinking about. First,
university and college presidents should
accept as fact that the rankings measure
market position rather than quality. An
institution’s ranking is essentially a
predictor of the net price the institution
can charge. The contrary idea is to make the
rankings more about quality by having most
institutions participate in the
National Survey of Student Engagement
and agree to have the
results made public. Even then, we are not
sure that prestige and market position would
not trump student engagement.
Continued in article
September 29, 2005 reply from Kim Robertson
Bob,
Somewhat related to your recent email: There is
a "survey of higher education - The Brains Business" in the Sept 10,
2005 edition of The Economist magazine.
Kim
The Brains Business
For those of a certain age and educational
background, it is hard to think of higher education without thinking of
ancient institutions. Some universities are of a venerable age—the
University of Bologna was founded in 1088, the University of Oxford in
1096—and many of them have a strong sense of tradition. The truly old ones
make the most of their pedigrees, and those of a more recent vintage work
hard to create an aura of antiquity.…
"The brains business,"
The Economist, September 10, 2005 ---
http://snipurl.com/BrainsBusiness
Business School Ranking Controversies
Jensen Comment
These differ somewhat from how business school deans rank business schools in
the rankings ---
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/mba/brief/mbarank_brief.php
01. Harvard University (MA)
02. Stanford University (CA)
03. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
04. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
06. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)
University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
08. University of Chicago
09. Columbia University (NY)
10. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross)
Business Week's Executive MBA Rankings and Profiles ---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/03/emba_rank.htm?campaign_id=nws_mbaxp_oct10&link_position=link9
The entire ranking system is now considered dysfunctional to program
integrity and is being studied as a huge academic problem by the AACSB (See
below)
MBA (Casino?) Games: The house plays the odds and hopes to come out
ahead!
Resorting to contests and prizes shows just how
tough times are for full-time M.B.A. programs. The Graduate Management
Admission Council reports that 72% of full-time M.B.A. programs experienced
an application decline this year as more people opted to keep their jobs and
seek a part-time, executive or online M.B.A. degree instead . . . Simon's
business-strategy contest resulted from a challenge put to students on the
school's advisory council to concoct ways to improve the M.B.A. program. As
an incentive, alumni kicked in $10,000, half for the students with the best
proposal and half to implement their idea. Several student projects focused
on the application slump, which clearly is the most pressing issue at Simon.
Applications were down 23% this year, following a 24% drop in 2004. This
fall, the incoming class of about 110 students compares with 150 last year
and 185 in 2003. "These are the toughest years in management education I
have ever seen," says Dr. Zupan.
"MBA Program Hopes Online Game Will Lure Recruits with Prizes," The Wall
Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page
B12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657077730738778,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Since curriculum revisions are not working well to reverse the slide of MBA
applications, some universities not happy with their US News, Forbes,
WSJ, and Business Week rankings may turn to gaming with sizeable
rewards
Can an online game offering thousands of dollars in
prizes reverse the slide in master of business administration applications?
The University of Rochester certainly hopes so. Starting Sept. 26, potential
M.B.A. applicants to Rochester's William E. Simon Graduate School of
Business Administration will begin playing a business-simulation game that
promises a full scholarship of more than $70,000 to the winner, plus smaller
scholarships for the runners-up. The goal is to attract top-notch applicants
who may never have heard of the Simon School but find the game, and the
scholarship money, enticing. "We hope to get a little viral marketing going
so that people spread the word that Simon is an innovative place worth
taking a look at," says Dean Mark Zupan.
"MBA Program Hopes Online Game Will Lure Recruits with Prizes," The Wall
Street Journal, September 13, 2005; Page
B12 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112657077730738778,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
The following tidbits were in my August 29 edition of Tidbits:
Earlier threads on the business school ranking controversies
Jensen Comment
These differ somewhat from how business school deans rank business schools in
the rankings ---
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/mba/brief/mbarank_brief.php
01. Harvard University (MA)
02. Stanford University (CA)
03. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
04. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)
06. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)
University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
08. University of Chicago
09. Columbia University (NY)
10. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross)
The entire ranking system is now considered dysfunctional to program
integrity and is being studied as a huge academic problem by the AACSB (See
below)
From Jim Mahar's blog on August 26, 2005 ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
What's Really Wrong With U.S. Business
Schools?
by Harry DeAngelo, Linda DeAngelo, Jerold Zimmerman:
Wow, it sounds bad. I (Jim Mahar)
am very glad I chose a small university (St.
