How Basic Skills & Family Income Predict College Going

CONNECTION NEW ENGLAND’S JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT VOLUME XIV, NUMBER 3 FALL/WINTER 1999 $3.95

Access How Basic Skills & Family Income Predict College Going

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Deborah Meier on Schools Changing New England’s Culture of Philanthropy Maine’s New Investment in Research & Development Careers for a Community Service Generation Volume XIV, No. 3 CONNECTION Fall/Winter 1999 NEW ENGLAND’S JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

28 E-College: New England Institutions Marry Traditional Strengths to Cybertools Alan R. Earls Cover photograph by John Forasté courtesy of Brown University. 32 A New England Renaissance? Changing the Region’s Culture COVER STORY of Philanthropy George McCully 15 Access Is About 37 Progress Report: Institutional Autonomy More Than Money and Public Accountability Paul E. Harrington and Andrew M. Sum Eleanor M. McMahon Much of the discussion about improving access to higher education has centered around making college more affordable by improving financial aid and limiting tuition growth. But is financial DEPARTMENTS aid enough? Can we solve the problems of access to higher education simply by improving the 5 Editor’s Memo affordability of college? John O. Harney 6 Short Courses COMMENTARY 13 Data Connection 18 Making Change: Careers for a 39 Books Community Service Generation Rebel with a Cause reviewed by Edmund T. Cranch Steven K. Katona Best Practices in Higher Education Consortia reviewed by Carol Angus 20 A Conversation about Schools The College on the Hill (History of Middlebury) with Deborah Meier reviewed by John O. Harney 24 Targeting Technology: 42 Excerpts Maine’s New Investment in A Break from Pork: The Knight Higher Education Research and Development Collaborative on Campus Lobbying Carol Kontos 43 Campus: News Briefly Noted

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 3 EDITOR’S MEMO

CONNECTION ccess. If one word captures the range of compelling issues that the NEW ENGLAND’S JOURNAL New England Board of Higher Education should focus its energy on OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT A at the start of the new century, the word is access. CONNECTION: NEW ENGLAND’S JOURNAL OF HIGHER That was the consensus of NEBHE delegates who met recently in North EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT is Conway, N.H., to discuss NEBHE priorities for the first five years of the 21st cen- published four times a year by the New England Board of Higher Education, 45 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111. tury. Their task: to make sense of a year’s worth of “focus group” meetings in Phone: 617.357.9620 • Fax: 617.338.1577 which NEBHE staff traveled to each of the New England states to ask leaders of Email: [email protected] education, government, business and the nonprofit sector what they see as the Vol. XIV, No. 3 Fall/Winter 1999 most crucial higher education, economic and social issues facing the region. ISSN 0895-6405 Copyright © 1999 by the New England Board of Higher Education. That access to college should rate so high is hardly surprising. While New England is the world’s most famous importer of young talent from across the Publisher: John C. Hoy Executive Editor: John O. Harney nation and around the globe, large groups of New England residents from Assistant Editor: Susan W. Martin urban Bridgeport, Conn., to rural Aroostook County, Maine, have little chance Editorial Intern: N. Sean Bowditch of tapping into the region’s vaunted higher education enterprise. Without a Director of Publications: Charlotte Stratton Design and Production: The Publication Group college education, they are deprived of the fruits of the region’s booming knowledge-based economy, which is paradoxically starved for workers. They Advertising Sales and Marketing Coordinator: Christine Quinlan have virtually no social mobility—no chance of the American Dream. Access then is the linchpin in another issue that clearly preoccupied focus Subscription Information: $20 per year (4 issues); regular issues $3.95 each; annual FACTS issue $14.95. group participants: the growing economic disparity between New England’s distressed rural areas and old industrial cities on one hand and the region’s Advertising rates are available upon request. bustling, technology-intensive suburbs on the other. CONNECTION is printed in New England. CONNECTION The stakes are obviously high. But what is the nature of the access problem? is indexed in PAIS International and in ERIC’s Current Index to Journals in Education. CONNECTION is Access is frequently coupled with affordability. Focus group participants available in microform and electronically from noted that the price of college—especially in New England—effectively denies University Microfilms, 800 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, access to many nontraditional students and those raising families (and indeed, MI 48106. A cumulative index of CONNECTION articles and abstracts of recent articles are accessible on the some suggested a new G.I. Bill is needed to help people pay for college). World Wide Web at www.nebhe.org. Yet many focus group participants echoed University of Rhode Island The New England Board of Higher Education Professor Harold Bibb’s observation that “the notion of access needs to be is a nonprofit, congressionally authorized, interstate expanded beyond cost—that students must be prepared to go to college.” agency whose mission is to foster cooperation and the Several spoke of the particular obstacles facing inner cities where over- efficient use of resources among New England’s approximately 260 colleges and universities. NEBHE burdened high school guidance counselors contend with issues such as was established by the New England Higher Education drugs, crime and teen suicide. Others spoke of rural communities where Compact, a 1955 agreement among the states of higher education is considered a luxury, and a live-for-today mentality dis- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. courages borrowing for college. Worse, parents steer children away from college, fearing that young people may never return once they’ve seen the Chair: David C. Knapp, President-Emeritus, University of Massachusetts bright lights of Burlington or Orono, to say nothing of Paris. At a minimum, the access issue encompasses inadequate attention to early President: John C. Hoy childhood education, uneven K-12 preparation, hit-and-miss college guidance and low aspirations—all symptoms of the growing gap between haves and CONNECTION Editorial Advisory Board have-nots. As the demographer Harold Hodgkinson has written: “Many low- Kenneth Hooker Chair income, ethnic minority and immigrant children do not get exposed to the Columnist, Boston Globe folklore of ‘how you get into college’ in junior high years, while the ‘favored’ Richard Barringer have brothers and sisters in college, parents who are college graduates and Professor, University of Southern Maine lots of advice.” Laura Freid Executive Vice President for Public Affairs and Focus group participants also emphasized NEBHE’s capacity to bring New University Relations, Brown University England higher education’s considerable policy expertise to bear on complex Betsy Keady problems. In this issue of CONNECTION, Northeastern University economists Market Director, The Forum Corp. Paul Harrington and Andy Sum begin to tackle the issue of access, suggest- Arnold Koch ing that the problem is first and foremost a function of basic skills—essen- Arnold Koch and Associates tially, reading, writing and arithmetic. We trust Harrington and Sum’s article Thomas L. McFarland will be the first of many on the complexities of access. Director, University Press of New England * * * * Ian Menzies Special thanks also to NEBHE intern Sean Bowditch who contributed Hingham, Mass. greatly to the writing and editing of this issue. Neil Rolde Sewall’s Hill, Maine John O. Harney is executive editor of CONNECTION.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 5 SHORT COURSES Losing Faculties? ships, faculty development, academic has done just that in the July/August The much talked about shift from programs and campus technology. 1999 issue of the Boston Fed’s New full-time, tenured professors to gen- In some Midwestern states, public England Economic Review. erally lower-paid, part-time adjunct campaigns have been so successful By 1996, no New England state had faculty is borne out by an analysis of that small private institutions feel the comfort level it enjoyed in the eco- federal data by the National squeezed out, according to a recent nomic boom of the late 1980s, Education Association (NEA). article in the national Chronicle of Tannenwald finds, but the region was In 1993, public four-year institu- Higher Education. But not so in New far more comfortable than any other in tions employed more than 287,000 England, where public and private col- America. Moreover, New Hampshire full-time faculty and fewer than lege fundraisers operate in starkly dif- ranked second nationally in comfort, 89,000 part-time faculty, the NEA ferent worlds. This fall, the behind only Nevada. Connecticut reports. Four years later, the full-time Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked fifth; Massachusetts, eighth; figure had inched up 2 percent to received a single gift from alumn and Vermont, 15th; and Rhode Island 25th. about 293,000, while the part-time software entrepreneur Kenan Sahin Maine, which ranked 30th, was number jumped 19 percent to more worth the equivalent of UNH’s five- the only New England state less com- than 105,000. year goal. Harvard, meanwhile, will fortable than the national median. The trend at private institutions complete a six-year campaign on New has been only slightly less pro- Year’s Eve worth well in excess of $2.3 nounced, with the ranks of full-timers billion—about 10 times the UNH and Advanced Diapering? declining slightly and the number of UMass goals combined. And Tufts Just 29 percent of U.S. colleges offer part-timers rising by 5 percent. (At University so easily reached its $400 on-campus day care for children of public two-year institutions, both million campaign goal, it’s raising the students, according to the U.S. classes of faculty shrank.) target to $600 million. Department of Education. But the fig- Meanwhile, despite years of New England’s public campuses may ure rises to 53 percent for public two- efforts to increase minority represen- never have the luxury of earmarking year colleges and 56 percent for tation on college faculties, the share $100 million “to fund new ideas” as public four-year institutions. of newly hired full-time, tenured fac- MIT’s recent $1.5 billion capital cam- Dozens of New England colleges ulty who were Hispanic, African- paign does, or funding fully one-fifth of are among those doling out morning American or American Indian also their annual budgets with endowment snacks and tuning in to Arthur the dropped from 15 percent in 1993 to income as Yale does. aardvark. In October, the University of below 12 percent in 1997, according Still, the big public campaigns Massachusetts at Amherst opened a to the NEA study. come as New England taxpayers—his- new 3,000-square-foot campus facility torically America’s least generous in to offer day care for the toddler- and funding higher education—are show- preschool-age children of UMass stu- Campaigning ing their support in other ways. State dents. New university-subsidized It’s a time of big money and, New tax appropriations to New England “flexible-schedule” rooms are targeted England colleges hope, a time of fat higher education grew by 17 percent to low-income families with part-time checks. between 1997 and 1999, outpacing child care needs. Professional teachers By the third year of a five-year the national average. And Maine vot- and graduate interns do the teaching. campaign to raise $125 million, the ers recently approved a $26 million Nearby, Holyoke Community University of Massachusetts at bond (to be matched by $7 million in College began building a $1.4 million, Amherst had garnered $91 million, private donations) to ensure that the 11,800 square-foot, on-campus child attracted 9,000 new alumni givers state’s technical colleges prepare stu- care facility. The new “Kids’ Place” and announced its next campaign: a dents for the high-tech workplace of center is expected to accommodate $300 million effort to begin in 2002. the 21st century. 192 children and 30 staff members With its sophisticated marketing and when it opens in early 2000. high-profile network of “ambas- In 1997, New England Sens. Chris sadors,” the current campaign is not Comfort Levels Dodd of Connecticut and Olympia only raising money, but also elevat- Compare a state’s fiscal capacity (sim- Snowe of Maine introduced legisla- ing the public land-grant university’s ply put, its ability to raise revenue) to tion to provide $60 million in grants academic reputation. its fiscal need (its demand for state and to support campus-based child care, The University of New Hampshire local services from residents and visi- particularly for low-income students is also in the midst of its most ambi- tors) and you get a sense of the state’s pushed off public assistance by wel- tious fundraising initiative to date: a fiscal comfort. fare reform legislation. Lawmakers five-year, $100 million campaign Economist Robert Tannenwald of tacked a $45 million program onto aimed at bolstering student scholar- the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston the 1998 reauthorization of the

