Category: books

The course of human events: Thoughts on John Adams

JohnAdams-bookHeading into the Independence Day holiday here in the U.S., I’ve been reading David McCullough’s biography John Adams. (I know; very late to the party, as usual. It’s been languishing on my bookshelf for a couple of years, right next to 1776, which I’ve now read twice. Why it’s taken me so long to read John Adams, I don’t know.)

I’m not quite 150 pages into the tome (that’s less than 25 percent of the pages), but I’ve already gotten to the good stuff that I wanted to read about before July 4 arrived. I’ve already read about Adams’ early days in Braintree, in Harvard, as a schoolmaster in Worcester and a lawyer in Boston’ about his rise to prominence in the Continental Congress; about his statesmanship and leadership in guiding others to support the move to break from Great Britain; about his political cunning in nominating George Washington as general of the continental army; about his love and commitment to Abigail, herself a very strong personality; and about the role he played in support of Thomas Jefferson as the young Virginian drafted the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate on Thursday.

But what strikes me most about McCullough’s history — other than his ability to tie together extensive research to tell a great story — is the sheer fortitude, stamina, resilience and sense of purpose Adams and many of his fellow delegates possessed to shepherd the colonies through those perilous times. I’ve been thinking about some of the themes that resonate most with me, given my admittedly shallow dive into the book, and how they could apply to my work and life.

1. Compromise can win wars. Adams championed George Washington, a Virginian, to lead the continental army over fellow New Englander John Hancock. This was undoubtedly a political compromise, but Adams knew what he was doing. Virginia was the richest and most prominent of the colonies, and the proponents of independence from Britain needed to solidify that state’s support. Otherwise the cause of Adams and others would be dead in the water. The selection of Washington to lead the army was a shrewd political compromise.

The takeaway? Don’t be afraid to compromise when it supports a larger cause.

2. Oh, you’ve been appointment to a committee? Quit complaining. At one point, Adams served on 23 committees of the Continental Congress. Twenty-three committees. His days typically began at 6 a.m. and committee meetings would last well into the night. He also chaired something called the War Board, which was responsible for consulting with Washington’s army and presenting the fledgling military’s needs to Congress. Kind of puts your appointment to the Parking Committee into perspective, doesn’t it?

3. The pen is mighty. Mightier than the sword, as the cliche goes. In early 1776, while support for independence was split in Congress, the publication of a little pamphlet called Common Sense greatly raised public support for Adams’s cause. It became “a clarion call,” McCullough writes, “rousing spirits within Congress and without as nothing else had” by its attack on “the very idea of hereditary monarchy as absurd and evil.”  The pamphlet boldly urged readers to take up the cause for independence. “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth … for God’s sake, let us come to a final separation [from Great Britain]. … The birthday of a new world is at hand.”

It’s heartening for me, as a writer and pamphleteer of sorts (for what is a blog but a more modern version of the pamphlet?), to see McCullough acknowledge the power of this piece of writing to stir a movement. Of course, Jefferson’s writing of the Declaration of Independence (aided substantially by Adams, Ben Franklin and others) also proved that the written word can stir great passion for a cause.

4. Sometimes an outsider can make a big difference. Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, was not part of the inner circle discussing independence and rebellion. McCullough describes him as “a down-at-the-heels English immigrant.” Yet his little pamphlet did much to advance Adams’s cause. The lesson here: Don’t discount the impact outsiders can have in supporting your cause. Listen to their voices. Seek them out, even. They may not have all the answers — Adams disagreed with much of Paine’s ideas — but they could provide unknown advantage.

Just a few things to think about as we head into what I hope for many of us will be a long weekend and a time to reflect on the many blessings life affords us.

And one final thought — certainly not original:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety.

Happy Independence Day to you and yours! (And to you Canadians, a belated Canada Day!)

‘College (Un)bound’ and the frog in the kettle

CollegeUnboundYou don’t have to read too far into Jeff Selingo‘s new book, College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students, to learn that Selingo takes a jaundiced view on the way many colleges and universities try to brand themselves.

And who can blame him? As an editor of a major media outlet for higher education, he’s heard more than his fair share of pitches from college presidents who aspire to elevate their institutions to greatness. Over and over again, these academic leaders deliver the same sales talk.

“In my fifteen years at the Chronicle of Higher Education, I’ve seen this horserace play out daily,” Selingo writes in the very first chapter of his book.

