My thoughts exactly.
http://chronicle.com/article/Interdisciplinary-Hype/49191/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Waiting to choose a major?
Interesting piece. The basic argument appears to be that the earlier you choose a major, the more likely you are to make a mistake and choose something that doesn't really fit who you are. One conclusion might be that educational institutions should try to delay that choice as long as possible and also help students figure out who they are and what their life goals are as soon as possible.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/25/nber
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/25/nber
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The promise of e-book readers?
I now have a Kindle myself, and I have enjoyed some of its features, but as this article explains, it's not for everyone, especially academics, and it's not for every function, such as textbooks.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/11/03/golub
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/11/03/golub
Monday, October 19, 2009
Motivation in the workplace
Mandy put me on to these TED talks. Here’s one from Dan Pink who has a new book on Motivation coming out this fall.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Pink wrote a book on creativity (A Whole New Brain), which Rick quoted approvingly in his Gateway text. The argument there is that left brain thinking was more useful for a 19th/20th century industrial age while right brain thinking is more useful for our 21st century knowledge-worker age (not that far off from Drucker’s ideas, by the way). I’m reading that book right now, and I’m only partly persuaded (mostly because it seems to me that it’s still a bunch of left-brain types like the Google guys who are analyzing the quirkiness of our right-brain elements in order to create systems that will accommodate for that quirkiness).
But given that “right brain types rule the world” assumption, Pink argues that our typical organizational model of performance-based evaluations and rewards is problematic. These “extrinsic” motivating techniques typically work only in very narrow contexts in which the goal is clear and the means to that goal are even clearer. Because that method worked so well for our industrial age and for much of our sports world, we’ve come to assume that it will work everywhere. It doesn’t. In fact, the higher the reward offered for any cognitively complex assignment, the lower the performance. Creativity is what is needed, but creativity is dampened when given a clear goal and a clear path to that goal. We get tunnel vision.
Better instead to focus on intrinsic motivation. This sounds familiar to the arguments made by Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational, which I summarized awhile back. In fact, Pink quotes from Ariely in this TED talk. To heighten our intrinsic motivation, we should emphasize autonomy (allowing for more self motivation and less direct supervision), mastery (our desire to constantly improve), and purpose (our sense of calling to a higher goal). Ariely focused on the third piece (people are more motivated by a “cause” than they are by money). Pink focuses here on the first piece and notes the success of Wikipedia in comparison to Microsoft’s Encarta program.
Pink then suggests as a consequence of this thinking such ideas as Google’s 20% time (do whatever you want related to the company with 20% of your time) or a system called ROWE (results oriented work environment where people have no set work hours only project goals that they can complete how and when they want). I’m not exactly sure how to apply some of these ideas to our academic context, since we already do a lot of this on the faculty side by the very nature of faculty work. In fact, I kept thinking throughout that these arguments are really an inversion of the usual conversation in which business types tell academic types how to run their organizations whereas here we have academic types telling business types that their business models are skewed and that they should look instead more like academic organizations.
But I will say that some of these arguments challenge my very left-brained, competitive convictions. For example, I’m not quite sure what to think about Kent State’s new bonus pay system. It’s certainly too beholden to the faculty union, for one, and it’s not clear they’ve done much study about the correlations involved, but I appreciate that it’s a “group bonus” targeted at institutional goals. That seems more in keeping with the concepts noted above. As someone who’s argued for a long time that we need more “bonus pay” type systems at JBU, I’ll have to give these issues more thought.
http://chronicle.com/article/Kent-State-Says-It-Will-Pay/48768/
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Pink wrote a book on creativity (A Whole New Brain), which Rick quoted approvingly in his Gateway text. The argument there is that left brain thinking was more useful for a 19th/20th century industrial age while right brain thinking is more useful for our 21st century knowledge-worker age (not that far off from Drucker’s ideas, by the way). I’m reading that book right now, and I’m only partly persuaded (mostly because it seems to me that it’s still a bunch of left-brain types like the Google guys who are analyzing the quirkiness of our right-brain elements in order to create systems that will accommodate for that quirkiness).
But given that “right brain types rule the world” assumption, Pink argues that our typical organizational model of performance-based evaluations and rewards is problematic. These “extrinsic” motivating techniques typically work only in very narrow contexts in which the goal is clear and the means to that goal are even clearer. Because that method worked so well for our industrial age and for much of our sports world, we’ve come to assume that it will work everywhere. It doesn’t. In fact, the higher the reward offered for any cognitively complex assignment, the lower the performance. Creativity is what is needed, but creativity is dampened when given a clear goal and a clear path to that goal. We get tunnel vision.
Better instead to focus on intrinsic motivation. This sounds familiar to the arguments made by Dan Ariely in Predictably Irrational, which I summarized awhile back. In fact, Pink quotes from Ariely in this TED talk. To heighten our intrinsic motivation, we should emphasize autonomy (allowing for more self motivation and less direct supervision), mastery (our desire to constantly improve), and purpose (our sense of calling to a higher goal). Ariely focused on the third piece (people are more motivated by a “cause” than they are by money). Pink focuses here on the first piece and notes the success of Wikipedia in comparison to Microsoft’s Encarta program.
Pink then suggests as a consequence of this thinking such ideas as Google’s 20% time (do whatever you want related to the company with 20% of your time) or a system called ROWE (results oriented work environment where people have no set work hours only project goals that they can complete how and when they want). I’m not exactly sure how to apply some of these ideas to our academic context, since we already do a lot of this on the faculty side by the very nature of faculty work. In fact, I kept thinking throughout that these arguments are really an inversion of the usual conversation in which business types tell academic types how to run their organizations whereas here we have academic types telling business types that their business models are skewed and that they should look instead more like academic organizations.
But I will say that some of these arguments challenge my very left-brained, competitive convictions. For example, I’m not quite sure what to think about Kent State’s new bonus pay system. It’s certainly too beholden to the faculty union, for one, and it’s not clear they’ve done much study about the correlations involved, but I appreciate that it’s a “group bonus” targeted at institutional goals. That seems more in keeping with the concepts noted above. As someone who’s argued for a long time that we need more “bonus pay” type systems at JBU, I’ll have to give these issues more thought.
http://chronicle.com/article/Kent-State-Says-It-Will-Pay/48768/
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Review of "Predictably Irrational"
As most of you know, I’ve been on a social science kick for the last few years, most of my reading being popular level books in behavioral economics (Nudge, Freakonomics, Wisdom of the Crowds, anything by Gladwell, etc.). Here are some notes from another such work, entitled “Predictably Irrational” (which pretty much sums up the focus of the book), and some of my reflections thereon (consider these “Ed’s Cliffnotes”). If you’re not that interested in the economic questions, you might want to look only at Chapter 4 or Chapters 12/13, which deal with “social” issues.
Chap. 1 – It’s All Relative: We make decisions not as rational analyses but always in comparison to something else. The example given is that when offered the choice of a $59 electronic subscription to “The Economist” or a $125 combined electronic & paper subscription, people split about 68-32, but when given a third option of a $125 paper subscription only, the combined subscription suddenly seemed much more valuable with the split now being 16-84. The choice was the same (electronic vs. electronic & paper), but the context for the decision had changed.
Another example came from the world of CEO salaries. In 1976, the average CEO was paid 36 times as much as the average worker, but by 1993, it was 131 times as much. In an effort to rein in that increase, federal regulators forced the top people at a company to have their salaries made public (that 990 form we all know about). Almost another 17 years later, and the figure is now 369 times as much as everyone at top wants to be paid more than the “average” of their peers. Oops!
There are lots of possible applications of this “keeping up with the Joneses” dilemma. One is that we might apply some of the marketing ideas from the first example to how we pitch ourselves in comparison to our main competition. People typically want the “good” option for close to the “low” price. Could we include a chart in our promotion literature, for instance, showing TRBF for Wheaton, JBU, and “out of state” UofA (or maybe Oklahoma Wesleyan)?
An application of the second example is that, contrary to my usual inclination, we shouldn’t distribute too much information that might disrupt “the social contract” in some way, such as GPA data (which we haven't but which I've supported doing in the past). On the other hand, in areas where you want people to compete, such as in the ancillary budget process, you probably want to distribute as much information as possible. Finding that balance, obviously, is the difficult part.
Chap. 2 – The Fallacy of Supply & Demand: This is something my game theory reading pointed to a lot as well, that determining the “value” of anything is much more difficult than we might think. The author calls this “arbitrary coherence.” Our initial “anchor” for any particular price is pretty arbitrary, but once that anchor is set, everything else compares to that anchor. Ask people how old their infant child is and then ask them to bid on an item, and they bid much lower than the average. Ask people how old their aging grandparent is and then ask them to bid, and they offer much higher than the average. The initial “anchor” is completely arbitrary, but people can be “fooled” pretty easily. In game theory, one would call this the “first mover” advantage.
I try to follow this approach, for example, in my salary negotiations with faculty in which I first tell people how we rank in cost-adjusted terms compared to the rest of the CCCU or in absolute terms compared to our regional CCCU peers. I don’t start with comparisons to the UofA. I’m sure there are lots of additional examples people could give about setting the initial reference points for a conversation.
Chap. 3 – The Cost of Zero Cost: For those of you who’ve seen the book “Free!” (or Gladstone’s rejection of many of its more radical ideas), you’ll understand the argument that we don’t act rationally when something is “Free!” (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all). If you take two items and sell one at $15 and the other at $1, for instance, people might chose the $15 item that they think is a great deal more frequently than the $1 item that they think is only a mediocre deal. But change the prices to $14 and “Free!” and guess what, everyone takes the free item. Why? It’s the same price differential and the same value proposition, but “Free!” means “no risk,” apparently, so we no longer pay attention to the real value of something. We’ll wait in line for an hour for a cheap item that’s “Free!” when we could have worked the extra hour and made five times as much money.
I’m sure the marketing types already think in these terms (a “Free!” gift or “premium” for joining the Leadership Circle or a “Free!” application process if you submit your information on time), but this concept got me to wondering whether we should be focused on giving scholarship “discounts” but should instead offer “Free!” things. What if we said that all your books would be “Free!,” perhaps if you qualified at a certain level. What about “Free!” room or “Free!” board? According to the theory, the initial attraction of getting something “Free!” would help attract interest, and it should, again in theory, be cheaper to give away some “Free!” things than to try to buy students with sale prices on tuition.
Chap. 4 – The Cost of Social Norms: This chapter has been the most valuable to me so far. The argument is that we typically operate in one of two worlds, a “market” world and a “social” world. The boundaries are hard to define, but if we transgress them in a major way, watch out. One of the interesting conclusions is people work even harder for “social” reasons than for “market” reasons. People always feel that they should be paid a little more (the famous Carnegie line when asked how much money he needed, he responded “just a little more”), so when they feel that they’re working “for a paycheck,” they generally feel undervalued and they therefore don’t work quite as hard as they really could. But ask people to help out a “cause,” and people generally work even harder than if they were paid well. Giving “cause” people the impression that money is a key factor disrupts the whole calculus, and once they start thinking in market terms, you can’t go back.
A couple conclusions from this argument that the author makes is that you should put everyone on monthly or annual pay (and no one on hourly pay, which is what Bakke argued in “Joy at Work” as well) and you should be wary of merit or market pay systems in a “cause-related” organization. Hmm . . . I’ve been fully supportive of the former, contra Pat, but Pat was opposed to the latter, which I was in favor of.
But then it gets really interesting because it turns out that you can give “gifts” of the equivalent value as a monetary wage without disrupting the “social calculus” that people are working for a cause or a friend and not for money. “Gifts” are still socially okay. Money is not. (I’m not quite sure how “gift cards” fit into this line of thinking, though I’m guessing that it depends on the amounts involved.) Are there “big” gifts that we could give people that would still be socially acceptable? A week’s stay at Lakeside Manor? A course release or other time off? A public recognition that doesn’t have a monetary award attached to it? Professional development resources (conferences, research stipends, etc.)? A “gift card” to JBU food services (this might work well if we ever got to the personalized budget accounts I’ve been talking to Tom, Pat, Kim, and Paul about)?
Once we’ve agreed that staying on the “social norm” side of the ledger is a good thing, that decision really should reorient much of how we operate as an organization, but we usually don’t make that transition. One conclusion, for example, is that social groups protect their own from outside forces, so we should try to avoid as much as possible reducing positions for financial (outside) reasons, but that we should instead have higher bars for “performance” (internal) reasons. We typically think the opposite (it’s easier to fire people in an economic downturn), but doing so creates the impression that money (the market) is the primary driver of the organization and not the social group. Enforcing rules narrowly, using monetary “sticks” (ancillary budget process?) to enforce compliance, and talking a lot about the business end of the operation all transgress the “social” exchange and move us into the “market” exchange. The bottom line is that if we’re going to talk the “family” talk, we have to be more willing to walk that walk as well, though again, determining where those lines are is difficult.
Chap. 5 – Hot is Hotter than you Think: Basically, when people are in their cool “Dr. Jekyl” moments, they really can’t imagine what they will say or do when they’re in their emotional “Mr. Hyde” moments. So if you want to keep people (he focuses on teens) from doing stupid things, it’s not enough to just teach them what not to do. You have to help them avoid situations where their emotions can take over. Our "prudential" alcohol policy might be an example?
Chap. 6 - The Problem of Procrastination: The author's research shows that, sure enough, people procrastinate, that tightly restricting people's freedom (think deadlines for turning in assignments) is the best cure for procrastination, but that simply offering a tool for pre-commitment helps a lot (this would be the "Nudge" argument), especially for people who recognize their tendency toward procrastination. His favorite pre-commitment device is something like a deposit where you are forced to put money down up front, but you get it back if you do the "right" thing. He also likes the simplicity of "bundling" services (the one-stop shop idea, for example, when it comes to student services) and accountability partners (real or virtual).
Chap. 7 - The High Price of Ownership: Once we "own" something, we value it much more highly than before. And I mean MUCH more highly (about 14 times as much in the experiment the author presents). Reminded me a lot of our "name" feedback. People didn't know or care about the name John Brown before they came to the school, but afterwards, they "owned" it and were very intense about not wanting to see it changed. People attach very quickly, they focus on loss more than gain (witness the recent health care debate), and they have a hard time seeing anyone else's perspective (again, witness the health care debate). The more time people spend with something, even before they actually buy it, the more attached they are. Our visit program is probably a good example of that philosophy. Our discussions about "trial" courses might be another example (take a summer course from JBU for "Free!" but the credit only counts if you come to JBU).