6 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION SHORT COURSES

Higher Education Act but appropriat- The Sea’s Bounty Other coastal military spending, ed only $5 million for the grants We know New England is inextricably notably at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1999. linked to the sea. But getting a read on in Kittery and Brunswick Naval Air the size and nature of the region’s Station, added $501 million, while “marine economy” is difficult, particu- commercial fishing added $310 million, Universitas Bostoniensis larly given the unwieldiness of what is and water shipping and transportation Classical studies plunged in popularity by far its largest component: coastal accounted for $28 million. The figures during the 1960s due partly to a back- tourism. do not include “multiplier effects.” lash against academia’s focus on the Now three University of Maine The only marine sector that is work of “dead white males.” Now, the researchers have estimated that marine- shrinking is shipbuilding and boat- classics are staging a comeback for a related activities added $2 billion to the building, which declined by 40 percent very 1990s reason: the rigor of the Maine economy in 1996, accounting for since 1990, according to the UMaine programs is good preparation for a 7 percent of Maine’s gross state product. authors. But that loss is offset by gains range of professional pursuits. Writing in the Fall 1999 issue of in tourism and other sectors, including At Boston University, enrollment in Maine Policy Review, the journal of a small but growing assortment of Latin and Greek language, literature UMaine’s Margaret Chase Smith Center marine biotechnology, research and and history courses has nearly dou- for Public Policy, UMaine professors education organizations estimated to bled from 817 in 1986 to 1,611 in 1999. Brian Roach, Jonathan Rubin and account for at least $20 million. A quid pro quo? Since the early Charles Morris estimate that recreation Still, the relative contribution of 1990s, BU has offered three full-year and tourism in Maine’s coastal regions the marine sectors to the overall scholarships and three half-year added $788 million to the state’s econo- Maine economy is declining due to scholarships annually to students who my, while shipbuilding and boatbuilding growth in other sectors such as study Latin and Greek in 120 high accounted for $437 million, nearly 90 health services and technology. schools throughout New England, percent of it related to military contracts Massachusetts researchers esti- New York and New Jersey. at Bath Iron Works. mated that marine sectors injected

8 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION SHORT COURSES about $7 billion into the Bay State economy in 1996, buoyed by $5 billion in tourism expenditures in the state’s coastal counties [CONNECTION, Spring 1998].

Magnets One of the most frequently asked and politely deflected questions from higher education reporters is: what percentage of New England college graduates stay in the region after graduation? No one keeps track on a statewide or regionwide level, but a mishmash of data is available: • Though fewer than 15 percent of Harvard students and 10 percent of MIT students are Massachusetts natives, more than 20 percent of Harvard and MIT grads live in the Bay State, according to a report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. • Of the Maine Technical College graduates who take jobs after graduation, 94 percent go to work in Maine, according to technical college system officials. • Of Westfield State College’s approximately 21,000 living alumni, 79 percent live in Massachusetts.

Hot Flicks? Video has become a popular medium for colleges trying to differentiate themselves with prospective students, donors and others. But videos have always had two key disadvantages: they are linear and allow for no interactivity. Now, a new medium offers video’s advantages without those limitations. Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) can

Clarification To the Editor: Robert V. Ward is by no means the first African-American dean of a New England law school. David Hall was dean at Northeastern for years before moving up to provost. Andre Mayer Senior Vice President Associated Industries of Massachusetts

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 9 SHORT COURSES

Hispanic Enrollment decades on the job. … Ted Sanders, Nine of the 10 New England institutions where Hispanic students repre- former president of Southern Illinois sented the largest share of total enrollment in 1996 were community col- University and deputy secretary of leges. And the Hispanic share of all students at most of those colleges has education in the Bush administration, risen significantly during the 1990s, according to data from the U.S. was named president of the Denver- Department of Education. based Education Commission of the 1991 1996 Housatonic Community-Technical College, Conn. 16% 23% States, succeeding Kay McClenney, Capital Community-Technical College, Conn. 13% 20% who has served as interim president Roxbury Community College, Mass. 14% 19% since Frank Newman retired last Atlantic Union College, Mass. 18% 19% Northern Essex Community College, Mass. 9% 14% summer. Newman, meanwhile, has Holyoke Community College, Mass. 6% 11% joined Brown University’s Taubman North Shore Community College, Mass. 8% 11% Public Policy Center. ... Hector Garza, Norwalk Community-Technical College, Conn. 9% 11% Bunker Hill Community College, Mass. 7% 10% vice president of access and equity Springfield Technical Community College, Mass. 7% 10% programs at the American Council on Education, took a two-year leave of hold up to 4.8 hours of full-screen, William Cotter, who retired. ... absence to start and preside over a full-motion, broadcast quality video Robert G. Clarke, who served as new National Council for Community on a single 2.6 GB disc. They can be president of Vermont Technical and Education Partnerships. The inde- viewed on either a television set (via College for 15 years, was named pendent, nonprofit will develop K-16 a DVD player) or a personal comput- interim chancellor of the five-campus partnerships to foster educational er with a DVD-RAM drive—expected Vermont State Colleges system, access and opportunity for students in to be standard on all new computers. replacing Charles I. Bunting, who economically distressed communities. The user views only what is of will join the Chicago-based consulting … University of Rhode Island President interest. If a potential donor wants to firm of A.T. Kearney in the spring. … Robert L. Carothers was elected chair see the architectural detail of a new Bristol Community College President of the Council of Presidents, a consor- academic building, he can immediate- Eileen Farley announced she would tium of New England’s six public land- ly locate the information on the menu retire in June 2000 after more than two grant universities. and view it. A prospective student might instead skip forward to varsity basketball highlights. Snippets Moreover, DVDs can be pressed “They can curse at the umpire, get personal with the players and even from a master for under $1 each and throw things. I’m sitting there thinking: This is now part of our New the price will only go down. DVDs England culture? This is something we find charming?” may cost $25,000 to $100,000 to pro- —José Massó, senior associate director of Northeastern University’s Center for duce. But the per-unit cost of mailing the Study of Sport in Society, quoted in the Boston Globe after Boston Red Sox will still be lower than videos and most fans pelted Fenway Park with debris, causing an eight-minute delay near the printed material, DVD producers say. end of Game 5 of the 1999 American League Championship Series. “The implications for fundraisers, “I wouldn’t sit anywhere near Section 8 again with my kids.” enrollment managers and public affairs marketers are enormous,” says —Chris Cakebread, Boston University assistant professor of communica- James Hormel, chair of Communi- tion, quoted in a B.U. Bridge newspaper piece on rowdy behavior by hock- cators Group, a Brattleboro, Vt., firm ey fans at the university’s Walter Brown Arena. that produces DVDs for colleges. “A *********** college could literally include a 10- “It has taken some educators and parents a while to realize that the rhetoric of minute video introduction, several ‘standards’ is turning schools into giant test-prep centers, effectively closing off clips of classes and professors, high- intellectual inquiry and undermining enthusiasm for learning (and teaching).” lights of each athletic program and still —Introduction to author Alfie Kohn’s Web site. have used no more than a fraction of *********** the disc’s capacity.” “One less place for women to turn. One opportunity less for our daugh- ters and granddaughters to learn what women can do. One opportunity less for our sons and grandsons to learn what women can teach. One more Comings and Goings door that was just opening, slammed shut.” William D. Adams, president of —Author and 1951 Radcliffe College graduate Ursula K. Le Guin in a letter to Bucknell University in Pennsylvania the editor of Radcliffe Quarterly about the September 1999 merger of Radcliffe will become president of Colby and Harvard. College in July 2000, succeeding

10 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION DATA CONNECTION

■ Estimated total college enrollment in communities along and within Interstate 495 in eastern Massachusetts: 299,500 ■ Employment in “knowledge-based” industries as a share of all jobs within Interstate 495: 79% ■ Employment in “knowledge-based” industries as a share of all U.S. jobs: 42% ■ Number of months from October 1998 through September 1999 when New England’s unemployment rate exceeded the U.S. rate: 0 ■ Chance that the monthly unemployment rate in any New England state exceeded the U.S. rate during that period: 1 in 14 ■ Percentage of Connecticut residents who “telecommute” or work from home one or more days a week: 24% ■ Percentage who say they would if given the opportunity: 67% ■ Approximate percentage of job listings in the Oct. 22, 1999 issue of Science magazine that carried a would-be employer’s Web site or email address: 60% ■ Approximate percentage of job listings in the Sept. 24, 1993 issue of Science that did: 1% ■ Average starting salary offered to 1998-99 college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering: $46,929 ■ Offered to 1999 college graduates with bachelor’s degrees in history: $28,378 ■ Ratio of faculty members in women’s studies to faculty members in physics at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke and Smith colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst: 7-to-1 ■ Percentage of white college students nationally who are age 30 or older: 28% ■ Percentage of American Indian college students who are age 30 or older: 41% ■ Percentage of Latino high school graduates who met the post-Affirmative Action admissions requirements of the University of California system in 1998-99: 4% ■ Percentage of African-Americans who did: 3% ■ Women as a percentage of 1998 recipients of doctorates in life sciences: 45% ■ As a percentage of 1998 recipients of doctorates in business and management: 67% ■ Number of the 25 largest hospitals in eastern Massachusetts that are headed by women: 2 ■ Number of the 25 largest newspapers in Massachusetts whose publishers are women: 1 ■ Number of the 25 largest newspapers in Massachusetts that were founded before 1900: 20 ■ Percentage of North American corporate CEOs who have MBA degrees: 39% ■ Percentage of European corporate CEOs who do: 11% ■ Average salary for U.S. governors: $102,258 ■ Number of New England states whose governors earn the average or above: 0 ■ Percentage of U.S. states that provide governors with an executive residence: 92% ■ Percentage of New England states that do: 50% ■ Percentage of Americans who think U.S. public schools “are doing pretty well and need little change”: 19% ■ Percentage who think schools “have so much wrong with them that we need to create a whole new system altogether”: 16%

■ Percentage of children living with two parents in 1980: 77%

■ In 1996: 68%

Sources: 1 NEBHE analysis; 2,3 Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation; 4,5 Bureau of Labor Statistics; 6,7 University of Connecticut; 8,9 NEBHE analysis; 10,11 National Association of Colleges and Employers; 12 NEBHE analysis of Five Colleges Inc. data; 13,14,15,16 American Council on Education; 17,18 University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center; 19,20,21 NEBHE analysis of Boston Business Journal data; 22,23 Economist Intelligence Unit; 24,25,26,27 Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth; 28,29 Public Agenda; 30,31 U.S. Department of Education

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 13 MARK YOUR CALENDAR! New England Board of Higher Education Conference Schedule for Spring 2000 C

EXPANDING MINORITY ACCESS AND OPPORTUNITY (Cosponsored by the Nellie Mae Foundation and the College Board) Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Mass., March 6, 2000

PARTNERS IN DEVELOPMENT: THE UNIVERSITY AND THE COMMUNITY Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Mass., March 31, 2000

FORGING AN ALLIANCE: THE PERFORMING ARTS, THE CAMPUS AND THE COMMUNITY Location and date to be announced, April 2000

CONFRONTING NEW ENGLAND’S WORKFORCE CHALLENGE Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Mass., April 18, 2000

NEW ENGLAND TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND DISTANCE LEARNING CONFERENCE Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Boston, Mass., May 25, 2000

For further information, visit NEBHE on the Internet at www.nebhe.org or contact: Jan Queenan NEBHE Director of Conferences New England Board of Higher Education 45 Temple Place Boston, MA 02111