Bonaventure). However, the choice leads me to not really comment on the
paper since being at a small university removes me from many (but not
all) of the problems cited in the paper. Moreover, I do not feel I can
add any value to what the authors say.
Rather I will only give you the abstract and
link.
Abstract:
"U.S. business schools are locked in a dysfunctional competition for
media rankings that diverts resources from long-term knowledge
creation, which earned them global pre-eminence, into short-term
strategies aimed at improving their rankings. MBA curricula are
distorted by 'quick fix, look good' packaging changes designed to
influence rankings criteria, at the expense of giving students a
rigorous, conceptual framework that will serve them well over their
entire careers. Research, undergraduate education, and Ph.D.
programs suffer as faculty time is diverted to almost continuous MBA
curriculum changes, strategic planning exercises, and public
relations efforts. Unless they wake up to the dangers of
dysfunctional rankings competition, U.S. business schools are
destined to lose their dominant global position and become a classic
case study of how myopic decision-making begets institutional
mediocrity."
Cite:
DeAngelo, Harry, DeAngelo, Linda and Zimmerman, Jerold L., "What's
Really Wrong With U.S. Business Schools?" (July 2005).
http://ssrn.com/abstract=766404
Jensen Comment:
The DeAngelos and Jerry Zimmerman are leading advocates of capital market
research and positivist methodology. Harry and Linda are from the
University of Southern California and Jerry is from the University of
Rochester. Their business schools rank 23 and 26 respectively in the latest
US News rankings. Their WSJ rankings are 23 and 20.
I think the authors overstate the problem with media rankings and
curricula. I don’t think curriculum choices or PR enter into the rankings
in a big way. Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton will almost always come out on
top no matter what the curriculum or PR budget. What counts heavily is
elitism tradition and alumni networking (helps Harvard the most),
concentration of researchers/names (helps Stanford the most), and insider
tracks to Wall Street (helps Wharton the most). These, in turn, affect the
number of MBA applicants with GMAT scores hovering around 700 or higher.
The GMAT scores, in turn, impact most heavily upon media rankings. The
raters are looking for where the top students in the world are scrambling to
be admitted. Can the majority of applicants really tell us the difference
between the business school curriculum at USC versus Stanford versus
Rochester? I doubt it!
Media rankings
differ somewhat due to differences in the groups doing the rankings. The
US News rankings are done by AACSB deans who tend to favor schools with
leading researchers. The WSJ rankings are done by corporate
recruiters who are impressed by the credentials of the graduating students
and their interviewing skills (which might indirectly be affected by a
curriculum that is more profession oriented and less geeky).
The major "media rankings" are given in the following
sources as reported in Tidbits on August 19:
Business school rankings and profiles from Business Week Magazine
---
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/04/?campaign_id=nws_mbaxp_aug16&link_position=link6
The Wall Street Journal rankings of business schools ---
http://online.wsj.com/page/0,,2_1103,00.html
US News graduate business school rankings ---
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex_brief.php
August 27, 2005 reply from Dennis Beresford (University of Georgia)
Bob,
Thanks for this link. The DeAngelo, DeAngelo, and Zimmerman paper is
quite interesting. Because football season doesn't start until next
week, I had a little time to kill this afternoon and used it to read
this paper.
My own rather short academic experience causes me to agree with the
paper's assertion that MBA program rankings tend to drive much of what
happens at a business school. We recently proudly reported that we were
number 30 in the US News rankings (without
pointing out that there was a 30 way tie for that spot).
And we also trumpeted the fact that the Forbes rankings just out
reported that our MBA graduates earned $100,000 in starting pay vs.
$40,000 when they entered the program. (I think the ghosts of Andersen
must have developed those numbers.)
We went through a curriculum revision a couple of years ago and we now
emphasize "leadership." (I suspect this puts us in the company of only
about 90% of MBA programs that do the same.) Most of our classes are now
taught in half semesters. Perhaps there is good justification for this
but it seems to me to encourage a more superficial approach. And
managerial accounting is no longer a required part of the curriculum in
spite of our pointing out that most of the elite schools still require
this important subject.
