In other words, is it worth it to pursue some sort of prominent role in the national dialogue like I had when I worked at MIT? Sometimes I miss that. But it would require hitting the speaking circuit again, attending a bunch of conferences and other networking events, and more engagement in online forums. Oberlin would get recognition by association, I suppose, but at what cost? I'd have to focus less on Oberlin itself, and that's what I came here to do.
But simply focusing on Oberlin and letting the aggressive study of evolving national issues take a backseat leaves a big hole.
Ugh. No easy answer to this.
]]>In the meantime, some personal reflections.
When I was a student here -- and throughout the decade that followed -- I was adamantly against the idea of an ROTC presence on Oberlin's campus. DADT was a major factor, but not the only one. I'd been indoctrinated (by a variety of sources, not just Oberlin friends) to see the military as primarily a war machine, a concept that didn't resonate well with the peace-loving pacifist Oberlin kid I'd always been.
A big part of me still feels that ROTC doesn't belong on this campus. Even with the repeal of DADT (a definite step in the right direction), the military's policies continue to discriminate against subsets of the LGBT community, and equality is an all-or-nothing deal as far as I'm concerned. And stories like this one (penned by fellow alum and Oscar-winner Mark Boal '95) don't help with the image of violence-for-the-sake-of-violence.
But 9/11 made things less easy to compartmentalize, for me and for many of my Oberlin friends as well. For the most part I think we clung to our idealism, but the cracks were now there.
The years in which my opinions entered significant grey territory were the years in which I worked at MIT, which has several branches of ROTC on campus. I had the privilege of getting to know several ROTC kids and was pleasantly surprised by their motivations and passions. These were not people who were driven by a goal of heading into combat. These were people who were excited about engineering, science, and policy -- and able to explain eloquently and in great detail how those things were far more important to the future of national security than waging war in the name of peacekeeping. These were people who wanted to be leaders, people who absolutely understood the relationship between power and responsibility.
To paraphrase their pro-ROTC argument: what is the cost of not having Oberlin-minded people in the upper levels of military decision-making?
At some level, we must accept that the solution to policies such as DADT must be pursued from the inside. Sure we could boycott ROTC until those problems have been resolved, but that would really be letting someone else fight the good fight. And that's not the Oberlin I know.
I guess that last paragraph makes it sound like I'm advocating for us to bring ROTC to campus. Let me clarify: I'm not advocating for either side of the argument. But I do think it's a discussion worth having, and one that is far less black and white than I once believed.
]]>A colleague who was seated at the same table was far more diplomatic and gave an eloquent response, citing all of the ways we'd cease to be Oberlin if we began playing the game that others have played to raise themselves in the rankings. For example, we could sell all of the art in the Allen, put the cash into the endowment, and jump a few places. (Some might argue that our art collection is priceless as a teaching and learning asset, but the US News methodology does not seem to agree.) Or we could reduce our historic commitment to access and funnel much of the $52M annual financial aid budget into areas that US News does recognize in its methodology (with the current system, Oberlin gets zero credit for its commitment to access).
(I'll pause here to note that if you haven't yet read the Gladwell piece recently published in the New Yorker, you simply have to. It should be required reading for anyone who cares even peripherally about these issues.)
The alum's reaction to my colleague's perspective was borderline hostile, and that's when I distanced myself from the conversation before my Obie-alum mouth took control of my Obie-administrator mouth and got me into trouble. Ultimately it's better to be productive, I figured, despite the personal pleasure I could have derived from really engaging in that debate.
After all, the reality is that if someone so close to the institution can embrace these skewed views of the rankings and their importance, it is likely that many alumni are in the same boat. Which means we're not doing enough to counterbalance the argument with perspective and context.
I was heartened to see a contemporary of mine, Mike Bastedo '94, cited extensively in the Gladwell piece. Mike is an educational sociologist at the University of Michigan who has studied the US News methodology for years -- and the perfect person to inject our alumni community with some much-needed perspective. Hagan and I had a conference call with him yesterday in which he agreed to do just that -- if the timing works out, you'll see a feature story penned by Mike in the summer issue of the OAM.
