Dear Commons Community,

Earlier this week, while delivering a speech about new gun control measures, President Barack Obama cried. His tears came as he spoke about the first-graders — “every time I think about those kids it gets me mad” — who were shot dead in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.  His critics questioned his sincerity for crying in public, however, the media seems to have accepted it.  The Huffington Post has an article entitled, “Thanks, Obama, For Confirming That It’s Totally Fine For Powerful Men To Cry” today reviewing the issue.

“Most people are cool with crying these days. In politics, at least. And in sports, too. Kobe Bryant is a big cryer, for example. John Boehner? The former speaker of the House cried a pool of tears during his time in office: When he met the pope. When he was sworn in…

Obama is not the first president to cry publicly — that distinction actually goes to the first president. George Washington is said to have cried at his inauguration in 1789. 

Abraham Lincoln, apparently, was big into tears. It wasn’t uncommon back in his day.

“Lincoln cried at the right moments in his speeches,” Tom Lutz, who wrote an entire book about the history of crying, told The Orange County Register a couple of years ago. During the 19th century, he said, crying was a rhetorical skill. A good orator knew how to turn the waterworks on and off…

Crying at work is a fraught thing. Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg has said it’s fine. “I think we are all of us emotional beings and it’s OK for us to share that emotion at work,” she said.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told Oprah Winfrey (herself no stranger to crying) that he cried in 2008 when the recession forced him to lay off workers. 

“I think the currency of leadership is transparency,” Schultz said. “There are moments where you’ve got to share your soul and conscience with people and show them who you are, and not be afraid of it.”

So men, don’t be afraid to share your soul.  It helps you and those around you.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Those of us working in doctoral programs know that after all of the years of study, effort, and successfully defending a dissertation, our students then face a tough job market and preparing them to successfully present themselves is critical.  The Chronicle of Higher Education has just published a booklet (free download) entitled, How to Survive Your First-Round Interview, for those seeking appointments in a college or university.  It contains kernels of good information that doctoral students applying for an academic position might find useful.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, Ken Hartman, from the Online Learning Consortium, just forwarded to me an article, Eduventures’ 2016 Higher Education Predictions:  A Year to Unite,  speculating on future trends for higher education.   His predictions:

“are based not only on [Eduventures] twenty years of experience serving higher education institutions and their leaders, but also on our close examination of the major external circumstances (e.g., economic and geopolitical) we believe the nation will likely face in the next 12 months, such as:

• In the last year of the Obama Administration, we expect new regulations on student loan repayment, accreditation, and the for-profit sector. We do not expect that the Higher Education Reauthorization Act will be reauthorized in 2016.
• We predict a positive outlook for the economy, enough to persuade the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates at least twice in 2016. This means higher borrowing costs for individuals and institutions.
• Terrorist threats at home and abroad will heighten security concerns, exposing U.S. universities and colleges’ dependence on international students at a time when domestic enrollment is flat.
• Higher education will take center stage in the presidential election, where it will become a populist issue (e.g., cost, debt, ROI, outcomes, accreditation, and economic mobility). The “free community college” idea will get more attention.
• Continued campus unrest over a host of social and economic issues will be coordinated and orchestrated by both campus-based and community-based organizations.

The article makes a number of forecasts for enrollments, technology especially open educational resources, annual giving, and teacher education programs.

As I indicated in an email to Ken, I agreed with him on a number of his comments especially that small, tuition driven private institutions are probably at greatest risk.  The public and non-profit institutions with brands and established markets will weather the future on their own terms.  Technology is and will be part of their strategies.   Even with a stable (or stagnant) traditional college-age student demographic, as long as higher education is seen as economically beneficial and just about every study indicates that it is, most colleges and universities will continue to evolve and expand their use of technology for instruction and administration.

Tony

P.S.:  As a follow-up to my posting above, GoodCall, an higher education data service for students and parents, has issued a report on What Higher Education Will Look Like in 5, 10, or 20 Years from Now?  It is based on a series of interviews and covers several of the same issues as the Eduventures 2016 Report above.

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times yesterday had a most informative graphic (above for those of us who have trouble sometimes following the Sunni-Shite demographics in the Middle East.  It provides a clear picture of how these centuries-old religious groups are distributed within each country in this area.  For many Muslims, the religious affiliation is as important if not more important than the country affiliation.  Understanding this is critical to understanding the strife that we continue to see in these countries.

