An In-depth Look at the Cyber Phenomenon of Our Time: Web 2.0

A Periodic Review

of Ideas and Issues in

Education Marketing

S P R I N G 2 0 0 7

V O L U M E X V • N U M B E R 2

T o T e s t o r N o t t o T e s t

Examining the Role ofStandardized Testing in Education

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I n t e r v i e w

Michael WeschPage 10

L e a d e r , M a r k e t e r ,V i s i o n a r y ,

F u n d R a i s e r College Presidents in Academia Today

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THELAWLOR

REVIEW

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Publisher John T. Lawlor

Editor Virginia R. Buege

Contributing Writers Kris Berggren,Virginia R. Buege, Christine Stern

Layout Lynn Clayson

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Business Manager Molly Schomburg

Copy Editing Carole Arwidson, Amy Foster

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THELAWLOR

REVIEWVOLUME XV, NUMBER 2 Diverse Discussions

Recently I overheard two moms comparing notes about how to help their children

prepare for some test taking: extra sleep, a fortified breakfast and canceling swim

lessons for the week were in order, according to one of the parents. Hearing them

talk brought to mind my own SAT and GRE testing experiences … until their

conversation resumed and I realized they actually were talking about their third-

graders and the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test.

While the MAP hardly seems as significant a test as the SAT, these parents’

apprehension about their children’s success underscores the emphasis placed on—

and the anxiety caused by—standardized tests at all levels. And our “obsession”

with testing isn’t likely to disappear, according to veteran writer Chris Stern.

Her story, “To Test or Not to Test: Examining the Role of Standardized Testing

in Education,” looks into the history behind testing in America as well as the

politics of the growing test-optional movement.

Speaking of testing, could there ever possibly be one to identify future college

presidents? Not likely, given the lengthy list of expectations for an auspicious

presidency: the endowment should go up and the discount rate down; campus

aesthetics should improve; enrollment should yield more diversity and scholarly

quality; and institutional reputation should shine more brilliantly, among other

things. In the story “Leader, Marketer, Visionary, Fund Raiser: College Presidents

in Academia Today,” writer Kris Berggren sets out to learn what talents, skills

and experiences are essential for presidents to succeed in higher education today.

Also in this issue, you’ll find an interesting Q & A with Michael Wesch,

Ph.D., a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the cultural and social

phenomenon of technology. His digital ethnography work group is studying Web

2.0 and revealing fascinating insights into the cultural shifts that have been set in

motion by this digital revolution.

Testing, leadership and technology: diverse topics indeed, yet incredibly

relevant to the landscape of higher education today. We hope this issue inspires

as much discussion and new thinking in your office as it has in ours.

Virginia R. Buege

L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I T O R

Spring 2007© The Lawlor Review


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A Two-Way TrendBy some estimates, Americans in

schools, workplaces and the militarytake 600 million standardized tests a year. Our interest in—some say“obsession with”—testing can betraced to the Reagan administration’s1983 report “A Nation at Risk” andresulting federal studies that foundhigh rates of illiteracy and lowaverage standardized test scores forAmerican students relative to thosein other industrialized nations. Facedwith a weak national economy and burgeoning commercial andtechnological competition fromabroad, the federal governmentbecame a driving force in educationthat’s been steadily accelerating ever since.

In 2003, Vanderbilt University’sPeabody Center for Education(Nashville, Tennessee) published a 20-year re-appraisal of “A Nation at

Risk” (NAR). It observes that thegreatest legacy of NAR might be theraising of standards in education. Highschool graduation requirements, morestringent course content and otherstandards-based policies, such as thecurrent administration’s No Child LeftBehind law, are commonplace today.

Since NAR, the federal plea toeducators has been to showaccountability. The Peabody report ties standardized testing to accountability as a method ofmeasuring school performance.Nevertheless, the Peabody authorsstate that while NAR referred totest scores as “evidence” of schoolfailure, there was no suggestion atthe time that more testing wouldsolve any part of the problem.

Bob Schaeffer has been attackingstandardized testing for more than20 years as the public educationdirector of FairTest: The NationalCenter for Fair & Open Testing. He

points out that the organization is not“The National Center for No Testing,”as some suppose. “If kids believe thatsilly-odd bubbles and essays onSaturday morning mean more thangrades in courses—which, of course,include a lot of tests,” says Schaeffer,

© The Lawlor Review Spring 2007

Recent national media attention has thrust the standardized testing

debate into the mainstream. Critics condemn it as biased, inaccurate and

unfair, yet the Commission on the Future of Higher Education has

suggested that testing college graduates to measure achievement might

be in order. What’s going on here? Is there any consensus? We look at the

role of standardized testing in K-12, and hear from higher-ed institutions

as widely divergent as Pitzer College and MIT about how and why they

made their admission-test decisions. We share insights from experts on

all sides of the issue and offer a glimpse into the possible future of

standardized testing in American education.

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TO TEST OR NOT TO TESTE x a m i n i n g t h e R o l e o f S ta n da r d i z e d Te s t i n g i n E d u c at i o n

by Christine Stern


[ 4 ]

“… then let ’em take tests. But whatwe’re opposed to is the high-stakesmisuse of tests as the sole or primaryfactor in making major educationaldecisions, such as admission,graduation, promotion, school rating,reward and punishment. [In contrast,]we have explicitly advocated in the K-12 level for a comprehensiveassessment system that includestests as one factor.”

Schaeffer marvels that K-12and higher education are steadilymoving away from one anotherwhen it comes to a reliance ontests. In elementary and secondaryschools, he sees education being driven by high-stakesstandardized tests mandated bythe federal government. “As aresult,” he says, “we have seencurriculum, teaching and learningnarrowed to the content of those tests.” On the other hand,Schaeffer notes that at theuniversity admission level, educatorsdetermine their testing policiesaccording to the particular missions oftheir institutions. “[That] trend has beenin the other direction,” he says, “as moreand more colleges have adopted test-optional admissions for all or significantportions of their applicant pools.”

From the Bottom UpSusan Smartt, Ph.D., senior research

associate at Vanderbilt’s NationalComprehensive Center for TeacherQuality, has worked as a classroomteacher, school psychologist andconsultant to state departments ofeducation. “I’m a supporter [ofstandardized testing] from theperspective of No Child Left Behind,”she says. “The standardized testing thathas come from that initiative has raisedthe focus of people who until now havenot paid attention to children from low-performing populations. Because of it,we are now providing more services tothose children. Like anything else,

standardized testing can be abused and misused, but I think the fact thatmore teachers are [engaged] and the test scores are going up is for the greater good.”

Smartt endorses the appropriate useof standardized formative assessments,such as DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators ofBasic Early Literacy Skills) and CBM

(Curriculum-Based Measurement),because, she says, “that’s the type ofassessment that informs instruction.”With formative assessments, teachersscreen children to identify theirlearning needs, implement instructionand monitor progress to see if theinstruction has been effective. If so,students move on. If not, instruction is intensified or modified.

For Judy Ivie Burton, president and CEO of Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools (Los Angeles,California), the bottom line isstandardized testing. “We have tomarket what we’re doing and recruitstudents,” she says. “And you can onlydo that if you’ve got results to show,because people are making a choiceabout whether or not to come to your school.”

The Alliance is a nonprofitorganization that manages high-performing charter public schools in historically underachieving, low-income and overcrowded communities.

Its ambitious mission is to dramaticallyreduce the school dropout rate to lessthan 10 percent; to raise proficiency onstate academic standards; to achieve 100 percent success on high school exitexams; and to prepare every student tobe successful in college. “No matterwhat instructional materials we use,”says Burton, “they’re aligned to state

standards. Our belief is that ifkids never have an opportunity to learn grade-level appropriatematerial at a rigorous level, there’sno reason to expect that they’regoing to perform at those levels.”

The student retention rate atAlliance schools for 2006-07 is 98 percent, and each one has awaiting list. “The good news,”says Burton, “is that for all fourschools that have data, they alloutperformed the neighboringschool in the target community.”Nearly 80 percent of College-Ready 10th graders passed the

California high school exit exam in2006, two years before graduation.

Common GroundIn some states, secondary and

higher-ed institutions are collaboratingthrough standardized testing. InCalifornia, the Early AssessmentProgram (EAP) is a joint effort of theCalifornia Department of Education,the state’s public schools and theCalifornia State University system(CSU). According to CSU, more than60 percent of the nearly 40,000 first-year students admitted annually requireremedial education in math, English orboth. The EAP, a voluntary exam for11th graders, can provide strugglingstudents with a heads-up that they needmore preparation for college.

The ACT, a curriculum-basedcollege-entrance exam, is mandated in Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky andMichigan high schools to measureachievement on state standards, says JonErickson, vice president for educational


“But what we’re opposed to is thehigh-stakes misuse of tests as thesole or primary factor in makingmajor educational decisions, such

as admission, graduation,promotion, school rating, reward

and punishment.”—BOB SCHAEFFER

Director of FairTest: The National Centerfor Fair & Open Testing


[ 5 ]

services at the Iowa testing company.“Wyoming is implementing the test,”he adds, “and there are several otherstates in a serious discussion mode. [At first] we thought it was [only] someisolated instances, but it’s definitely atrending process right now.”

A side benefit of using the ACT inthis context is that students appear to bemotivated to take it and to do theirbest because they receive somethingof value that can be used in thecollege admission process. InIllinois, the ACT requirement hasbeen credited for greater interestand enrollment in state colleges.

Alphabet SoupLong considered synonymous

with college entrance, the SAT isthe nation’s most widely usedadmission exam. Its parent, theCollege Board, characterizes theSAT as a test that “measures thekind of reasoning skills needed forcollege by assessing how students applywhat they have learned in school.” Onthe other hand, the ACT describes itstest as “not an aptitude or IQ test.Instead, the questions on the ACT aredirectly related to what students havelearned in high school courses inEnglish, mathematics and science.”