There's a lot of good data in the US News rankings, but it requires strategic customization in order to be relevant to the individual. That one-size-fits-all final ranking shouldn't mean much to Obies or to others who embrace Oberlin values, such as the celebration of individuality. When I worked in Admissions, I used to tell kids to make their own rankings based on which factors were most important to them.
At the end of the day, Oberlin's place in the US News rankings is no more a measure of Oberlin's worth as an institution than your SAT score is a measure of your worth as a human being. And sacrificing who you are for the sake of a number (and one that doesn't really translate to the real world) is never a good way to go. It's definitely not the way to choose the college that is best matched to your personal and educational aspirations -- a lesson I hope the aforementioned student isn't learning the hard way.
Just my 2 cents, with the usual disclaimer - opinions stated on this blog are my own blah blah blah.
]]>In the meantime, two authors have captured the landscape here as well as I ever could have -- I'll let them do the work for me. Enjoy these terrific pieces.
]]>Ugh.
I've let a lot of people down with my lack of writing on this site -- most importantly, I've let myself down. A few weeks ago, the good folks in the MIT Office of Admissions linked to my "It's More Than A Job" entry on their forum for non-admitted applicants. I received several emails from kids who had applied to MIT, thanking me for words I wrote in 2006. After all this time, my blogging is apparently still making a difference in the world... at MIT. Talk about a wake-up call.
But what about blogging here at Oberlin?
I have every excuse in the book, but I don't really want to get into those at the moment. Maybe in a future entry. To make a very long story short, most of what I want to write about might be considered too controversial -- a level of institutional transparency unbecoming of a VP -- and this fear has crippled my ability to blog thus far.
When I started this job I envisioned all sorts of new freedoms -- the benefits of climbing the org chart. And to a certain extent, many of those perceived freedoms have proven true - but blogging has been an exception, and a significant one. I need to figure out if that's based in reality, or only in my head.
If it is indeed a reality, it's time for me to hang up the blogging hat. I don't want to insult my readers (or myself) by simply blogging for the sake of blogging and writing a bunch of hollow garbage. Umagazinology hits the nail on the head here.
So what now? Time will tell. But it's time for one more shot at this. Let's see what happens.
]]>Ready... GO
]]>Rewind a day or so. He and I lay on our backs in the mid-afternoon sunlight, staring up at the sky, wearing t-shirts in mid-November in northeast Ohio. It is almost 70 degrees. "Isn't this great?" he says.
I pause to consider his question carefully.
I have two main jobs as a dad, you see. The first is to give my kid a good childhood, to secure his happiness, to protect him from the burdens of the world. The second is to prepare him in every possible way for the future he stands to inherit. I can answer his question in a manner that will satisfy one of these, but not both.
Ultimately I choose to be honest with him about the theories behind weather like this, despite the knowledge that this will rob him of a certain innocence, perhaps too soon. Still, it is the only choice. I am determined to do my part to raise a generation that transcends the inertia of its predecessors. I know I must begin with this moment, because I do not have the same luxury of time that my parents and grandparents enjoyed.
So I explain the intricacies of climate change, the effect of carbon in the atmosphere, the country's dependence on fossil fuel. I explain melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels in the context of an underwater Boston (where he was born).
"Hmm," he says. "But I like Boston the way it is."
I am taken by his reaction, not so much by the words, but by the manner in which he says them. I detect no sadness or fear. His tone is one of pure defiance, and I can sense the wheels already turning in his head.
That night, I overhear him telling his little brother that there won't be any snow this winter. "Global warming," he whispers matter-of-factly. "But we can fix it." And he wastes no time.
Back to Monday. I'm awake now, propped up on one elbow. "So let's hear your solution," I say.
"It's easy," he replies. "We'll put solar panels on everything. On our cars, on our houses, on the school." He's clearly been thinking about this for hours. He's even figured out how best to retrofit the gasoline engines and oil furnaces to be compatible with solar energy, and explains this to me in great detail, using models built out of legos.
I praise him for his good ideas but send him off to school with a brief explanation of economics - the relative affordability of fossil fuels, the high cost of solar panels, the spectrum of household income levels, government and corporate influence. He just smiles at me. He is unfazed.