Tony

Dear Commons Community, 

The New York Daily News raised eyebrows yesterday with its headline blasting the Republican Party for its position on guns and the 2nd Amendment.  The headline reads “The Party of Pro-Death” and has photos of four prominent Republicans – Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio – who questioned President Obama’s plea for modest gun-control policies. The articles accompanying the headline yesterday called for the Republican Party to stop pandering to the National Rifle Association and to support President Obama’s executive orders for gun safety.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Here is a development that is sure to catch the eye of the Twitter world.  As posted on a New York Times blog:

“For nearly a decade, the defining characteristic of the tweet — the unit of communication on Twitter — has been its brevity: Users are restricted to 140 characters.

That may soon change. Twitter is experimenting with introducing a longer form of tweet, according to two people familiar with the company’s plans, in what would be another gradual move away from the simplistic design sensibility that the service was originally founded upon.

The project, which internally has been referred to as “beyond 140,” is still in its testing phase and is not set to be introduced until at least March, said the people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the company’s plans. Twitter has not determined what the final tweet character limit will be, according to people familiar with the discussions. One number that has been tossed around internally is 10,000 characters, the same limit that users have inside private Twitter messages. Another possibility could be 5,000 characters, these people said.”

I am not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing but it has the potential to add hours to the average Twitter user’s day.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders yesterday criticized Hillary Clinton during a fiery Manhattan speech about Wall Street reform.  As reported in The Huffington Post:

“Most of Sanders’ barbs were directed at the banking world. The socialist senator from Vermont reiterated his call to break up the biggest banks, declared that “fraud is the business model on Wall Street,” and elicited a round of enthusiastic boos from the crowd by invoking JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as a villain of the 2008 financial crisis.

“To those on Wall Street who may be listening today — and I’m sure there aren’t many of them — let me be very clear: Greed is not good,” Sanders said, in a reference to the film “Wall Street.” “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”

But some of Sanders’ harshest rhetoric was reserved for Clinton.

“Wall Street makes huge campaign contributions, they have thousands of lobbyists and they provide very generous speaking fees to those who go before them,” Sanders said, in a not-so-subtle reference to lucrative talks Clinton gave at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and private equity firms after finishing her tenure as secretary of state.

“My opponent says that, as a senator, she told bankers to ‘cut it out’ and end their destructive behavior,” Sanders said. “But, in my view, establishment politicians are the ones who need to ‘cut it out.’ The reality is that Congress doesn’t regulate Wall Street –“

Familiar with the line, the pro-Sanders crowd interrupted him to complete the slogan: “Wall Street regulates Congress!”

Sanders is striking a populist cord with many Democrats and will be in the presidential nomination race for the long run.  Clinton holds a 15-point lead over Sanders in Iowa, according to HuffPost Pollster’s average of presidential polls, while Sanders holds a narrow lead over Clinton in New Hampshire, which will host its primary the week after Iowa’s contest.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

I have just had an article published in the Online Learning Journal entitled, Planning for Online Education: A Systems Model.  As I listen and hear discussions about initiatives in online and blended learning, I have become concerned that there is a bit too much emphasis on instructional design and faculty development.  These are indeed important but not the only areas that need to be addressed when mounting new online education programs.  I have also been concerned that the term “disruption” has been used too freely to suggest that there needs to be upheavals in our education institutions in order to successfully change them for new technological approaches.  As indicated in the abstract:

“The purpose of this article is to revisit the basic principles of technology planning as applied to online education initiatives. While not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the topic, the article is timely because many colleges and universities are considering the development and expansion of online education as part of their planning activities. The article suggests that purposeful planning is key to the successful implementation of online education as opposed to disruption or radical transformation that may be damaging to an institution’s culture.”

The article is available for a free download at:

http://onlinelearningconsortium.org/read/online-learning-journal/

Any feedback is most welcome!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Earlier today, Governor Cuomo announced an executive order to increase the minimum wage for SUNY workers. CUNY workers are not included in the order. In response, the Professional Staff Congress issued a news release (see below).

For shame Governor Cuomo for the way you continue to mistreat the faculty, students, and staff of the City University of New York during your second term.

Tony

=====================================

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: January 4, 2016

Contact: Fran Clark, 914-364-8925

CUNY FACULTY AND STAFF UNION ON MINIMUM WAGE INCREASE:

YET AGAIN, THE GOVERNOR FAILS TO INVEST IN CUNY

Low-wage staff members and student workers at the State University of New York will receive a much-needed increase in wages because of executive action taken today by Governor Andrew Cuomo. But thousands of staff and student workers at the City University of New York are being denied the $15 minimum wage. Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo has continued to keep per-student funding at CUNY basically flat, leaving CUNY funding 14% below 2008 levels.