Tel: 617.357.9620 x104 • Fax: 617.338.1577 • Email: [email protected] ACCESS … Is About More Than Money Paul E. Harrington and Andrew M. Sum

t various times during the past two decades, the issue of increasing access to a college education for both youth and adults has come to the forefront in the debate about theA role of higher education in America. Discussion of access often touches upon issues such as racial diversity, gender equity and class equity. Yet ultimately, most of the recent concerns about access to higher education are centered on two key economic developments: the increased economic opportunity and upward mobility provided by a college degree on the one hand, and the perception that college is increasingly unaffordable on the other. Since the mid-1970s, the economic rewards of earning a college degree have increased dramatically. Changes in the industrial and occupational job content of the U.S. economy have resulted Recent economic in a sharp increase in the earnings advantages of college graduates. During the mid-1970s, men under age 30 with fresh bache- research debunks the lor’s degrees earned just 15 percent to 20 percent more per year notion that access to than their high school graduate counterparts. Twenty years later, young men who are recent college graduates can expect to earn higher education is solely 50 percent to 60 percent more per year than their counterparts with only high school diplomas. The gains in annual earnings for a matter of affordability. women with college degrees are even greater. The key predictor is Earnings advantages have been especially large for graduates with degrees in high-demand professional fields such as science, proficiency in basic engineering, computer technology, business and health. As employers demand that new hires bring more specific knowl- skills such as reading edge and skills to the workplace, college graduates—particularly and math. those with degrees in professional fields—have found increasing opportunity in the labor market. The same changes in labor demand that have improved the relative job-market position of college graduates have resulted in a commensurate reduction in real earnings for many of those without college degrees. As a consequence, college education has become the primary path- way to a middle-class lifestyle.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 15 Family income does not act Given these developments, it is dents’ literacy skills and academic not surprising that much of the dis- achievement along with the more as a substitute for academic cussion about improving access to standard demographic and socioeco- preparedness. Higher family higher education has centered around nomic data included in such studies. making college more affordable by These three databases, as well as income simply cannot improving financial aid and limiting the National Adult Literacy Survey of tuition growth. And indeed, most of 1993, reveal that the likelihood of overcome large basic skill the response to declining college young adults earning a bachelor’s deficits in determining who affordability has come in the form of degree is strongly related to their increased student financial aid. By basic skills proficiencies. will enroll in and graduate 1996, 68 percent of all full-time The basic skills measured by the undergraduates received some kind NLS are based on student scores on from college. of financial assistance to attend col- the Armed Forces Qualification Test lege, up from 57 percent in 1993. covering knowledge in four areas: Three-quarters of students with aid reading comprehension, vocabulary, received direct grants with no repay- mathematical reasoning and numerical ment obligations. But is financial aid problem-solving. As higher education has become enough? Can we solve the problems The NLS findings reveal that 12 an increasingly important gateway to of access to and retention in higher years after the initial interview, only economic success, college presidents, education simply by improving the about 1 percent of those in the bot- trustees and elected officials fret over affordability of college? tom one-fifth of the basic skills distri- what appears to be a substantial Part of the answer to this question bution had graduated from college. decline in the affordability of college. depends on what is meant by access. (See Chart 1.) In contrast, 60 percent Between 1978 and 1998, the cost of If it is measured in terms of the frac- of those high school students who attending college—including tuition, tion of young people who go on to scored in the top one-fifth of the fees, room and board—increased by college in the fall immediately after basic skills distribution had complet- 63 percent in inflation-adjusted terms. graduating high school, then access is ed four or more years of college. Yet, over the same period, real median at an all-time high. In 1978, just 50 Clearly, basic academic skills play an family income increased by less than percent of high school seniors went important role in influencing the like- 10 percent. With college costs grow- on to a postsecondary program the lihood that a high school graduate ing more than six times faster than fall after graduation. By 1997, this will enroll in college and persist family income, many observers have proportion had increased to 67 per- through graduation. concluded that college has become cent, and about two-thirds of them But what role does family income less affordable. For example, in 1978, were attending four-year colleges. play in the context of these findings the out-of-pocket costs of one year of If access is measured in terms of on basic skills? Are low-income and college equaled about 13 percent of the percentage of high school gradu- lower middle-income students with the average American family’s pre-tax ates who obtain four-year college strong basic skill proficiencies able to income. By 1998, this proportion had degrees, however, the evidence is overcome their financial disadvan- jumped to 20 percent. more mixed. Fewer than one-half of tages and complete college? For families of modest economic those who enroll in four-year col- The data reveal that once basic means, the affordability problem is leges or universities graduate from skills are taken into account, family more severe now than it was 20 years college within six years—and the income has only a modest influence ago. In 1998 as in 1978, roughly one- graduation rates are even lower for on whether a high school graduate quarter of U.S. families had incomes students at two-year colleges. will complete college. (See Chart 2.) below $25,000 in constant dollar A variety of national databases can Students in the bottom quintile of terms. The median income for those be used to examine the post-high the basic skills distribution have very families in the bottom quartile of the school educational experiences of low probability of completing college income distribution was about $15,000 young adults over time, including: the regardless of family income. Only 1 in both years. But in 1978, college 1978 National Longitudinal Survey percent of low-income, low-skill stu- costs equaled about 38 percent of (NLS) of Youth; the High School and dents earn a college degree, while just average family income for those in Beyond Longitudinal Survey of 1980 3 percent of the highest-income, low- the bottom quartile. By 1998, this high school sophomores and seniors; est-skill students earn a degree. These burden rose to about 64 percent of and the Beginning Postsecondary data imply that money alone simply family income. Growing inequality in Student Longitudinal Survey begun by does not overcome low levels of acad- income distribution among families the U.S. Department of Education in emic preparedness. In contrast, low- throughout most of the 1990s has 1989. A key element of these surveys income students have a relatively high made this problem even worse. is that they contain measures of stu- likelihood of completing college if they

16 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION Chart 1: Skills and College 2 reveals, high-income students with Percent of 14- to 17-Year-Old High School Students Earning a Four-Year College strong basic skills are nearly twice as Degree within 12 Years by Position in Basic Skills Distribution likely to complete college as low- income students with similarly strong 70 basic skills. The evidence is equally 60% 60 clear, however, that family income does not act as a substitute for academic 50 preparedness. Higher family income 40 simply cannot overcome large basic 29% skill deficits in determining who will 30 enroll in and graduate from college. Recent research has begun to debunk 20 14% the idea that access to higher educa- 10 7% tion is solely an issue of affordability. 1% 0 Economist Yolanda Kodrzycki of the Bottom Skills Second Skills Middle Skills Fourth Skills Top Skills Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, for Quintile Quintile Quintile Quintile Quintile example, recently found that rising tuition costs have a relatively modest impact on college enrollment and comp- Chart 2: Skills, Income and College letion. In their book, Consequences of Percent of 14- to 17-Year-Old High School Students Earning a Four-Year College Degree Growing Up Poor, Greg Duncan of within 12 Years by Position in Basic Skills Distribution and Family Income Status Northwestern University and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn of Columbia, find only 90 a loose connection between the family income of teens and the likelihood 80 76% that they will attend college. (Indeed, 70 the family income of children when 60 they are very young is a stronger indicator of later college enrollment, 50 according to Duncan and Brooks-Gunn.) Meanwhile, college enrollment 40 36% rates among recent U.S. high school 30 graduates are at an all-time high— 20 despite sharp increases in college costs and sluggish growth in real family 10% 10 income. Thus, the nation has been 1% 3% 0 successful in more widely opening the Top Bottom Middle Top Bottom gates to a college education. But the Quintile Quintile Quintile Quintile Quintile evidence also suggests that we have Skills/Bottom Skills/Bottom Skills/Middle Skills/Top Skills/Top Quintile Quintile Quintile Quintile Quintile been less successful in preparing stu- Income Income Income Income Income dents for the intellectual rigors that colleges demand. As educational leaders ponder strategies for increasing access to higher education, the discussion should not focus primarily upon affordability and financial aid. Instead, we need to redirect our efforts to also score in the top one-fifth of the School and Beyond data, clearly ensure that more high school students basic skills distribution. In fact, nearly indicate that strong basic skills profi- possess the literacy, quantitative and 36 percent of high school students ciencies are an extraordinarily critical thinking skills required to suc- who live in low-income households powerful—though not the sole ceed at the postsecondary level. but have strong basic skills complete determinant—of college success. college by the time they reach their Family income level does con- Paul E. Harrington is associate late 20s. tribute to the likelihood that a student director of the Center for Labor These results, complemented by will enroll in and complete college— Market Studies at Northeastern other findings from the National especially when complemented by University. Andrew M. Sum is Adult Literacy Survey and the High solid basic skills proficiencies. As Chart director of the center.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 17 Making Change: Careers for a Community Service Generation Steven K. Katona

ow will today’s college students students will likely change careers more often H direct their considerable spirit of than their parents due to longer life expectancy community service into actions that will help and rapid technological change. Globalization, as society and the environment? The most obvious well as the increasing connectedness and com- way is through the careers they pursue—and, in plexity of nearly all aspects of life, bring further many cases, invent. confusion to the process of choosing a career. Students beginning college today differ in a Aware of the difficulties faced by so many stu- fundamental way from those of a generation ago. dents as well as their desire to be of service, I In the late 1960s and early ’70s, students— have used the College of the Atlantic convoca- responding to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the tion ceremony and other occasions to outline Vietnam War, lingering threats of nuclear holocaust some broad career choices and skills for the 21st and dire predictions of “ecocatastrophe”—seriously century. I don’t include well-known but narrowly considered the possibility that human life might defined types of careers and skills, though these vanish. And some thought that might be a good can be turned to social, as well as personal, thing for the planet. advantage by the Today’s student right individuals. In knows that while contrast, the careers pesticides probably on my list may not will not eliminate life even exist yet as on earth, they may explicit choices protect him from (even though some mosquito-borne encephalitis. Today’s student also people have moved into them by chance) but realizes such chemicals may cause cancer. they should and someday probably will. In these situations, the probability of both beneficial and harmful effects can be estimated; indi- Decision-Making, Consensus-Building and viduals may improve their own odds, for Arbitration. Any student who learns to do these example, by eating organic foods. But they may things better will help individuals, families, corpo- also be able to improve the odds to everyone’s rations, governments and nations to function advantage. There is considerable evidence that more peacefully and productively. To be effec- today’s students are highly motivated toward that tive, the student will need to learn techniques for end. Community service, service learning and effective oral and written communication, as well other altruistic endeavors have never been more as skills for understanding and facilitating group popular. These activities are taking place not only dynamics. Students will also need substantial because today’s students are more aware of social understanding of the mechanisms, strengths and and environmental problems, but also because weaknesses of the democratic process, as well as students believe those problems can be solved. other forms of governance employed by nations, Their optimism has helped promote the growth states, towns and smaller units of organization. of community service on many campuses. Since the process of making decisions is one of the most fundamental and widespread activities Choosing Careers that humans undertake, a person with skills in Because American high schools are not particu- this area will always be in demand and will be larly career-oriented, most first-year college stu- able to make important contributions to society. dents, as well as many of their older classmates, Managing Megaprojects. People have don’t know which careers they will pursue or, undertaken grand-scale projects for centuries, for that matter, what career options will exist sometimes through slavery, as with the Egyptian when they graduate. At the same time, today’s pyramids or Southern plantations; sometimes

