A lot of things happen in ones life that give cause for pause.
The three pictures above are versions of me with the ‘true’ me on the far right. The middle me is a photo shopped version of my two right sides of my face and the far left is of my two left sides. These three interesting pictures appear in my wife Laura’s new second edition ofDiscovering Biological Psychology.
The point Laura is making is to show that all of us are a bit more expressive on one side of our face than the other and this demonstration makes that point clearly.
Well, I don’t know how many times Lou Dobbs ‘called out’ the aging President of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo … but it wasn’t pretty.
I’d like to say that Cal Poly doesn’t deserve it, but you can’t help to wonder how many times Cal Poly has to screw up before they finally put the old guy out to pasture and find some reality based thinkers to run the organization rather than a group of ideologues.
I don’t know about you, but in these tough times, most of us want to see our public institutions perform. BTW, if I were a student, I’d be asking Cal Poly,” Is there a prize for playing this game?”
California Universities area mixed bag right now, some are holding their own in this tough economy, others are like the General Motors of academia and they are cutting classes and turning away students. Why is it that two universities in the same state or city — for that matter — could have dramatically different circumstances? What is one doing to better their position and succeeding while the other is less successful or failing?
All educational systems are being affected and the survivors will tell you that it is due to offering students their ‘unique skill sets.’ Although this may be true to some point, the key seems to be in how people and organizations adapt to changing circumstances. In California, it seems that the private colleges and universities are adapting faster and smarter. While one public university is adding administrative staff with one hand, it is laying off faculty with the other. How does this make sense?
In order to improve my education on the subject, I studied every college and every university’s web page in California for a clue. Let’s just say that there were far more web sites than I could imagine! The difference between those who were adapting and those who were falling behind was like night and day. One successful school had a link asking prospective students to meet them on Facebook, while others facing increasing troubles haven’t updated aspects of their sites in years carrying links to defunct organizations and former employees years after they have left.
Not all great ideas are just in the private universities, the Florida university system announced that for about $22,000 you can pre-buy your child’s education at birth! I love it, a ‘stock option’ on education!
In our challenging environment, those who have the best chance of success of thriving in the world ahead are those individuals that have learned to adapt and find and develop skills of value. If I were planning my college choice , I would follow those who are winning already in this tough economy.
Roger
Let me say that I have always been a supporter of Public Schools; however, faculty are not running the university anymore and it shows.
Newspapers and colleges are suffering. Is there a connection?
Well, what we can say is both are losing ‘subscribers’ for — I suspect — some of the very same reasons. In my humble opinion, both have lost their way, forgotten who they serve and the lesson that people ‘expect a prize for playing this game.’ When what was once promised is not delivered, folks find an alternative.
You can write off or explain away the demise of newspapers by the growth of the internet or the high cost of a newspaper. Costs are relative, after all, cable is much more expensive and it has few issues… as it delivers what it promises. If newspapers were viewed as an important contributor to someone’s daily life, love would find a way. Colleges — sadly — have also been losing their luster…. much of it self-inflicted.
Btw, where have all the men gone? You won’t find them in school. In California, one California university sports 80 % female students and this isn’t a ‘historically female institution.” The trend is everywhere, universities have limited appeal to men and this is not good for society. In addition, institutions and individuals are shifting their focus away from colleges as the hope for a better life that universities represented has proven less valid. Recently the American Association of University Professors wrote:
“just over 10 percent of the colleges laid off employees ( Survey completed 1/09), and another 26 percent were considering layoffs. More than 40 percent said they had imposed partial freezes on faculty hiring, and nearly 60 percent had imposed freezes on their hiring. About 6 percent said they had reduced benefits, and 18 percent of the remainder considering doing so. Half of all respondents said they had postponed or canceled building projects or were planning to do so.
Public institutions reported being affected by cuts imposed by statewide mandates, while private colleges are suffering — and anticipating more suffering — as a result of more families being able to afford the full costs of college. nearly 60 percent of all colleges said they were already seeing a decline in donations.”
Rather than face the challenge honestly, many universities point to the high cost of education as the sole hindrance and barrier to entry and — secondarily –our troubling economy as the cause of their suffering. The sad truth is that folks won’t buy what you are selling if it doesn’t deliver. As Ba’al says,”no flash No photo.” ( I like the way he says it) It’s all about delivering measurable results ( like jobs) and many academicians don’t undestand that… yet.
Laura, Karen and I have had some great discussions on the value of the practical and the theoretical in academia. They have some great ideas and I hope that others are thinking about how to reinvigorate, reenergize and reshape the university experience to contribute real value to our society and the world.
Roger Freberg
Look for this article on Yahoo and Twitter… You won’t on Google
When Laura and her editor wanted a picture of me for their book… I took a big gulp. I mean this is a textbook on Discovering Biological Psychology. This is interesting stuff… some of it is strange… interesting ,but strange, and I wondered where I was going to fit in all of this?
I guess I deserved a little uneasiness as it is a bit of payback. I will rush to her from the kitchen with those words that instill concern, “…taste this!” She’ll always look as though I am offering her something weird like ‘fresh tentacles in licorice sauce’… but then, she always smiles.
Well, like most people ( unless you are Brad Pitt )… I smile more on one side of my face than the other. So, Laura took a picture of me and created three faces… the real me, one face with two left sides (the left side was mirrored onto the right) and the last having two right sides. What resulted was the three bears: a smiley bear, a medium bear and a reserved bear.
