Green Wall Appeal

A couple of Harold Washington College architecture students - Lauren and Anisa - asked me to get the word out regarding their efforts to build a green wall on the side of our College facing into the Com Ed substation next to the building. You can find out more here: hwcgreenwall.blogspot.com.

As you will note when you visit the site, they are raising money through Kickstarter. They were, as of this morning, 20% of the way toward their goal. I just made my pledge.

Active Learning

This post is a refresh of an earlier discussion regarding active vs. passive learning strategies. Thanks to John Hader for contributing a dissenting viewpoint. 

The Economist published an article this week highlighting research in favor of active learning strategies. What I found interesting is that the students who were given some initial structure and then left to pursue learning identified more uses for the toys in shorter amount of time than other strategies. The summary and link follow: 

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Now you know

When should you teach children, and when should you let them explore?

IT IS one of the oldest debates in education. Should teachers tell pupils the way things are or encourage them to find out for themselves? Telling children “truths” about the world helps them learn those facts more quickly. Yet the efficient learning of specific facts may lead to the assumption that when the adult has finished teaching, there is nothing further to learn—because if there were, the adult would have said so. A study just published in Cognition by Elizabeth Bonawitz of the University of California, Berkeley, and Patrick Shafto of the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, suggests that is true.

See full article

Purpose and Mastery

My economics training has drilled into me the notion that rational individuals seek to maximize personal gain. It seems, then, that monetary incentives ought to result in better performance and outcomes. I have wrestled with these concepts as I seek to lead an organization where my ability to reward individuals monetarily is limited. 

This video transformed my understanding of the role of incentives in spurring performance and innovation. It is worth a watch in case you haven't seen it. I look forward to working with faculty and staff to understand how they define their purpose and what support they need to develop mastery in fulfilling that purpose.

Scheinbuks' Big Bucks

Dr. Julian Scheinbuks left the largest gift ever to an public Illinois university with his one million dollar gift to Chicago State. The Sun-Times article does a nice job giving us a sense of the man. 

Teachers who spend their lives working with students are amazingly special people. When one of them turns around and then gives all of his material possessions saved through those years of work back again to the students - that is just overwhelming.

Dr. Scheinbuks' life served as an inspiration. With his passing, he humbles us all. May he rest in peace.

Mentor-palooza

Over 260 Harold Washington students and recent graduates signed up and attended an event at McCormick Place sponsored by Accenture, my former employer. 

The day started with a networking opportunity. Accenture employees and City College students and recent graduates paired up so that our students could ask for career advice. I was proud that our HWC students were sharply dressed and, as more than one Accenture employee told me, asked great questions with poise. 

The networking was followed by inspirational speeches by Chancellor Hyman and Bill Green, the Chairman of Accenture's board. They both shared their stories about how a community college had changed their lives. A few Accenture employees stood up during the Q&A and talked about their own experiences at community college. One woman in their Finance department who has been with Accenture for over 20 years identified herself as a graduate of Daley College (which prompted enthusiastic applause from President Aybar).

Also during the Q&A (with over 3,000 people in the room) one of our Harold Washington students (and a Year Up participant) stood up to ask Bill Green what characteristics he believes make his best employees. Bill broke his response into capabilities and characteristics. The capabilities for good employees were analytical thinking, common sense, good judgment, and getting along with others. He expanded upon analytical thinking, explaining that he views the ability to look at problems critically, break them down, and then logically decide how to begin to solve it, as critical to success. I was pleased to hear that one of the core values of what our faculty hope to provide our students was front and center. 

The characteristics Bill outlined were competence, confidence, and caring. He talked about the need to develop deep knowledge in an area. That mastery gives you the confidence to share it with others. You then need to care enough to share it and try to make a difference. 

The large plenary was followed by breakouts, where Accenture employees talked about the need to protect your online reputation. The recommended that students join LinkedIn, and that they also guard what they post on their Facebook walls. They learned that companies now routinely search online social media sites in their background checks of individuals. They also said that every Tweet in Twitter is being saved in perpetuity at the Library of Congress. Many students I talked to appreciated the straight talk about how to protect themselves. 

All in all, a great day for our students. I thank Accenture for their willingness to engage with our students, and I thank the students who took advantage of the opportunity. 

Does Completion Matter?

As I sat on the stage during Graduation last Wednesday night, peering into the bright lights at the UIC Pavilion, I asked myself if completion matters.

It mattered to the families who crowded into the auditorium to see their sons, daughters, grandkids, sisters, brothers, parents, and extended family and friends mark the completion of their studies. It mattered to the faculty and administrators who showed up to cheer on their students.

Most of all, it mattered to the students who had worked so hard to achieve this milestone, and then apply for the degree, show up, wait in the heat of the garage, march in, wait in another line, and then march across stage, shake hands, leave the stage, sometimes cheering, waving their diploma above their heads, arms often raised in triumph. 

In my one-on-ones, people have argued many sides of the debate. Yes, completion matters, and we can do a better job of helping students graduate. Yes, completion matters, but you cannot hold individuals accountable. Too many factors outside of an individual staff or faculty's control determine whether a student graduates. No, what matters is that the student gets the skills they need and then moves on to success in a school that will accept all of their credits. No, what matters is that we serve students well and meet them where they are and let them chart their own unique path. Yes, it matters for some students, but not others. 