18 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION through forced labor or feudalism, as plex. The need for people with the damaged lands and in the construction of lakes and skills to help develop equitable solu- waters to full diversi- imperial cities in China; and some- tions seems boundless. ty and productivity times more or less voluntarily, as in Communication. Reasoned, effec- will become increas- the systems of roads and cities built tive and civil communication will be ingly important as by the Incas or Anasazi. Among necessary to engage and educate the nations seek to clean more recent examples of collective populace to participate thoughtfully in up industrial and military sites, achievements: the system of reser- the issues of coming decades. The streams and rivers, marshes, harbors, voirs created during the Depression power of written and spoken words forests and the marine environment. by the Tennessee Valley Authority, has never been Studies in hydrology will be critical, the interstate highway system, the greater; nor has the as water, particularly fresh water, national power grid, the Internet and need for people who becomes an ever more threatened the exploration of space. Whether can apply them with and precious resource. The world the goal is to manage the flow of care. Consider how will need more people with the skills electrons, water, people, automobiles presidential elections, to help conserve and remediate or money, our world has enormous ethnic conflicts or debates on abor- lakes, rivers, aquifers and other need for visionary people skilled in tion, biotechnology and censorship sources of water. conceiving, organizing and managing would benefit from more insightful, Design, Art and Music. A steadily very large and complex projects. less “inciteful,” communication. increasing proportion of our learning It will take at least as long to Education. Throughout the world, and experience comes not through solve some problems as it took to talented, effective teachers and men- the intellect but instead through the create them. So, future progress may tors are urgently needed at all levels— senses—the images, structures, tex- require projects that last considerably in the home, in elementary and tures, sounds, smells and tastes that longer than political terms or life- secondary schools, in colleges and bathe our everyday existence. Having times. Some may span several human universities and in professional been a rich and central part of generations. Imagine, for example, a schools. The need is particularly criti- human experience throughout histo- generations-long commitment to con- cal in public elementary and sec- ry, the arts need no further justifica- solidate and “de-sprawl” a city—an ondary schools, which have been tion for their existence. Nevertheless, effort in which mass transport could called to task for failing to prepare stu- just as the power of art, music and replace automobiles; dents sufficiently for skilled jobs or for design was effectively harnessed for energy and materials entry into higher education. Nothing is evil purposes in Nazi Germany, their flows could be more important to the next generation power can be directed in support of accomplished more of citizens than the quality of the beneficial social purposes such as cleanly and safely; teachers who will guide their mental education, public health and environ- and spaces could be development and, in the process, help mental conservation. The business redesigned to facilitate learning, to reform the schools. community has already harnessed the human and ecological health and Business and Sustainability. enormous persuasive powers of the recreation. Without people equipped Businesses may be the most effective arts to make more effective commer- to propose, plan and manage such models that humans have created for cials and more attractive products. projects, they will never happen. getting things done. Continuing to Now, we need more fimmakers, Ethics and Law. Advocates with a point corporations in the right direc- composers, eco-artists and environ- broad, multicultural understanding of tions for increasing social benefits and mental designers to help move us ethical and legal systems are needed developing economic personally and collectively toward to solve many of today’s problems. and environmental more harmonious and socially mean- These quandaries include inequities sustainability will be ingful lives. in the distribution of land, wealth and challenging, but resources; human impacts of industri- potentially fruitful. It’s too soon to tell whether these al or military activities, past and pre- Graduates who pos- suggestions have significantly influ- sent; appropriate uses of shared sess the entrepreneurial and manager- enced anyone. Ultimately, the impor- resources, including the air and sea; ial skills needed to help companies tant thing is not whether students new threats to privacy produced by make money combined with the abili- pursue the careers on my list, but the electronic revolution; and implica- ty to persuade them to do the right rather, whether these ideas help them tions of new scientific advances and thing socially and environmentally will create their own lists. medical procedures. The globalization become hot property. of commerce and information will Restoration Biology. Learning Steven K. Katona is president of only make these issues more com- strategies and skills for restoring College of the Atlantic.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 19 A Conversation about Schools with Deborah Meier

eborah Meier is the principal of the Mission Hill School in DBoston’s Roxbury neighborhood and the founder of Central Park East, a network of public schools in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood. Meier is the author of the book, “The Power of Their Ideas, Lessons from a Small School in Harlem.” She recently shared her views on

key issues with CONNECTION. OF MISSION HILL SCHOOL. COURTESY PHOTO

On Schools and the Economy though a change in rhetoric were the same as a When the nation’s competitiveness was in ques- change of mind and heart. We expected to undo tion, public schools were routinely blamed. Now, the prejudiced assumptions underlying past elit- despite the economic boom, schools get no con- ism overnight. Then we seemed surprised and gratulations. In fact, they are subjected to merci- irritated by the difficulty in translating these less attack. It’s hard to get to the nub of the expectations into reality. criticism since it presents itself in different guises. If it’s not the economy, then it’s equity. And if not On the Blame Game equity, it’s toughness or character. The schools Raising standardized test scores and closing testing are attacked for not providing programs for the gaps between high and low achievers began to gifted even as they are under fire for having dif- replace all other objectives on the way to a more ferent expectations of different folks. It’s puzzling. egalitarian system. Reformers attached ever higher stakes to test scores and threatened dire conse- On the Democratization of Education quences for kids and teachers who failed to show The impact of the G.I. Bill, the Brown v. Board progress. In the process, they made “teaching to of Education decision and the general postwar the test” a legitimate pedagogical technique. growth in citizens’ aspirations for the good things Anyone who noted that the emperor was in life sparked a revolution in expectations. At wearing no clothes—that the solutions being the turn of the last century, our great grandpar- offered were missing the point—was labeled ents took it on faith that only a very small elite— racist or elitist. Critics affiliated with public insti- perhaps 3 percent of their generation—had the tutions were judged to be whiners. Editorial writ- capacity for high-level reasoning. Few went to ers and governors dismissed the skeptics as high school; fewer still stayed through gradua- defensive members of some self-interested education. As late as 1960, it was thought that maybe tion establishment. 20 percent should aspire to a liberal arts (as The blame game undermines the accomplish- opposed to vocational) college education. ments that have been achieved in K-12 and post- By the 1970s, we largely accepted the idea secondary education alike. U.S. colleges were no that all students should aspire to college. But we better prepared for the revolution in expectations undertook these revolutionary changes in expec- than were public schools. Stung by criticism from tations with barely a nod to their implications, as legislators, corporate CEOs and the media for not

20 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION immediately achieving egalitarian out- redesigns sponsored by New Change, they declared, must come comes at the postsecondary level, American Schools—also attracted from elsewhere. And so they stepped many academics joined the search for widespread interest and high hopes. up a process of removing the public someone to blame, preferably some- These reformers, however, discov- from public schools. (In this, they one predisposed to accept blame. ered powerful obstacles to substantial were cynically joined by those who College professors blamed high reform. Neither practitioners, parents believe that only marketplace school- schools. High schools blamed ele- nor school committees jumped on ing can solve our problems, but that mentary schools. And elementary board. On the whole, both K-12 and first they must prove how rotten the schools blamed mother. Or television. postsecondary educators dabbled present system is.) No one noticed that, for all our fail- with real change, postponing larger In less than half a century, the ings, the United States was still doing steps while their constituents got number of U.S. school boards had comparatively well. We taught students accustomed to the new ideas. Only a shrunk from more than 200,000 to how to read at an unprecedented few were able to take the big steps, fewer than 20,000 (a development rate—second only to Finland in reading although when and where they did, ironically championed by liberals test scores by fourth grade and not far who view the boards, often with behind in math and science among stu- good reason, as founts of ignorance, dents in elementary grades. It turned racism and right-wing fundamental- out that both phonics and whole lan- ism). It now became necessary, they guage approaches worked. But by the argued, to take the plunge and 1980s, celebrating public schools had remove parents and teachers from all become politically incorrect—a refuge big-time policy decisions as well. for folks resisting change. The media Local folks had their chance and ignored the successes and instead failed. It was time for executives and reported a flurry of half-truths about politicians to step in and straighten the decline of schools. out the mess. Considering the length and depth But educators hadn’t made a mess. of the assault, support for local They took on a challenge to educate schools—the ones folks know best— all children to levels of intellectual has remained surprisingly high. rigor that few had ever been expect- About half the general public gave Having stirred up talk ed to reach. It will take more than local public schools an A or B in a of crisis in the classroom, one generation of impatient patience recent Phi Delta Kappan poll, while to achieve serious results on a large only 20 percent gave public schools those farthest from the scale. To pretend we can get there nationally an A or B. Notably, three- faster flies in the face of what we quarters of those polled also favored action—legislators, CEOs know about human behavior and working within the existing system to and think tank pundits— historical experience with top-down improve schools rather than finding revolutions that propose to change an alternative. hammered out their such behavior by fiat.

On Reform Efforts own solutions. On Raising Standards By the 1980s, many of the critics Even hardnosed businessmen know thought the time was ripe to engage better than to try to establish stan- in some radical experiments in cur- dards in the way we have proceeded riculum and pedagogy. The Coalition the results were impressive. But lately in schools. They know that of Essential Schools, founded in 1984, opposition from many fronts when those on the frontlines feel no was deemed by many to be unrealis- remained powerful through the ’80s moral responsibility for their work tic and utopian for suggesting that and early ’90s. and view ever shifting policies and America abandon large, comprehen- These delays met with frustration. practices as silly or offensive to their sive high schools for more intimate, “Can we afford to wait?” people won- dignity, the result is resistance, sabo- focused academies. Yet, the coalition dered. Having stirred up talk of crisis tage and cheating. This applies to attracted more than 1,000 schools to in the classroom, those farthest from teachers and students as well. The its banner in fairly short order. Other the action—legislators, CEOs and best innovations and the worst get radical innovations designed to raise think tank pundits—hammered out treated alike—as educators try to the intellectual level of high their own solutions. The trouble, they avoid swinging from one top-down schools—for example the Padaeia decided, lies with the people who fad to another. proposal, Harvard’s Project Zero or know the kids best—their parents There’s nothing wrong with intro- other break-the-mold high school and their teachers. Let them be gone. ducing external ideas, nor with

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 21 requiring schools and communities to differences can be overcome—even if not only a cheap solution, but a make public their standards, nor with schools offer an equal chance to all. taxpayers’ bonanza. monitoring them in public ways—if Public schools cannot and should When interviewed many years later, it’s done right. Even standardized test not be expected to close all the gaps both students and their families scores can be useful as one source of between the haves and have-nots that described the differences between their evidence. But better still would be the larger society seems bent on experiences and those of their less suc- the oversight of insiders who know widening. But schools can, and cessful East Harlem neighbors. The stu- the kids and their work—the teachers should, use their limited time to pre- dents attributed their success to the fact and students’ families, for example— vent the disadvantages that kids come that at Central Park East, they had close and outsiders of all sorts prepared to to school with from becoming more relationships with interesting, empow- ask difficult questions, to play the serious lifetime handicaps. ered teachers. No teacher in the high role of provocateur. Is this really school, for example, was responsible what you call quality work? How for more than 50 students. At other about comparing it to what the school nearby schools, teachers worked with down the street calls quality? How as many as 170 students per semester. come the girls are always doing better And with only 500 students in all, than the boys? How come students Central Park East was small enough for who have been with you the longest everyone to know everyone. do the worst? Students were engaged by indepth Armed with evidence gathered studies in a few focused areas rather and presented by the school itself than a smorgasbord a mile wide and and through observation and inter- an inch deep. They still remembered views with different constituents, each school year in detail. They were these outsiders can provide a healthy convinced that their survival over the antidote to the self-interest and many tough years that lay ahead parochialism that insiders might depended upon the strong personal bring to the task. That’s how we did We must make sure passions and relationships that the it at the public high school I was school had honored and nurtured. principal of in East Harlem. It was that pressure to cover The school also had helped them the toughest and most enlightening more and more material weave a host of adults into a support system of all: strongminded teachers network, aided by community service answering to strongminded critics. does not reduce and school-to-work programs, as well That’s also what Boston’s pilot as music classes, drama clubs and schools—like the Mission Hill opportunities for students extended lab work. School—undergo every four to five and teachers to get to Many also noted that Central Park years. Next year, it’s our turn. Does East was a school where families and it make us nervous? Of course. know each other well. teachers were partners and where Nothing is as powerful as the opin- students felt respected as individuals ion of one’s peers, especially when with different styles and concerns. made public to the community. But Ongoing teacher-family ties helped it’s also a learning experience that make allies out of otherwise edgy raises our consciousness of our own rivals. Every family had at least one work and improves our capacity to On a Successful Model full-time staff member designated as make sound judgments. At Central Park East, a network its special ally for two years or more. of East Harlem public schools I Kids and their parents said they felt On Haves and Have-Nots was involved in founding 25 years they had belonged to a powerful little Of course, advantaged families give ago, the success rate of sixth-grade community that stood for something. their kids every opportunity they can graduates 10 years later far surpassed And its strength added to their own to keep up, get ahead or simply live the demographic odds. These results personal staying power. The students a good life. So do disadvantaged fam- were replicated in the Central Park described the intervening years as dif- ilies. But the more advantages one East Secondary School organized ficult. But they attributed their perse- brings to this central task of parent- a decade later. In terms of high verance to the kind of schooling we ing, the more successful one’s off- school graduation, college attendance had offered so many years earlier. spring are likely to be. This is hardly and college graduation rates, as Studies of other successful schools rocket science. In the less than one- well as other life-success indicators, point to similar effects. They are not fifth of a youngster’s waking hours Bruner Foundation researchers miracles. They are distinctly “replica- that are spent in school, not all these concluded that the schools were ble” if we take them seriously.