In its “State of College Admission2006,” the National Association forCollege Admission Counseling(NACAC) reports that standardizedadmission tests rank after grades incollege-prep courses as the second-most-important factor in the college admissiondecision. Of the colleges surveyed, 87.8percent give test scores “moderate” to“considerable” importance. According to NACAC, on average, 61 percent ofenrolled first-year students submittedSAT scores for admission to college and50 percent submitted ACT scores.Students who enrolled in private, four-year colleges with high selectivity andlow yield were the most likely to submittheir SAT scores.

Because the two tests are scoreddifferently—with a top score on theACT being a 36 and the equivalent onthe SAT being 2400—some schoolsattempt to convert an ACT score to anSAT, or vice-versa. As of this year’sentering classes, the University ofCalifornia has gone a step further anddeveloped its own “UC Score,” which

combines either standardized test scorewith grades in 15 college-prep coursesto determine eligibility for admissionand scholarships.

“They are different tests,” maintainsCarol Rowlands, director of admissionsat Lafayette College (Easton,Pennsylvania). “It’s unfortunate thatthere’s even a scale that equates the two,because they’re really not the samething. I believe that to a greater degree,the ACT is measuring what a studenthas learned, versus ability in certainareas. I think they both have value.”

“I’ve spent 15 years urging studentsto take the ACT, not necessarily insteadof, but in addition to, the SAT,” saysindependent college advisor CarolGoodell, Ph.D. (San Mateo, California).“In my opinion, it offers advantagesbecause of the kind of test it is.” Sheexplains that in addition to giving acomposite score, the ACT providessubtest scores in four subject areas,including science. If some subtest scoresstand out, it offers better insight into a

student’s strengths and weaknesses.“That’s especially relevant,” she says,“for students from families in whichspoken English is not standard and forbi- and trilingual students.”

College counselor Brad MacGowan,Ed.D., from Newton North High School(Newton, Massachusetts), says, “I feelthat standardized tests are overused

and misused, and we’ve lost allperspective on them … Morepeople are realizing there are a lot of problems with the SAT.”MacGowan speaks out against the unwieldy length and format of the new SAT and issues ofsocioeconomic, racial and ethnicbias. “And now, the scoring errorshave brought a lot of it to theforefront even more,” he continues.He says that people who used tothink of the SAT as a “necessaryevil” are now saying that it mightbe “an unnecessary evil.”

For further evidence,MacGowan refers to scattergramsgenerated by Naviance, a companyoffering web-based college-counselingtools to participating high schools. “Ifyou look at the scattergrams,” he says,“you can see that GPA and the SAT are pretty highly correlated with eachother…. If they’re measuring the samething, let kids work on their coursesand not on the SAT. It takes up waymore real estate than it deserves.”

The Growing ListBy FairTest’s latest count, 730 U.S.

colleges and universities are more or less test-optional in their admissionprocesses. Doubters argue that thenumber is inflated dramatically withfor-profit and specialized institutionswith low or no admission standardsother than the ability to pay.

College counselor MacGowancounters, “If you’re going to list SAT-optional schools, you’ve got to list themall. If East Podunk Bible College isSAT-optional, I don’t think it would be


In its “State of CollegeAdmission 2006,” the

National Association for CollegeAdmission Counseling(NACAC) reports that

standardized admission testsrank after grades in

college-prep courses as the second-most-important factor inthe college admission decision.


[ 6 ]© The Lawlor Review Spring 2007

right not to put them on the list. A lotof them are not that competitive, butthey’re still educational institutions.”

Nine institutions were added to thelist in late 2004-05 and 13 in 2006.Some, such as the University ofColorado system, are test-optional onlyfor in-state students in the top 10percent of their high school class whoare applying to certain UC collegeprograms. Others, such as GeorgeMason University (Fairfax, Virginia),waive standardized tests for applicantswith at least a 3.5 GPA who rank in thetop 20 percent of their class.

George Mason receives about 13,000applications each year for its incomingclass of nearly 2,300 students. It may be the largest public university topermit high school seniors with strongacademic records to apply withoutstandardized test scores. After threeyears of study, GMU concluded thatstandardized test scores are a “weakpredictor” of collegiate success for high-achieving students. There is no

guarantee of admission, however. Non-submitters, who must provide twoadditional letters of recommendation,are still evaluated by the admissioncommittee. “It’s not revolutionary,” saysAndrew Flagel, dean of admissions. “It’s an evolutionary step. It fits whereuniversities are already going.”

Among the five “best” liberal artscolleges on the test-optional list, basedon U.S. News & World Report’s 2006ranking of the top 100, #5 MiddleburyCollege (Middlebury, Vermont) states on its web site that “test scores are animportant part of our [admission]process, because they allow us to comparestudents from all over the world whoattend thousands of different secondaryschools.” Middlebury applicants, as wellas applicants to #17 Hamilton College(Clinton, New York), who choose not to send ACT or SAT I scores mustsubmit three tests in different subjectareas chosen from SAT Subject Tests,Advanced Placement (AP) orInternational Baccalaureate (IB) exams.

Submission of SAT and ACT scoreshas been fully optional at #7 BowdoinCollege (Brunswick, Maine) for 30years. About 20-25 percent of recententering classes decided not to sendstandardized test scores. At #23 BatesCollege (Lewiston, Maine), such scoreshave been optional since 1984. Bothcolleges ask for scores after admission—Bowdoin for use in academic counselingand placement; Bates, solely forresearch. At #24 Mount Holyoke (SouthHadley, Massachusetts), standardizedtests have been optional since 2001.

FairTest’s Bob Schaeffer sees threekey factors contributing to a recentsurge in the test-optional movement: 1) convincing research from test-optionalschools that shows that test scores are notnecessary to predict academic success incollege, particularly the 20-year studyout of Bates College and the five-yeardata from Mount Holyoke; 2) a loss ofCollege Board and SAT credibility due toa questionable revision and expansion of

Lafayette College (Easton, Pennsylvania) may be theonly college in the nation to have gone from requiring

applicants to submit standardized test scores to makingthem optional to requiring them again. A test-optionaltrial launched by Lafayette in 1994 did not achieve itsdesired results and even created some apparent confusion in the marketplace.

Barry McCarty, who recently retired as Lafayette’s dean of enrollment services, recalls that their fundamentalobjective was to enhance the intellectual climate oncampus. “We had hoped that we were going to see morehigh-achieving students who might have been intimidatedby their standardized test performance,” he says.

“I think there are certain subgroups of candidates forwhom that might be true,” says Carol Rowlands, currentdirector of admissions, “[such as] students in under-represented ethnic groups, as well as women.” Rowlands,

who has worked in Lafayette admissions since 1984 andbecame director in ’98, remembers a lively test-optionaldiscussion among faculty and administrators. “There werepeople on both sides of the fence,” she says. “It came to afaculty vote, and it did pass, but it wasn’t an overwhelmingmajority. It was passed as a five-year experiment. Thefaculty were not prepared to say that this is a done deal.They wanted the opportunity to evaluate the impact of thepolicy and examine it over time.”

During the test-optional period, Lafayette did notconsider SAT or ACT scores during the admission process,but did ask withholders to submit their scores afteradmission. “We were getting some very good and reliabledata,” says McCarty, and he called in two statistics-oriented professors in the department of psychology tostudy it. A quantitative review showed that students whohad not submitted standardized test scores performed in

B e e n T h e r e , D o n e T h a t

by Christine Stern



the test in 2005 and a subsequent dropin test scores; and 3) “the major dust-up”surrounding SAT scoring errors last year.

In All FairnessJane B. Brown, Mount Holyoke’s

vice president for enrollment and collegerelations, says that the women’s collegehad been questioning the value ofstandardized testing as far back as the’80s. “There was concern about judgingstudents’ potential on such a singularformula,” she says, and uneasiness aboutan increasing susceptibility to coaching as the years went by. “Therefore, thosestudents who had more resources, betterpreparation, and so on, had an advantage.”But “the tipping point,” according toBrown, was the publication in 1999 ofThe Big Test, by Nicholas Lemann, apenetrating look at the history andimplications of the SAT. “That caused usto reopen the conversation,” she says.

“We believed, with the thoroughreading of applications that we do, that

we were in a position to make gooddecisions without using standardizedtests,” says Brown. “The message wereally wanted to send to students wasthat we care more in the admissionprocess about academic achievementover a four-year period, and we see theSAT as a fairly blunt instrument thatdoesn’t give us the full measure ofvarious kinds of skills and potentials.”

Research supported by the MellonFoundation established that thedifference in college performance over time between SAT and ACTsubmitters and non-submitters wasinconsequential. Brown says that thesize, quality and diversity of theirapplicant pool remain strong.

About 60 percent of Mount Holyokeapplicants still submit their scores.“What’s been very interesting to us,”says Brown, “is that while the majorityof students who don’t submit wouldhave lower scores—that’s a no-brainer—there are any number of

students whose scores are well above ourmean who choose not to submit them,on principle. Those are students we’redelighted to have in our pool!”

Pitzer College (Claremont,California) exempts students graduatingin the top 10 percent of their class andthose with an unweighted GPA of 3.5or higher from having to submit anystandardized tests. Applicants notmeeting that criteria may choose from options that include ACT, SAT,specified AP and IB exams or examplesof recent high-level coursework thatincludes the assignments, teacher’scomments and grades.

Arnaldo Rodriguez, Ed.D., Pitzer’s vice president of admission andfinancial aid, says that the school’s 2002decision to become test-optional wasbased on egalitarianism. “Here wasPitzer College,” says Rodriguez, “withthis huge commitment to diversity—racial, ethnic and all kinds of otherways—and we were asking people to

college at a slightly lower level, as measured by GPA, than did their classmates. “We did a very comprehensive[investigation] of the value of having the SAT,” saysMcCarty, “and in the final analysis it was not a dramaticbenefit, but on the margin, it enhanced our predictiveability.”