When I get home from work, he is waiting at the door. "Daddy," he says. "The solution is that this doesn't have to be all one thing or the other thing right away." He then presents me with the plan he's worked on all afternoon, which outlines how families at all income levels can transition from fossil fuels to solar energy, albeit at different speeds. It begins with every household getting one solar panel ("just one!"), perhaps on loan from the government ("like they did with the banks!"). "Since solar energy is free," he says, "you can take the money you save by using that one panel and buy more panels, and keep going until you have enough panels to not need fossil fuels anymore. Sure it'll take some people longer than others, but everyone could get there eventually, right?"
It occurs to me that my seven-year-old has ideas that are more impressive than those of several politicians I've heard speaking on TV. Before I can tell him this, he's off to play some game on his Wii.
I believe that the children of each generation are probably born with all of the answers. Then they begin to grow up - which we see as our cue to slowly, systematically mold them into versions of ourselves - and those answers are lost forever.
There's a lot we can do to combat climate change: conserve energy and water, recycle, compost, drive less. But perhaps more important than any of these things, and even easier: when our children tell us they know how to fix the world, let's listen to them and not muck up the simplicity of their ideas with our own damaged perspectives. Some lessons are better handed up than down.
Children love the planet in pure and uncomplicated terms. We should allow them to teach us what modern civilization has seduced us into unlearning.
]]>This question has been coming up a lot lately, and it's not personal to Oberlin - many folks out there simply hold the misguided belief that a college program requiring early specialization will yield a more successful career path.
To them, I say watch from 0:40 --> 1:20 of this video. (That's often a good place to start with folks who think we need to "prepare our kids for specific career paths." :-) )
Then I tell them to read this. I found it awhile back, and I think it does a good job of explaining why an education such as the one provided by a place like Oberlin is the best choice to prepare for the 21st century global landscape.
Here's another one, by one of our own associate directors of admission.
And I love what Robert Harris has written here, especially points I, II, and III. (He loses me a bit when he gets into the religious stuff.)
It occurred to me that we will need to begin crafting some of our own messaging around the value of a liberal arts education as this debate heats up - it will no longer be enough to simply communicate the value of Oberlin specifically.
So, Obies, if someone were to ask you why you value your own liberal arts education, or why he or she should choose the same path, how would you respond?
]]>Your loyalty to this rarely-updated mess of a site is about to be rewarded: you will be among the first to see our new internal (campus) communications project, which combines the weekly Source e-newsletter and OnCampus website into a new homepage designed specifically for the campus community, a daily online news magazine and one-stop-shop of information relevant to current students, faculty, and staff.
Note that this is an alpha release, limited to a small circle of interested folks, and won't be in public beta for a bit, so content is likely to be simple placeholder text and/or outdated in various places.
Some quick notes:
Temporary link is here:
oncampus.csr.oberlin.edu
A huge thanks to Harris, Joseph, Stephen, Cary, Cindy, Terrance, and everyone else who worked tirelessly to make this possible.
Please feel free to send me any feedback via email or post in the comments of this entry. This will be an ongoing project for several months, so we likely won't be able to implement all suggestions before public release, but we'll do our best. I look forward to your thoughts!
-B
]]>
T: "Because when the coach doesn't put you in the game, it's called being bleached."
B: "Actually, that would be 'benched,' honey."
T: "Right. Um, well, no idea then."
(LOL.)
]]>No, no I didn't. Instead, I thought, "It must be nice to be in a position to spew commentary on things you only peripherally understand, to mass numbers of people who will take it as gospel."
Yes, I sound bitter. I really wouldn't care about any of this if it weren't such a perpetual thorn in my side. Probably not fair to take it out on xkcd.
But seriously, running a college website is an extraordinarily complicated affair. There are many academic and administrative departments on campus - often with competing agendas - and the site has to (at least make a solid attempt to) satisfy them all. There are many target audiences, internal and external, and the site has to satisfy them all. There are students and faculty and administrators and alumni, with unique preferences and opinions on how the school should translate itself to the web, on what information is "useful," on what stories to tell and why, and the site has to... you get the idea.
Cultivating compromise doesn't even begin to describe it. Mark Greenfield pretty much gets it right in the InsideHigherEd piece that came out today when he talks about "homepage politics."
There's no magic pill of a solution here, or we would have figured it out long ago. Our first step this summer has been to envision two distinct audiences - internal and external, i.e. those who already know Oberlin intimately and those who don't - and build homepages for each of them. The new homepage for the insiders should launch early this fall, and I'm pretty excited about it.