22 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION At the same time, we must make to all children regardless of where they Yet we’ve allowed mischief-makers sure that pressure to cover more and start from? Shouldn’t this be a common in high places—and our natural more material does not reduce task for all educators ranging from desire to avoid being blamed—to opportunities for students and teach- kindergarten teachers to college profes- divide us by implying that the ers to get to know each other well. sors? The impulse that makes us teach- school’s focus on “the child” is a dis- Furthermore, as teachers have less ers—love for our subject matter, love service to the university’s focus on say in what and how they teach, their for our students and high regard for the “the disciplines.” But the intellectual knowledge of their students and their intellectual demands of democracy— power we all seek for children subject matter seems more and more are not so different. We have more in requires a combination of the two: superfluous. When teachers are seen common than we usually imagine. abiding personal relationships as mere conduits of other people’s between generations and a focus on expertise, the alienation between stu- On Teachers and Professors powerful subject matter. dent and teacher grows apace. College professors complain about Meanwhile, the notion of academic At Central Park East, we insisted what high school teachers forgot to freedom, which buttresses the inde- that it was our job to model what it teach. Many are happy to distance pendence of college professors, has was like to be responsible citizens of themselves from both their own col- rarely been espoused with fervor for our school. Unfortunately, few of the leagues in schools of education and high school faculty. And now both colleges that served the least-advan- from K-12 educators—to our mutual are under attack and likely to lose taged and weakest of our students harm. Postsecondary educators and some of the independence they need operated as we did. The students who their K-12 counterparts are part of a more than ever in the face of attended the city and state colleges single, larger public education enter- unprecedented demands for intellec- were often unknown to faculty mem- prise. Our challenges as educators are tual rigor and high standards. bers. Few were the faculty who saw almost identical. students as partners in an intellectual pursuit—belonging to an intergenerational community. In fact, America’s non-elite public institutions display much of the mad- ness that Ted Sizer finds in the nation’s comprehensive high schools, where the faculty are in much the same situation as Sizer’s fictional high school teacher Horace, who “knew some of his students well, but most of them only as semi-strangers passing through.” Many of our colleges are also too big, too impersonal and too anonymous. They too cater to every variety of real or pre- sumed need as they process students in pursuit of a magic credential. Sure, they do more good than harm, but less good than they could. Graduates of Central Park East used to say that we prepared them well for small private colleges, but less well for large, impersonal public colleges where the least successful ended up. The best-prepared and most socially able kids at large colleges find a niche that sustains them, but the most fragile do not. If small schools are good for young people, maybe they’re good for older ones too—even folks as old as us, their teachers. Shouldn’t all educators join together to bring the advantages of a powerful school composed of powerful adults

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 23 PHOTO BY JIM GIPE COURTESY OF SMITH COLLEGE. BY JIM GIPE COURTESY PHOTO

Targeting Technology Maine’s New Investment in Research and Development

Carol Kontos

ew England’s largest state geographically Naturally, Maine lawmakers attempt to make is the region’s second smallest economi- the most of the state’s modest resources. When Ncally. Maine’s gross state product barely the state Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on topped $30 billion in 1997, accounting for just 6.5 Research and Development convened in January percent of New England’s economy and ranking 1999, the challenge was to find ways for state the state’s economy fifth among the six New government to make a difference in the expan- England states, ahead of only Vermont, according sion of applied research and technology-based to the Maine Economic Growth Council, a quasi- businesses in Maine. Legislators had demanded independent agency that monitors and sets long- increased spending on R&D for several years. In term goals for Maine’s economy. Perhaps the 1999, Gov. Angus King finally agreed, earmarking most telling indicator of Maine’s economic weak- more than $30 million for support of R&D over ness is personal income. In 1998, the state two years. Most of the details, however, had ranked 36th nationally by this measure, down yet to be worked out. from 26th as recently as 1989, according to the The Committee on Research and Develop- Growth Council. ment identified three areas for state investment.

24 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION First, it called for increased support for in Maine’s technology-intensive busi- Enterprise Development (CFED). R&D within the University of Maine nesses was $37,839. The average for Maine universities spent a dismal System. This included $20 million over all workers was only $24,144, accord- $25.76 per capita in R&D in 1996, two years for R&D in targeted indus- ing to the foundation. To diversify placing the state dead last nationally tries and additional funding for Maine’s economy and bolster incomes, by this measure. The other New expanded research facilities and library Maine must develop and expand England states are among the nation’s resources. Second, the committee research-based enterprises. leaders: Massachusetts ranks second; approved the creation of a new Maine To avoid falling further behind the Connecticut, third; Rhode Island, sev- Technology Institute (MTI) to help rest of the nation in per-capita income, enth; Vermont, 15th; and New companies in the state bring their Maine must aggressively expand high- Hampshire, 23rd. products to market. And third, the wage, high-technology industries and Unlike other states in the region, committee called for investments in prepare the educated workforce that Maine does not have a large private Maine public schools and the Maine these industries need to grow. research university on the order of Technical Colleges System to develop the Massachusetts Institute of a more skilled workforce. The com- Technology or Yale University. mittee’s plan received nearly unani- The university system Therefore, state government must mous support from the Legislature and support the University of Maine was approved by the governor. conducts research in a System’s efforts to compete in select- wide variety of academic ed areas. A Manufacturing Past Maine does have a base to build A cursory review of the data on disciplines, but until upon as indicated by recent growth in Maine’s economy and workforce recently had not been the high-technology sector. Research clearly demonstrates the need for this by various groups consistently identi- expanded investment. Despite modest asked to consciously fies a number of world-class, research- success in a few knowledge-based devote a portion of its based industries in Maine, notably: industries such as biotechnology, biotechnology, aquaculture and marine Maine’s economy remains dependent resources to those sciences, composite materials technolo- upon natural resource-based indus- subjects likely to offer gy, environmental technology, tries and defense spending. Pulp and advanced technologies for forestry and paper is the state’s single largest economic returns. agriculture, information technology and industry, worth $4.1 billion in 1996, precision manufacturing technology. according to the Maine Pulp and Indeed, the Legislature’s Committee on Paper Association. Meanwhile, Bath The state’s elementary and sec- Research and Development identified Iron Works, with its heavy depen- ondary school students perform at these seven as target areas. dence on military contracts, is the among the highest levels in national In early 1999, when I accepted the state’s single largest private employer, tests. But too few Maine residents chairmanship of the R&D Committee, accounting for 7,800 jobs. continue their education beyond high officials in the targeted industries, But Maine’s industrial profile is school. In 1998, only 19 percent of MSTF and the State Planning Office changing. The state has been losing Maine residents age 25 or older held developed the MIT proposal to sup- manufacturing jobs steadily—shed- bachelor’s degrees, compared with 29 port the development side of R&D by ding more than 3 percent of all man- percent in all of New England and 24 investing seed capital in new prod- ufacturing jobs annually in recent percent nationally, according to the ucts and services. years, according to the Maine Science Growth Council. Studies show that and Technology Foundation (MSTF), Maine students have lower aspirations Collaborative Effort a state-chartered, nonprofit organiza- toward higher education than most Maine’s own “research triangle” is a tion created to stimulate economic students in the United States. To combination of the university system, growth through science and technolo- inspire these students to continue industry and government. We must gy. By contrast, employment in beyond high school, the committee bring together each part of the triangle Maine’s technology-intensive sector provided for additional investments in in those industry sectors that offer the grew by an average of 10 percent science and technology education for greatest return. But how? annually between 1993 and 1997, K-12 students. The university system conducts even as overall employment grew by Maine’s current failure to invest in research in a wide variety of academic less than 7 percent per year. high-wage, high-technology industries disciplines, but until recently had not In addition, technology jobs pro- is underscored by the annual been asked to consciously devote a vide incomes well above the state Development Report Card of the States portion of its resources to those sub- average. In 1997, average annual pay compiled by the Corporation for jects likely to offer economic returns.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 25 Maine’s New Investments in Research & Development Fiscal Fiscal 2000 2001 TOTAL Maine Technology Institute $3,200,000 $6,400,000 $9,600,000 University of Maine System for ongoing R&D efforts $9,650,000 $9,800,000 $19,450,000 to fund $25 million in facilities bonds —— $2,500,000 $2,500,000 to improve library resources $180,000 $180,000 $350,000 Center for Advanced Law & Management $80,000 $80,000 $150,000 Maine Technical College System (to expand enrollment) $1,500,000 $2,500,000 $4,000,000 ScienceWorks for ME (lab equipment for high schools) $50,000 $50,000 $100,000 NASA Teacher Training Initiative $30,000 $30,000 $50,000 Marine Studies Fellowship Program $50,000 $50,000 $100,000 Maine Research Internships for Teachers and Students $80,000 $80,000 $150,000 TOTAL $14,800,000 $21,650,000 $36,450,000