He adds, “We’ve always done a holistic review, and theSATs were never given undue influence here, so it’s notsurprising that our decision-making wouldn’t be verydifferent with optional SATs, and it wasn’t.” But it wassurprising to McCarty and others that more than a fewfamilies of high-ability students assumed that Lafayettecould not be an academically serious institution ifadmission tests were optional. “We detected a perceptionthat we couldn’t be that selective, when in fact, we werevery selective,” he laments. At that time, Lafayette wasranked among the top third of national liberal arts collegeslisted in U.S. News & World Report—and still is in 2007.

During the experiment, Lafayette’s applicant pool grewin size, quality and diversity, but Rowlands attributesthose changes more to demographic influences andadmission marketing than to their test-optional policy.The College did not experience a significant increase in

minority or high-ability applicants. “We certainlyattracted attention,” she says, “… but more often than not,[those who did not submit their scores] were mediocretest-takers who weren’t necessarily the highest-achievingstudents—based on their [high school] GPA and selectionof courses.”

Lafayette continues to review applications using aholistic approach that does not place disproportionateweight on standardized test scores. But Rowlands does seesituations where scores become a critical evaluation tool.She says, “It’s one thing to look at an applicant from a highschool where we receive a large number of applicationsevery year [and from which] we matriculate studentsfrequently. We can go back and say here’s what we did, andthis is how successful these students were at Lafayette.”But in cases where a student’s high school is unfamiliar andthe application reveals “something you might consider arisk,” Rowlands says she and her admission colleagues needmore details before they can make a determination. “Thereare many, many ways to go about the selection process,”she says, “but I think the more you know about a particularcandidate, the better informed you are in all aspects ofdecision-making.”



submit test scores, which in ourjudgment are biased. That’s preciselywhat we wanted to get away from.”

“One thing our actions have proven,”adds Rodriguez, “is that we’ve been ableto maintain ethnic and racial diversity[30-32 percent] and maintain or increasethe academic quality of the student body.Some people say you can’t do both, but atleast in our case, we have.”

The Other Side of the Coin

College Board spokesperson Caron Scoropanos, M.Ed., says that the inequity that exists in Americaneducation is a very real problem.Students from more privileged highschools, who have access to betterteachers and resources, will find thattheir standardized test scores reflect thequality of their education. “There’s noquestion that students who do notreceive the same ‘tool box’ are biasedagainst in our education system,” shesays. “The SAT does not cause thatinequity; it exists outside of the SAT.”

Scoropanos maintains that one of the College Board’s highest priorities is to ensure that the SAT is fair for allstudents. “It’s the most researched test inthe world,” she says, and points out thatresearch reports are easily obtained ontheir web site. A click on “For Educators”and then “Research” brings up internal and external studies on genderdifferences; race, ethnicity and socialstatus; assessing the reliability of skillsmeasured by the SAT; the effects ofcoaching; and more. She says that eachSAT question goes through at least fourcontent reviews; a sensitivity appraisal tomake sure that it’s fair in content andtone for all students; and a statisticalreview—Differential Item Functioning(DIF)—that is used to compare howsubgroups of students perform on eachquestion. She explains, “If students fromdifferent subgroups [e.g., males/females,Asians/African Americans, etc.] who haveapproximately equal knowledge and skill

perform in substantially different ways ona test question, then no matter how manycontent reviews it has already beenthrough, that question is discarded orrevised and reviewed again.”

Furthermore, Scoropanos says thatseveral procedures have been put inplace to prevent the kind of scoringerrors that occurred at one test site inOctober 2005, which affected about 1percent of all test-takers in that roundof the SAT. Because the problem wastraced to humidity, each answer sheet isnow acclimatized before scanning, andit is examined with new software thatidentifies paper expansion due tohumidity. In addition, each answersheet is now scanned twice, on differentdays with different machines. “It was anunfortunate, isolated incident,” saysScoropanos, “but we feel very confidentwe have addressed those issues so that itwill not happen in the future.”

By the NumbersWhere small admission cohorts are

being considered, some professionals see a particular advantage gained fromstandardized test scores. College advisorCarol Goodell, who has workedextensively with gifted and talentedstudents, indicates that they may bedifficult to evaluate. “Because they canbe self-driven, their interests tend to bepassionate, or they go off on tangents …their homework may be happenstance.Their grades don’t necessarily reflectwhat they know about a subject; theydo reflect how diligent they are insticking with the system.” She says thata high SAT score in math, for example,from a student with a C+ in pre-calculus can encourage a second lookfrom a college admission office.

Standardized testing also benefits acluster of students at Wheaton College(Wheaton, Illinois), an academicallyrigorous Christian college with anenrollment of 2,400. “Even thoughwe’re a fairly small school,” saysDirector of Admissions Shawn

Leftwich, “we have a decent-sized groupof students who’ve been home-schooled[6-8 percent of the entering class].Certainly for the home-schoolpopulation, the SAT and ACT havebeen very helpful to us in giving ussomething to compare their academicperformance to [when comparing themto] other students who’ve applied.”

Marilee Jones, dean of admissionsat the Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology (Cambridge), a scientistby training, says she “holds out hope”that someday MIT will makestandardized tests optional forapplicants. “But the math and science[schools] are probably the last placesto want to do that, because these arepeople who believe in numbers,” sheoffers. “There’s a much more disparategroup of disciplines that make upliberal arts schools and the people whorun them, and they’re probably farmore likely to just see numbers asmetaphors,” she adds with a laugh.“Our brains are all different.”

Numbers are critical at MIT, andJones says that the admission staff needsto be able to document for faculty thatthey’re admitting the right people. “It’s just so much easier to carry the daywhen you have metrics like this.” Shesays MIT counts on standardized testscores because “it’s the one thingeverybody [12,500 applicants] has incommon. It’s some kind of equilibrator.”

Still, Jones sees a paradox: “We don’tunderstand what those tests are testing.You can say they’re testing a basicknowledge of the material, but there areplenty of kids who know the materialpretty well—they just can’t prove it ona multiple-choice test. That tells me thetest really isn’t good for all kids.”

She wonders, “If we really don’t knowwhat the test is testing, why has ourculture given it so much power? The test has become so important that it hasbecome embedded in the Standard &Poor’s bond rating of a university—ourmean SAT scores affect our ability to



borrow money—and certain towns inMassachusetts have higher propertyvalues because the kids in those schoolshave higher SAT scores.”

Colin Diver, president of ReedCollege (Portland, Oregon), says he’s a “believer” in standardized teststhough the College understands theirlimitations and tries not to give themundue weight in the admission process.“Nonetheless, we feel as though theyprovide valuable and useful insightsinto student academic aptitude andachievement,” he says. At the sametime, Reed refuses to provide anynumbers for U.S. News & World Reportrankings. “It’s all about truth inadvertising,” says Diver. He maintainsthat being test-optional boosts themean score of a college’s entering classand improves its position on the list.“Once a few colleges adopt the tactic,”he complains, “their competitors feelpressure to follow suit, lest they suffer adrop in rank. And so a new front opensin the admissions arms race.”

Exit PollThe Commission on the Future

of Higher Education, appointed bySecretary of Education MargaretSpellings, presented its findings last fall after a year of hearings and deliberations. Among otherrecommendations, the panel called for“a robust culture of accountability andtransparency” in the higher educationsystem that would reveal value added inthe college experience. Many in highereducation worry that could lead to astandardized college “exit exam.”

Wheaton’s Shawn Leftwich isn’tconcerned. Her confidence in Wheatonstudents seems to invite an outsideevaluation. She says, “Our students aregood test-takers. They come in withgood skills, and through our curriculum,they continue to develop them. I’m surethey would do fine. They do really wellon graduate school exams, so I believeour educational process is strong.”

Barry McCarty, former dean ofenrollment services at Lafayette,suggests that post-graduatestandardized tests, such as the GRE, theMCAT and the LSAT already serve asexit exams. He postulates that ifinformation from these exams could becollected comprehensively, correlatedwith the undergraduate institutions ofthe test-takers and made available tocollege applicants, their families and thegeneral public, it could add to theevidence of the benefits of a giveninstitution. “If there’s some sort ofdisciplined assessment of the experiencethat students have had, then that [school]is going to be a known commodity.”

“We certainly embrace the idea thatwe should be determining, as best wecan, the success of our educationalprograms,” says Reed’s President Diver.

“The problem is, when we move inthe direction of standardized tests, wepush schools into a kind of homogeneitythat I think would be unfortunate.” He says that Reed, being a research-oriented institution, uses its juniorqualifying exam and a required seniorthesis to demonstrate proficiency. “Wedon’t shrink from the idea, in principle,of evaluating how students have done.In fact, we do it ourselves prettyrigorously,” Diver explains. “But what Iworry about is somebody coming alongwith a one-size-fits-all standardized testof critical thinking and then using a NoChild Left Behind philosophy to imposeit on everybody.”

To test or not to test? The jury isstill out on that question. And it’sanyone’s guess whether there will everbe a verdict.

T H E L AW L O R G R O U P P R E S E N T S

LEVERAGING THE WEB AND NEW MEDIAFOR STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

JUNE 13, 2007 • MINNEAPOLIS

REGISTER TODAY AT WWW.THESUMMERSEMINAR.COME N R O L L M E N T I S L I M I T E D

What you don’t know can hurt you. Are you ready for Web 2.0? This one-day workshop focuses on how to leverage Web 2.0 e-strategiesto create more brand strength with today’s savvy netizens and featuresin-depth discussion led by some of the most digitally literate thoughtleaders in the country, including:

Amanda LenhartSenior Research Specialist, The Pew Internet & American Life Project

Understanding teen habits and preferences as both consumers and content creators

Chris CarsonPresident, Campus Tours, Inc.