Chap. 8 - Keeping Doors Open: Options distract us, so while we might think we're happier having lots of choices, in fact, we are typically much worse off trying to keep all of our options on the table. I see it all the time on the faculty growth plans where faculty note that they really need to say "no" more frequently, but they have real difficulty doing so. Drucker's time studies show the same results for executives. And being willing to "abandon" is one of the hardest things to do as an organization.
Chap. 9 - The Effect of Expectations: We generally get what we think we're going to get, which is why the placebo effect is so powerful and why "presentation" matters so much in fine dining. In terms of education, for example, Harold Heie used to say that he had long thought that it was the faculty that attracted students to a university but after decades of experience, he had to conclude that it was the buildings. Having visited a few dozen campuses myself, I would have to concur.
Chap. 10 - The Power of Price: Another version of the expectations game is that if something costs a lot, we assume it will be better, and voila, it “actually” is. 50 cent aspirin works much better than 1 cent aspirin, even though they use the same ingredients. Hendrix concludes that they can keep raising their prices because the more expensive they are, the more people will think that they're really great, and the more that, in fact, the students will feel that they're getting a great education (they must be, right, because they're paying all of this money?).
Chap. 11 – The Content of our Character, Part I – Why We Are Dishonest: “So we learned that people cheat when they have a chance to do so, but they don’t cheat as much as they could. Moreover, once they begin to think about honesty—whether by recalling the Ten Commandments or by signing a simple statement—they stop cheating completely. In other words, when we are removed from any benchmarks of ethical thought, we tend to stray into dishonesty. But if we are reminded of morality at the moment we are tempted, then we are much more likely to be honest.” Honor codes, for example, might work, but they have to be reiterated at “the moment we are tempted.”
Chap. 12 – The Content of our Character, Part II – Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest: Cheating, it turns out, is a lot easier when it’s one step or more removed from real, physical money. Interestingly, few seem to realize that this will be true and predict the same levels of cheating regardless of what the “payout” will be. All of this is why, perhaps, direct theft (burglaries and the like) are miniscule in dollar terms compared to exaggerated expense accounting, IRS fraud, etc. The author’s best guess as to why “hard cash” is different is all of the “sacred symbolism” on the bills themselves as well as the importance we as a society place on those bills.
Chap. 13 – Beer and Free Lunches: When people order food (or beer), the first person to order gets what he or she really wants (and enjoys it accordingly), but those later in the sequence will often choose food not because it’s what they want (or will like) but because it provides some social benefit (to show that they are “unique” in a culture that values uniqueness, for example). In short, people don’t always make rational decisions (the basic point of the book), so there are changes we can make that will indeed help everyone (provide a “free lunch”). The author mentions the “save more tomorrow” mechanism that the Nudge authors highlighted as being a great example (people commit today to save more of their paycheck for retirement in future years).
As you can probably tell, I liked the book, but since it’s on my Kindle, I don’t have a copy to give anyone. The downside of this new technology, huh?
Chap. 1 – It’s All Relative: We make decisions not as rational analyses but always in comparison to something else. The example given is that when offered the choice of a $59 electronic subscription to “The Economist” or a $125 combined electronic & paper subscription, people split about 68-32, but when given a third option of a $125 paper subscription only, the combined subscription suddenly seemed much more valuable with the split now being 16-84. The choice was the same (electronic vs. electronic & paper), but the context for the decision had changed.
Another example came from the world of CEO salaries. In 1976, the average CEO was paid 36 times as much as the average worker, but by 1993, it was 131 times as much. In an effort to rein in that increase, federal regulators forced the top people at a company to have their salaries made public (that 990 form we all know about). Almost another 17 years later, and the figure is now 369 times as much as everyone at top wants to be paid more than the “average” of their peers. Oops!
There are lots of possible applications of this “keeping up with the Joneses” dilemma. One is that we might apply some of the marketing ideas from the first example to how we pitch ourselves in comparison to our main competition. People typically want the “good” option for close to the “low” price. Could we include a chart in our promotion literature, for instance, showing TRBF for Wheaton, JBU, and “out of state” UofA (or maybe Oklahoma Wesleyan)?
An application of the second example is that, contrary to my usual inclination, we shouldn’t distribute too much information that might disrupt “the social contract” in some way, such as GPA data (which we haven't but which I've supported doing in the past). On the other hand, in areas where you want people to compete, such as in the ancillary budget process, you probably want to distribute as much information as possible. Finding that balance, obviously, is the difficult part.
Chap. 2 – The Fallacy of Supply & Demand: This is something my game theory reading pointed to a lot as well, that determining the “value” of anything is much more difficult than we might think. The author calls this “arbitrary coherence.” Our initial “anchor” for any particular price is pretty arbitrary, but once that anchor is set, everything else compares to that anchor. Ask people how old their infant child is and then ask them to bid on an item, and they bid much lower than the average. Ask people how old their aging grandparent is and then ask them to bid, and they offer much higher than the average. The initial “anchor” is completely arbitrary, but people can be “fooled” pretty easily. In game theory, one would call this the “first mover” advantage.
I try to follow this approach, for example, in my salary negotiations with faculty in which I first tell people how we rank in cost-adjusted terms compared to the rest of the CCCU or in absolute terms compared to our regional CCCU peers. I don’t start with comparisons to the UofA. I’m sure there are lots of additional examples people could give about setting the initial reference points for a conversation.
Chap. 3 – The Cost of Zero Cost: For those of you who’ve seen the book “Free!” (or Gladstone’s rejection of many of its more radical ideas), you’ll understand the argument that we don’t act rationally when something is “Free!” (http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=all). If you take two items and sell one at $15 and the other at $1, for instance, people might chose the $15 item that they think is a great deal more frequently than the $1 item that they think is only a mediocre deal. But change the prices to $14 and “Free!” and guess what, everyone takes the free item. Why? It’s the same price differential and the same value proposition, but “Free!” means “no risk,” apparently, so we no longer pay attention to the real value of something. We’ll wait in line for an hour for a cheap item that’s “Free!” when we could have worked the extra hour and made five times as much money.
I’m sure the marketing types already think in these terms (a “Free!” gift or “premium” for joining the Leadership Circle or a “Free!” application process if you submit your information on time), but this concept got me to wondering whether we should be focused on giving scholarship “discounts” but should instead offer “Free!” things. What if we said that all your books would be “Free!,” perhaps if you qualified at a certain level. What about “Free!” room or “Free!” board? According to the theory, the initial attraction of getting something “Free!” would help attract interest, and it should, again in theory, be cheaper to give away some “Free!” things than to try to buy students with sale prices on tuition.
Chap. 4 – The Cost of Social Norms: This chapter has been the most valuable to me so far. The argument is that we typically operate in one of two worlds, a “market” world and a “social” world. The boundaries are hard to define, but if we transgress them in a major way, watch out. One of the interesting conclusions is people work even harder for “social” reasons than for “market” reasons. People always feel that they should be paid a little more (the famous Carnegie line when asked how much money he needed, he responded “just a little more”), so when they feel that they’re working “for a paycheck,” they generally feel undervalued and they therefore don’t work quite as hard as they really could. But ask people to help out a “cause,” and people generally work even harder than if they were paid well. Giving “cause” people the impression that money is a key factor disrupts the whole calculus, and once they start thinking in market terms, you can’t go back.
A couple conclusions from this argument that the author makes is that you should put everyone on monthly or annual pay (and no one on hourly pay, which is what Bakke argued in “Joy at Work” as well) and you should be wary of merit or market pay systems in a “cause-related” organization. Hmm . . . I’ve been fully supportive of the former, contra Pat, but Pat was opposed to the latter, which I was in favor of.
But then it gets really interesting because it turns out that you can give “gifts” of the equivalent value as a monetary wage without disrupting the “social calculus” that people are working for a cause or a friend and not for money. “Gifts” are still socially okay. Money is not. (I’m not quite sure how “gift cards” fit into this line of thinking, though I’m guessing that it depends on the amounts involved.) Are there “big” gifts that we could give people that would still be socially acceptable? A week’s stay at Lakeside Manor? A course release or other time off? A public recognition that doesn’t have a monetary award attached to it? Professional development resources (conferences, research stipends, etc.)? A “gift card” to JBU food services (this might work well if we ever got to the personalized budget accounts I’ve been talking to Tom, Pat, Kim, and Paul about)?
Once we’ve agreed that staying on the “social norm” side of the ledger is a good thing, that decision really should reorient much of how we operate as an organization, but we usually don’t make that transition. One conclusion, for example, is that social groups protect their own from outside forces, so we should try to avoid as much as possible reducing positions for financial (outside) reasons, but that we should instead have higher bars for “performance” (internal) reasons. We typically think the opposite (it’s easier to fire people in an economic downturn), but doing so creates the impression that money (the market) is the primary driver of the organization and not the social group. Enforcing rules narrowly, using monetary “sticks” (ancillary budget process?) to enforce compliance, and talking a lot about the business end of the operation all transgress the “social” exchange and move us into the “market” exchange. The bottom line is that if we’re going to talk the “family” talk, we have to be more willing to walk that walk as well, though again, determining where those lines are is difficult.
Chap. 5 – Hot is Hotter than you Think: Basically, when people are in their cool “Dr. Jekyl” moments, they really can’t imagine what they will say or do when they’re in their emotional “Mr. Hyde” moments. So if you want to keep people (he focuses on teens) from doing stupid things, it’s not enough to just teach them what not to do. You have to help them avoid situations where their emotions can take over. Our "prudential" alcohol policy might be an example?
Chap. 6 - The Problem of Procrastination: The author's research shows that, sure enough, people procrastinate, that tightly restricting people's freedom (think deadlines for turning in assignments) is the best cure for procrastination, but that simply offering a tool for pre-commitment helps a lot (this would be the "Nudge" argument), especially for people who recognize their tendency toward procrastination. His favorite pre-commitment device is something like a deposit where you are forced to put money down up front, but you get it back if you do the "right" thing. He also likes the simplicity of "bundling" services (the one-stop shop idea, for example, when it comes to student services) and accountability partners (real or virtual).
Chap. 7 - The High Price of Ownership: Once we "own" something, we value it much more highly than before. And I mean MUCH more highly (about 14 times as much in the experiment the author presents). Reminded me a lot of our "name" feedback. People didn't know or care about the name John Brown before they came to the school, but afterwards, they "owned" it and were very intense about not wanting to see it changed. People attach very quickly, they focus on loss more than gain (witness the recent health care debate), and they have a hard time seeing anyone else's perspective (again, witness the health care debate). The more time people spend with something, even before they actually buy it, the more attached they are. Our visit program is probably a good example of that philosophy. Our discussions about "trial" courses might be another example (take a summer course from JBU for "Free!" but the credit only counts if you come to JBU).
Chap. 8 - Keeping Doors Open: Options distract us, so while we might think we're happier having lots of choices, in fact, we are typically much worse off trying to keep all of our options on the table. I see it all the time on the faculty growth plans where faculty note that they really need to say "no" more frequently, but they have real difficulty doing so. Drucker's time studies show the same results for executives. And being willing to "abandon" is one of the hardest things to do as an organization.
Chap. 9 - The Effect of Expectations: We generally get what we think we're going to get, which is why the placebo effect is so powerful and why "presentation" matters so much in fine dining. In terms of education, for example, Harold Heie used to say that he had long thought that it was the faculty that attracted students to a university but after decades of experience, he had to conclude that it was the buildings. Having visited a few dozen campuses myself, I would have to concur.
Chap. 10 - The Power of Price: Another version of the expectations game is that if something costs a lot, we assume it will be better, and voila, it “actually” is. 50 cent aspirin works much better than 1 cent aspirin, even though they use the same ingredients. Hendrix concludes that they can keep raising their prices because the more expensive they are, the more people will think that they're really great, and the more that, in fact, the students will feel that they're getting a great education (they must be, right, because they're paying all of this money?).
Chap. 11 – The Content of our Character, Part I – Why We Are Dishonest: “So we learned that people cheat when they have a chance to do so, but they don’t cheat as much as they could. Moreover, once they begin to think about honesty—whether by recalling the Ten Commandments or by signing a simple statement—they stop cheating completely. In other words, when we are removed from any benchmarks of ethical thought, we tend to stray into dishonesty. But if we are reminded of morality at the moment we are tempted, then we are much more likely to be honest.” Honor codes, for example, might work, but they have to be reiterated at “the moment we are tempted.”
Chap. 12 – The Content of our Character, Part II – Why Dealing with Cash Makes Us More Honest: Cheating, it turns out, is a lot easier when it’s one step or more removed from real, physical money. Interestingly, few seem to realize that this will be true and predict the same levels of cheating regardless of what the “payout” will be. All of this is why, perhaps, direct theft (burglaries and the like) are miniscule in dollar terms compared to exaggerated expense accounting, IRS fraud, etc. The author’s best guess as to why “hard cash” is different is all of the “sacred symbolism” on the bills themselves as well as the importance we as a society place on those bills.
Chap. 13 – Beer and Free Lunches: When people order food (or beer), the first person to order gets what he or she really wants (and enjoys it accordingly), but those later in the sequence will often choose food not because it’s what they want (or will like) but because it provides some social benefit (to show that they are “unique” in a culture that values uniqueness, for example). In short, people don’t always make rational decisions (the basic point of the book), so there are changes we can make that will indeed help everyone (provide a “free lunch”). The author mentions the “save more tomorrow” mechanism that the Nudge authors highlighted as being a great example (people commit today to save more of their paycheck for retirement in future years).
As you can probably tell, I liked the book, but since it’s on my Kindle, I don’t have a copy to give anyone. The downside of this new technology, huh?
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Case Worker Approach in Action?
Here's a real world example of the case worker approach that I've been talking about for awhile. Of course, I've been talking about this as something of a replacement/retasking of some existing personnel, while Mercy College in New York has added these slots on top of the existing systems. But the idea is there, to have a single mentor for each student to help them from before they enroll to after they graduate. Each mentor would have a case load of about 100. Perhaps this is model to keep an eye on?
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/04/mercy
https://www.mercy.edu/pages/1180.asp
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/09/04/mercy
https://www.mercy.edu/pages/1180.asp
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The $99/month university?
If “information wants to be free,” and we’re in the information business, what’s our long-term fate in higher education? That’s the general concern raised in this Chronicle piece.