University research had not been The university system has devel- and supporting R&D activity that is viewed as instrumental to the economic oped an impressive track record over likely to lead to the commercializa- future of the state. And the university’s the past two years. The half-million tion of new products and services by limited ability to support economic dollars that the system received for Maine companies. The broader goal: development was weakened during the R&D in 1998 was used to leverage to enhance the competitive position of early 1990s when New England’s deep more than $3.3 million in federal and those sectors and encourage “clusters” recession forced significant cuts in state other matching funds. In 1999, the of job-producing industrial activity. support to the university system. system landed more than $15 million Researchers and business leaders Since its inception in 1987, the in return on the state’s $4 million told the committee that Maine’s current Maine Science and Technology investment. We foresee similar returns investment in university research was Foundation has worked to develop on the $10 million allocated this year. not sufficient to grow high-technology and expand technology-based indus- This spending and the matching industries. Maine’s private and public tries by identifying available resources funds translate into improved facili- sectors alike often lacked the means to and developing partnerships between ties, more and better trained staff, develop a good idea—to take research researchers, businesses and investors. improved educational opportunities and fashion it into a product or ser- But the foundation had a modest for students and greater capabilities vice. Some private capital is available budget and did not directly invest in to assist Maine business. in Maine, but given the state econo- research or product development. Maine needs more residents my’s limited size, its distance from In the mid-1990s, university advo- trained in high-technology disciplines major capital markets and the small cates and business people found com- to conduct research and develop new size of most Maine startups, access to mon ground over the issue of R&D in products. It also needs additional capital is a major roadblock for emerg- high-technology industries. Their efforts skilled workers to produce these new ing companies or those developing and those of a few like-minded legisla- products. To make this a reality, the new products. tors paid off in 1997 when the first R&D R&D Committee approved investing $4 The MTI was developed out of a Committee was formed. Legislative million in the Maine Technical College cooperative effort that included the study committees on R&D then devel- System and several smaller programs. MSTF, the State Planning Office, the oped a bipartisan consensus that more university system and representatives action was needed. In fiscal year 1998, Institute Change of the business community. It will be $500,000 was provided to the university The key part of this year’s education operated by a board, with representa- system for investment in the targeted and R&D initiatives is the creation of tives from each of the seven targeted industries. That was increased to $4 mil- the public-private MTI. The institute industries, and managed by an execu- lion the next year. In 1998, the will provide more than $9 million in tive director who will report to the Legislature approved a $20 million seed capital for private-sector R&D state’s Department of Economic and bond issue with the bulk of the funds over the next two years. Community Development. providing facilities improvements for the The committee carefully defined The MTI has been structured to university system. The bond was the MTI’s purpose, charging the insti- ensure that Maine taxpayers reap the approved with 63 percent of the vote. tute with encouraging, stimulating greatest possible return on their invest-

26 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION ment. First, companies must pay royal- system. The committee increased tained without real results. The ties to the state from the successful funding for the Maine Economic Committee on Research and commercialization of a product or Improvement Fund, a dedicated Development will closely monitor these process. Second, the resulting new jobs account that provides for research in investments to ensure that the people and expanded economic activity will the target areas, from $4 million to of Maine receive a productive return. generate additional revenue through $10 million a year. It also provided To be a player in the national and income, sales and property taxes. $25 million in bonding toward the world economy, Maine must create an MTI has been given a budget of construction of additional research educated workforce, world-class approximately $10 million over the facilities. Second, the committee sup- research facilities and maintain its next two years. It will build upon ported successful efforts to increase unequaled quality of life. Maine’s own Maine’s existing Centers for Innovation, the student population of the Maine research triangle (industry, govern- which currently provide business assis- Technical College System by 750 a ment and the University of Maine tance and serve as clearinghouses of year. Additional skilled workers are System) will provide opportunities to information for two of the seven target needed now, and demand will only expand businesses and increase industries, namely aquaculture and intensify as the R&D effort bears fruit incomes. Maine will then be known biotechnology. Industry leaders credit in the form of growing businesses. as a place where innovation, collabo- the centers with helping make these Maine cannot claim the world- ration and productivity merge. two of Maine’s technology success sto- renowned research institutions or estab- ries. The next few years will be critical lished high-tech economies of, say, Carol Kontos is a state senator from as MTI defines its role in developing Massachusetts, North Carolina or Maine. She is co-chair of the Maine new products and expanding business- California. Maine is a small state with Legislature’s Joint Select Committee on es within the target industries. limited resources. To succeed, Maine Research and Development. This arti- The R&D Committee also must do more with less and maximize cle was prepared with assistance from increased the state’s investment in its investments. The more than $30 mil- Rickmond K. McCarthy who is two other areas essential to high-tech lion committed to R&D is a major special assistant to Maine Senate industries. The first is the university investment—one that cannot be sus- President Mark W. Lawrence.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 27 e-Colleges: New England Institutions Marry Traditional Strengths to Cybertools

Alan R. Earls

Distance learning technology may not make the traditional campus obsolete, ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF KILBURN OF THE PUBLICATION GROUP. THE PUBLICATION BY JEFF KILBURN OF ILLUSTRATION but an institution @ Led by former Massachusetts @ At Lesley College, a pioneering Education Commissioner Robert class completes an online master’s without an Antonucci, Cambridge, Mass.-based degree program in instructional Harcourt Higher Education, a technology. With funds from the U.S. subsidiary of a major publishing Department of Education, Lesley also appropriate plan company, announces plans to enroll develops an online science education 100,000 to 200,000 students over course to help teachers learn about of action could five years in an on-line, degree- science in a hands-on, investigative granting institution. method which they, in turn, can offer get left behind. in their classrooms. @ Roger Williams University intro- duces Rhode Island’s first online @ Jenzabar.com is one of many “dot degree program—a bachelor’s in com” firms rushing to help education public administration. The program institutions become Web-savvy. The will be coordinated through Massachusetts-based company, eCollege.com, one of the nation’s formed in 1998 to create a virtual largest online education providers. community for professors and students, offers Internet tools allowing @ Maine’s supplemental loan authori- educators to develop and publish ty, Maine Education Services, pre- syllabi and other course materials pares to launch Portland College, an online, while promoting interactive online college that bills itself as “The discussions among students. University of Where You Are.”

28 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION The World Wide Web and other new National University of Singapore, technologies are on the verge of makes it possible to earn an MIT imposing a new order on the way degree while living 10,000 miles we learn—restructuring or replacing from Massachusetts. many of the day-to-day elements of The impact of distance learning is higher education. Whether institu- by no means restricted to science tions survive and prosper in this new and technology fields. At Tufts, Web world may depend upon how quick- technology allows art history students ly and effectively they adapt. to examine pieces of fine art on their The upstart University of Phoenix, personal computers. “The only way a private, for-profit institution—and a to see the work before the Web was hot item on Wall Street—now enrolls to book time to view the slides in the more than 61,000 students, making it library,” says Tufts project manager America’s largest private accredited Ranjani Saigal. “But now the students university. Some UPhoenix students can view it from their rooms.” receive all their instruction via the Technology is also being applied Internet. The more than 20-year-old to overcome geographical and time institution also has established itself constraints that make it difficult for as a purveyor of professional certifi- students and professors to meet face No real difference cation for the computer industry, to face. Tufts, for example, has enlist- promising a steady stream of repeat ed Blackboard.com, a commercial between traditional customers for whom lifelong learning service, to bring classmates and oth- is a necessity. ers together online. In June 1995, the Western Distance learning technology may face-to-face Governors’ Association (WGA), an not make the traditional campus organization consisting of the gover- obsolete, but an institution without learning and nors of 18 western states, two territo- an appropriate plan of action could ries and one commonwealth, met to get left behind. At a minimum, a new distance learning discuss ways that states could use generation of “Web-ready” students information technologies to collaborate may show little patience for the old in education, industry and government. ways of doing business. Students has shown up in A year later, they adopted a plan for a have begun to expect teaching and new virtual university. And in 1998, the student services via the Internet. most anecdotal newly formed Western Governors’ University began offering its first three Disconnected Region? degree and certificate programs. Different U.S. regions have embraced reviews, though Closer to home, an arrangement distance learning with varying degrees between the Massachusetts Institute of enthusiasm. Because of New comprehensive of Technology and Britain’s England’s relatively high population Cambridge University gives MIT stu- density (except portions of northern studies have yet dents an unprecedented opportunity New England) and the abundance of to study overseas. Historically, MIT local colleges and universities, there undergraduates, and science majors has been little impetus to develop to be done. elsewhere, have found it particularly distance learning programs and tools difficult to study abroad because of in the region, according to Edmund stringent course requirements. By Cranch, director of the New England transmitting certain required courses Board of Higher Education’s five-year- through distance learning, the new old Program in Telecommunications Cambridge-MIT Institute program and Distance Learning. “In New enables up to 50 undergraduates to England, distance learning hasn’t had spend their junior year at the other the urgency that it has had in other campus without disrupting their acad- regions” says Cranch. emic progress. Furthermore, despite the fact that Another MIT distance learning some prestigious New England insti- program, a joint effort with the tutions would seem positioned to

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 29 thrive in the distance learning envi- A lot of professors aren’t so san- to a resident group, then the extra ronment, “few have made the neces- guine. Steven R. Lerman, director of cost of a larger audience lowers the sary institutional commitments,” MIT’s Center for Educational cost per student—and the costs of says Cranch. Computing, sees an enormous range adding more students are not propor- But such commitments are now of attitudes toward distance learning tional” as they might be in a purely taking hold from Hartford, where among MIT faculty. “Some don’t want bricks and mortar equation. Charter Oak State College’s transfer it or it simply doesn’t fit their style of Distance learning also adds com- credit registry has begun keeping teaching while others are deeply plexity to the cost equation. “We used record of distance learning credits, to involved and enthusiastic,” he says. to have an academic advisor, a Down East, where century-old “I can see using the Web to dis- teacher and so on all in one person,” Husson College has begun offering tribute notes but in terms of teaching says Husson President William an online bachelor’s degree program that way, I would hate it,” says Beardsley. “When you operate online, in nursing. Dartmouth College computer science it invites and even demands that you Professor Thomas Cormen. “I dis- unbundle those functions.” Effectiveness pense advice and encouragement to Then there is the question of pay- Despite questions about the value, my students and I really like being ing for high-tech investments that effectiveness and quality of distance able to see them face to face.” may have a limited shelf life given learning programs, new evidence the pace of technological change. tends to support the new programs. Accreditation, Costs “We already have a huge overhead in Former Connecticut Commissioner of Distance learning presents profound bricks and mortar,” notes Beardsley. Higher Education Andrew De Rocco questions about accreditation and costs. “At the moment, this kind of new cites the effectiveness of a Rensselaer As long as the quality and effec- undertaking is a tremendous drain on Polytechnic Institute program that tiveness of distance learning is in capital and these high-tech invest- uses CD-ROM to teach science while question, accreditation will be a stick- ments generally last only three years.” encouraging students to study in ing point. The American Association In an effort to attract students and small teams. “They actually did much of University Professors has strongly stay current in technology, colleges better than those taught in a more criticized the accreditation of the are expected to spend nearly $5 bil- traditional fashion,” says De Rocco. Web-based Jones International lion on information technology by Cranch adds that no real differ- University, using its own Web site to 2003, up from $3.1 billion in 1998, ence between traditional face-to-face declare: “The development of dis- according to International Data Group learning and distance learning has tance-education technologies has cre- (IDG) of Framingham, Mass. shown up in most anecdotal reviews, ated conditions seldom, if ever, seen IDG predicts spending will rise as though comprehensive studies have in academic life—conditions which colleges and universities move more yet to be done. raise basic questions about standards information to the Internet and Meanwhile, research by Sunnyvale, for teaching and scholarship.” expand their distance learning pro- Calif., technology consultant Brandon But the major U.S. accrediting grams. Spending on communications Hall shows that commercial technolo- organizations have already begun to products is projected to grow fastest, gy-based training speeds up the update their quality standards to rising 15 percent annually to $693 learning process from 20 percent to accommodate electronic learning sys- million by 2003, while computer 80 percent, freeing learners to put tems, according to education consul- hardware spending should reach their knowledge into practice sooner, tant and former Bentley College nearly $2 billion, according to IDG. and may cost as much as 50 percent President Joseph Cronin. less than traditional, instructor-led Although distance learning has the Market positioning training, pleasing the corporations potential to provide cost savings for Yet the opportunity to reach new, that foot the bill and undoubtedly students and institutions, NEBHE’s underserved markets and achieve threatening providers of traditional Cranch warns that startup costs are sig- strong positioning with current students education and training programs. nificant, and so far, tuition for distance may make the investment worthwhile. “This has the potential to revolu- learning programs has not been much Beardsley believes Web-based programs tionize the way people learn, particu- lower than for in-the-flesh programs. can be a marketing tool and an incre- larly in the area of self-actualized and Says MIT’s Lerman: “You need to mental add-on that enriches a school’s self-motivated learning from high spend to create special classrooms existing brand identity. school through higher education,” and acquire special equipment and “The public institutions—the says Hampshire College instructional people to run and maintain it. University of Massachusetts Lowell for technology Professor Tom Murray. However, if you are already teaching example—have recognized this new