Replicating authentic campus visit experiences for the stealth marketplace

Nina HaleVeteran Search Engine Marketing Consultant

Exploring the mechanics of search engine marketing and the nuts and bolts of Web 2.0 tactics

Student/Parent Panel

Lunch with Web Infotainment


[ 1 0 ]© The Lawlor Review Spring 2007

It’s not often that the terms “cultural anthropology” and “YouTube” come up in the sameconversation—until you talk with Michael Wesch, Ph.D., an assistant professor of cultural

anthropology at Kansas State University (Manhattan, Kansas). For Wesch, the field of culturalanthropology has always been “a continuous exercise in expanding my mind and my empathy,

building primarily from one simple principle: everything is connected.” And, as Wesch sees it, themedium of the Internet is connecting the global society in both obvious and not-so-obvious ways.

Influenced by media guru Marshall McLuhan, who once noted, “We shape our tools, and thereafterour tools shape us,” Wesch has launched a digital ethnography study group at KSU. By exploringnot only the content of the World Wide Web but also the Web 2.0 tools used to create web content,

they are examining the impact of digital technology on human interactions.

The first outcome of the digital ethnography study group’s work was a short video called “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us,” which highlights the evolution of digital technologyand gives viewers a sense as to where it might be going. (Almost immediately after its release to the web, this video became a viral hit; within one month, over 1.7 million people had viewed it.

To see the video for yourself, check the link on The Lawlor Group’s web site.)

For many of us, trying to keep up with the latest digital technology developments leaves little timeto consider the larger implications of something like the World Wide Web. In his interview withThe Lawlor Review, Michael Wesch helps us better understand the cultural shifts set in motion

by the digital revolution and also suggests that if we can take the time to examine digitaltechnology and its effects, we will gain even more insight into those who use it—like the

Millennials—and begin to develop more authentic relationships in a virtual world.

A n I n - D e p t h L o o k a t t h eC y b e r P h e n o m e n o n o f

O u r T i m e : W e b 2 . 0by Virginia R. Buege

Q. You are an anthropologist,and some of your research isfocused on the social andcultural phenomenon oftechnology, in particularthe impact of digitaltechnology on humaninteraction. How did

your interest in this areadevelop?

A. For almost 10 years now I havebeen interested in exploring andextending the possibilities of digitalmedia to improve the ways scholarsconvey their research to other scholars,students and the general public. I was

particularly drawn to the possibilities of using a combination of multiplemedia to create a rich and engagingethnography of my work in Papua NewGuinea. But while I was there I beganto see that media are not just tools weuse to communicate; as the media guruMarshall McLuhan once noted, “We



shape our tools, and thereafter our toolsshape us.” I don’t buy into any strictmedia determinism, but my experiencesin Papua New Guinea made me realizethat the media we create can have somepowerful effects on us that aresometimes difficultto recognize if oneis not paying closeattention.

I lived in arelatively isolatedvillage in PapuaNew Guinea for 18months over the course of four yearsstarting in 1999. In this village there is no Internet access, TV, phones orelectricity. The only books in the villagewere Bibles from the local missions, butless than 10 percent of the populationcould read. Almost all communicationwas face-to-face. We tend to take forgranted the number of ways differentmedia are involved in our day-to-daylives, and it is only by witnessing lifewithout these media that we begin torecognize their significance.

Q. Living in the UnitedStates in this day and agemakes it terribly difficultto imagine life without the influence of media. You have described a place where little, if any,technology exists—even in the 21st century. Whatkind of media influencesdid you find there, and how do they affect thatculture?

A. As just one example, there was nobook of law to turn to during disputes.Instead, all of the people involved in thedispute would meet for large face-to-face meetings. In most cases, they werenot trying to determine who was rightor wrong, guilty or not guilty, butinstead they were trying to mend abroken relationship at the core of thedispute. In a small community it was

the relationship, not the individuals,that was important, so they were expertsin human relationships.

After I had been there for a coupleyears, a young man who had left thevillage years before to attend school on

the coast returned as a governmentofficer. He was just one man, but hebrought with him the entire structure ofthe state, and this structure is primarilybased in print. This did not fit well withthe local culture. For example, manydisputes were now settled in a court oflaw, straight by the book. Instead ofattempting to heal relationships, thegoal was to establish who was guilty bythe letter of the law so they could servetheir sentence.

The impact of print extended intospatial arrangements as well. People had been living in small semi-nomadichamlets, but these were virtuallyinvisible to the state because they werevery difficult to map on the static pagesof a book. The map and the census arethe eyes of the state. In order to makethe people visible, the governmentofficer demanded that people move intolarge stable villages with at least 200people. This did not serve local life. Itserved only the census-takers and themapmakers of the state.

This was just the beginning of somedramatic changes I witnessed whiledoing my field research, and many ofthe changes I saw were partially due tothe characteristics of the print mediumitself. Locals operating with face-to-facecommunication did not need a writtenlaw to settle disputes, nor did they needa map or census to tell them who theywere, but when their lives had to betranslated into the static pages of a

book, their lives changed dramatically.Anthropologist Edmund Carpenterreferred to media as “phantoms” becausethey can cause dramatic changes whilethe people using them rarely takenotice. People often focus on the

content withoutrecognizing thebroader impactsbeing caused bythe media itself.

When Ireturned home in 2003, I was

beginning to think about the web andwhat “phantoms” might be lurkingwithin it, transforming our societywithout our taking notice.

Q. Your more recent workanalyzes the Internet, and Web 2.0 applicationslike YouTube and blogs in particular, ascommunication mediums.The term “Web 2.0” is such a popular buzzword thesedays and is used in quite avariety of contexts. Howdo you define Web 2.0?

A. Web 2.0 is like the word “post-modern.” It suggests that we don’tactually know how to describe it, justthat it is somehow different than whatcame before it. So in order to understandWeb 2.0, we need to understand whatcame before.

While a few creative minds and web pioneers found new and innovativeuses for the World Wide Web from the beginning, most mainstream userstended to use it to fulfill the function of our previous technologies, especiallyprint or TV. In 1997, the creator of theweb, Tim Berners-Lee, lamented that it was little more than “a glorifiedtelevision channel.” We were all tryingto figure out what could be done withthis new technology and kept fallingback on the models from our oldtechnology for inspiration. Many of

We tend to take for granted the number of ways differentmedia are involved in our day-to-day lives, and it isonly by witnessing life without these media that we

begin to recognize their significance.



us created the same things we couldcreate on paper, put them online, andcalled them web “pages.” We store our“documents” in “folders,” which areeven drawn to look like folders that siton our virtual “desktops.”

Marshall McLuhan and EdmundCarpenter refer to this as the rearviewmirror effect: We are racing down theinformation superhighway lookingthrough the rearview mirror, seeingeverything we encounter as it translatesinto our pastmodels.

In some waysWeb 2.0 representsthose developmentsthat are truly web-native and not created by lookinginto the rearview mirror. It is the web operating on its own unique termsrather than simply imitating previoustechnologies. We knew from thebeginning that the web was great atinterlinking information. We failed to explore the new ways that it couldinterlink people.

Q. So you’re saying that one of the best ways tounderstand Web 2.0 and itsimpact on both the web andthe virtual community is tolook at the technology andapplications most commonlyassociated with the term?

A. Yes. The most obvious might bethe blog. To the uninitiated, a blogseems like a simple personal diary openfor the world to read, or amateur newsreporting. But that is only how it wouldappear through the rearview mirror.Blogs are web-native and have someimportant technology that makes themsignificantly different than anythingthat can be done on paper. Mostimportantly, when I write a blog entry,it is possible for me to link to somebodyelse’s entry on another blog and have my entry automatically appear in thecomments section of that other blog,

notifying that person that I have made acomment about their entry. This seemsinsignificant only until one recognizesthat there are now over 55 millionblogs, many of them interlinking in thisway, creating a richly interlinked globalconversation.

Social bookmarking sites likeDel.icio.us and Diigo put users incontrol of organizing the massiveamounts of information now beingproduced in this global conversation.

Users themselves can “tag” blog entries, web sites, photos and videos.Collectively, these tags organize the web from the bottom up with termsdesigned by the users themselves.

One of the hallmarks of Web 2.0 is that more people than ever can addcontent to the web, help to organize it,and have discussions about it. Some call Web 2.0 the “writeable” web, andperhaps there is no better example of thisthan a wiki like Wikipedia, which servesas a knowledge base that can be edited oradded to by the readers themselves.

All of these technologies arebecoming more and more integrated,creating a highly integrated webscapethat is increasingly user-generated andresponds and shapes itself to the users’needs. Some have likened the web as it isemerging today to a global consciousnessthat learns from us the more we use it. In one sense it is using us to learn andgrow. In another sense it is us.

Q. What are the humanelements contributing to the current digitalphenomenon? That is, whyhave Internet applicationslike those used for socialnetworking made moredramatic inroads into some

demographics than others?What psychological orsocial needs are being metwith this technology—and driving this digitalrevolution?

A. On the one hand, we have astrong desire to connect with otherssocially, but with this strong desire alsocomes a fear of rejection. Every time wesocialize we are trying to balance andnegotiate these competing emotions.

Each medium ofcommunicationallows us to do thisin different ways,negotiating howwe present

ourselves and the context in which we present ourselves to increase ourpossibilities for the meaningful socialconnections we desire, while mitigatingthe risks of social rejection. Digitaltechnology creates almost limitlesspossibilities for the creation of newtypes of social spaces, and our quest for a social space that maximizesconnection while mitigating rejectiondrives us on.

One way of framing this is throughthe perspective developed by sociologistErving Goffman almost 50 years ago.He pointed out that people are lessinvolved in giving information than ingiving shows. In particular, people aregiving shows about who they are or whothey want you to think they are. One ofthe draws of social networking sites likeFacebook and MySpace is that peoplefeel like they have more control overtheir presentation of self.

As an aside, I don’t think it was anaccident that some of the biggest Web2.0 successes have been founded byyoung 20-somethings who were lessencumbered by old media models—Facebook and YouTube being the mostobvious examples of these innovations.