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/College-for-99-a-Month-/7898/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
I’ve passed along some articles about “Facebook University” and other “cheap” higher education options that are now out there. Here’s another one, the $99/month university called “StraighterLine.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/college_for_99_a_month.php
http://www.straighterline.com/
The basic idea is to offer pre-packaged Core courses in an on-line environment with various support elements (on-line tutors, web modules, an assigned advisor/professor with a Ph.D., etc.). You can take as many courses for credit as you can handle at $99/month. This is akin to what that Global Campus at Illinois was trying to do in a larger format but failed to implement.
So what happens to places like JBU if people decide to take the “cheap” courses elsewhere and transfer in all of those credits and only take the “expensive” courses at the “elite” schools? We’d probably see increasing numbers of transfers, traditional undergraduate populations skewing more toward upper classmen, fewer students living on campus, more students taking graduate courses, fewer students taking face to face degree completion programs, and more students looking for on-line options. Hmm . . . that pretty much describes our experience in the last few years. Extend these trends a bit further, and our “money making programs” in Advance, undergraduate “core,” and room/board get squeezed more and more. Another hmm . . .
Of course, what some commentators note is that places like JBU are not at all in the information business, but in the whole person development business. Whether our external constituencies will agree with us, however, is another question, and if they don’t, is higher education headed increasingly along the path already trod by the newspaper business? Aren’t you glad that we’ve started a strategic planning process in which we all get to think about such matters?
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/College-for-99-a-Month-/7898/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
I’ve passed along some articles about “Facebook University” and other “cheap” higher education options that are now out there. Here’s another one, the $99/month university called “StraighterLine.”
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/college_for_99_a_month.php
http://www.straighterline.com/
The basic idea is to offer pre-packaged Core courses in an on-line environment with various support elements (on-line tutors, web modules, an assigned advisor/professor with a Ph.D., etc.). You can take as many courses for credit as you can handle at $99/month. This is akin to what that Global Campus at Illinois was trying to do in a larger format but failed to implement.
So what happens to places like JBU if people decide to take the “cheap” courses elsewhere and transfer in all of those credits and only take the “expensive” courses at the “elite” schools? We’d probably see increasing numbers of transfers, traditional undergraduate populations skewing more toward upper classmen, fewer students living on campus, more students taking graduate courses, fewer students taking face to face degree completion programs, and more students looking for on-line options. Hmm . . . that pretty much describes our experience in the last few years. Extend these trends a bit further, and our “money making programs” in Advance, undergraduate “core,” and room/board get squeezed more and more. Another hmm . . .
Of course, what some commentators note is that places like JBU are not at all in the information business, but in the whole person development business. Whether our external constituencies will agree with us, however, is another question, and if they don’t, is higher education headed increasingly along the path already trod by the newspaper business? Aren’t you glad that we’ve started a strategic planning process in which we all get to think about such matters?
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Peer pressure "nudges"
I read yesterday another one of those short pieces explaining how to use social peer pressure (“nudging”?) to increase compliance with some stated goal. In this case, the studies cited were on reducing energy consumption and on reusing hotel towels . Both studies explained that you didn’t need to set specific quotas or make specific rules, but you did need to have specific and public recognition of who was doing what.
1) For energy consumption, the energy company sent notices on a regular basis showing how much homeowners were using in comparison with people in their neighborhood. You got a smiley face notice if you used less than your neighbors and a frown face if you used more. They then offered suggestions of how you could save energy. Usage rates dropped significantly as a result of this simple campaign. As I’ve noted before to the Steve’s, this sounds somewhat like what we did with the Captain Planet initiative and something that we could do with the rest of the campus facilities. We also already do something similar with the ancillary budget process. I’ve suggested to Jerry and Cal that we do something like this with our alumni giving percentages as well.
2) For towel usage, they tested various messages placed in the bathrooms. Simple requests to reuse had limited effect. Providing people with a financial incentive (discount on their bill for reusing) were apparently too minimal to have much of an effect either. What worked was a statement that most people who had stayed in that particular room had reused their towels (the study didn’t comment on whether such a note was actually true when they first placed it in the room, by the way, just that doing so increased towel reusage by 33%). The application here might be for recycling efforts (especially if we develop a more fully developed system), Wellness efforts, and various survey (such as for NSSE or strategic planning).
The key in all of these “peer pressure” efforts appears to be that the information is relevant (people, places, or activities that the target audiences know very well) and potentially public. It’s this last piece that might be trickier in our situation, especially if it includes some type of public “shaming.” But hey, in some cases, that might be what it takes (to get the faculty to fill out a survey, for example).
1) For energy consumption, the energy company sent notices on a regular basis showing how much homeowners were using in comparison with people in their neighborhood. You got a smiley face notice if you used less than your neighbors and a frown face if you used more. They then offered suggestions of how you could save energy. Usage rates dropped significantly as a result of this simple campaign. As I’ve noted before to the Steve’s, this sounds somewhat like what we did with the Captain Planet initiative and something that we could do with the rest of the campus facilities. We also already do something similar with the ancillary budget process. I’ve suggested to Jerry and Cal that we do something like this with our alumni giving percentages as well.
2) For towel usage, they tested various messages placed in the bathrooms. Simple requests to reuse had limited effect. Providing people with a financial incentive (discount on their bill for reusing) were apparently too minimal to have much of an effect either. What worked was a statement that most people who had stayed in that particular room had reused their towels (the study didn’t comment on whether such a note was actually true when they first placed it in the room, by the way, just that doing so increased towel reusage by 33%). The application here might be for recycling efforts (especially if we develop a more fully developed system), Wellness efforts, and various survey (such as for NSSE or strategic planning).
The key in all of these “peer pressure” efforts appears to be that the information is relevant (people, places, or activities that the target audiences know very well) and potentially public. It’s this last piece that might be trickier in our situation, especially if it includes some type of public “shaming.” But hey, in some cases, that might be what it takes (to get the faculty to fill out a survey, for example).
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Review of Moreton's "To Serve God & Wal-Mart"
I was first made aware of Bethany's work when I saw her being interviewed on Book TV. It was fascinating, seeing an east coast labor and gender historian talk about "my" world in ways that were nuanced, balanced, and insightful. I told her so, ordered her book, and then found out that she had interviewed and done some work with JBU's own Rick Ostrander and Joe Walenciak. Now it became clearer why Bethany did indeed understand our Wal-Mart and Ozark Christian College worlds at a fairly intimate level. She had spent some serious time getting to know us.
The book itself is not always up my alley. Bethany is still a gender and labor historian, and those are fields that don't thrill me very much. But in the second half of the book, Bethany offers some profound reflections that I haven't heard anyone else encapsulate quite so well.
1) The service industry in the south goes directly from farm service to retail service without ever really participating in the heirarchical industrial period where "service" is defined more as "servitude." That unique historical transition requires a completely different way of creating and harnessing service work.
2) Wal-Mart figures out how to do that work somewhat by accident as the employees of the eventual behemoth teach the leadership about what they need. Sam Walton and others are willing students, but they didn't really plan in advance how to "exploit" the abilities of their workforce. They just figured out how to get in front of the parade once it was already going.
3) That parade was driven by working mothers who wanted flexibility and respect in a community-friendly environment. Wal-Mart gave it to them, not the other way around. Exchanging labor for money in typical "industrial society" formats was much lower on the totem pole for all involved.
4) With "Service" largely unmoored from its industrial base, Christian interpretations of service became much more prominent with these working mothers being lauded and elevated as the pinnacle of what the company was about, even if they weren't being paid the most.
5) These Christian connections spiraled out to various organizations, such as SIFE, WISP, Christian colleges, various churches, etc. Wal-Mart was not a Christian company, but the "Wal-Mart Way" and Christian understandings of service and free enterprise dovetailed nicely to form a new service-oriented mentality.
6) This happy story has its usual embellishments and hypocracies involved (Sam didn't really start out poor, Wal-Mart got lots of money and support from the government, Christianity doesn't sit as easily with capitalism as these parties often seemed to indicate, etc.), but in general, the various players were sincere in their ideas and arguments, which is why this synergy has been so effective for so long.
At least that's my understanding of what Bethany had to say. We're looking at inviting her to JBU sometime this year, so perhaps I'll find out then whether my interpretations of her conclusions are on target.
The book itself is not always up my alley. Bethany is still a gender and labor historian, and those are fields that don't thrill me very much. But in the second half of the book, Bethany offers some profound reflections that I haven't heard anyone else encapsulate quite so well.
1) The service industry in the south goes directly from farm service to retail service without ever really participating in the heirarchical industrial period where "service" is defined more as "servitude." That unique historical transition requires a completely different way of creating and harnessing service work.
2) Wal-Mart figures out how to do that work somewhat by accident as the employees of the eventual behemoth teach the leadership about what they need. Sam Walton and others are willing students, but they didn't really plan in advance how to "exploit" the abilities of their workforce. They just figured out how to get in front of the parade once it was already going.
3) That parade was driven by working mothers who wanted flexibility and respect in a community-friendly environment. Wal-Mart gave it to them, not the other way around. Exchanging labor for money in typical "industrial society" formats was much lower on the totem pole for all involved.
4) With "Service" largely unmoored from its industrial base, Christian interpretations of service became much more prominent with these working mothers being lauded and elevated as the pinnacle of what the company was about, even if they weren't being paid the most.
5) These Christian connections spiraled out to various organizations, such as SIFE, WISP, Christian colleges, various churches, etc. Wal-Mart was not a Christian company, but the "Wal-Mart Way" and Christian understandings of service and free enterprise dovetailed nicely to form a new service-oriented mentality.
6) This happy story has its usual embellishments and hypocracies involved (Sam didn't really start out poor, Wal-Mart got lots of money and support from the government, Christianity doesn't sit as easily with capitalism as these parties often seemed to indicate, etc.), but in general, the various players were sincere in their ideas and arguments, which is why this synergy has been so effective for so long.
At least that's my understanding of what Bethany had to say. We're looking at inviting her to JBU sometime this year, so perhaps I'll find out then whether my interpretations of her conclusions are on target.
Review of Smith's "Desiring the Kingdom"
I've looked through (read the intro and conclusion and skimmed the rest) Smith's new book, the first in his three volume "Cultural Liturgies" about spiritual formation. With that brief of a survey, I may not have understood the nuances of all of Smith's ideas, but my short response is that I didn't really like it. Maybe I'm just too wedded to the Calvin "world and life view" approach that he's rejecting (or at least the straw man version of that view that he's rejecting), but I much preferred Crouch's "Culture Making" approach to Smith's "spiritual formation ueber alles" argument. I can certainly understand, however, why a number of people at JBU might be more sympathetic than I am, at the very least for the support he would offer to the "spiritual formation" discussion and the challenges he would make to much of what we're currently doing.
Smith notes on page 219 (in footnote 6) that people have resisted some of his ideas (that the university is a subset of the church, that it should function more like a monastery, and that it should replace worldview language with spiritual formation language) for four reasons: it makes the university an extension of Sunday school, it violates "sphere sovereignty" separations, "spiritual formation" language is often considered too "fuzzy" and too dominated by SD folk, and, most importantly, we in contemporary culture are too wedded to modern (and almost "evil") notions of liberal autonomy when we should be returning instead to previous ancient and medieval understandings of human nature. I am guilty as charged, especially on that last one. I do not want some spiritual formation "philosopher kings" requiring me to participate in their specially designed set of discipline-focused small group activities, which is pretty much what Smith proposes in the last chapter as being the only "Christian" education worth its salt. Blech! I am actually joining a small group at church based on the work of James B. Smith (of Friends) that will emphasize spiritual disciplines, but hey, that's my choice, not something imposed on me by the spiritual formation cognoscenti.
In short, while I find Smith's arguments interesting and sometimes in keeping with my Episcopal inclinations, and while I can see how conversations with him might be valuable for a lot of people at JBU, I personally have very little desire to have his ideas become the centerpiece of a lot of our strategic planning work the way that Crouch's book so helpfully is becoming such a centerpiece. If we took Smith seriously, for example, we probably could not use the word "excellent" in our list of values, we would probably have to include words like "spiritual formation," "worship," or "liturgy" in our list of values, we'd probably have to shift from calling ourselves "interdenominational" to "nondenominational" (you have to be connected to some specific church in order to do Christian education, right?), and we'd have to up-end much of our Core Curriculum as well as our approach to integration of faith and learning. I would personally oppose all of those moves.
In short, it's not my cup of tea. Then again, neither was Wolterstorff, whose "Until Justice and Peace Embrace" ideas seem to undergird some of this work.
Smith notes on page 219 (in footnote 6) that people have resisted some of his ideas (that the university is a subset of the church, that it should function more like a monastery, and that it should replace worldview language with spiritual formation language) for four reasons: it makes the university an extension of Sunday school, it violates "sphere sovereignty" separations, "spiritual formation" language is often considered too "fuzzy" and too dominated by SD folk, and, most importantly, we in contemporary culture are too wedded to modern (and almost "evil") notions of liberal autonomy when we should be returning instead to previous ancient and medieval understandings of human nature. I am guilty as charged, especially on that last one. I do not want some spiritual formation "philosopher kings" requiring me to participate in their specially designed set of discipline-focused small group activities, which is pretty much what Smith proposes in the last chapter as being the only "Christian" education worth its salt. Blech! I am actually joining a small group at church based on the work of James B. Smith (of Friends) that will emphasize spiritual disciplines, but hey, that's my choice, not something imposed on me by the spiritual formation cognoscenti.
In short, while I find Smith's arguments interesting and sometimes in keeping with my Episcopal inclinations, and while I can see how conversations with him might be valuable for a lot of people at JBU, I personally have very little desire to have his ideas become the centerpiece of a lot of our strategic planning work the way that Crouch's book so helpfully is becoming such a centerpiece. If we took Smith seriously, for example, we probably could not use the word "excellent" in our list of values, we would probably have to include words like "spiritual formation," "worship," or "liturgy" in our list of values, we'd probably have to shift from calling ourselves "interdenominational" to "nondenominational" (you have to be connected to some specific church in order to do Christian education, right?), and we'd have to up-end much of our Core Curriculum as well as our approach to integration of faith and learning. I would personally oppose all of those moves.
In short, it's not my cup of tea. Then again, neither was Wolterstorff, whose "Until Justice and Peace Embrace" ideas seem to undergird some of this work.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Review of "Why College Matters to God"
Finished up my former colleague Rick Ostrander's "Why College Matters to God." It's an updated and much refined version of a course pack he (and others) had put together for our Gateway to Christian Scholarship course. It's a really first-rate summation of the general thinking in Christian circles about why college matters and what students should be attempting to accomplish in their time in college. The real test for me is that I kept thinking throughout the book, "dang, why wasn't there something like this for me when I was student in college?" It's a great way to introduce students to the whole Christian college experience, and hopefully some of our parents and alums will read it as well?