30 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION opportunity and have been quite UMass-Dartmouth has teamed up aggressive,” says Cranch. By contrast, with Bristol and Cape Cod communi- he admits, many independent schools ty colleges in the southeast. have been less active. “Their forté has In the Ocean State, the University been bringing high-quality students to of Rhode Island has expanded its their campus rather than exporting central server to accommodate a URI a product.” Virtual Courses server that stores and Public systems across New delivers URI course materials to England are indeed pacing the dis- Internet users. tance learning revolution. The The Community College of In an effort to Connecticut State University System’s Vermont launched its first experimen- year-old technology education pro- tal online course in the spring of attract students gram offers full- or part-time under- 1996. By spring 1999, the number of graduate and graduate students the courses had risen to 25 in fields rang- opportunity to pursue a variety of ing from accounting principles to and stay current in degrees over the Internet. Enrollment American detective fiction—and near- in the program, dubbed OnlineCSU, ly all of them were fully enrolled. technology, colleges grew from 71 students in 1998 to 377 Lerman warns that each institution students in 1999, and the number of must tailor its distance education ini- course offerings is expected to dou- tiatives to its own strengths and capa- are expected to spend ble to more than 50 by the year 2000. bilities. The good news, he says, is At the University of New that there is a potential student base nearly $5 billion Hampshire, a pilot program called the that has only just begun to be served UNH Blackboard Project helps faculty by organizations like community col- members use the Internet to deliver leges. “They [underserved groups] on information course information, announcements, want more and they really need the assignments, tests and supplementary ability to take courses asynchronous- technology by 2003, materials to their students on-line, 24 ly, which the Web enables. Figuring hours a day, seven days a week. New out how to use this to serve these up from $3.1 billion Hampshire’s College for Lifelong nontraditional students would help a Learning, which has provided adults lot of people.” with flexible, nontraditional programs For nearly a decade, as the in 1998. since 1972, has also added a large Internet transformed commerce, most number of Web-based courses to its colleges and universities trailed offerings. behind. True, institutions invested to Massachusetts Board of Higher varying degrees in connecting faculty, Education Vice Chancellor Jack staff and students to the Internet and Warner boasts of the Massachusetts wiring their campuses. But the funda- Information Turnpike Initiative, a mentals of campus life—the annual joint effort between UMass and the admissions decisions, the classroom state Department of Information rituals, the periodic testing—changed Technology. The initiative eventually very little at most places. No longer. will link campuses and perhaps stu- Says Cronin: “I’ve been in education dents at home through a high-band- for 42 years and this is exhilarating. width, fiber-optic link being built The Internet is going to revolutionize along the right-of-way of the education. The question is whether Massachusetts Turnpike. Meanwhile, educators will design distance learning the Massachusetts College of Liberal or be overrun by marketeers.” Arts and Greenfield and Berkshire community colleges have launched Alan R. Earls is a freelance writer distance learning programs in the and frequent contributor to CONNECTION. northwestern part of the state, while

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 31 A New England Renaissance? CHANGING THE REGION’S CULTURE OF PHILANTHROPY George McCully

n December than having. The Generosity Index, in turn, is a 1997, a major ranking of those plus or minus numbers. I gifts officer at Named with a bit of irony and intended more a leading university in the Boston for education than science, the Generosity Index area told me, in response to the first has acquired a life of its own nationwide. But edition of the Massachusetts what does it tell us? Catalogue for Philanthropy and its First, it suggests that we have no national cul- Generosity Index, “There isn’t a ture of charitable giving. If all Americans were college or university develop- equally generous in giving in relation to having, ment officer in the country they would have equal scores on the Index; if who doesn’t know that New they gave consistently in relation primarily to Englanders are cheap. their incomes, that equal score would be zero— Anywhere else, you make your that is, there would be no difference between pitch and you either get a major gift or you their ranks in having and in giving. But in fact, don’t. Here in New England, if you’re lucky, there is a wide variation—an 85-point spread— they’ll give you a thousand bucks and think between the highest and lowest scores. they’ve done their job. So you’re onto something Second, our charitable giving evidently is not big, but it isn’t going to change overnight; and I related to income at all. The average state has a urge you to stick with it and not give up.” 20-point disparity between its ranks in having The Catalogue is a collaborative project of and giving. Massachusetts grantmakers, donors, fundraisers Third, the relation between giving and income and charities established to promote charitable levels is strongly regional as illustrated by a map giving. The Generosity Index was conceived to published in the August 1999 issue of Governing help clarify the significance of annual federal magazine. Using the 1997 generosity data, the data on itemized charitable deductions. Alone, national magazine color-coded 10-state groups: the deductions, even when averaged, are mean- the top 10, second 10, third and so on. The map ingless, because levels of giving for an entire reveals clearly that contiguous states tend to state or income group may vary for many differ- share similar levels of generosity. Most generous ent reasons—such as available income, invest- are the Bible Belt and Utah, where generally low ment assets, distribution of wealth and cost of ranks in income combine with very high ranks in living. Nor does it help to compare average giving, encouraged by evangelical Protestant deductions directly with average adjusted gross tithing and a strong sense of community. Next incomes, because only one in four taxpayers comes the great internal mass of the country— itemizes charitable deductions, and we don’t strongly Protestant, warmly communitarian and know the incomes of either itemizers or non- generous. Then comes the relatively wealthy itemizers. These gaps and fallacies have impeded northern Pacific Coast. And finally at the very strategizing in philanthropy. bottom are the relatively wealthy, urban, secular, Lacking any alternative, we decided to com- sophisticated states including New England, two pare each state’s and each income group’s nation- Midwestern states (Minnesota and Wisconsin), al rank in average adjusted gross income, or two Middle-Atlantic states (Maryland and New having, with its national rank in average deduc- Jersey) and Colorado. tions, or giving. This yields a plus or minus num- The charts on page 33 profile each New ber—plus if the group is ranked higher in giving England state’s generosity for the state as a than having, minus if it is ranked lower in giving whole and among the top three income groups

32 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION (which give the most) for the years articles in the Chronicle of region’s low levels of charitable giv- 1991 through 1997. One purpose of Philanthropy, the sector’s national ing and to showcase the philanthrop- the Generosity Index was to let lower- newspaper, showing that New ic sector by profiling 100 of the best income states off the hook, so Englanders, and Bostonians in particu- small-to-mid-size charities that the Vermont and Maine, which rank low lar, give less of their relatively high public never hears about. in giving but also have low incomes, incomes to charity. The New England Predictably, the Internal Revenue rise into line with the rest of the Nonprofit Quarterly had also analyzed Service (IRS) data and attendant state country. The other four states—Rhode the Chronicle data and asked: “Just rankings at first were greeted with Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire how much is it coincidence that basi- denial: They are misleading. Even if and Massachusetts—have consistently cally every state in New England hit true, they are insignificant—we give high average incomes and low aver- the bottom rung on donations? Is in other ways, such as by volunteer- age deductions, and therefore, low there a regional factor? A regional ing. We pay taxes instead. Cost of liv- generosity. For the period as a whole, component to the solution?” ing forces us to give less. We have a they ranked 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th, That article caught the attention of disproportionate number of Catholics respectively. These numbers suggest a the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation, a (the lowest-giving religious group). We strongly distinctive New England small family foundation established in are better-educated and therefore do regional identity in charitable giving New York in 1930, now headquar- not respond so gullibly to the telemar- as it relates to income. tered in Boston. The foundation’s keting and direct-mail appeals that Though more clearly documented trustees asked what they might do to drive charitable giving elsewhere. We than before, the story of New help ameliorate this situation, and Yankees are thrifty and individualis- England’s lagging generosity was not came up with the Catalogue for tic, and what’s wrong with that? really news even when the Catalogue Philanthropy, now in its third year. In Gradually, however, the weight of first published the Index in 1997. A 1997, during prime fundraising sea- evidence (more than 821 million tax year earlier, Tufts historian John son, the Catalogue was mailed to returns from 1991 to 1997) has pro- Schneider wrote in CONNECTION of more than 300,000 affluent house- duced consensus on two points: 1) New England’s “elusive philanthropic holds and professional offices in New England and Massachusetts lag dollar.” Schneider cited three previous Massachusetts, to publicize the behind the rest of the country in

Whole state Generosity Index People with incomes over $200,000 People with incomes between $100,000 PROFILES OF NEW ENGLAND STATES, 1991-1997 People with incomes between $75,000

Connecticut Maine Massachusetts

5th 5th 5th

10th 10th 10th

15th 15th 15th

20th 20th 20th

25th U.S. Rank 25th 25th

U.S. Rank

30th 30th 30th

35th 35th 35th

40th 40th 40th

45th 45th 45th

50th 91 92 93 94 95 96 9 7 50th 50th 91 92 93 94 95 96 9 7 91 92 93 94 95 96 9 7 Year Year Year

Rhode Island New Hampshire Vermont

5th 5th 5th

10th 10th 10th

15th 15th 15th

20th 20th 20th

25th 25th 25th

U.S. Rank

30th 30th 30th

35th 35th 35th

40th 40th 40th

45th 45th 45th

50th 50th 50th 91 92 93 94 95 96 9 7 91 92 93 94 95 96 9 7 91 92 93 94 95 96 9 7 Year Year Year