These sites allow you to carefullyconstruct how you present yourselfwithin this social space and without the

In some ways Web 2.0 represents those developments that are truly web-native and not created by

looking into the rearview mirror.



pressure of spontaneity found in face-to-face interactions. Social networking sitesreach into the younger demographicmore than the older not just because the young are more adept with thetechnology, but also because they aremore invested in showing people theiridentities. Students build identitythrough what they do, the movies andmusic they like, and who their friendsare, among other things. All thosethings are on Facebook, fullyinterlinked, so notonly can studentsexpress theiridentities throughtagging themselveswith these items,they can also immediately see whoshares a similar identity with them, andeven shape their identity based on howothers are expressing theirs.

But these online social spaces do notexist all alone, nor are they replacingperson-to-person social spaces. Thesemultiple social spaces interact with eachother in interesting ways. For example,part of going out to the social space of aconcert is not just the enjoyment of theconcert but to show others that you arethe type of person who likes this kind ofmusic. So 10 years ago you would buythe t-shirt at the concert to carry thatpiece of your identity with you intoother social spaces to show others whereyou had been. Now you tell peoplewhere you are on the social space ofFacebook, post a photo album after theshow, and link to the band’s web site.You post on other people’s Facebookwalls about how great the show was.The wall is a public forum that anybodycan see. So you are not just talking tothe individual who owns the wall. You are expressing yourself to anybodywho might read the wall.

Q. The so-called“Millennial Generation”doesn’t have much of a

“rearview mirror,” does it?They’ve been using thesetypes of technology for solong they can’t remember,or imagine, life without itso thoroughly integratedinto their lives. How doesthis manifest itself in ateaching and learningenvironment? The workplace? The economy?

A. They don’t look at thesetechnologies the way that most of us dobecause they come to these technologiesas habitual users. This habitual use inturn shapes their ideas, ideals, attitudesand values.

They have grown up with the ability to click on any piece of media orinformation and view it on their ownterms. It is not surprising that they areimpatient with long linear lectures.They demand choice—lots of choices—and if as a teacher you do not havechoices for them, you need to at leastcreate the illusion of choice.

In order to accommodate a plethora of choices, information needs to bedelivered in fairly small bits, with achoice following from each small bit.This can be seen in the quickly growing“clip culture” of online videos. Most clips are no longer than a televisioncommercial. The demands of clip cultureextend beyond video to demands onclassroom lectures as well, leading manyprofessors to complain about shortattention spans. These students don’thave short attention spans; they just needto be engaged and involved with theactual production of the learning itself.

They also may be the mostmarketed-to group in the history of theplanet, and yet they are highly critical

of anything that looks, sounds or smellslike advertising. They are starving forsomething real and authentic and onlyget hungrier as the advertising machinekeeps feeding them more and more fakeauthenticity, which they quickly seeright through. Closely connected totheir demand for authenticity is ahealthy questioning of authority: theydon’t entirely reject hierarchy, but theydo demand mutual respect.

Fortunately, it is easy to give themthis respect onceyou realize thatthey are secretlybrilliant. Fewpeople give themenough credit for

the media gymnastics they are capableof performing. Many of them may notbe fluent in the argument culture ofwriting, but they are magnificent critics(and sometimes creators) of audio andvisual media, and they can multi-task,taking in and creating multiple forms ofmedia at once.

When I was growing up, Iremember arguing with teachers as towhether or not we could use calculatorson math exams. We argued that wewould always have calculators to help usin the real world, so why not use themin the classroom? Now Google andWikipedia can fit an entire databasespanning almost all of humanknowledge into the same pocketsizepackages—those items we used to call“cell phones.” How do we teachstudents living in a world whereinformation is always readily at hand—literally and figuratively?

At the most simple and practicallevel, we need to teach them how to findthe right information. At a slightlyhigher level, we need to teach them howto interpret what they find. At a stillhigher level, we need to teach them howto ask questions about what they find,what we often call “critical thinking.”And at perhaps the highest level, weneed to teach them “creative thinking,”

These students don’t have short attention spans; they just need to be engaged and involved with the

actual production of the learning itself.



which encompasses all of the lowerlevels while also inviting them to createtheir own works, knowledge andinformation to add to the human story.

Q. Tell me more about thisquest forauthenticity.What makessomethingauthentic intheir eyes? What willmarketers and advertisershave to do to effectivelyreach this audience?

A. To be authentic is to betransparent and sincere without ulteriormotives. We saw this recently whilestudying the YouTube community ofvloggers. Vloggers create video diariesto communicate with one another. Afew months ago one of these vloggersasked the others why they vlog. Themost popular answers were notsurprising: they wanted to connect withothers, have fun and express themselves.But not far down the list was this desirefor authenticity. Many commented thatthey would rather watch real people on YouTube than the commercialproductions on television. They savedtheir harshest complaints for reality TV,which they found to be the least realbecause it is posing as something it is not. Ultimately, it is the ulteriormotives that bother them. So not onlyare they experts at seeing these ulteriormotives, they are also experts in makingsure they do not seem to have anyulterior motives themselves. One of themost interesting manifestations of thisexpertise is the planned poverty ofproduction quality on YouTube. ManyYouTubers actually use cheap webcamsand editing software so they can appearauthentic and not be accused of being acommercial production.

Advertisers have been trying toaddress authenticity for a long time andhave had some success. Two slightlydated examples come from soft drinks.

Coke became “the real thing,” andSprite bought celebrities to tell us notto listen to celebrities and to “obey yourthirst.” These were effective in theirtime, but both sound hollow anddeceptive to the youth coming of age

today. The commercials wereoverproduced, and the people featuredin the ads were a little too happy, rich orbeautiful to be authentic. The nextgeneration of “authentic” advertisingmay be typified by Dove’s “Real Beauty”program. They are creating an onlineplatform for women to speak out againstthe beauty standards that Dove and itsparent company, Unilever, actuallyhelped to create. They have onlineforums and have even invitedYouTubers to submit their own realbeauty ads to be featured on its web site.By taking the authentic voices of realpeople in the world and making them apart of their campaign, they may delaythe backlash that comes when an“authentic” campaign becomes exposedfor ulterior motives. That’s the danger of an authenticity campaign. If peoplebegin to see through the authenticitycampaign, it can backfire and betray any sense of trust that was originallyinspired by the campaign.

Q. One theme that keepsappearing in discussionsabout Web 2.0 is that ofcollaboration. As you have outlined, applicationslike wikis and blogs invite and enable digitalcollaboration. As aresearcher looking at thisphenomenon at a macrolevel, what implications dothese media have for humancommunication?

A. Every medium has its ownpossibilities, restrictions and challenges.While no medium is completelyrestricted to specific types of expression,all media are biased towards certain typesof expression due to their structure,

format, and modeof creation andtransmission. Forexample, withprint-based media

such as books, there is a strong need toput together a full and tight argumentbefore expending the significant amountof resources needed to make a print run.It should be literally “noteworthy,” or itis not worth printing.

In training for this environment, weare taught how to form sound and solidarguments that will stand the test of time. This may be related to themetaphor of argument as war, which hasbeen pointed out by linguist GeorgeLakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson.We say that we must defend our position,attack and shoot down the arguments ofothers, and most importantly, weconceive that we can either win or lose.This model is well suited for scholarshipdominated by the slow peer reviewstructure of traditional print-basedscholarship.

The web speeds up the process ofrebuttal, reply and revision, anddemands a different approach. Theradically collaborative technologiesemerging on the web create thepossibility for doing scholarship in the mode of conversation rather than argument, or to transform theargument-as-war metaphor intosomething that suggests collaborationrather than combat. Personally, I preferthe metaphor of the dance—that we areall dancing and playing with ideas, andthat we have to work together in orderto make the dance really work.

Any one mode of communication is not necessarily better than another.They are complementary. Ideas workedout in the collaborative world of the

To be authentic is to be transparent and sincere without ulterior motives.



web can be formed into printed books,and those books can then be quicklyreviewed, critiqued and discussed in the web.

Still, as more and more people begin placing moreof their energiesinto doingscholarship on theweb rather thanproducing print-based publications,we can expect somesignificant changesnot only in the way publications areauthored, but also in the authorsthemselves. Taking myself as anexample, I find that I have an increasingsense of myself as a collaborator in aglobal conversation rather than a singleindividual author. I am becoming more comfortable with being “wrong”because it is all part of the dance thatleads to deeper insights. I judgecontributions by how effectively theymove the dance, rather than how“right” they might be. This ethos that emphasizes collaboration overauthorship is not necessarily new, but it is becoming more prominent andmainstream.

Q. Is that why you have created blogs for your classes and even the video “Web 2.0 ... TheMachine is Us/ing Us”?

A. Definitely. We all know thatlearning a new language can transformstudents by enriching their intellectualcapacities and giving them newperspectives on the world. These newtechnologies are like new languages,and as students become fluent in them,they are enriching their capacity forlearning and sharing what they learnwith others. I want my students to trulyexperience these different technologiesnot just so they know how to use them,but also so they can learn new ways ofinteracting and thinking.

Q. Today’s Internetapplications enable us tocommunicate and “meet”others in a way that’s notbeen possible in the past.

We become part of a virtualcommunity, and althoughwe may never interact inperson, we consider many ofthese individuals to be ourfriends, allies, colleagues.How genuine or authenticare these virtualrelationships?

A. Space is almost irrelevant today when creating professionalrelationships. I work from an office inthe basement of a house in St. George,Kansas. I am currently collaborating ontwo research projects, one with a nativeof New York City currently living inChina who does research in India, andanother with a native of Nebraskaliving in Helsinki who does research inPapua New Guinea. These are valid andgenuine relationships, but they aredifferent from relationships featuringfrequent face-to-face contact.

My friends in Papua New Guineaare experts in human relationships, and they have some ideas about theimportance of face-to-face contact. They are constantly studying humanrelationships, discussing them, anddoing whatever they can to fix them ifthey are strained or broken. One of theircore ideas is that if somebody canactually see somebody else eye-to-eye,they cannot help but feel empathy forthem and help them. In Pidgin English,they call this a “look-look” relationship.It is based on the idea of mutual

empathic vision. I see you and you seeme, and I will help you when I see thatyou are in need, and you will help mewhen you see that I am in need.

