Reality Check
The Reality Check blog, from John V. Lombardi, follows the endlessly fascinating parade of criticism and defense of the higher education business.
The Reality Check blog, from John V. Lombardi, follows the endlessly fascinating parade of criticism and defense of the higher education business.
November 17, 2009 - 4:00pm
I am having trouble signing on to the campaign to make our universities dependencies of the federal government. I want the money. I am confident that we could spend it a lot better than the bailed out banks and the rescued financial services industry.
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August 3, 2009 - 10:00am
The serial crises that affect higher education in America carry with them an accompanying enthusiasm for big thinking. Big thinking involves the expansion of good ideas into major movements, transformations, inflection points, and other moments of significance. Big ideas serve many purposes. They offer hooks for conferences, papers, and symposia sponsored by associations and foundations, each seeking a position on the leading edge of revolutionary change.
May 8, 2009 - 6:32am
The unusually large reductions in state appropriations to higher education in many states and the impact of the current record setting economic decline on other sources of university funding has pushed institutional responses into high visibility. We usually interpret America’s never ending economic crisis in higher education as instances of unique phenomena, each one requiring new dramatic response. We react with surprise, alarm, and exceptional rhetoric to the cyclical downturns in public funding or private support. We dramatize the dire consequences that reduced funding will cause.
March 25, 2009 - 4:09pm
A theme in budget reduction processes in some states is an enthusiasm for cannibalizing some institutions in the hopes of keeping others from suffering the effects of a state revenue reduction. This is of course a highly political issue, not easily resolved by rational discussions because the number and type of public universities and community colleges in a state reflects the accumulation over a long time of decisions by elected political representatives.
January 8, 2009 - 2:35pm
Our fable begins with the recognition that everyone is in favor of change, that magic word for all of higher education. Few things in college and university life capture such universal admiration as the prospect of change. If we become tired of such an ordinary word, we can prefix it with other magical words with high value like transformational and accountable. We know that the good change for universities involves more money to do the things that we want to do. Bad change involves less money. We know we usually do not like change that makes us work harder.