More problems with USN&WR's "peer assessment" rankings
More concern about the "peer assessment" piece of USNWR, this time related to the grad side. To me, this has always been the least helpful part of the USN&WR reports, especially for smaller schools like ours. What's interesting is that even for the R1 schools, the evidence would seem to indicate that this part of the system is less than ideal.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/17/rankings
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/17/rankings
Concerns about the 3-year degree option
With all of the talk in favor of the 3-year degree option, this "con" article was helpful. The basic argument is that accelerated learning might work for adults (a point Dick is always making to me about why the Advance cutoff should stay at 23), but for 18-22 year olds, the "slow cooking" process of 4+ years is more appropriate.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/08/17/durden
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/08/17/durden
Monday, July 27, 2009
More application of "Nudge" theory
Actually read the book, and I wrote my usual half a dozen e-mails with various ideas of how we might apply these concepts to JBU. Here's the very long cut and paste version.
- One of their clear recommendations is something called "Save More Tomorrow" which essentially sets the "default" for future paychecks to have employees save more for retirement. The idea is that people should save and want to save, but have a very difficult time cutting anything they're currently spending on. But if the extra savings come first (via the default choice) before people can start spending the extra money, then inertia takes over and people save more and more. Here's the abstract from the original academic paper attached below.
There is a growing concern that many people are not saving enough for retirement. This paper introduces a saving-enhancement plan called Save More Tomorrow (hereafter, the "SMarT" plan). The essence of the plan is straightforward: people commit in advance to allocate a portion of their future salary increases towards retirement savings. This paper also provides evidence on the first implementation of the SMarT plan. Our key findings are the following. 1. Most people (78%) who were offered the SMarT plan elected to use it. 2. Virtually everyone (98%) who joined the plan remained in it through two pay raises, and the vast majority (80%) remained in it through the third pay raise. 3. The average saving rates for SMarT plan participants increased from 3.5% to 11.6% over the course of 28 months. We are hopeful that the results of this first implementation will encourage other employers to implement the SMarT plan.
http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/save-more.pdf
- Another core argument the authors make is that in situations requiring complex choice, people are better off if an expert can help summarize options and "nudge" people toward certain possibilities. Here are some examples of these problems in the Business Office area at JBU, at least in my estimation.
1) How much should I set aside for my 125 plan? I go to all of the information sessions, I think I'm one of the most knowledgeable people on campus when it comes to health care options, and it's still a pain for me, so I mostly just go with whatever I did last year. That leads me to two thoughts. First, if I am going to just stick with my past behavior, why can't the form that I get just start with what I did last year instead of asking me to recalculate everything again. If I want to make changes, great, but if not, all I should have to do is sign the thing and turn it back. Better yet, if I don't sign anything, my past pattern should just roll forward. Second, why can't our computer system spit out a form with my basic information already on it instead of having me have to ask people all sorts of questions before I can fill out the form.
2) How should I choose my TIAA-CREF percentages? I know that we have experts with whom employees can consult, but it's inconvenient and most don't spend the time (I certainly haven't). Furthermore, there's way too many choices for the vast majority of people to choose from. My 529 plan makes it easy. I have three "risk" options: conservative, moderate, and aggressive. And then I plug in the age of the person involved. The system then picks a mix of investments that fit my attributes. Ethan is in aggressive/age 4, and the "lifestyle" matrix takes it from there. Unfortunately, TIAA-CREF doesn't have such a thing but instead is proliferating possible choices. Again, I'm fairly well educated on such matters, but I'm still at something of a loss as to what to choose. Could we not create our own matrix along the lines of what my 529 does that would help people to choose good portfolios? My understanding is that the federal government now grants employers "safe harbor" in giving such advice, so I think we'd be okay on the institutional risk side, so other than some time to create the basic matrix (and we could pretty much just copy what some of the standard "lifetime investing" plans do), why not do this?
3) What JBU plans and options should I enroll in? Again, I'm pretty well informed, so I think I'm signed up for the best options, but there's so many, that I'm not sure. And some people aren't even signing up for some of the basic plans that they really should be in (retirement match, 125, 529, preventative care, etc.). When we give everyone their paperwork, could we "default" people into the plans that we know they should be doing and not into the ones that are questionable (like cancer, vision, etc.) and then let people choose from there?
4) When do my contracts, health plans, 125 plans, etc. start and stop? It's confusing, especially when people switch from one type of contract to another. Is there any way we can sync these all to the same start and stop dates as the basic default in order to cut down on the confusion?
- Another argument from the "Nudge" book is that trying to mandate from the top changes in "bad" behavior often runs into significant opposition. Even trying to change the incentives is difficult to sell to people. The authors give examples of pollution (banning carbon emissions is very tough and incentive schemes like cap and trade are only marginally easier to sell). But often, simply giving people more information suffices, especially if that information is associated with some sort of positive financial incentive (people "feel" a lot more pain when something is "taken away" than when they "receive"something).
One JBU application is how Facilities and SGA ran that "captain planet" (or whatever we're calling it) scheme. As I understand it, there were only two mechanisms, information about how much each building saved compared to a previous time frame and then rewards to those who did the best.
What I might propose for JBU is an expansion of what we did with the dorms to the rest of the campus buildings. Facilities would disseminate information (via the Weekly Beat connected to a website?) on how much energy each building used compared to some past patterns (1 year, 3 year, 5 year?) with some prizes or financial rewards for the people in the building that did the best job of reducing energy consumption. Facilities could then add descriptions of ways to save energy to make it easier for people to know what to do. We might appoint building "captains" to lead the campaign in each building as well.
In short, we'd provide information and small financial incentives but no real coercion or major incentive systems. That seems to have worked for the dorms in the ways these authors contend should happen. Perhaps it would work for the rest of the campus as well?
- Here’s one more idea that came up near the end of the book. Upgrade our Wellness program. The authors refer to Destiny Health’s (http://www.destinyhealth.com/) “vitality” program as an example of what can be done. We’re currently offering a deductible rebate of $200 for Wellness checkups and filling out the on-line information form. “Vitality” expands that idea to a range of “good” activities (taking CPR classes, working out, donating blood, and other “measurable” activities) and then give “vitality bucks” (reward points) based on those activities that can be turned in for various things (airline miles, merchandise, vacations, etc.). I’m not sure I’d like us to go the commercial route that this big-time Midwest health company is doing, but I would like to see two changes in our Wellness program. First, I’d like to see more “measurable” options added to the list of Wellness activities that would be rewarded (including, perhaps, taking advantage of the already existing free Wellness screenings) combined with more reward for doing these additional options (i.e. doing another round of raising the deductible and then giving more deductible credits when people do these various activities). Second, I’d like to see the reward be more tangible than a deductible credit. It’s hard, even for a sophisticated user like me, to know that I really got the benefit of doing these activities, and for many people, it really didn’t matter because most people never met the deductible. As I said, the commercial route is a bit hard for me to imagine here at JBU, but something more concrete would be nice. Obviously, I’d like to see us go to the whole system that a company like Destiny Health is offering (HSAs, Wellness programs, educational efforts), but I’d be happy for now to see us continue down our Wellness road and expand that project another step along the lines of this “vitality” concept.
- One of the ideas is to undermine bad behaviors by bringing the issue constantly to someone’s attention with small payments. One specific example is a “dollar a day” for teenage girls in high risk schools for not getting pregnant. The city involved saves way more money than the program costs because of the reduced number of teenage pregnancies.
Another idea to help people avoid bad behavior is to have a certain amount contributed to some fund. If the person involved fails to meet the terms of that fund, all of the money is lost. The example the authors give is a smoking cessation program over six months in which people contribute the amount of money they would have spent on cigarettes to this fund, and then they have to get tested at regular intervals to see if they have been smoking. If they fail the test, they lose the money. Supposedly, this program has seen great success (53% more likely to stop smoking, even better than the nicotine patch).
So what does this have to do with JBU? Perhaps there could be some application on the SD side with students who have violated some policy or another (like the old cussing jars where people who do something we don’t like have to contribute a “fine” each day/week/month to a pot that they can get back if they avoid any further bad actions for a certain length of time). A Philosophy prof at our sister school Trinity Western in Canada appears to be doing a version of this by rewarding students who foreswear social networking. I can see Preston, for example, leading a campaign to get students to spend more time studying by quitting watching TV in which people contribute a buck a day if they don’t watch TV, a pot that will go to a charity if they do cave and start watching again. (Come to think of it, that’s something I should do!) Maybe SGA or Honors could match the money people contribute for those willing to participate in order to add some additional incentive (or maybe give prizes to the dorm wings who have the highest participation)? The basic idea here is that there are certain behaviors that detract from the educational environment (TV watching, social networks, etc.) that we don’t really want to ban but that we want “nudge” our students away from. The “captain planet” approach showed how this might work when it comes to energy consumption, so perhaps we could replicate that concept to other behaviors using this kinds of incentive systems?
My real thought, however, is that we return to my earlier “pay for graduation” idea. Let’s say we add a buck a day for however long they manage to stay at JBU (roughly $75/semester to a max of $600) that they only get if they actually graduate from JBU. Students in the Aspire program would also have their Aspire fees added to this pot so that their potential “gift” at the end of their career would be even larger. I think I’ve noted this before, but I’ve seen a couple studies in which remediation/academic support was on average only mildly effective in improving graduation/retention. “Pay for performance” plans along the lines of what I’m suggesting were only a little more effective. But it was the combination of the two that proved the most effective. Which brings me back to the idea that ASPIRE might serve as a useful test case if we’re not yet ready to investigate this kind of idea for the campus as a whole.
- A couple random final thoughts.
1) Publicity campaigns based on what you might “lose.” I know lots of us dislike some of this type of advertising, but the authors’ argument is that people feel the pain of loss at least twice as much as the advantage of gain, so you’re better off advertising to what people might lose if they don’t do some action (such as finishing your degree or attending your type of institution) instead of what they might get from doing this particular action (“framing” in advertising lingo?). Our recent billboard about the gap in pay between college grads and high school grads, for example, might have been better expressed, according to this theory, as a subtraction (how much people “lose” every year from not having a college degree). Even better, suggest the authors, would be to put this loss in more concrete terms (a new truck every year, for example, though that might be too difficult to express in a billboard). I know Steve Henderson recommends this direction as well in terms of CCCU advertising (highlighting the problems of the “other,” such as safety, undermining of faith, etc.), probably because it works. In my history classes, I always argued that revolutions occurred not because people were poor but because people feared that something was being (or was going to be) taken away from them. Again, the fear of loss is the key motivator in getting people to act.
2) Ways to attract Jr. High and High School students. Often, the big hurdles to applying for college are about procedure and planning. People don’t start saving early enough, then don’t know how to fill out an application or a FAFSA, etc. The authors suggest a few ideas that you might consider exploring.
- An H&R Block study in Ohio where a FAFSA software package was included for people likely to qualify for federal and state money which then took their tax info directly into the FAFSA making that application much easier to fill out and thereby increasing the number of people who applied for college and got financial aid.
- A San Marcos High School/Austin Community College partnership to increase Hispanic applications where the high school required for graduation that every student fill out a college application and take a free standard admissions test. Students were “sold” on the idea with the explanation of how much they would lose if they didn’t go to college (see point #1, and the argument was made on the basis, again see point #1, on what kind of car they could buy). Parents could attend free weekend sessions with tax consultants and financial aid people.
- Another Ohio study to get people to enroll in 529s so that they’ll be more able to pay for college later helps people get over the initial inertia by bribing them with some start-up money and free support to fill out the forms. As with the authors’ “Save More Tomorrow” concept, people think they should save for college, and want to save for college, but have difficulty getting past the initial hurdles. Once you start them on the process, however, they’re much more likely to stick with it, making them more likely to attend college later, which is why this effort is focused on middle school kids so that they have time to save (http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~longbr/529_Proposal_-_Bettinger_Long_Oreopoulos_6-08_proposal.pdf).
Taken individually, these ideas make some sense, but what about some type of combined effort designed primarily to increase the number of Siloam kids and/or area Hispanic kids coming to JBU. Here’s my thought. We’d create a partnership with at least four entities—JBU, NWACC, Siloam Springs Public School District, and a local tax company (H&R Block?). We’d then do the following six things.
1) The school district would require to graduate that all of their students fill out college applications to NWACC and JBU and take a standardized test. The school district would provide the facilities and the students and be the central coordinating entity. They get to brag about their outreach efforts and their increased number of college-going students.
2) JBU and NWACC would provide experts to help with the applications and the FAFSA. We get additional students coming to our institutions.
3) H&R Block would provide free FAFSA software and tax support. They get to sell their services because if you’ve done your taxes with H&R Block, the software converts that information onto the FAFSA. And we’d likely be doing this during tax season anyways.
4) JBU would offer 529 enrollments, something NWACC probably doesn’t care about. Preferably, there’d be some sort of bribe involved like $100 to do so.
5) It would be great if the city, the school district, some local philanthropist, etc. could help fund all of these efforts (the costs for the standardized tests, the “bribe” money for the 529 plans, our costs for the college applications, etc.
6) And then we could invite more area Hispanics to this project, expanding off of what we’re already doing with inviting some Hispanics to JBU.
Obviously, this is a pretty complicated endeavor with only a hypothetical payback. If we’d like to pilot the idea instead on a much smaller group, perhaps we could start with a version of this for just the Hispanic students that we’re already inviting to JBU? They’re the main group that I’d like to see us find ways to connect to JBU, so perhaps being able to help them get over some of the procedural and planning hurdles that might confront them would be beneficial in targeting these students?
- One of their clear recommendations is something called "Save More Tomorrow" which essentially sets the "default" for future paychecks to have employees save more for retirement. The idea is that people should save and want to save, but have a very difficult time cutting anything they're currently spending on. But if the extra savings come first (via the default choice) before people can start spending the extra money, then inertia takes over and people save more and more. Here's the abstract from the original academic paper attached below.