But even in Papua New Guinea,where people valuethese relationshipsvery strongly, thereis recognition thatthis kind of strongrelationship has itsdownsides. It canbe very challengingto maintain such a

strong relationship, especially when thedemands of one look-look relationshipcompete with the demands of another.So people find ways to hide themselvesto avoid the strong demands theserelationships can bring.

In some ways, online relationshipsare appealing to people because they canavoid the strong demands of look-lookrelationships. For example, you can goon YouTube and find a burgeoningcommunity of people who share some of their most trusted secrets with totalstrangers by uploading video diaries tothe web for virtually anybody to see.When my students and I examined whyso many people were doing this, wefound that the number one answer wasbecause they wanted to connect sociallywith other people and feel part of acommunity, but they also liked thatthey could disengage from thoserelationships and that community atany moment. There is less social riskinvolved and significantly fewerfriendship responsibilities. This is notto say that some people do not createlook-look relationships online, butthere is an easy way to create somethingsimilar to look-look relationshipswithout the downsides, and manypeople take advantage of that.

Q. So many of us are guilty of relying on electroniccommunication in situationsthat might have called for a

The web speeds up the process of rebuttal, reply and revision, and demands a different approach.

The radically collaborative technologies emerging on theweb create the possibility for doing scholarship in the mode of conversation rather than argument.



personal conversation—or at least a verbal one—in thepast. In college admissions, forexample, prospective studentslearn about a campusthrough a blog or by IMing acurrent student rather thanvisiting a campus. Is there adownside to not having alook-look relationship? Are we as a society losingsomething with less face-to-face contact?

A. I think there is still an openquestion about whether or not we haveactually lost face-to-face contact in thepast 13 years as the web has becomemore prominent in our lives. Taking abroader time frame, if we look at historyover the past 500 years, we could safelysay that we have lost a great deal of face-to-face contact with the increase inmass media from the printing press tobroadcast television. In some ways, theweb is actually recovering some of whatwas lost in terms of face-to-face contactover the past 500 years because itsimulates face-to-face contact betterthan previous technologies.

It would be interesting to see ascientific study examining the amountof time students spend in office hourswith faculty now as compared to 15years ago. I’m not sure that there wouldbe a significant difference. We oftenassume that when we talk with studentsin a chat room or by e-mail that we have lost an opportunity for face-to-facecontact. It is just as likely that withoutthe chat room or e-mail we might nothave communicated at all.

The question is still a good one,though: What do we lose if we aremoving further away from face-to-facecontact? The answer depends on thetechnology that has replaced thatcontact. Many technologies, like videoconferencing, can simulate face-to-facecontact very closely, while others like e-mail are very different. Some mediatheorists like Paul Levinson havesuggested that our communications

technologies are progressing towards amore perfect simulation of face-to-facecontact. I disagree. I think eachmedium is different, and humansappreciate the ways they can use those differences to their advantage.Sometimes an e-mail really is preferableto face-to-face contact. Face-to-facecontact is now just one mode ofcommunication in a quickly growingarray of possibilities, each with its ownset of advantages and disadvantages.

Q. In the last decade theInternet clearly haschanged the global society,economically, socially andin ways we probably don’trecognize yet. And nowthere is so much hype aboutWeb 2.0. Is it just that—hype, affecting only a verysmall subset of the world?Or is it truly a digitalrevolution that willforever change the courseof human history?

A. The hype of Web 2.0 is to saythat we are all connected more than everbefore, that the global village is finallyupon us. The reality is that there areover five billion people not connectedvia the Internet at all, and that threebillion of these people are living on lessthan $2 per day.

The surprising thing about thepeople who are not connected via theInternet is that they often understandthe manner in which we are allconnected in much more profound waysthan we do, and this may stem from alifetime of less mediated face-to-facecommunication. For example, myfriends in Papua New Guinea place such a high value on humanrelationships that they believe that theirhealth is dependent on strong relationswith others. When they get sick, theycarefully examine their relationshipswith others and try to heal those inorder to heal their bodies.

In contrast, those of us connectedonline tend to emphasize ourindependence and individuality, failingto realize the physical ways we areinterconnected with other peoplethroughout the rest of the world. Wepay little attention to the health ofthose relationships, and one could saythat our global society is now sick, justas my friends in Papua New Guineawould predict given the state of thoserelationships. The example that comesto mind is a small boy I knew in aPapua New Guinea village who wore a torn and tattered University ofNebraska sweatshirt, the only item of clothing he owned. The grimsymbolism of that image for me is thatpeople in his village were producingcoffee that eventually found its wayonto shelves in my hometown inNebraska, and yet this boy may neverbe able to afford to drink that coffee.

So if there is a global village, it isnot a very equitable one. The tragedy ofour times is that we are all physicallyinterconnected, but we fail to see it and take care of our relationships withothers. For me, the ultimate promise of the web is that it might enable us to truly see one another once again and all the ways in which we areinterconnected. The web is an enormousaccomplishment in this way. It hasnever been more possible for us to trulyhave a global view and understand theworld and how it works in such acomplete way. It might help us create atruly global view that can spark thekind of empathy we need to create abetter world for all of humankind. Butthere is reason for concern, as well.Diving too deeply into virtual realitiesmay lead to a certain numbness ordisregard for actual realities. If we don’tunderstand our digital technology andits effects, it can actually make humansand human needs even more invisiblethan ever before.

As Berners-Lee himself so eloquentlyand succinctly stated, “It’s up to us.”



Ahigh profile college presidency—indeed any college

presidency—is more challengingthan ever before, with publicexpectations reminiscent ofcorporate America. In this story, we hear from presidents andchancellors, board members, searchfirm executives, and other campusconstituencies who share theirinsights about what it takes not justto be a college president today, butwhat is necessary to thrive in the roleand to become a successful changeagent in higher education.

Leaving on a Jet Plane …Many college presidents agree

with President Joanne Creighton of Mount Holyoke College (SouthHadley, Massachusetts) thatfundamentally their role “to help to advance the fortunes of theinstitution in multiple ways” is thesame as it ever was. But, they arequick to add that the day-to-daynature of the job has beentransformed dramatically in recentyears, most prominently with anexpectation that their focus be wellbeyond the campus gateposts.

“The major change,” says James Doti, president of ChapmanUniversity (Orange, California) since 1991 and a faculty member there since 1974, “has been theexpectation that presidents bechange agents, taking a much more external role than internal;becoming chief marketing officerand the public face of theuniversity—not only for fundraising, which has been true formany years, but for articulatingclearly and convincingly the visionof the university to the outsidecommunity.”

In this capacity, President Dotihas taken on a somewhat unique role

for reaching friends of theUniversity: he takes his message tothe airwaves, with a “talking headshow” produced on campus andaired on KLCE, a public televisionstation. Interviewing communityleaders and corporate executives onhis show, “Dialogue with Doti,” hasenabled him to get to know themsocially. This outreach has beensuccessful for the University. “Manyhave joined our board of trustees and become significant donors andsupporters of our university,” reports Doti.

Earl Brooks II, the president of Tri-State University (Angola,Indiana) since 2001, has shared asimilar presidential experience asDoti and Creighton. “For me adrastic change is that a successfulcollege president has to be moreexternal,” says Brooks. And hemeans that literally: Brooks spendsabout 60 percent of his time awayfrom campus involved in activitiesrelated to fund raising, alumnirelations and community relations.

The Fun in Fund RaisingThe idea that a president’s

first order of business concernsinstitutional finances probablycomes as little surprise. And, thetruth is that great presidents are alsogreat fund raisers. Data from theAmerican Council on Education(ACE) 2006 survey of collegepresidents indicates they spendalmost 38 percent of their time fundraising. And, although 22 percentsaid they felt insufficiently preparedfor fund raising in their firstpresidency, 27 percent say it’s their favorite aspect of the job.

“Fund raising is fun,” saysDaniel Ritchie, who, in addition toserving as CEO of WestinghouseBroadcasting for eight years, is

LEADER,MARKETER,VISIONARY,

FUND RAISER

College Presidents inAcademia Today

by Kris Berggren

At the helm of every thriving

institution of higher education

stands its president or chancellor,

the campus superhero who grace-

fully fills a variety of roles—rain-

maker, cheerleader, politician,

public intellectual, custodian of

institutional finances, marketing

guru and, sometimes,

crisis manager.

Consider the recent search to

fill the top post at Harvard

University (Cambridge,

Massachusetts). One would expect

a host of contenders to clamor for

consideration. Instead, prior to the

February 2007 hiring of Drew

Gilpin Faust, voracious speculation

about the short list of candidates

barely matched the rate at which

many top prospects, including

leaders at such august institutions

as Tufts, Brown, Stanford,

Columbia, Princeton and

Cambridge, along with several

Harvard insiders, denied interest

in the position. Why?



chancellor emeritus and chair emeritusof the board of trustees for theUniversity of Denver (Colorado). “You see the result of [fund raising], and if you do this thing right, everyoneis very pleased.”

Ensuring donor satisfaction goeshand-in-hand with fund raising,adds Ritchie. (He once returned alarge gift because he could not useit for the purpose to which it hadbeen given.) “When pleased, theones who have given you moneyare most likely to do it again,” saysRitchie. “I would say that close tohalf of the gifts received comefrom people unsolicited.”

So persuading people to givelots of money to support the work of a college or university is nothing new for collegepresidents. But nurturing donors,and making “friends” and vitalpartnerships for the institution, goeswell beyond the obvious alumni corethese days. And, doing this well takessubstantial time, creativity and finesse.

Raising the BarRaising money from alumni is one

thing; seeking it from other sources isalso a fundamental expectation oftoday’s campus leaders. “The president’sexternal responsibilities [include]raising funds from the legislature, from the federal government, payingattention to student financial aid atstate and federal levels, and launchingand certainly spending more of theirtime in comprehensive campaign aftercomprehensive campaign,” said AnnDie Hasselmo, who served as presidentof Hendrix College (Conway, Arkansas)for nine years and is now seniorconsultant with Academic Search, Inc.