Hundreds of college presidents have come through our Washington offices, accompanied by an army of public-relations staff, piles of slick brochures, and inch-thick strategic plans. The sales pitch would usually go something like this: We want to be in the top ten of (fill-in-the-blank) ranking and to achieve that goal, we plan on some combination of the following: Build a new medical school, start a cutting-edge academic program, capture more federal research dollars, lure star faculty, attract better students in places we never recruited before, and so on.

They are angling for news coverage of their grand ambitions so colleagues at other schools will know that so-and-so university is getting more exclusive.

Their hope, Selingo adds, is that other college and university presidents will see the coverage, think more highly of these institutions, and give them good marks in the annual beauty pageant known as the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Because for many college presidents, that’s what matters most. “Prestige in higher education is like profit is to corporations,” Selingo writes.

A pitch of his own

In College Unbound, Selingo is delivering a sales pitch of his own. He’s asking readers — ostensibly students and their families, but I know a lot of people in my shoes have also picked up the book — to think differently about the business of education.

“The colleges and universities enrolling most Americans will be radically different places in ten years,” Selingo writes. “Ultimately, it is the students of tomorrow who will drive colleges to reimagine the future of higher education.”

These future college students are tech-savvy and are growing up immersed in a digital, hyper-connected world. “They feel comfortable in a social world that lives online,” Selingo writes. In the classroom, however, “they remain largely uninterested in learning through traditional teaching methods.”

It’s a solid pitch Selingto is making. Throughout College (Un)bound, he supports his argument with loads of data and examples of the myriad challenges facing higher education, and illustrations of institutions that are thinking differently about how they conduct business. He writes extensively about some of the more visible and successful all-star innovators of higher ed, like Paul LeBlanc of Southern New Hampshire University and Michael Crow of Arizona State. He shines the spotlight on programs and campuses that are more focused on students and learning than on reputation and rankings.

Yes, it’s a terrific pitch. But I wonder if higher ed is ready to buy what he’s selling.

The frog in the kettle

Despite the stark news reports about the state of higher education in the United States over the past five years, it seems the great mass of college and university leaders are still like the proverbial frog in the kettle. For years complacent in the room-temperature waters of the status quo, they managed over time to adjust as the water grew slightly warmer and warmer. A budget trim here, a program cut there, a slight tuition increase, a new fundraising campaign — adjustments that allowed the frog to cope  with the changing environment and adjust to the kettle’s new normal.

But with the recession of 2008 and the rise of online learning, the heat is on. How will the frog in the kettle adjust now?

If you know the story (which is not grounded in scientific research, by the way), things did not end well for the frog.

The good news

The good news for higher education is that some colleges and universities are jumping out of the kettle and into new approaches. Some are aided by startups (not only the infamous MOOCs but also by companies like Knewton, an “adaptive learning” software designed to help students find the right courses and majors) while others are taking a more businesslike approach to operations (at Crow’s ASU, residence hall management is outsourced). While some of these approaches are innovative or distinctive, none of the examples Selingo cites appear to be irreplicable. For that matter, many of the approaches are probably under way, to some degree, at scores of other universities not cited in his book.

Are these approaches the path out of our current crisis in higher education? The jury is still out. No doubt some of the approaches will fail, and over then next decade we’ll probably see some go out of business. Some of the approaches will require a paradigm shift in the way colleges are run — moving from a faculty-focused approach to a more customer-focused approach, where students (and other customers, such as research agencies or the companies who hire our graduates) have a greater say in how we run our institutions. (Speaking of those other customers, Selingo doesn’t talk much in his book about the impact federal funding cuts will have on research universities. Nor does he discuss the big business of Division I athletics. It would have been nice to read his perspectives on both.)

So, some institutions will succeed in this new student-centered world. Others will fail to come to terms with the changing environment and slowly boil to death.

The road to marginalization?

But the largest group of institutions may well end up not closing their doors, but becoming marginalized. This is something Bob Sevier of Stamats discusses in a recent blog post (At a Crossroad).

The road to marginalization “would be wide and well-traveled,” Sevier writes. “Unfortunately, we are already seeing some traffic as schools, in response to revenue shortfalls, are turning to the cost side of the ledger and reducing expenditures in staffing, co- and extracurricular activities, facility maintenance, and other areas.

“While this reduction in expenditures may help balance the ledger in the near term, it almost always leads to an obvious loss of quality. In other words, marginalization. Unfortunately, marginalization almost always leads to more marginalization.”

It seems Sevier and Selingo have a similar perspective. But both offer hope. It just requires us all recognizing the kettle we’re in and having the will to jump out of it.