There is a growing concern that many people are not saving enough for retirement. This paper introduces a saving-enhancement plan called Save More Tomorrow (hereafter, the "SMarT" plan). The essence of the plan is straightforward: people commit in advance to allocate a portion of their future salary increases towards retirement savings. This paper also provides evidence on the first implementation of the SMarT plan. Our key findings are the following. 1. Most people (78%) who were offered the SMarT plan elected to use it. 2. Virtually everyone (98%) who joined the plan remained in it through two pay raises, and the vast majority (80%) remained in it through the third pay raise. 3. The average saving rates for SMarT plan participants increased from 3.5% to 11.6% over the course of 28 months. We are hopeful that the results of this first implementation will encourage other employers to implement the SMarT plan.
http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/save-more.pdf
- Another core argument the authors make is that in situations requiring complex choice, people are better off if an expert can help summarize options and "nudge" people toward certain possibilities. Here are some examples of these problems in the Business Office area at JBU, at least in my estimation.
1) How much should I set aside for my 125 plan? I go to all of the information sessions, I think I'm one of the most knowledgeable people on campus when it comes to health care options, and it's still a pain for me, so I mostly just go with whatever I did last year. That leads me to two thoughts. First, if I am going to just stick with my past behavior, why can't the form that I get just start with what I did last year instead of asking me to recalculate everything again. If I want to make changes, great, but if not, all I should have to do is sign the thing and turn it back. Better yet, if I don't sign anything, my past pattern should just roll forward. Second, why can't our computer system spit out a form with my basic information already on it instead of having me have to ask people all sorts of questions before I can fill out the form.
2) How should I choose my TIAA-CREF percentages? I know that we have experts with whom employees can consult, but it's inconvenient and most don't spend the time (I certainly haven't). Furthermore, there's way too many choices for the vast majority of people to choose from. My 529 plan makes it easy. I have three "risk" options: conservative, moderate, and aggressive. And then I plug in the age of the person involved. The system then picks a mix of investments that fit my attributes. Ethan is in aggressive/age 4, and the "lifestyle" matrix takes it from there. Unfortunately, TIAA-CREF doesn't have such a thing but instead is proliferating possible choices. Again, I'm fairly well educated on such matters, but I'm still at something of a loss as to what to choose. Could we not create our own matrix along the lines of what my 529 does that would help people to choose good portfolios? My understanding is that the federal government now grants employers "safe harbor" in giving such advice, so I think we'd be okay on the institutional risk side, so other than some time to create the basic matrix (and we could pretty much just copy what some of the standard "lifetime investing" plans do), why not do this?
3) What JBU plans and options should I enroll in? Again, I'm pretty well informed, so I think I'm signed up for the best options, but there's so many, that I'm not sure. And some people aren't even signing up for some of the basic plans that they really should be in (retirement match, 125, 529, preventative care, etc.). When we give everyone their paperwork, could we "default" people into the plans that we know they should be doing and not into the ones that are questionable (like cancer, vision, etc.) and then let people choose from there?
4) When do my contracts, health plans, 125 plans, etc. start and stop? It's confusing, especially when people switch from one type of contract to another. Is there any way we can sync these all to the same start and stop dates as the basic default in order to cut down on the confusion?
- Another argument from the "Nudge" book is that trying to mandate from the top changes in "bad" behavior often runs into significant opposition. Even trying to change the incentives is difficult to sell to people. The authors give examples of pollution (banning carbon emissions is very tough and incentive schemes like cap and trade are only marginally easier to sell). But often, simply giving people more information suffices, especially if that information is associated with some sort of positive financial incentive (people "feel" a lot more pain when something is "taken away" than when they "receive"something).
One JBU application is how Facilities and SGA ran that "captain planet" (or whatever we're calling it) scheme. As I understand it, there were only two mechanisms, information about how much each building saved compared to a previous time frame and then rewards to those who did the best.
What I might propose for JBU is an expansion of what we did with the dorms to the rest of the campus buildings. Facilities would disseminate information (via the Weekly Beat connected to a website?) on how much energy each building used compared to some past patterns (1 year, 3 year, 5 year?) with some prizes or financial rewards for the people in the building that did the best job of reducing energy consumption. Facilities could then add descriptions of ways to save energy to make it easier for people to know what to do. We might appoint building "captains" to lead the campaign in each building as well.
In short, we'd provide information and small financial incentives but no real coercion or major incentive systems. That seems to have worked for the dorms in the ways these authors contend should happen. Perhaps it would work for the rest of the campus as well?
- Here’s one more idea that came up near the end of the book. Upgrade our Wellness program. The authors refer to Destiny Health’s (http://www.destinyhealth.com/) “vitality” program as an example of what can be done. We’re currently offering a deductible rebate of $200 for Wellness checkups and filling out the on-line information form. “Vitality” expands that idea to a range of “good” activities (taking CPR classes, working out, donating blood, and other “measurable” activities) and then give “vitality bucks” (reward points) based on those activities that can be turned in for various things (airline miles, merchandise, vacations, etc.). I’m not sure I’d like us to go the commercial route that this big-time Midwest health company is doing, but I would like to see two changes in our Wellness program. First, I’d like to see more “measurable” options added to the list of Wellness activities that would be rewarded (including, perhaps, taking advantage of the already existing free Wellness screenings) combined with more reward for doing these additional options (i.e. doing another round of raising the deductible and then giving more deductible credits when people do these various activities). Second, I’d like to see the reward be more tangible than a deductible credit. It’s hard, even for a sophisticated user like me, to know that I really got the benefit of doing these activities, and for many people, it really didn’t matter because most people never met the deductible. As I said, the commercial route is a bit hard for me to imagine here at JBU, but something more concrete would be nice. Obviously, I’d like to see us go to the whole system that a company like Destiny Health is offering (HSAs, Wellness programs, educational efforts), but I’d be happy for now to see us continue down our Wellness road and expand that project another step along the lines of this “vitality” concept.
- One of the ideas is to undermine bad behaviors by bringing the issue constantly to someone’s attention with small payments. One specific example is a “dollar a day” for teenage girls in high risk schools for not getting pregnant. The city involved saves way more money than the program costs because of the reduced number of teenage pregnancies.
Another idea to help people avoid bad behavior is to have a certain amount contributed to some fund. If the person involved fails to meet the terms of that fund, all of the money is lost. The example the authors give is a smoking cessation program over six months in which people contribute the amount of money they would have spent on cigarettes to this fund, and then they have to get tested at regular intervals to see if they have been smoking. If they fail the test, they lose the money. Supposedly, this program has seen great success (53% more likely to stop smoking, even better than the nicotine patch).
So what does this have to do with JBU? Perhaps there could be some application on the SD side with students who have violated some policy or another (like the old cussing jars where people who do something we don’t like have to contribute a “fine” each day/week/month to a pot that they can get back if they avoid any further bad actions for a certain length of time). A Philosophy prof at our sister school Trinity Western in Canada appears to be doing a version of this by rewarding students who foreswear social networking. I can see Preston, for example, leading a campaign to get students to spend more time studying by quitting watching TV in which people contribute a buck a day if they don’t watch TV, a pot that will go to a charity if they do cave and start watching again. (Come to think of it, that’s something I should do!) Maybe SGA or Honors could match the money people contribute for those willing to participate in order to add some additional incentive (or maybe give prizes to the dorm wings who have the highest participation)? The basic idea here is that there are certain behaviors that detract from the educational environment (TV watching, social networks, etc.) that we don’t really want to ban but that we want “nudge” our students away from. The “captain planet” approach showed how this might work when it comes to energy consumption, so perhaps we could replicate that concept to other behaviors using this kinds of incentive systems?
My real thought, however, is that we return to my earlier “pay for graduation” idea. Let’s say we add a buck a day for however long they manage to stay at JBU (roughly $75/semester to a max of $600) that they only get if they actually graduate from JBU. Students in the Aspire program would also have their Aspire fees added to this pot so that their potential “gift” at the end of their career would be even larger. I think I’ve noted this before, but I’ve seen a couple studies in which remediation/academic support was on average only mildly effective in improving graduation/retention. “Pay for performance” plans along the lines of what I’m suggesting were only a little more effective. But it was the combination of the two that proved the most effective. Which brings me back to the idea that ASPIRE might serve as a useful test case if we’re not yet ready to investigate this kind of idea for the campus as a whole.
- A couple random final thoughts.
1) Publicity campaigns based on what you might “lose.” I know lots of us dislike some of this type of advertising, but the authors’ argument is that people feel the pain of loss at least twice as much as the advantage of gain, so you’re better off advertising to what people might lose if they don’t do some action (such as finishing your degree or attending your type of institution) instead of what they might get from doing this particular action (“framing” in advertising lingo?). Our recent billboard about the gap in pay between college grads and high school grads, for example, might have been better expressed, according to this theory, as a subtraction (how much people “lose” every year from not having a college degree). Even better, suggest the authors, would be to put this loss in more concrete terms (a new truck every year, for example, though that might be too difficult to express in a billboard). I know Steve Henderson recommends this direction as well in terms of CCCU advertising (highlighting the problems of the “other,” such as safety, undermining of faith, etc.), probably because it works. In my history classes, I always argued that revolutions occurred not because people were poor but because people feared that something was being (or was going to be) taken away from them. Again, the fear of loss is the key motivator in getting people to act.
2) Ways to attract Jr. High and High School students. Often, the big hurdles to applying for college are about procedure and planning. People don’t start saving early enough, then don’t know how to fill out an application or a FAFSA, etc. The authors suggest a few ideas that you might consider exploring.
- An H&R Block study in Ohio where a FAFSA software package was included for people likely to qualify for federal and state money which then took their tax info directly into the FAFSA making that application much easier to fill out and thereby increasing the number of people who applied for college and got financial aid.
- A San Marcos High School/Austin Community College partnership to increase Hispanic applications where the high school required for graduation that every student fill out a college application and take a free standard admissions test. Students were “sold” on the idea with the explanation of how much they would lose if they didn’t go to college (see point #1, and the argument was made on the basis, again see point #1, on what kind of car they could buy). Parents could attend free weekend sessions with tax consultants and financial aid people.
- Another Ohio study to get people to enroll in 529s so that they’ll be more able to pay for college later helps people get over the initial inertia by bribing them with some start-up money and free support to fill out the forms. As with the authors’ “Save More Tomorrow” concept, people think they should save for college, and want to save for college, but have difficulty getting past the initial hurdles. Once you start them on the process, however, they’re much more likely to stick with it, making them more likely to attend college later, which is why this effort is focused on middle school kids so that they have time to save (http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~longbr/529_Proposal_-_Bettinger_Long_Oreopoulos_6-08_proposal.pdf).
Taken individually, these ideas make some sense, but what about some type of combined effort designed primarily to increase the number of Siloam kids and/or area Hispanic kids coming to JBU. Here’s my thought. We’d create a partnership with at least four entities—JBU, NWACC, Siloam Springs Public School District, and a local tax company (H&R Block?). We’d then do the following six things.
1) The school district would require to graduate that all of their students fill out college applications to NWACC and JBU and take a standardized test. The school district would provide the facilities and the students and be the central coordinating entity. They get to brag about their outreach efforts and their increased number of college-going students.
2) JBU and NWACC would provide experts to help with the applications and the FAFSA. We get additional students coming to our institutions.
3) H&R Block would provide free FAFSA software and tax support. They get to sell their services because if you’ve done your taxes with H&R Block, the software converts that information onto the FAFSA. And we’d likely be doing this during tax season anyways.
4) JBU would offer 529 enrollments, something NWACC probably doesn’t care about. Preferably, there’d be some sort of bribe involved like $100 to do so.
5) It would be great if the city, the school district, some local philanthropist, etc. could help fund all of these efforts (the costs for the standardized tests, the “bribe” money for the 529 plans, our costs for the college applications, etc.
6) And then we could invite more area Hispanics to this project, expanding off of what we’re already doing with inviting some Hispanics to JBU.
Obviously, this is a pretty complicated endeavor with only a hypothetical payback. If we’d like to pilot the idea instead on a much smaller group, perhaps we could start with a version of this for just the Hispanic students that we’re already inviting to JBU? They’re the main group that I’d like to see us find ways to connect to JBU, so perhaps being able to help them get over some of the procedural and planning hurdles that might confront them would be beneficial in targeting these students?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Applying "nudge" theory to higher education
“Nudge” is the book I’m taking with me for my “fun” reading on vacation. Here’s a Chronicle story about using that book as the common reading for incoming Freshmen and some of the ideas a prof had about applying its theories to an academic context (having all employees automatically enrolled in retirement and benefit plans with mechanisms to opt out, ditto for all students with a certain GPA to be automatically enrolled in Honors with opt-out possibilities, etc.).
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/07/2009070201c.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/07/2009070201c.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Monday, June 29, 2009
On-line vs. Face to Face Education
The bottom line of this meta-analysis is that on-line education in general provides better educational outcomes than face-to-face education, and that "blended" education does even better. But the reason these formats perform better is not, apparently, the medium involved but that on-line and blended typically require of the student more effort. This gets back to the arguments I was just reading in "Outliers" which emphasizes the importance of "time on task" and argues, as a consequence, for longer school years. Academic rigor and time on task, in other words, are the key to effective learning, not the medium by which that education takes place.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/online
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/online
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Theory of Multiple Intelligences Debunked?
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i39/39ferguson.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Too bad, too, cause I really liked this theory. Fit well with the whole “strengths” idea.
Too bad, too, cause I really liked this theory. Fit well with the whole “strengths” idea.
Monday, June 15, 2009
"No frills," History only college
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/15/history
Interesting experiment in combining low cost (at least for a private liberal arts university) with high quality. It's likely that you can only do this kind of thing in niche markets, but perhaps this "art school" approach could become mor prevalent in an age of specialization?
Interesting experiment in combining low cost (at least for a private liberal arts university) with high quality. It's likely that you can only do this kind of thing in niche markets, but perhaps this "art school" approach could become mor prevalent in an age of specialization?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
6 Lessons on E-Textbooks
The short version is that e-textbooks are still just around the corner, but they are coming.
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39a01801.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i39/39a01801.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
Review of "The Wisdom of the Crowds"
I must be reading too many of these social science/business books because I'm starting to see the same stories show up over and over again. Look, here's a "prisoner dilemma" story. Hey, there's a "wisdom of the crowds" story. Oh gee, another "tipping point" story. Golly, another "Freakonomics" application of economic analysis to real-world problems. A few themes I've noticed in all of these works.
1) Social scientists have discovered (rediscovered) that human beings are not always rational actors (the classic "ultimatum" game example comes up again and again in which people refuse "small" offers as "unfair" even if rationally they should accept them). They've therefore spent a lot of time in the last few decades trying to figure out exactly how and why people act irrationally. A lot of this material is very interesting, but anyone coming from a Christian perspective (in which we assume a fallen human nature) will not be very impressed with the supposedly big "aha" moments about humanity's irrational core.