We also have a gorgeous new homepage design for the external audience waiting in the wings that will also hopefully launch sometime in the next year. It addresses many of the issues outlined in the InsideHigherEd piece.
In my experience, both at MIT and Oberlin, there is an audience - and a very significant one - for both sides of the xkcd Venn diagram. Of course there are folks who are just looking for the "CIA operation" - i.e. get in, get what you need, and get out - but there are plenty of others who are looking for the stories of the place, the primary sources, the narratives of transition and transformation. To suggest otherwise is a pretty good indication that you've never worked on a college website.
Enough from me. What do you guys think?
]]>I digress.
Lots of chatter on the interwebs today about what's going on. Yes, it seems that DB isn't happening this year. No, this doesn't necessarily mean that DB is gone forever.
To break it down, there are two groups of DB supporters: those who love DB, and those who love DB so much that they're willing to organize, plan, and execute it (like my old friend Hailey Laws, who can tell you a lot about sacrifice and what it takes to make DB happen). The latter camp is virtually non-existent these days, and therein lies our problem.
I wrote to my friend Linda Gates to get some history and context. Here is her response:
Drag Ball started as a party in Talcott in the early '90s and quickly outgrew that space. It moved to South in its second year, and because that was a residence hall, the space was also not appropriate for a party of that scale. The event then moved to the 'Sco and in the earlier years benefited from a lot of student interest in how it was planned, organized, and run.
Beginning around 2000, student organizational support diminished. Students were enthusiastic about attending the event, but the planning and execution fell to just a handful of students. Each year for nearly the last decade we have struggled with the two main problems that have led to this year's decision: lack of proper funding, and lack of organizational support.
Last year after DB, a number of us met several times with the two DB organizers (including this year's organizer) and we were very clear: if students did not charter the group, did not plan and organize the event in advance, and did not procure funding through procedures that all student organizations use to fund their activities, DB would be in jeopardy. When none of those things happened, those of us who participated in that discussion - including this year's sole student organizer - reached consensus that DB should be canceled for spring 2010.
DB has been an expensive enterprise and although ticket sales do pay for a significant percentage of the expenses, the event has required ad hoc support from SFC, Student Union Board, and Forum Board without which it could never have met its financial obligations.
What about the future? If student interest is such that the event can be planned well and far enough in advance, and if DB is chartered and can submit funding requests as required of other student organizations, DB could certainly happen next year and in subsequent years.
What about this year? I have been asked if there is going to be an event of similar magnitude that will take place in its stead, or if there is any replacement event at all. Some of the acts who had been considered by this year's single student organizer will perform in the 'Sco, but this will not be viewed as a related event. The student who serves as the spokesperson for DB planning this year has been very clear that she does not want this to be viewed as a replacement for the larger event.
Why has this decision been made? Although we are aware that a number of people will be disappointed and may attribute this decision to a number of incorrect factors, the reason the event is being canceled is 1) that there has not been enough student interest and participation in planning the event and 2) that it has grown to such an extent that without adequate advance planning and funding, it is not sustainable.
Linda
I'll add my additional two cents here - back in the day, DB was really about education, awareness, and support. I get the feeling that this has faded in recent years - that most (not all, but most) students now just think of it as a big campus party with some fun runway stuff to watch. I'm happy to be corrected here, if I am mistaken... but it would certainly explain the lack of enthusiasm for planning the thing.
Where does this leave us? It's really up to the students, I think - it always has been. Because DB has ALWAYS been a student-organized event. If the administration were to take over, you'd hate it (admit it).
So - is this going to be another example of people being happy to complain but unwilling to be part of the solution?
I hope not. Hint: it's never too early to start planning for next year.
]]>Many thanks to the good folks at WhippleHill for capturing my keynote to video:
Here are the slides, if you'd like to download them:
Ben Jones EdSocialMedia Keynote Slides
And here are some photos of the event, courtesy of photographer Michael J. Maloney:
[ with the EdSocialMedia team ]
[ presenting with Phil Collins ]
[ more Phil Collins ]
[ showing off the new admissions poster ]
Have a great weekend everyone!
-B