The pressures are intense, says DavidLaird, president and chief executiveofficer of the Minnesota Private CollegeCouncil. As he sees it, today’s boardshave raised the bar for campus leaders,who annually are expected to solve an

“impossible equation.” “Basically, theyare supposed to balance the budget,increase the quality of the institutionand incoming students, increasediversity and reduce their discount rate.And that,” says Laird, “is not a linearequation.”

As if that weren’t enough, awatchdog mentality regardinginstitutional finances demands thatpresidents pay equal attention to boththe revenue stream and underlyingaccounting and management practices.

Doti, an economist who studiedwith Milton Friedman at the Universityof Chicago (Illinois), serves on threecorporate boards of NYSE-listedcompanies with Southern Californiaroots, so he is highly attuned to the care with which an institution mustconduct fiduciary oversight. “I knowthe pressures CEOs face,” he said.“Sarbanes-Oxley, which grew out offrustration about the Enrons in thisworld, first hit public companies, butincreasingly the same kinds of board-related policies are facing nonprofits.”

E. Gordon Gee has held moreuniversity presidencies than any otherAmerican. Prior to his appointment aschancellor of Vanderbilt University(Nashville, Tennessee) in 2000, he was president of Brown University(Providence, Rhode Island), The OhioState University (Columbus, Ohio), the

University of Colorado at Boulder, andWest Virginia University (Morgantown).Having more than 20 years of experiencein this leadership role gives Gee aunique perspective, and as he reflects onthe role, he echoes Doti’s sentiment,saying, “The major challenge we face

is the regulatory atmosphere we operate in, that of mistrustbrought about by the misdeeds ofcorporate America.”

With an increased focus onaccountability, public image and the bottom line, one mightexpect boards to hire corporate or nonprofit executives to bringbusiness savvy and marketing andoperational skills to the table. But, in reality, most hires for thetop post are academic insiders.

Inside Job or Outside the Box?

Although many institutions conductsearches and indicate they wouldwelcome non-traditional candidates orthose whose leadership experience liesoutside higher education, that’s rarelywhat happens, said Hasselmo, whofacilitates senior-level searches withAcademic Search, Inc. “The vastmajority are filled by people who havelived long in the academy,” she says.

In fact, the rate of presidents coming from a primarily non-academicbackground has slowed a bit after a 15 percent peak in 2001, according todata from the ACE survey of collegepresidents, notes Judith BlockMcLaughlin, director of the HigherEducation Program at HarvardUniversity and an expert on collegepresidential leadership, assessment andtransitions. The survey also reveals that13 percent of presidents in 2006 heldtheir prior positions outside ofacademia, compared with about 10 percent in 1986.

Both experts say successfulpresidents may come from either inside or outside the institution.

“Basically, they are supposed tobalance the budget, increase thequality of the institution andincoming students, increase

diversity and reduce their discountrate. And that is not a linear

equation.” —DAVID LAIRD

President and Chief Executive Officer of the Minnesota Private College Council



Yet sometimes presidencies arecontentious—and brief—when theindividual and the institution prove a mismatch.

“Cultures, context, protocols,expectations, values, mission andnorms are different from place toplace,” says Block McLaughlin.“That is not just true for peoplewho come from outside highered, but also for those who comefrom one academic institution toanother. But there is typically abigger disjuncture or discrepancybetween what may have madesomeone successful in a non-academic workplace, and [the needs of]an academic workplace.”

“Only by understanding theinstitution and its culture can thepresident assist the institution infinding itself in a new way [that]resonates with how faculty, staff andother constituencies understand theplace they love,” adds Hasselmo.

An example of a strong outside-the-box hire is Sanford Ungar, president of Goucher College (Baltimore,Maryland). Though Ungar had served asdean of the School of Communicationsat American University (Washington,D.C.), he did not have “the traditionalacademic credentials of a Ph.D. andteaching experience,” said Goucherboard chair John Bond, chair andformer CEO of The Columbia Bank,“but what he did bring wereoutstanding equivalent credentials, as an author, as well as extensiveinternational exposure from hisjournalistic career [including severalyears hosting National Public Radio’s‘All Things Considered’] and as head ofVoice of America.”

Ungar wasn’t hired for his Rolodex,Bond says, but his personal andprofessional connections haveheightened Goucher’s visibility. Afterall, only someone like Ungar couldbring Maurice Sendak, Bob Woodward

and Miss Manners (Judith Martin),among others, to speak on campus withlittle more than a personal phone call.

The Art of CommunicationUngar might have the advantage

when it comes to celebrity contacts, but for any college president to succeed, he or she must excel in the art of communication. Of course, thedynamics of campus leadership in the 21st century call for skills tocommunicate by any and all meansnecessary: by telephone, online, face-to-face, on television or in front of thousands.

“An effective president needs to bevisible,” says higher education veteranOwen Sammelson, recently retired vice president for administration atGustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter,Minnesota). This is especially true at a small college, and especially amongstudents, suggests Sammelson. “Evenseeing a president for two to threeminutes shows he or she is interested inwhat others are doing,” he says. “That isimportant in terms of morale.”

Gordon Gee hardly runs a smallcollege, but he prioritizes personalcontact with folks on campus. “I thinkone cannot under-communicate,” says Gee. “I spend a considerableamount of time walking [around the]campus and visiting people in theiroffices, [getting to know] the names offamilies and friends and finding outwhat they are about.”

“If a president doesn’t view himself as having that kind of personalleadership role, then I would suggest

he is not providing the leadershipnecessary in a very people-centeredinstitution,” concludes Gee.

And, as Gee can attest, goodcommunication begets goodcommunication. Despite theUniversity’s accomplishmentsunder his watch—includingcompleting a $1.25 billion fund-raising campaign two years aheadof schedule; doubling researchfunding; tripling student financialaid; and increasing applications,

minority enrollment and average SATscores—Gee was subjected to intensecriticism last year in the local media forhis compensation package and spendingdecisions. However, in the end, the media’s attempt to censure him merelyilluminated the tremendous supportGee has earned from faculty, studentsand his board of trustees. They reactedas if he were a rock star in a bow tierather than a campus administrator, andtheir enthusiasm for Gee snuffed outthe story.

But, not every college president has a larger-than-life presence, and agrowing number may wear mid-heelpumps rather than a tie. Regardless, the best leaders communicate regularlyand effectively, often with good old-fashioned face time. Building trust onepersonal conversation at a time canfacilitate the president’s ability to sharehis or her vision for the institution. Andthat, say observers, is an essential taskfor a successful leader.

Sharing the Vision“Schools that struggle tend to be

those that don’t have presidents who areclear and articulate about their vision,”said Kevin Crockett, who estimates he’s worked with about 150 collegepresidents as the president and CEO ofenrollment management consulting

“The major challenge we face is the regulatory atmosphere

we operate in, that of mistrustbrought about by the misdeeds

of corporate America.”—JAMES DOTI

President of Chapman University (Orange, California)



firm Noel-Levitz. “Some say it’spossible to talk too much about vision,but I don’t think so. Good presidentstalk about vision all the time so thatevery campus constituency—from aperson who works in the cafeteria to a distinguished faculty chair—knows the vision and can speak to it as well.”

For 20 years, President RobertBottoms of DePauw University(Greencastle, Indiana) has demonstratedunwavering commitment to articulatinghis vision to skeptics and fans alike.

“[Bottoms’] cardinal quality as aleader of the University is in creating auniversity vision,” states DePauwEnglish professor Martha Rainbolt.“He has such a strong sense of whatDePauw might be.” That vision hasled DePauw to very successful fund-raising efforts allowing the Universityto make significant academic

improvements and land in the top tierrankings, which, notes Bottoms, areactually quite important in attractinginternational students—a componentof his longtime vision to diversify theheartland campus.

“Ever since I came here in 1979,”Rainbolt said, “he has always beencommitted to diversity, and that wasnot always popular with the trusteesand donors. In ’79 this place felt likethe ’50s. He really changed it.”Rainbolt coordinates the new JanetPrindle Ethics Institute, which alsogrew out of Bottoms’ vision topromote the moral formation ofstudents by incorporating ethicsthroughout the curriculum.

Campus leaders and faculty fromvery different kinds of institutionsagree that not only having a vision butalso eliciting buy-in from all sides areessential for a president’s success.

Collaborating forConsensus

Mount Holyoke College hasmanaged to buck current trends inhigher education, maintaining its nicheas a liberal arts women’s college thanksto President Creighton’s vision “to look at its historic mission and makesure it is relevant in a postmodern,postfeminist world,” said former boardchair Barbara Rossotti, who is a seniorpartner at Pillsbury Winthrop ShawPittman, LLP. Rossotti describesCreighton as a listener and a planner,and “utterly collaborative,” whichallows her to make difficult decisionswith the support of the community. For example, despite initial protest,including student sit-ins, the Collegerecently ended its long-cherished policyof completely need-blind admission,ultimately with the unanimous supportof the faculty and the board.

Asensitive aspect of the college president’s job is therole of public intellectual or advocate. Yet in today’s

court of public opinion, to speak out definitively on adivisive topic may be risky.

“In a period of political unrest and highly chargeddiscussions about both public policy and the role of highereducation in the community,” says David Laird, thepresident of the Minnesota Private College Council,“presidents are always caught in a conflict between theirneed to maintain the support of their principal donors andto provide public leadership as educators in the middle ofthat conflict. And it is not surprising to listen to presidentswho are frustrated by the limits of their own freedom.” Yetsome presidents would resist such reticence.

Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee)Chancellor Gordon Gee says, “I think in many waysuniversity presidents have lost their voice for two reasons.First: One becomes fearful of offending individuals.Second: Increasingly, people appointed to university

presidencies are those who have offended the fewestnumber of people for the longest period of time. So youdon’t get people who are given to speaking out about theissues of the day. We do not have the kind of intellectuallybased leadership we should have. We don’t get it fromcorporate structures in this country, either.”