2) Having said that, there really are some "aha" moments about how the human mind functions, especially in group settings. How do we cooperate, coordinate, etc. in a world full of irrational people? The "wisdom of the crowds" concept adds some basic lessons that I actually might use in my administrative work (as opposed to much of the other reading, which is more enlightening than it is directly useful). If the group really is smarter in most situations than any particular leader or expert, then knowing how to get at that group intelligence (by meeting the four criteria of diversity of opinion, independence of thought, sufficient knowledge, and a reliable means of aggregating the data) can help provide valueable insights. We already follow some of these concepts, for instance, in our budgeting prioritization process, and I hope to run a prediction market on our enrollment number this coming year as well.
3) Good stories matter. All of these books are well written and contain lively anecdotes. I sometimes feel as if I'm being bamboozled a bit (especially reading Gladwell) in which I'm being proselytized with anecdotes to believe that data is the answer (a bit of a contradiction, eh?), but these books all carry one away with the force of their basic ideas and the charm of their stories. "Wisdom of the Crowds" certainly fits that pattern as well.
1) Social scientists have discovered (rediscovered) that human beings are not always rational actors (the classic "ultimatum" game example comes up again and again in which people refuse "small" offers as "unfair" even if rationally they should accept them). They've therefore spent a lot of time in the last few decades trying to figure out exactly how and why people act irrationally. A lot of this material is very interesting, but anyone coming from a Christian perspective (in which we assume a fallen human nature) will not be very impressed with the supposedly big "aha" moments about humanity's irrational core.
2) Having said that, there really are some "aha" moments about how the human mind functions, especially in group settings. How do we cooperate, coordinate, etc. in a world full of irrational people? The "wisdom of the crowds" concept adds some basic lessons that I actually might use in my administrative work (as opposed to much of the other reading, which is more enlightening than it is directly useful). If the group really is smarter in most situations than any particular leader or expert, then knowing how to get at that group intelligence (by meeting the four criteria of diversity of opinion, independence of thought, sufficient knowledge, and a reliable means of aggregating the data) can help provide valueable insights. We already follow some of these concepts, for instance, in our budgeting prioritization process, and I hope to run a prediction market on our enrollment number this coming year as well.
3) Good stories matter. All of these books are well written and contain lively anecdotes. I sometimes feel as if I'm being bamboozled a bit (especially reading Gladwell) in which I'm being proselytized with anecdotes to believe that data is the answer (a bit of a contradiction, eh?), but these books all carry one away with the force of their basic ideas and the charm of their stories. "Wisdom of the Crowds" certainly fits that pattern as well.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Why do universities emphasize research?
I'm partial to the "consumption good" argument that faculty members generally like to do research (either for personal or socialization reasons), so supporting research helps keep quality minds engaged at your institution.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/28/nber
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/28/nber
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Do CEO's Matter?
From The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/steve-jobs
The short answer appears to be "having a leader" matters, but since most leaders are relatively close in ability and since most times and most organizations don't really have great need for strong, clear leadership, "who" that leader is, usually doesn't matter all that much . . . unless you're in a crisis period, working for a closed & heirarchical organization, and in a field that typically sees lots of dramatic change. In short, Steve Jobs probably matters, but most CEOs don't have that much of an effect on the performance of an organization . . . on the positive side, that is. One bad leader, especially in an organization heavily structured around the figure of the CEO, can do incredible damage. Better to have a system that produces a string of "mediocraties" and doesn't rely overly much of the leader but on the strengths of entire organization than to have one great leader and come to rely too much of being able to replicate that great leader over and over again. All it takes is one bad apple in a leader-driven culture to destroy the work of many, many good leaders.
Business scholars have spent more than half a century of research to come to these conclusions. I think political scientists and historians could have told them something similar a few millenia ago (read the Greeks) or for sure a few centuries ago (read Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc.) about the nature of leadership in large organizations, but other than Sample and Drucker, how many leadership gurus have read the classics? Hmm . . . (spoken as an historian, obviously). :-)
The short answer appears to be "having a leader" matters, but since most leaders are relatively close in ability and since most times and most organizations don't really have great need for strong, clear leadership, "who" that leader is, usually doesn't matter all that much . . . unless you're in a crisis period, working for a closed & heirarchical organization, and in a field that typically sees lots of dramatic change. In short, Steve Jobs probably matters, but most CEOs don't have that much of an effect on the performance of an organization . . . on the positive side, that is. One bad leader, especially in an organization heavily structured around the figure of the CEO, can do incredible damage. Better to have a system that produces a string of "mediocraties" and doesn't rely overly much of the leader but on the strengths of entire organization than to have one great leader and come to rely too much of being able to replicate that great leader over and over again. All it takes is one bad apple in a leader-driven culture to destroy the work of many, many good leaders.
Business scholars have spent more than half a century of research to come to these conclusions. I think political scientists and historians could have told them something similar a few millenia ago (read the Greeks) or for sure a few centuries ago (read Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, etc.) about the nature of leadership in large organizations, but other than Sample and Drucker, how many leadership gurus have read the classics? Hmm . . . (spoken as an historian, obviously). :-)
Friday, May 22, 2009
Review of Gladwell's "Outliers"
I always enjoy reading Gladwell, but I'm also always left with this nagging feeling that I've been flim-flammed somehow. The stories tie too neatly together. The world is confused, then someone has a bold insight, and suddenly everything makes sense, and if we just implemented this great insight, the world would be a much better place. In my world, transitions are much slower and messier than in Gladwell's world, but he's a lot more interesting to listen to.
From his latest work, I've picked up a few things.
1) I'm intrigued by his argument (again, lots of people have people have been saying similar things for a long time, so the story is messier than what Gladwell presents) that IQ accounts for only so much when it comes to worldly success. In fact, there's a threshhold of about 120, beyond which, there's a serious law of diminishing returns. Other types of intelligences (emotional, practical, creative) come to the fore at that point. It would be interesting to do a study of our Honors students, for example, 10 and 20 years out. How much did success in their fields correspond to ACT, for example? We all know the anecdotes of the "C" students who made it big and the "A" students who floundered in life. And if it turns out that "leaders" aren't made in the IQ lab, then are we really privileging the "right" type of student in recruiting? I know, this goes back to the 19th century method of looking first for "character," and that method was very heirarchical and discriminatory ("character" was found in people who looked alike and came from the same social circles), but maybe they had something right that we've lost in our emphasis on IQ and cognition?
2) This argument applies also to our process for hiring good teachers. Southwest's motto is "hire for attitude, train for skill." But we cull candidates based in large part on terminal degrees, experience, and professional accomplishments such as publications. If Gladwell's right about success being determined less by innate cognitive abilities (being born a "genius") and more by socialization, practice, multiple intelligences, etc., then perhaps we have this backwards? To take a JBU example, of our top 9 professors according to our student evaluations, 8 of them are women. Women make up about 25% of our faculty but 89% of our top teachers. Furthermore, 6 of those 8 do not have terminal degrees and none had their terminal degrees when we hired them. In other words, what we "think" we should be looking for when we hire people turns out in large part to be misguided when viewed from the perspective of the main job we ask our teachers to do, namely teach.
3) Being an outlier is both easier to become (it's less about genetics and more about effort and opportunity) than one might think, but it's also harder than one might think (it takes 10 years of real effort with lots of expert support and by someone who has a lot of talent to begin with, and even then you need to hit just the right window of opportunity).
From his latest work, I've picked up a few things.
1) I'm intrigued by his argument (again, lots of people have people have been saying similar things for a long time, so the story is messier than what Gladwell presents) that IQ accounts for only so much when it comes to worldly success. In fact, there's a threshhold of about 120, beyond which, there's a serious law of diminishing returns. Other types of intelligences (emotional, practical, creative) come to the fore at that point. It would be interesting to do a study of our Honors students, for example, 10 and 20 years out. How much did success in their fields correspond to ACT, for example? We all know the anecdotes of the "C" students who made it big and the "A" students who floundered in life. And if it turns out that "leaders" aren't made in the IQ lab, then are we really privileging the "right" type of student in recruiting? I know, this goes back to the 19th century method of looking first for "character," and that method was very heirarchical and discriminatory ("character" was found in people who looked alike and came from the same social circles), but maybe they had something right that we've lost in our emphasis on IQ and cognition?
2) This argument applies also to our process for hiring good teachers. Southwest's motto is "hire for attitude, train for skill." But we cull candidates based in large part on terminal degrees, experience, and professional accomplishments such as publications. If Gladwell's right about success being determined less by innate cognitive abilities (being born a "genius") and more by socialization, practice, multiple intelligences, etc., then perhaps we have this backwards? To take a JBU example, of our top 9 professors according to our student evaluations, 8 of them are women. Women make up about 25% of our faculty but 89% of our top teachers. Furthermore, 6 of those 8 do not have terminal degrees and none had their terminal degrees when we hired them. In other words, what we "think" we should be looking for when we hire people turns out in large part to be misguided when viewed from the perspective of the main job we ask our teachers to do, namely teach.
3) Being an outlier is both easier to become (it's less about genetics and more about effort and opportunity) than one might think, but it's also harder than one might think (it takes 10 years of real effort with lots of expert support and by someone who has a lot of talent to begin with, and even then you need to hit just the right window of opportunity).
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Boring CEOs are the Best CEOs?
Oversimplified, to be sure, but the idea, which I (and probably others) first read about in Collins that great (i.e.“level 5”) business leaders tend to be humble, boring, obsessive types keeps showing up in other studies as well. You want “interesting,” go to the arts (New York, L.A.). You want “charismatic,” go to politics (D.C.). You want “effective,” go to business (Bentonville). And trying to mix these worlds (which Brooks claims that the art and political worlds are trying to do to the business community in these recessionary times) will be bad for business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“All this work is a reminder that, while it’s important to be a sensitive, well-rounded person for the sake of your inner fulfillment, the market doesn’t really care. The market wants you to fill an organizational role.
The second thing the market seems to want from leaders is a relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence.
For the same reason, business and politics do not blend well.“
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
“All this work is a reminder that, while it’s important to be a sensitive, well-rounded person for the sake of your inner fulfillment, the market doesn’t really care. The market wants you to fill an organizational role.
The second thing the market seems to want from leaders is a relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains.
For this reason, people in the literary, academic and media worlds rarely understand business. It is nearly impossible to think of a novel that accurately portrays business success. That’s because the virtues that writers tend to admire — those involving self-expression and self-exploration — are not the ones that lead to corporate excellence.
For the same reason, business and politics do not blend well.“
Monday, May 11, 2009
Show Me the Money!
“Common themes [for private universities] are that it took much more money and more creativity to fill classes this year than in the past. Merit and need-based aid were up at many institutions. Discount rates -- the percentage off published costs that students actually pay -- are also up. In many cases, college officials say that they let spending and discount rates rise this year, and that the real challenge will be next year, because they won't be able to afford similar increases.”
Our JBU experience, from what I know of it, would seem to mirror some of these national trends.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/11/enroll
Our JBU experience, from what I know of it, would seem to mirror some of these national trends.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/11/enroll
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The Harlem Miracle
Brooks is summarizing educational research from an African-American economist, Roland Fryer, about the “no excuses” approach that has been shown to work in low-income areas.
“Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&em
“Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html?_r=1&em
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Promoting big purchases (like private education) in a gift-card culture
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/gift-cards
Interesting article about how to promote buying, particularly of high dollar items and particularly in a down economy. “Myopia” refers to our short-sighted behavior of satisfying our immediate needs (eating chocolate) in preference to our long term good (losing weight). The “second mover” (our future self who hits the snooze button) almost always wins out over our current “first mover” intentions (to wake up early). Such things we’ve studied a lot.
But it turns out we often do the opposite, delay future pleasure in favor of current discipline, especially in down economic times. This pattern, economists, game theorists, etc., call “hyperopia.” To take a common example, tourists visit all of the local attractions that we as permanent residents never do. Why? Because we think we’ll always have time to do that later, so we do the chores today instead. In our JBU context, people delay going to that expensive college option today (JBU) because they say it’s better to save money now by going to a community college because the benefit of the more expensive purchase seems so far in the future that people assume they will have time to make up for what they missed out now.
So how do these theorists propose that we get people to buy now and buy expensive? Our gift card culture provides one possible answer. Turns out that when given the choice of a gift card that expires in two months versus one that expires in the 3 weeks, everyone says that they would prefer the gift card with the later expiration date and that they assume they’ll be more likely to use a later expiring card. In reality, in the test cases quoted in the article, people were five times more likely to use the card with the shorter expiration.
In other words, creating a shorter time horizon (as long as it seems a legitimate shortened time horizon) for a decision actually increases purchases. The article goes on to explain that you can leverage this pattern of thinking by connecting it to combined purchases (make a decision early for this purchase and you earn money toward another related purchase), short-term promotions, tiered shopping experiences, etc. Finally, people typically spend a little more than whatever the gift card is worth, so you increase purchases that way as well.
Okay, long way to saying that if luxury retailers are using such mechanisms to get people in the door and buying more in a down economy, perhaps we could think of similar things. What about for ERP/visit days gift cards to the bookstore that expire within a week or two? At the worst, they don’t buy anything or maybe leave with JBU paraphernalia that spreads the JBU image. At best, they buy books for their classes that help them lock in their decision. What about as an addition or a replacement to a deposit, we offer cards with amounts that they have to use for copies/cafeteria purchases within one semester. If they come to JBU, they get “money” that they may or may not spend, but it gives them added incentive to make the big purchase in order to be able to use the discount cards for their other costs at JBU?
Anyway, just some thoughts from my random reading.
Interesting article about how to promote buying, particularly of high dollar items and particularly in a down economy. “Myopia” refers to our short-sighted behavior of satisfying our immediate needs (eating chocolate) in preference to our long term good (losing weight). The “second mover” (our future self who hits the snooze button) almost always wins out over our current “first mover” intentions (to wake up early). Such things we’ve studied a lot.
But it turns out we often do the opposite, delay future pleasure in favor of current discipline, especially in down economic times. This pattern, economists, game theorists, etc., call “hyperopia.” To take a common example, tourists visit all of the local attractions that we as permanent residents never do. Why? Because we think we’ll always have time to do that later, so we do the chores today instead. In our JBU context, people delay going to that expensive college option today (JBU) because they say it’s better to save money now by going to a community college because the benefit of the more expensive purchase seems so far in the future that people assume they will have time to make up for what they missed out now.