“Lifting the wage floor for fast-food workers, state employees and now SUNY workers is the right thing to do. Governor Cuomo listened to the growing demand from workers, students, labor unions, faith leaders and others.But singling out CUNY’s workers on the state payroll for exclusion is a monumental failure of progressive leadership. No institution embodies the progressive, pro-worker, anti-poverty goals of the minimum wage more than CUNY. No institution does more than CUNY to overcome the income inequality that the governor decries.” said Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress, the union of CUNY faculty and staff.

“The decision to exclude CUNY from the wage increase is a slap in the face to the thousands of low-wage workers whose labor helps to make a college education possible for CUNY’s 500,000 students.It is part of a pattern of refusing to invest the necessary funds in CUNY: the governor continues to deny any state funding for pay increases for CUNY’s academic staff, who have not had a raise in five years. Cuomo’s continuing refusal to invest in decent pay for CUNY workers is hurting the whole University.Full-time faculty are beginning to seek other jobs, and there are part-time faculty on food stamps because their CUNY salaries are so low,” Bowen continued.

BACKGROUND

The governor has called New York State “the progressive capital of the world,” yet he has continually failed to invest the necessary funds in CUNY, a lifeline of opportunity for working-class New Yorkers and people of color. Refusing to restore the 14% of State funding that CUNY has lost since the 2008 recession, Cuomo has kept per-student funding essentially flat and failed to invest in support for the faculty and staff. Thousands of CUNY workers are earning pay below $15 per hour, wages that the governor says “leaves far too many people behind, unacceptably condemning them to a life of poverty.” CUNY faculty and staff have gone five years without a raise, and more than half of CUNY classes are taught by part-time adjunct professors, some of whom live on their near-poverty CUNY wages.

The Professional Staff Congress (PSC/CUNY), affiliated with NYSUT, the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, represents more than 25,000 faculty and professional staff at the City University of New York who haven’t had a contract in five years or a raise in six years.

CUNY is the country’s largest urban public university system. Its contracts are funded by both the State (75%) and the City (25%). CUNY workers are public employees. 

Dear Commons Community,

Here is a story from Burns, Oregon, that we do not see very often in this country about a band of armed individuals who have taken over the administrative buildings of a federal government wildlife refuge area.  As reported by the New York Times:

“The protesters arrived in this old lumber town to support a 73-year-old rancher and his son who had been sentenced to prison for setting fires that spread to federal lands. It was billed as a peaceful demonstration, but after “Amazing Grace” was sung and hugs were exchanged, a small, armed contingent declared outside a supermarket that it was taking a stand and asked who wanted to join.

So began the latest armed flare-up in a decades-long struggle between federal officials and local landowners and ranchers over how to manage the Western range. The armed antigovernment group seized empty administrative buildings on a federal refuge for wildlife about 30 miles away through the snowy sagebrush, and by Sunday night, had hunkered down for what they vowed would be an indefinite standoff with the government.

“We will be here for as long as it takes,” said Ryan Payne, an Army veteran who characterized the group’s action as a liberation of public lands. “People have talked about returning land to the people for a long time. Finally, someone is making an effort in that direction.”

He said there was already talk of renaming the refuge the Harney County Liberty Center.

Relatives of the ranchers convicted of arson, Dwight L. Hammond and his son Steven D. Hammond, 46, distanced themselves from the armed takeover, but said they understood the underlying anger over federal land policies that many here feel are intrusive and overreaching.

“I don’t know those people that well, except that I just see from the outside that we have a lot of things in common,” said Dwight Hammond’s wife, Susan. “We share a lot of sentiments in regards to our government, and the overreach into management of our country.”

The Harney County sheriff, David M. Ward, said in a statement on Sunday, “These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers, when in reality these men had alternative motives to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States…

The Hammonds bought their ranch in Oregon in 1964, and have spent years at odds with federal land officials in the area. Three years ago, Dwight and Steven were convicted of lighting fires, in 2001 and 2006, that they said were efforts to protect their property from wildfires and invasive plant species.

The fire in 2001 accidentally spread to about 140 acres of government land, documents show. In 2006, a burn ban was in effect while firefighters battled blazes started by a lightning storm on a hot day in August. Steven Hammond had started a “back burn” to prevent the blaze from destroying the family’s winter feed for its cattle.

The Hammonds each served sentences for the arson charges, but they were ordered to report to a prison in California on Monday after a federal judge ruled that the sentences they had served were not long enough under federal law. Ms. Hammond said her husband and son would surrender themselves as ordered.

The case caused a local uproar, but it also touched a nerve with far-right groups.” 

While at first glance, this seems to be a radical reaction to a small local issue, it will be interesting to see how the authorities respond to it.  Ultra conservative groups are sure to pick up on it as a cause worth fighting for.

Tony