Daniel Ritchie, chancellor emeritus and chair emeritusof the board of trustees at the University of Denver(Colorado), agrees that presidents have abdicated theexpectation that they’ll take a stand on important issues,but he’s more sympathetic.

“I think most presidents are so busy just staying abovewater,” says Ritchie, “that they don’t have time to go outand do really extraordinary things publicly. I think weshould, but there are so many risks in what you do everyday that to add to them by taking controversial positions isdifficult.”

Ritchie recently helped lobby for a city sales tax to funduniversal preschool in Denver. The University of Denver

U s i n g t h e P r e s i d e n t ’ s P l a t f o r m f o r P u b l i c G o o d

by Kris Berggren



“She was successful with that issuebecause she attacked it analyticallyrather than emotionally,” Rossotti said, and because Creighton solicitedcross-constituent input on the issue andcommunicated throughout the processwith the entire college community. A first-year follow-up report showingthat the shift improved both classquality and institutional finances wasshared campus-wide, too.

Other institutions with differentproblems call for different tactics—butthe same process of creating consensus.For example, Tri-State’s Brooks gets ravereviews from his staff and board fortransforming a “stagnant” institutionwith a deeply troubled financial historyinto a thriving campus whose alumnibarely recognize the campus for itsextreme makeover, according to Board of Trustees President John Pittman, whois retired but makes eight to 10 trips a

year to the Indiana campus from hisTexas home. Inquiries have doubled,enrollment has grown from 1,250 to2,000, and the discount rate has dropped13 percent.

Tri-State’s Vice President forEnrollment Management Scott Goplinsays he’s worked for “poor, mediocre,good and great” presidents during his28-year career in higher education, andhe ranks Brooks among the very best.Brooks has the makings of a greatinstitutional leader, according toGoplin. “He earns the respect of thebroad institutional community. He keeps the alumni, faculty andinstitution focused on solvinginstitutional problems, not on thepresident. He keeps the focus true andnot on himself.”

“Basically, he’s built an environmentwhere people can grow and take a littlerisk,” says Pittman, “one where

everyone in the administration andfaculty knows—or is getting on thetrain—that we are advancing everyaspect of university life. And everyone is encouraged.” And Tri-State hasn’thad a “loss” year since Brooks’ arrival,Pittman said.

Calculating the RisksGiven the high stakes involved, it

might be surprising to learn that theleading college presidents are moreentrepreneurial today than they were inthe past. “They look beyond traditionalthinking to move their campusesforward,” said Kevin Crockett of Noel-Levitz.

DePauw board member Tim Solsodescribes President Bottoms’ leadershipin terms of ethical and managementrisks that have paid off for theUniversity. Several years ago, Bottomsdecided to issue bonds to capitalize on

operates an early childhood school for children from sixweeks to four years of age. While funding preschool may seem like a no-brainer, Ritchie says it is indeedcontroversial among those who believe educating youngchildren is a parental responsibility, not a public one. Thetax, which was the first of its kind in the country, he notes,passed by a narrow margin.

“In my situation,” Ritchie says, “I had sufficientconfidence after a while that I was going to be okay on thehome front, so I spoke out about early childhood educationand have become known as a person who knows what he is talking about and is willing both from a universityperspective and otherwise to support that.”

Mount Holyoke (South Hadley, Massachusetts)President Joanne Creighton believes that using herplatform to promote some issues is good for theinstitution’s public profile, but she has limits. “I do thinkthere are some areas where one shouldn’t go. I should stay away from some vexed public policy issues, or fromendorsing a political candidate. But, for example, we werea leader in going SAT optional. I have been out there onthat issue. We are very keen on our diversity agenda. Iwould be out there on that issue.”

Other presidents, such as former journalist SanfordUngar of Goucher College (Baltimore, Maryland), believethe liberal arts college is precisely where touchy subjectsought to be debated.

“I think a liberal arts college has to be a center ofdiscussion on the important issues of the day,” says Ungar. He and his colleagues “have an obligation” to use theirplatform to advance the public discourse. “I don’t thinkyou can put a wall around a liberal arts college and say theonly thing we talk about is whether students should beallowed to live off campus or whether this course getscredit for this major. We should discuss the issues of theday. If we don’t, who will?”

Laird says that the current wartime political climaterecalls an earlier era. “When I am talking with presidentsabout that conflict [of interest] I always try to point themback to the roles of Robben Fleming and Fr. Hesburgh and Derek Bok [former presidents of the University ofMichigan, the University of Notre Dame and HarvardUniversity, respectively] during the Vietnam War era;those people rose above everything and put their ownpersonal positions on the line to be both promoters ofpublic discussion and healers.”



the University’s credit capability inorder to improve facilities and hiremore faculty. “The University isflourishing today because of that,” saidSolso. “And it would not have happenedif Bob and a few board membershadn’t had the courage to borrowmoney and make thoseinvestments.”

Bottoms has also been a“pioneer and a champion ofdiversity in terms of recruitingboth diverse students and faculty,although that did take, and stilldoes, an extraordinary effort,”Solso said. Together Bottoms andSolso have created an internationalscholarship program eventuallyexpected to fund hundreds ofinternational students at DePauw as four-year matriculants, whileDePauw students will spend time in developing countries.

“That hits my hot spot,” admits Solso,the chairman and CEO of Cummins, a multibillion-dollar multinationalcompany, who says too many younggraduates come into business lackingeven basic global awareness.

“How many university presidentsthat have been at it for 20 yearscontinue to have new ideas and greater enthusiasm than ever before?” Solso posed. “He is still growing anddeveloping as a college president and a human being.”

Working Together, Despite Differences

Presidents say, of course, thatcommunicating with all theirconstituencies is important, but perhapsnone are linked more closely to effectiveleadership than the faculty and theboard of trustees. Yet, according to a recent survey of 2,148 collegepresidents by the American Council onEducation, many presidents considerfaculty and board relationships amongtheir biggest challenges.

Faculty relationships are consideredamong the top three most challengingconstituencies by 41.5 percent ofpresidents of private institutions and 37.4 percent of those at public

institutions. Faculty may indeed be “the core of your institution,” as one president put it, but they’refamously process-oriented, which can be maddening to your basicbottom-line type.

DePauw trustee Solso believesmanaging the relationship with facultyis one of the three most important rolesof a college president, with the othersbeing fund raising and acting as chiefoperating officer.

“[To be a] college president is a finebalancing act,” Solso says. “By that Imean first, you have to manage yourrelationship with the faculty, and that is pure consensus management. Andfaculty tend to have a very diverseperspective, not necessarily always tied to the real world. That is not ajudgment against them. But to be aneffective college president you have tohave an effective relationship withfaculty.” Indeed, DePauw faculty valuePresident Bottoms’ direct, honest andrespectful communication—even whenviewpoints diverge.

“[Dr. Bottoms] says the same thingto everybody; he doesn’t change hismessage depending on what group he is talking to,” DePauw’s ProfessorRainbolt says. “Of course, some peopledon’t like Bob Bottoms, and all of ushave disagreed with him at various

times, including me. But one thing thatgives him staying power is that you can disagree with him—and he expectsyou to. Sometimes he goes ahead anddoes what he wants to anyway. But

he respects people who disagree with him.”

Twenty-two percent ofpresidents of public and privateinstitutions alike also rank theirboards of trustees or governorsamong the top three mostchallenging constituencies.Having been on both sides of thetable—as the former chancellorand former chair of the board of

trustees at the University of Denver—Daniel Ritchie claims a secret to successis the ability to build consensus oncampus through listening as well assharing one’s own ideas.

“Taking the time in the beginningto hear others, you learn things andchange your ideas, and to some degreechange theirs,” Ritchie says. “But onceyou have a generally agreed upon courseand mission, it gets easier because you can always go back to that [as atouchstone].”

Bottoms says he relies on DePauwboard members to support him in areas where he is not an expert, like the sciences and business operations.“When you have a $100 millionbudget, you are running a business,”explains Bottoms. “We have a verystrong board of trustees. They do notinterfere with internal matters likestaffing and, conversely, I have learned alot from trustees about the business sideof a college. If I have an entrepreneurialspirit, I have the ability to harness thewisdom of many people.”

Sometimes presidents learn theimportance of shared ownership andteamwork in decision-making the hardway. When he first attempted to moveChapman University from NCAADivision II to Division III athletics inan attempt to shift athletic scholarship

According to a recent survey of2,148 college presidents by the

American Council on Education,many presidents consider facultyand board relationships among

their biggest challenges.



money to academic scholarships, PresidentDoti admits, “I failed miserably.”

However, success was attainablewhen he chose a different approach:“[After my first attempt,] I talkedwith my cabinet and an elderstatesmen in the community,” saysDoti. “He gave me a strategicapproach I might use, and laterChapman did implement the change.”

“C” is for CharismaLeading colleges and universities

today requires myriad different skills,and each president approaches the jobwith a unique set of experiences, talentsand goals. Despite their differences, thebest college presidents share a certainquality that is hard to define. It’s ablend of optimism, determination,confidence and charm. It’s what keepsthem going and enables them tomanage the overscheduled calendars,days and days of travel, and thousandsof names and faces—all with a smile.

What is it that keeps goodpresidents going? Perhaps Gordon Geesays it best: “I love what I do.”

“I am more energized today thanwhen I started. I remember a goodfriend and mentor who told me, ‘Themistake university presidents make isthey love the university too much,’ and that they really should keep [theuniversity] at arm’s length,” relates Gee.“I think that is not right.”

“[Presidents] have to be engaged in the life of the institution. When itdoes well, relish it; when not, take theblame and the appropriate steps tomake changes,” says Gee. “There are300,000,000 people in this country and3,600 colleges, so that makes collegepresidents a very rare breed indeed. I have always viewed the universitypresidency as a calling and a blessing. I never call it a job. I refuse to use that word ‘j-o-b.’ I have a uniqueopportunity and do not want to waste a single moment.”

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