So how do these theorists propose that we get people to buy now and buy expensive? Our gift card culture provides one possible answer. Turns out that when given the choice of a gift card that expires in two months versus one that expires in the 3 weeks, everyone says that they would prefer the gift card with the later expiration date and that they assume they’ll be more likely to use a later expiring card. In reality, in the test cases quoted in the article, people were five times more likely to use the card with the shorter expiration.
In other words, creating a shorter time horizon (as long as it seems a legitimate shortened time horizon) for a decision actually increases purchases. The article goes on to explain that you can leverage this pattern of thinking by connecting it to combined purchases (make a decision early for this purchase and you earn money toward another related purchase), short-term promotions, tiered shopping experiences, etc. Finally, people typically spend a little more than whatever the gift card is worth, so you increase purchases that way as well.
Okay, long way to saying that if luxury retailers are using such mechanisms to get people in the door and buying more in a down economy, perhaps we could think of similar things. What about for ERP/visit days gift cards to the bookstore that expire within a week or two? At the worst, they don’t buy anything or maybe leave with JBU paraphernalia that spreads the JBU image. At best, they buy books for their classes that help them lock in their decision. What about as an addition or a replacement to a deposit, we offer cards with amounts that they have to use for copies/cafeteria purchases within one semester. If they come to JBU, they get “money” that they may or may not spend, but it gives them added incentive to make the big purchase in order to be able to use the discount cards for their other costs at JBU?
Anyway, just some thoughts from my random reading.
The end of Blackboard & the rise of Facebook U?
Gotta give the guy credit for moxy, huh? The idea is free courses and free textbooks via a “Facebook U” social-networking format that replaces Blackboard and all other higher education course management technology so that anyone, anywhere can enroll. If you want to get actual academic credit, you pay a monthly subscription fee. Hmm . . .
http://www.greentreegazette.com/minute/load.aspx?art=1473
http://www.greentreegazette.com/minute/load.aspx?art=1473
Monday, April 27, 2009
Privatization of Public Universities?
I’ve long wondered when some of our major public universities would cut their ties with the state and become “private.” Michigan, Virginia, Colorado, Vermont, and a few others appear pretty close to that line already, and with the current budget downturn, that trend will likely continue. The University of Michigan, for example, gets only 7% of its revenue from the state, and Vermont gets over 70% of its revenue from tuition. If this lottery initiative results in our share of revenue from the state going up significantly, how much different would we look from those schools in terms of our revenue percentages? Not much.
And what does that mean for JBU’s future direction? My first reaction is that UofA will more and more become our main competitor. Already, our main competition at the undergraduate level is the UofA and its Honors College. At the graduate level, it’s also the UofA and its increasingly flexible programs, such as the low-residency MBA that I was in. As Pat’s been warning, how much longer before the UofA follows this graduate trajectory into flexible models for other adult students (i.e. our Advance students)?
This possible scenario furthers my convictions that we should be much more explicit in our various materials about how we compare to the UofA and also that we may need to adopt more of their pricing models (keep tuition low and charge more in fees) in order to make that comparison even more discernible. Just my two cents.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i34/34a01601.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
And what does that mean for JBU’s future direction? My first reaction is that UofA will more and more become our main competitor. Already, our main competition at the undergraduate level is the UofA and its Honors College. At the graduate level, it’s also the UofA and its increasingly flexible programs, such as the low-residency MBA that I was in. As Pat’s been warning, how much longer before the UofA follows this graduate trajectory into flexible models for other adult students (i.e. our Advance students)?
This possible scenario furthers my convictions that we should be much more explicit in our various materials about how we compare to the UofA and also that we may need to adopt more of their pricing models (keep tuition low and charge more in fees) in order to make that comparison even more discernible. Just my two cents.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i34/34a01601.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
"Free recall," the tried and tested method of learning?
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i34/34a00101.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
This doesn't seem that controversial, but I guess anything "old" is considered passe in some circles.
This doesn't seem that controversial, but I guess anything "old" is considered passe in some circles.
Post-Christian America?
From the USA Today story contradicting the Newsweek and other versions of the U.S. slouching toward agnosticism and atheism. The real story, apparently, is the rise of Hispanics and megachurches.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/04/post-christian-not-even-close.html
Over the past two decades, I have taught the "Christian America" debate to hundreds of students in my Religious Studies courses. When we finish our discussion, I call the question. My Christian students almost invariably describe the United States as a multicultural nation of religions, but my Jewish students tell me you have to be blind (or Christian) not to see that this is a Christian country. Here Christmas, not Passover, is a national holiday, and the only question about our presidents' religious affiliation seems to be from which Christian denomination they will come.
Mark Silk, who runs Trinity College's Program on Public Values, which released the latest ARIS report, agrees that the news media were napping when they spun secularization straw out of the gold in this report. For him, the rise of the "nones" is old news. From 1990 to 2001, the portion of those who said "none" when asked, "What is your religion, if any?" jumped from 8.2% to 14.1%. Over the past seven years, that figure basically flatlined, rising less than a percentage point to 15.0%.
The real news in this data, Silk says, is a shift in the center of gravity of U.S. Catholicism from the Northeast to the Southwest, and in the process from whites to Hispanics. The other big story, he told me, is the continued displacement of mainline Protestants by born-again Christians, who now constitute 34% of the U.S. population. The "non-denominational Christian" category that populates U.S. megachurches has exploded from under 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to in excess of 8 million today.
When I remarked that this hardly looks like a picture of a post-Christian country, Silk, who edits a newsletter called "Religion and the News," agreed, but warned me not to be too hopeful about diverting this story midstream. "You can tell the truth," he said, "just don't expect anybody to pay attention."
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/04/post-christian-not-even-close.html
Over the past two decades, I have taught the "Christian America" debate to hundreds of students in my Religious Studies courses. When we finish our discussion, I call the question. My Christian students almost invariably describe the United States as a multicultural nation of religions, but my Jewish students tell me you have to be blind (or Christian) not to see that this is a Christian country. Here Christmas, not Passover, is a national holiday, and the only question about our presidents' religious affiliation seems to be from which Christian denomination they will come.
Mark Silk, who runs Trinity College's Program on Public Values, which released the latest ARIS report, agrees that the news media were napping when they spun secularization straw out of the gold in this report. For him, the rise of the "nones" is old news. From 1990 to 2001, the portion of those who said "none" when asked, "What is your religion, if any?" jumped from 8.2% to 14.1%. Over the past seven years, that figure basically flatlined, rising less than a percentage point to 15.0%.
The real news in this data, Silk says, is a shift in the center of gravity of U.S. Catholicism from the Northeast to the Southwest, and in the process from whites to Hispanics. The other big story, he told me, is the continued displacement of mainline Protestants by born-again Christians, who now constitute 34% of the U.S. population. The "non-denominational Christian" category that populates U.S. megachurches has exploded from under 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to in excess of 8 million today.
When I remarked that this hardly looks like a picture of a post-Christian country, Silk, who edits a newsletter called "Religion and the News," agreed, but warned me not to be too hopeful about diverting this story midstream. "You can tell the truth," he said, "just don't expect anybody to pay attention."
Women vs. Men in promotion processes
The basic summary appears to be that a combination of “microdifferences” (child care, less emphasis on research, etc.) amounts to substantially slower times to promotion for women at research institutions, even in a field such as English where women are more highly represented.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/27/mla
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/27/mla
Friday, April 17, 2009
Why Colleges Fail?
Interesting study looking at what happened to all 824 private colleges that existed in 1975. 11% failed in the last 34 years. Why did some survive and others fail?
1) Endowment per student was more important to survival than net tuition per student.
2) Larger and more selective colleges had higher survival rates, but running G&PS programs (i.e. diversification?) mattered less.
3) Religious schools had higher survival rates.
Of course, this study looked only at survival and not at other questions like which schools entered the market in the last 34 years and which schools became more viable over that time period.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/17/closing
1) Endowment per student was more important to survival than net tuition per student.
2) Larger and more selective colleges had higher survival rates, but running G&PS programs (i.e. diversification?) mattered less.
3) Religious schools had higher survival rates.
Of course, this study looked only at survival and not at other questions like which schools entered the market in the last 34 years and which schools became more viable over that time period.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/17/closing
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The End of Philosophy?
Interesting argument, as is often the case with David Brooks, this time about how moral reasoning actually works.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?_r=2
I should note that JBU's resident philosopher, Jay Bruce, as well an anonymous poster, argued that Brooks is simply rehashing David Hume, and making something of a hash or the rehash as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?_r=2
I should note that JBU's resident philosopher, Jay Bruce, as well an anonymous poster, argued that Brooks is simply rehashing David Hume, and making something of a hash or the rehash as well.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The College Tuition Pricing Game
I've been reading a book on game theory, and one of the sections dealt with college pricing schemes. The authors rightly, I believe, describe our tuition pricing as an inefficient Nash equilibrium. Nash (he of "A Beautiful Mind" fame) argued that there are equilibrium points in any game. An example of an inefficient equilibrium is our QWERTY keyboard layout. It was initially designed to slow down keystrokes so that typewriters wouldn't jam.
But that problem no longer pertains with modern computers, so why don't we switch to a more efficient layout? Basically, because we've "always" done it this way. It would take more time and effort to retrain the existing typers than you would gain in efficiency from the new layout, so barring some mandate from on high, no individual person has enough incentive to learn the new system.
Well, almost no one. With an inefficient system, there will always be about 2% of the population who are "innovators" willing to try the more efficient approach. But as long as 76% of the population is using QWERTY, the "slippery slope" will lead us to have 98% using the inefficient system.
So how does this apply to college tuition pricing? All of our institutions, as with cell phone companies and other organizations, focus on the list price (tuition, in our case) but not the true "all in" price (what college costs after you include room & board, fees, discount, quality of education, etc.). It takes too much money and effort to educate people out of their focus on the tuition bottom line for any one entity to switch to "all in" pricing that eliminates discounting and all of these other costs. You occasionally see a school try to move outside of the typical pricing models, but most fall back into the usual patterns fairly quickly.
The authors suggest, therefore, that even though this system is inefficient for all parties, it is unlikely to change, and we should just play this "bad" game as well as we can. Namely, we should all maximize our "hidden" costs and minimize our "up front" costs in order to maximize our revenue. So far, JBU hasn't gone completely in that direction, but it seems harder and hardre to resist the "fee-based" tuition model that the state schools have adopted or the "merit award" structures that the elite privates have used. We're clearly on that slippery slope as well.
But that problem no longer pertains with modern computers, so why don't we switch to a more efficient layout? Basically, because we've "always" done it this way. It would take more time and effort to retrain the existing typers than you would gain in efficiency from the new layout, so barring some mandate from on high, no individual person has enough incentive to learn the new system.
Well, almost no one. With an inefficient system, there will always be about 2% of the population who are "innovators" willing to try the more efficient approach. But as long as 76% of the population is using QWERTY, the "slippery slope" will lead us to have 98% using the inefficient system.
So how does this apply to college tuition pricing? All of our institutions, as with cell phone companies and other organizations, focus on the list price (tuition, in our case) but not the true "all in" price (what college costs after you include room & board, fees, discount, quality of education, etc.). It takes too much money and effort to educate people out of their focus on the tuition bottom line for any one entity to switch to "all in" pricing that eliminates discounting and all of these other costs. You occasionally see a school try to move outside of the typical pricing models, but most fall back into the usual patterns fairly quickly.
The authors suggest, therefore, that even though this system is inefficient for all parties, it is unlikely to change, and we should just play this "bad" game as well as we can. Namely, we should all maximize our "hidden" costs and minimize our "up front" costs in order to maximize our revenue. So far, JBU hasn't gone completely in that direction, but it seems harder and hardre to resist the "fee-based" tuition model that the state schools have adopted or the "merit award" structures that the elite privates have used. We're clearly on that slippery slope as well.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Whither the Humanities?
As with most economic downturns, this one is causing enrollments in Humanities to decline which is raising once again the question of the long-term direction of liberal arts education. Most answers appear to be some form of "back to the future."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/books/25human.html?_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/books/25human.html?_r=1
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Three year degrees?
I've pondered the possibilities for a three-year degree on a number of occasions, but it's always seemed problematic in practice. That's apparently the conclusion of this piece as well, that three-year degrees sound efficient in theory but find few takers in practice.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/17/three
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/17/three
Three cheers for partisanship
As something of a partisan myself, I very much appreciated Jay Cost's counter-intuitive argument that partisanship is, perhaps, a healthy aspect of modern American democracy.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2009/02/three_cheers_for_partisanship_1.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2009/02/three_cheers_for_partisanship_1.html
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Business schools and cheating
http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/02/11172n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Turns out that Business students are more likely to cheat than other students, in part because Business School cultures seem not to demonstrate as much concern about these issues as other academic cultures do.
Interestingly, I was just reading about prisoner dilemmas (where it’s in people’s individual interests to cheat, even though when all cheat, it hurts the group as a whole). These are also known as “tragedy of the commons.” After lots of study by game theorists, the “rules” to help restrain such cheating are five.
1) Make sure it’s clear who is “playing the game” (in this case, the students).
2) There must be clear rules about what is permissible and forbidden actions (not always easy in the digital age).
3) A system of penalties for violation of these rules must be clear and understood by all. These penalties should also be graduated (no “one strike and you’re out”) because there’s often a lot of room for “error” in any system.
4) A good system to detect cheating must be in place (if possible so that the group involved can help police itself automatically). Sometimes, this means that the rules on what is forbidden may need to be written more according to what can be detected.
5) Use the “users” to help create the rules, because while they all may have an incentive to cheat, they also all have an incentive to design a good system up front.
Turns out that Business students are more likely to cheat than other students, in part because Business School cultures seem not to demonstrate as much concern about these issues as other academic cultures do.
Interestingly, I was just reading about prisoner dilemmas (where it’s in people’s individual interests to cheat, even though when all cheat, it hurts the group as a whole). These are also known as “tragedy of the commons.” After lots of study by game theorists, the “rules” to help restrain such cheating are five.
1) Make sure it’s clear who is “playing the game” (in this case, the students).
2) There must be clear rules about what is permissible and forbidden actions (not always easy in the digital age).
3) A system of penalties for violation of these rules must be clear and understood by all. These penalties should also be graduated (no “one strike and you’re out”) because there’s often a lot of room for “error” in any system.