While I agree with the premise that MBA programs are focusing too much
on rankings and short term thinking, I believe the paper's arguments on
how to "cure the problem" aren't well supported. In particular, while I
strongly agree with the idea that MBA programs should primarily help
students develop critical thinking and analytic skills, I think the
authors are too critical of the practical aspects of business education
as described by Bennis and O'Toole in their earlier Harvard Business
article. The authors of this paper seem to feel that more emphasis on
research published in scholarly journals will bring more of a long-term
focus to MBA education and will address the concerns about rankings,
etc. I think a better response would be to balance the practical and
theoretical - although I know that is a very hard thing to do.
As a final note, would you agree that the capital asset pricing model
and efficient markets research "inspired" indexed mutual funds?
Asserting such a causal connection seems like a pretty big stretch to
me.
Denny Beresford
August 29, 2005 response from Paul Williams at North Carolina State
University
And we all know what rigorous conceptual
framework these folks have in mind. This paper is the knee-jerk response
to the Bennis/ O'Toole paper. This is an argument that has been going on
since business schools were started. It's the on-going argument over
case method vs modeling as the proper way to teach business.
Odd that such believers in market solutions
should question what is obviously working -- would universities play
this game if it didn't work? Or is it only universities that are
irrational? (I'll bet Rochester and Southern Cal are playing the game,
too. What kind of research do you suppose Bill Simon expects for his
millions?) Passions run so high and retribution is swift. Note what
happen to Bob Kaplan's service on the JAR board when he suggested (after
he got some religion at Harvard) that case studies might be a worthwhile
thing for us to consider.
Denny, et al:
You have made some very good points about blending. A very long time
ago, Aristotle, in the Nichomachean Ethics, described three types of
knowledge: techne, episteme, and phronesis. Techne = technical knowledge
(how to bake a pie). Episteme = scientific knowledge. Phronesis (the
highest form) = wisdom, i.e., the knowledge of goodness; how to be a
good citizen. Business is a practice and the Harvard approach is one
that acknowledges that "wisdom can't be told" (the title of the classic
1950s essay on the value of the case approach). Modelers miss a key
element of management. It is not a constrained optimization problem, but
a process of intervention. Experience matters
The ratings game is played because it pays off. Duke didn't have a
graduate program in business until 1970 compared to UNC's, which
predated Duke's by about 25 years. When Tom Keller became dean he had a
stroke of genius and hired a public relations firm to promote the MBA.
Duke always marketed itself from the day it was founded as the "Harvard
of the South" and was able to attract wealthy Northeasterners not able
to get into Ivy league schools. Now Duke is able to attract highly
talented students, high priced faculty and big donattions (note that
Wendy's founder Dave Thomas didn't raise millions for Eastern State U.).
Marketing works -- look how many pick-up trucks with 1975 technology
under the hood got sold as Sport Utility Vehicles (Pick- up Trucks with
Walls doesn't have the same ring). Half the battle at becoming the best
is telling people you are, a fact every con man knows. People don't give
money to Harvard because it needs it -- they give to Harvard to say they
gave to Harvard. Do you think any of the terminally vain people who give
money to get their names chiseled on the buildings do so because they
have read all of the brillians academic papers people inside the
building have produced? No, they give it because someone has told them
that the people inside the building are writing brilliant academic
papers.
It really becomes a post-modern moment when the people writing the
papers truly believe they are brilliant.
You can read about the Bennis and O'Toole paper at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen//theory/00overview/theory01.htm#AcademicsVersusProfession
September 7, 2005 Update
A report on the
controversial paper by Harry DeAngelo, Linda DeAngelo, and Jerry
Zimmerman now appears in an AACSB report at http://www.aacsb.edu/publications/enewsline/Vol-4/Issue-8/lead-story.asp
The study precedes an upcoming AACSB International report that calls
for the media to change the way it assigns rankings to business
degree granting institutions. The AACSB document, to be released in
September, calls the ranking methods used by BusinessWeek, Financial
Times, U.S. News & World Report, and other media outlets flawed
because of inconsistent and unverified data, which confuses rather
than helps the consumer.
As accounting courses in MBA core are shrinking, finance
courses are increasing
From Jim Mahar's Blog on August 29, 2005 ---
http://financeprofessorblog.blogspot.com/
Core Finance Trends in the Top MBA Programs
in 2005 by Kent Womack, Ying Zhang:
Following Friday's mention of the DeAngelo,
DeAngelo, and Zimmerman paper that looks at what is wrong with MBA
programs at some universities, I was sent