As I weighed the arguments, name after name after name was called. Students ascended the stairs, shook the hands, exited the stage. Completion mattered to these students.

There is a national context to the question of whether completion matters. I heard fellow educators at the Higher Learning Commission meeting this past spring argue passionately that completion matters. I heard leadership of the HLC say that not only does completion matter, but we (the assembled Presidents) better get on board, because accountability for completion is coming whether we like it or not. 

I respond better to incentives than to threats, but I respond best to intrinsic rewards. With all the noise about accountability, I come back to the question, Does Completion Matter to Students? Do we serve them well by supporting them through completion and graduation?

As I watched the faces, I was caught up in the pomp and circumstance and decided that yes, completion matters. 

What I want to do is to make sure that we as a college are doing everything we can to help students complete. A student should walk through our doors on that first day of registration and sense that everyone in this building is committed to and helping them complete.  For those students for whom completion means graduation, we need to support them better all along their path. We need to make registration work better. We need to ensure that our advisers have the tools and time to set and keep students on a meaningful path. We need to have clearer pathways that help students decide what degrees and courses of study to pursue. We need the academic supports to help students along the way. We need to ensure that our course offerings in credit programs articulate to four-year colleges. We need faculty empowered to understand the needs of students and bring additional resources to bear when needed to help students continue.

I acknowledge that we need to work through accountability, how to measure success, how to figure out if what we are doing is working. For me, I decided last Wednesday that I want to see more smiling faces from Harold Washington College ascend those stairs, shake the hands, and get their degree. I will hold myself, first and foremost, accountable for our success in helping students complete. I need the help of everyone here to figure out what we need to do to help more students complete. In the coming months, based on much of the feedback I received in my one-on-ones, I will start working with faculty, staff and administrators to figure out what we each can do to contribute to that goal. I welcome ongoing feedback. I am confident that if we implement many of the great ideas I have already heard, along with the new ones people come up with, we will help more students complete.

The Art of Persuasion

In Rhetoric, Aristotle outlines the three modes of persuasion one can employ: ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos appeals to an audiences' character. Pathos appeals to emotion. Logos employs logic to win over people. Recent posts on this blog have caused me to revisit Aristotle and question the value of a recent dialogue in this blog.

In my post "Serf Ready" I unintentionally walked into an argument over adjunct pay. I intended to post on student exploitation and my readers quickly moved to a discussion of adjuncts. While not my intent, I was open to persuasion. This community (loosely defined as those who care enough to read this blog) has an opportunity to educate, and yes, persuade me. The adjunct issue presented one such opportunity. 

On my blog, an adjunct named Xavier, and in a separate post on the Harold Lounge by PhiloDave (some day I will come up with some cool pseudonym) engaged in a discussion regarding my post. I found their comments enlightening and yes, persuasive. I found PhiloDave's fact-based discussion of his recent difficulties on finding quality adjuncts particularly persuasive. Perhaps Dave has figured out that logos is a mode that appeals to me. 

In contrast, a poster named "City Colleges of Chicago Reinvention: The Truth" wrote a sarcastic response. I chose not to respond in the comments, but Mr. Truth's (not quite as catchy as PhiloDave, but I hope the abbreviated appellation is interpreted as a sign of respect; further, I assume a gender for Mr. Truth as a convenience. If Mr. Truth reveals himself to be herself, I will readily amend this post to reflect this gender clarification. If Mr. Truth would prefer just The Truth, I can make that correction as well. As they say, the truth will out) sarcasm stuck with me. 

Aristotle, as I read him, would categorize sarcasm as a method appealing to emotion, or pathos. Sarcasm demonstrates the disdain the writer has for the audience. In this case, Mr. Truth's disdain for my apparently naive or dismissive attitude toward adjuncts is apparent. Yet I find the argument less than persuasive. Sarcasm provokes defensiveness. It places the writer (in this case, Mr. Truth) in the role of a judge who has passed sentence without right of appeal. How does one respond to sarcasm without appearing defensive, weak, or worse, responding in kind? Are we locked into a mutually destructive war of words, or does the audience (in this case, me) slink off to lick his metaphorical wounds and question his intelligence?

It comes down to, in my view, intent. If the intent is to truly persuade, illuminate, enlighten, and ultimately to cause me to take some action in alignment with the arguments presented, I find logos and ethos highly persuasive. Pathos has its place, but is much harder to use effectively. I would argue that sarcasm is not an appropriate pathetic device. I would like this blog to be a forum for ideas and argument, as well as a showcase for the wonderful accomplishments of the faculty, staff and students of our school. I welcome dissent and disagreement. I welcome praise even more, although only if earned and honest. Disgust, though, fails to persuade me. You will not find me responding to sarcasm, unless someone persuades me of its rhetorical value. Further, sarcasm can have the opposite effect of the apparent intent, unless the intent is to insult the writer and move on. I won't censor the sarcastic, but I will not engage them, either.