4) A good system to detect cheating must be in place (if possible so that the group involved can help police itself automatically). Sometimes, this means that the rules on what is forbidden may need to be written more according to what can be detected.
5) Use the “users” to help create the rules, because while they all may have an incentive to cheat, they also all have an incentive to design a good system up front.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Private college sans residential life?
A sign of the economic times? Cut-rate private colleges at 1/3 the price. You get the small classes, full-time profs, face-to-face interaction, and bright students of a private college experience but without any of the residential component. I’ve often wondered what such a model might look like if, say, we wanted to run this type of program at our Roger’s site. This institution runs a prescribed set of Core courses during the morning, four days a week, for two years, and then the students transfer to the main campus for the rest of their time. We could certainly do something like that, even streaming chapel remotely. Kids this age apparently work mostly afternoon and evening jobs anyways (retail, restaurants, etc.). Sounds interesting to me.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/03/cut_rate_campus/
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/02/03/cut_rate_campus/
Monday, February 2, 2009
The scholarship of administration
The author's basic point (that we need to make our administrative decisions based on more data-driven evidence) is undoubtedly correct. But I doubt that what he's suggesting will occur very often in practice for all sorts of logistical reasons.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/02/02/logue
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/02/02/logue
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Hospitals (and Universities?) as Hotels
I remember Harold Heie once confessing that he used to think perceptions of academic quality were based on the faculty and then one day concluding that these perceptions were much more influenced by the appearance of the buildings and grounds. Seems that a similar mindset affects how people perceive hospitals. If the hospital looks nice, people will come, regardless of whether you live or die while you’re there! And if people are significantly influenced by the “halo effect” when it comes to life and death situations, I can only imagine how great that influence is when it comes to an academic setting. Just something I think about during budget time as I argue for more spending on academic quality. J
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/hospitals-as-hotels/#more-3783
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/hospitals-as-hotels/#more-3783
Class size and student achievement
The typical story is that a reduction in class size, especially to the magic number of about 15 in seminar-style courses, can play a significant role in student achievement. But, as with the economy, the “average” increase that results hides great variability in who actually benefits. Turns out, students who are typically low achievers in class do derive some benefit from smaller classes and more direct attention from instructors, but it’s the already high achievers who more often see the big increases in performance. I guess that supports our emphasis on small classes and more engaged learning approaches in Honors courses, but what do these results tell us for how we should address the other end of the ACT scale? I’d always assumed that a similar approach would apply in this context as well, but this evidence would seem to call some of that philosophy into question.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i21/21a03001.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i21/21a03001.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Competitive strategy & JBU?
In preparation for my “Strategic Theory” class, I’m reading Michael Porter’s HBR article on competitive strategy. Here are some of my reflections, particularly about how these theories might apply to an institution like JBU.
1) I’ve probably spent most of my time, perhaps because I’m a “middle manager” on “operational efficiency” instead of “strategy.” I think some of that’s because our strategy is fairly well defined as an institution already (interdenominational, comprehensive, regional, high quality, small, head-heart-hand, etc.). Some of that’s because we don’t really don’t have a strategic planning process at JBU. And some of that’s probably just a personal predilection (because, despite studying some forms of strategy most of my life, I think the quest for a “strategic” holy grail big decision is overrated, and the slow accumulation of lots of good little decisions is typically underrated).
2) Using Porter’s categories, we appear primarily to be a “differentiation” organization (the big area competitors for higher education being NWACC, UofA, and Phoenix, so we’re the differentiated “Christian” alternative to all three and neither the “low-cost” nor “highly focused” alternative). We also appear to be following a “needs-based” positioning strategy in which we appeal to a specific segment of customers (Christians interested in higher education) vs. “variety-based” (a trade school, for example) or “access-based” (primarily on-line, as an example).
3) The main trade-off that we appear to be making is by focusing on “Christ over All” and “Head-Heart-Hand” in terms of the faculty, courses, and content we teach. Those will be impossible for a UofA, Phoenix, or NWACC to match, at least in our traditional programs. For KLRC and the Centers, that also appears true, though I wonder whether the same is true in terms of our G&PS programs. It doesn’t appear to be that way from the students’ perspective (we’re more the “convenience” option than the “Christian” option in these areas according to their feedback).
4) Given that we’re also emphasize convenience and quality, is our strategy more to “straddle” at least these two trade-off areas (convenience and quality), and does that make us vulnerable to competition on these grounds (a point Pat has been making for a long time that if the UofA ever really started competing with us in G&PS, we’d be in trouble)?
5) I appreciate the idea that “the essence of strategy is choosing what NOT to do,” but not doing anything is a bad strategy as well, so this could just as easily be said that the essence of strategy is choosing what TO do, which seems so much more elementary when phrased this way. But hey, that’s what academics do, right? We say extremely simple things in novel ways.
6) I also like Porter’s idea that all activities need to “fit” together as part of an overall package of linked activities if it is going be a sustainable (10 years or more) strategy, but that again sometimes begs the question of what to do and what not to do. Does “nursing” fit into the JBU system of linked activities? Yes, maybe, no? I could pick any of these and make a good case that our “strategy” calls for or excludes this choice. I guess what I’m struggling with is that the dividing line between terms is often fuzzier than an article like this might imply. Strategy and operational effectiveness can look a lot alike. Ditto for “management” and “leadership.” I hear people trying to make distinctions between these categories that in my practical experience are pretty much meaningless.
7) Porter’s concern that the “growth imperative is hazardous to strategy” hits close to home. Does this mean that we shouldn’t have added G&PS (because they blur our Christian and quality distinctives and are more replicable by our competitors) or that we shouldn’t be headed toward on-line education (for similar reasons)? Does this mean that my “innovation fund” idea is misguided in that it assumes growth, both in terms of quality and quantity? Does this argue that we should stick closer to our somewhat fundamentalist roots in terms of our conversations about various hot-button topics? Or should I be thinking more in terms of “no more centers and no more radio stations” instead of “no more growth in academic programs”? In some ways, Porter’s point about “deepening distinctives” is what I’ve seen us doing with our integration of faith & learning efforts, our formal evaluation emphasis on quality teaching, our all-campus recruiting campaigns, etc. In all of those cases, we’re emphasizing that we’re different from the UofA, NWACC, and Phoenix, so these actions reinforce our strategic choice instead of moving us away from it. And Porter’s point about growing by adding “stand-alone” units could in theory include the Centers and KLRC, all of whom have their clear, separate, and self-funded identities.
1) I’ve probably spent most of my time, perhaps because I’m a “middle manager” on “operational efficiency” instead of “strategy.” I think some of that’s because our strategy is fairly well defined as an institution already (interdenominational, comprehensive, regional, high quality, small, head-heart-hand, etc.). Some of that’s because we don’t really don’t have a strategic planning process at JBU. And some of that’s probably just a personal predilection (because, despite studying some forms of strategy most of my life, I think the quest for a “strategic” holy grail big decision is overrated, and the slow accumulation of lots of good little decisions is typically underrated).
2) Using Porter’s categories, we appear primarily to be a “differentiation” organization (the big area competitors for higher education being NWACC, UofA, and Phoenix, so we’re the differentiated “Christian” alternative to all three and neither the “low-cost” nor “highly focused” alternative). We also appear to be following a “needs-based” positioning strategy in which we appeal to a specific segment of customers (Christians interested in higher education) vs. “variety-based” (a trade school, for example) or “access-based” (primarily on-line, as an example).
3) The main trade-off that we appear to be making is by focusing on “Christ over All” and “Head-Heart-Hand” in terms of the faculty, courses, and content we teach. Those will be impossible for a UofA, Phoenix, or NWACC to match, at least in our traditional programs. For KLRC and the Centers, that also appears true, though I wonder whether the same is true in terms of our G&PS programs. It doesn’t appear to be that way from the students’ perspective (we’re more the “convenience” option than the “Christian” option in these areas according to their feedback).
4) Given that we’re also emphasize convenience and quality, is our strategy more to “straddle” at least these two trade-off areas (convenience and quality), and does that make us vulnerable to competition on these grounds (a point Pat has been making for a long time that if the UofA ever really started competing with us in G&PS, we’d be in trouble)?
5) I appreciate the idea that “the essence of strategy is choosing what NOT to do,” but not doing anything is a bad strategy as well, so this could just as easily be said that the essence of strategy is choosing what TO do, which seems so much more elementary when phrased this way. But hey, that’s what academics do, right? We say extremely simple things in novel ways.
6) I also like Porter’s idea that all activities need to “fit” together as part of an overall package of linked activities if it is going be a sustainable (10 years or more) strategy, but that again sometimes begs the question of what to do and what not to do. Does “nursing” fit into the JBU system of linked activities? Yes, maybe, no? I could pick any of these and make a good case that our “strategy” calls for or excludes this choice. I guess what I’m struggling with is that the dividing line between terms is often fuzzier than an article like this might imply. Strategy and operational effectiveness can look a lot alike. Ditto for “management” and “leadership.” I hear people trying to make distinctions between these categories that in my practical experience are pretty much meaningless.
7) Porter’s concern that the “growth imperative is hazardous to strategy” hits close to home. Does this mean that we shouldn’t have added G&PS (because they blur our Christian and quality distinctives and are more replicable by our competitors) or that we shouldn’t be headed toward on-line education (for similar reasons)? Does this mean that my “innovation fund” idea is misguided in that it assumes growth, both in terms of quality and quantity? Does this argue that we should stick closer to our somewhat fundamentalist roots in terms of our conversations about various hot-button topics? Or should I be thinking more in terms of “no more centers and no more radio stations” instead of “no more growth in academic programs”? In some ways, Porter’s point about “deepening distinctives” is what I’ve seen us doing with our integration of faith & learning efforts, our formal evaluation emphasis on quality teaching, our all-campus recruiting campaigns, etc. In all of those cases, we’re emphasizing that we’re different from the UofA, NWACC, and Phoenix, so these actions reinforce our strategic choice instead of moving us away from it. And Porter’s point about growing by adding “stand-alone” units could in theory include the Centers and KLRC, all of whom have their clear, separate, and self-funded identities.
The Great Disruption ends?
I like David Brooks a lot, and, as usual, he offers one of the more compelling summaries of what this historic transition (to Barak Obama's presidency) might mean in the long view (a return to the "concensus pragmatism" of the late 50s and early 60s before the Great Disruption of the late 60s and early 70s fragmented our society and our national conversation). While I appreciate the thought, and I do see some truth to his argument (Millenials look more like the Greatest Generation than they do like Boomers or Xers), I think Obama is more a reflection of the Globalization trend than a return to an older order. And I think modern technology will just continue the trend toward fragmentation instead of bringing us back together in some type of concensus. But I do hope that Brooks is right and I'm wrong on this one. We'll see.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1
The coming salutory effects of the Bologna Process?
This article is about how some of the lessons of the Finnish higher education world might apply to us, but its larger question is whether the Bologna Process in Europe will eventually end up transforming American higher education as well. The implication is that we have a lot to learn from a system where degrees are completed in three years, credits are easily transferable between institutions, the focus of higher education is on students and not faculty (teaching instead of research), and credits are determined on the basis of how much time it will take to complete various learning objectives instead of how much time a student spends in a seat.
I particularly like that last piece. I recall being allowed to go through material at my own pace for awhile in elementary school. I loved it, and I got two or three grades ahead. Then I got caught up in the “system” and was forced to be in class with everyone else doing what everyone else was doing, so I had to basically sit there for a couple years while others caught up. Ugh! Perhaps this move in Europe toward learning objectives instead of seat time will eventually help open up our accreditation systems a bit more? Just a thought.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i20/20a03301.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
I particularly like that last piece. I recall being allowed to go through material at my own pace for awhile in elementary school. I loved it, and I got two or three grades ahead. Then I got caught up in the “system” and was forced to be in class with everyone else doing what everyone else was doing, so I had to basically sit there for a couple years while others caught up. Ugh! Perhaps this move in Europe toward learning objectives instead of seat time will eventually help open up our accreditation systems a bit more? Just a thought.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i20/20a03301.htm?utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Cost shifting at public institutions
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/15/delta
The basic conclusion is that privates are increasing tuition but putting that increased tuition back into instruction and services. Publics are increasing tuition but not putting that money back into instruction and services. They’re just shifting revenue sources from government funds to student funds. The implication is the public universities will at some point need to be more responsive to student needs and desires as students pay more and more money for education at these public institutions. From what I've seen, that's still a long ways off.
The basic conclusion is that privates are increasing tuition but putting that increased tuition back into instruction and services. Publics are increasing tuition but not putting that money back into instruction and services. They’re just shifting revenue sources from government funds to student funds. The implication is the public universities will at some point need to be more responsive to student needs and desires as students pay more and more money for education at these public institutions. From what I've seen, that's still a long ways off.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
De-Hyping College Admissions
Contrary to popular belief, most students only apply to a few schools (3.71) and get accepted at most of the schools they apply to (2.99), especially their first choice (88%). According to the author, the stories about increasing competition as students apply to more and more schools and get into fewer and fewer are mostly an “urban legend” that apply only to a very narrow range of institutions at the very top of the educational ladder (and more so with Asian Americans).
What the author does not demonstrate, however, is whether these still relatively low levels of college comparison shopping are up or down from previous decades. If could be that these low levels are still dramatically higher than they were even a decade or two ago. I applied only to one college, for example, so by that comparison, applying to 3.71 would be a huge increase over 20 years. Just a thought.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/13/admissions
What the author does not demonstrate, however, is whether these still relatively low levels of college comparison shopping are up or down from previous decades. If could be that these low levels are still dramatically higher than they were even a decade or two ago. I applied only to one college, for example, so by that comparison, applying to 3.71 would be a huge increase over 20 years. Just a thought.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/13/admissions
Monday, January 5, 2009
The end of postmodernism and the rise of transnationalism?
Been awhile since I gave these matters much thought, but having come of age during the heydey of this postmodern turn, I'm glad to see it ending in favor of these "transnational" conversations.
http://chronicle.com/news/article/5733/after-postmodernism-a-historian-reflects-on-where-the-field-is-going?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
http://chronicle.com/news/article/5733/after-postmodernism-a-historian-reflects-on-where-the-field-is-going?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Peer instruction works?
Here's yet another story on how peer instruction (flip model, engaged learning, etc.) has been shown to be successful. The sentence at the end, however, suggests, as one might suspect, that a combination of peer instruction and professor-led discussion is probably the most successful strategy.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/05/peer
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/05/peer
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