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 33 But this is philanthropy, I said. in the world, people could freely Americans Exactly. What do we know about build whatever kind of society they could triple their philanthropy? Junk mail, junk telephone wanted, they felt a tremendous exhil- calls, annual editorials advising readers aration and set themselves enthusias- giving without to ‘Give, but give wisely’ and stories of tically to work. Voluntary associations prosecutors chasing scoundrels. for civic purposes endlessly multi- adversely affecting Why the disconnect? First, a struc- plied, as de Tocqueville famously their lifestyles. tural reason: more than 92 percent of noticed. American philanthropy was a charities have budgets below $2 mil- new way of life and an essential lion, and so are virtually invisible to component of the developing charitable giving in relation to the public. They cannot afford junk American character. income, and 2) we can well afford to mail and telemarketing, and only a few In fact, most local problem-solving give more. of them can even afford professional in America has been philanthropic. fundraisers. The media pay them little The essence of philanthropy may be National Scene attention. Second, a pedagogical rea- summed up in the phrase: if some- But we needn’t think the rest of the son: you can’t teach or promote any- thing needs doing, do it. This applied country is doing so well. Giving USA thing using negative and imprecise to everything from barn-raising to the reports that U.S. charitable giving has vocabulary, which is what we have creation in 1636 of the first American stood below 2 percent of gross tried to do in the case of philanthropy. private corporation—Harvard domestic product and well below 2 If we describe philanthropy as giving College—to train clergy for the percent of personal income for to others in need through “nonprofit” Massachusetts Bay Colony. The decades. The Newtithing Group in organizations, is it any wonder people American Revolution itself was essen- San Francisco has estimated that don’t find it compelling? tially philanthropic. Sam Adams’ Americans could triple their giving appeal that “associations and combi- without noticeably affecting their Philanthropy Reconsidered nations be everywhere set up,” Paul lifestyles. Why should we be satisfied The truth is much more persuasive Revere’s ride, the Minutemen, the that only one in four taxpayers item- than that. The word philanthropy Revolutionary Army—all involved vol- izes charitable deductions or that only (from the Latin and Greek philan- unteers whose activities were funded one in five estates worth over $1 mil- thropia: love of humankind, benevo- by private donations. The Declaration lion makes any charitable bequests at lence; combining philos, friendly, kind, of Independence was supremely phil- all? Philanthropy aside, this is not and anthropos, human) entered com- anthropic—purporting to do good for even good money management. The mon English usage in the 17th century all humankind in a cause to which truth is that not only do we lack a as a synonym for “humanity” and the founding fathers pledged as vol- national culture of philanthropy, but “beneficence.” Philanthropy became a unteers “our lives, our fortunes, and most Americans give at unjustifiably characteristic ideal of the 18th-century our sacred honor.” The flowering of low levels and too often in response Enlightenment and naturally took hold American literature in New England to superficial—and not infrequently in America where a new nation was in the early 19th century—with fraudulent—manipulations by direct being built based on “private initiatives Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, mail and telemarketing. There is plen- for public good, focusing on quality of Melville, Poe and Whitman—was ty of room for improvement. life”—the Catalogue’s locution, com- philanthropic in the sense that it The major responsibility for this bining the two most conventional defi- addressed public issues for the anemia in giving belongs to the phil- nitions used today. greater good of the nation. All of anthropic community itself. While it is Perhaps because historians of phil- American religion, private education true that the sector has been profes- anthropy have focused on its products and secular reform movements—from sionalized during these decades—and as conventionally conceived—primarily anti-slavery through environmental- that internally perhaps has never social services—they have established ism—have been philanthropic. In worked better—we have done a poor that philanthropy flourished in early short, America’s quality of life is job of teaching philanthropy. America, but missed the point of its owed to philanthropy, which is why One symptom of this is that almost importance to the nation’s development. the low level of philanthropic giving no one knows what “philanthropy” By focusing instead on the fundamen- is a serious public issue. means, and when it is explained, the tal impulse behind philanthropy—vol- general impression is negative. While untary civic responsibility—we can see National Remedies preparing the first Catalogue, we it in a new light that not only explains Today, America’s global, high-tech asked people how they might respond the historic flowering but suggests a economy, its unprecedented bull mar- to receiving such a publication in the more significant future. ket, its concentration of great wealth mail. Everyone we asked said they When the early settlers in America in a few hands, and the allegedly would wonder if it was legitimate. discovered that here, as nowhere else unprecedented intergenerational

34 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION transfer of wealth (estimated near $20 allowable up to 30 percent of adjust- ages of volunteers and itemizers of trillion over the next several decades) ed gross income with full deductibili- charitable deductions, and the have combined to arouse a new ty at the appreciated price and no region’s economy is strong. interest in “promoting philanthropy.” capital gains tax. But top income groups in the In 1998, a National Initiative to Other national initiatives are being four lowest-ranking New England Promote Philanthropy was launched discussed. Both the Catalogue and a states can well afford to give more. by a group of leading foundations panelist at the White House Conference This represents a great opportunity (Ford, Kellogg, Packard, Kauffman on Philanthropy have proposed desig- for the six-state region—indeed, one and others) investing up to $10 mil- nating Thanksgiving or the day after might simply invert the Generosity lion over three years in national, as National Philanthropy Day. Just as Index and call it the “Opportunity regional, state and municipal projects in the 20th century, almost everyone Index,” indicating relative capacity to to increase “organized philanthropy.” telephoned their mother on Mothers increase investment in quality of life A critically important initiative in Day, in the 21st century, families through philanthropy. the donor education movement is the might log onto the Internet on How should we promote philan- Newtithing Group, which has pro- Thanksgiving weekend to make their thropy? New England’s philanthropic posed that for high net-worth individ- annual charitable contributions. infrastructure is mainly organized uals and families, total investment Others have recommended the regu- along state lines, rather than regionally. assets—not annual income—should lar inclusion of a brief overview of Four of our six states have large be the reference point in calculating the state of philanthropy and the statewide community foundations how much one can afford to give philanthropic sector nationally in the (Massachusetts has 13, Connecticut each year to philanthropy. Claude President’s State of the Union 19). Private foundations have statewide Rosenberg, the retired investment Message and similar inclusions in associations in Massachusetts, manager who heads the Newtithing every governor’s state of the Connecticut and Maine. Five states Group, calculates that an average tax- state address. have associations of charities payer with income over $1 million To teach what philanthropy is (Massachusetts has several local has $21 million in investment assets about, the Catalogue has proposed groups). Fundraisers have statewide and could easily afford to contribute creating an annual publication, organizations in Massachusetts, that entire income to philanthropy prospectively entitled The Statistics of Connecticut and Rhode Island. There with no sacrifice in lifestyle. The Income for Philanthropy, which are no donor associations. There are Newtithing Website (newtithing.org) would feature relevant IRS data and active state associations of attorneys, features a “Calculator” into which present various analyses of those accountants, investment managers and people can plug their own numbers numbers such as the Generosity other financial advisors, but no such and come out with their affordable Index and Newtithing’s Affordability regional groups. contributions under the Newtithing Index. Regionally, several institutions do strategy. Newtithing estimates that or can provide significant support for Americans can afford to give roughly New England Remedies promoting philanthropy. The New three times as much as they do cur- Many aspects of philanthropy are England Nonprofit Quarterly could be rently, and that a $1.2 million annual alive and well in New England. The a powerful voice for the cause, but contribution would actually cost only region’s well-developed “benefit sec- has yet to make that commitment. The $760,000 if the donor took full advan- tor” regularly generates models that New England Governors’ Conference tage of the tax laws—in particular, are adapted nationwide. New has been alert and hospitable to the transfer of appreciated securities, England has unusually high percent- philanthropic challenges and opportu-

Affordability Index NEW ENGLAND STATES, 1997 (FOR TAXPAYERS WITH ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME OVER $200,000)

Number ofItemized Charitable Deductions Total $ % of U.S. Rank of Tax Returns Average Affordable Difference Difference Affordable Fulfillment % Maine 5,059 $18,600 $63,850 $45,250 $0.23 billion 29.1 15th Rhode Island 5,764 $17,194 $65,005 $47,811 $0.28 billion 26.5 22nd Massachusetts 61,926 $18,374 $71,064 $52,690 $3.26 billion 25.9 25th Connecticut 47,192 $17,103 $86,830 $69,727 $3.29 billion 19.7 39th Vermont 2,893 $16,331 $95,855 $79,524 $0.23 billion 17.0 44th New Hampshire 8,373 $12,458 $80,644 $68,186 $0.57 billion 5.4 47th

Source: Newtithing Group. $7.86 billion

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 35 raise giving to levels that correspond country. New England once exer- to the region’s relative wealth. GNE cised national leadership through over the next three years will help philanthropy. We have the capacity An average establish systems in each of the five to do it again. states to promote philanthropy in Our fellow Americans annually taxpayer with income perpetuity. Each state will have a prove that New Englanders, who task force to support collaborations have more to give, can well afford to over $1 million has among the various constituencies in give more—because those others, $21 million in philanthropy—donors, advisors, with less, do regularly give more and foundations, corporations, charities, do not suffer from it. If New England investment assets fundraisers, journalists, scholars were to raise its level of giving to the and even people needing help. U.S. averages for our income groups, and could easily A GNE Website (givingnewengland.org) we would invest an additional $1.3 afford to contribute will provide regional support to billion annually in quality of life. That the state-based programs as a tool- would amount to having a new $26 that entire income to kit of philanthropic information and billion foundation—the largest in the resources. country—in New England. philanthropy with We already see evidence that phil- New England’s task is to use phil- no sacrifice anthropy can indeed be promoted. anthropy to translate its economic After six years in which gains into quality of life gains. in lifestyle. Massachusetts placed 50th four times Foundations can help by dedicating a and 49th twice on the Generosity small percentage of their annual Index, the Commonwealth moved up grantmaking to support for “enlarging to 48th place in 1997. This is largely the pie” through Giving New England attributable to the top income group and related efforts in each state. It is of 60,000 taxpayers, whose income in the interest of all educational insti- nities, and at their meeting next year rose by 5.5 percent and whose chari- tutions—universities, colleges and will consider the role of public offi- table giving rose by 19 percent. If schools, libraries, arts councils, public cials and governmental instruments in we ask what happened in forums of any kind and the media— promoting “private initiatives for the Massachusetts in 1997 that did not to add the teaching of philanthropy public good focusing on quality of happen in New Jersey (49th) or New to their various programs. Fundraisers life.” The New England Board of Hampshire (50th), one factor has to can reposition themselves as advisors Higher Education, through CONNECTION be that from September on, there in philanthropy generally and not just and its strategically significant reader- was media discussion of advocates for their own institutions. A ship, has played a vital role in raising Massachusetts giving, generated by rising tide lifts all boats; we want to these issues for public discussion. Two the publication of the Catalogue’s raise the tide. national institutions successfully pro- Generosity Index. It is possible that New England may be entering moting philanthropy originated in the difference was made by about another great period in its history. New England: The Philanthropic 11,000 taxpayers who moved into The region now enjoys unprecedent- Initiative, launched in Boston by Peter the top group that year, having been ed prosperity and a nationally distin- Karoff in 1989 to counsel potential leading donors in the second group guished philanthropic community. If donors of high net worth, and the (whose numbers stayed the same or we invest our surplus wealth in quali- Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, which declined slightly). If so, then these ty of life, we could create a “New has in a short time become a major young, newly affluent people—many England Renaissance,” restoring this conduit of philanthropic funds. In addi- of them, high-tech entrepreneurs— region to the kind of national leader- tion, the Catalogue for Philanthropy is are more generous than their prede- ship for which our ancestors are being replicated across the country. cessors in that top group, in which famous. Maybe then others would The National Initiative directed two case New England philanthropy has take interest in what we are doing of its first 13 grants to New England— a very bright future. today, rather than only in what our $300,000 to the Connecticut Giving predecessors did—philanthropically, Project and $300,000 to Giving New Make a Difference in fact—centuries ago. England (GNE), which serves the Given that private investment in civil other five states. Both grants are society is an American tradition, George McCully is a trustee of the being supplemented by local funders. today’s interest in “making the differ- Ellis L. Phillips Foundation and pro- The goal of Giving New England is ence” through voluntary investments ject coordinator for The Catalogue nothing less than to change the in quality of life signifies the rebirth for Philanthropy. regional culture of philanthropy—to of an impulse that helped mold this

36 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION Progress Report: Institutional Autonomy & technology, reach out to underserved populations and regions, and encourage cooperation to avoid Public Accountability unnecessary duplication. The council was further charged with the responsibility to review and make recommendations to the Commission on Eleanor M. McMahon Higher Education on any proposal for new programs that exceeded or changed the programmatic mission of an institution, demanded excessive new resources or raised significant issues of duplica- overnance of higher education in New tion. This process clearly expanded the authority England has been relatively stable. With of institutional governing boards while putting in Gthe exception of Massachusetts, which place a collaborative interinstitutional review restructured major components of its higher educa- process. tion system in the early 1990s, and Maine, which The restructuring legislation signed by more recently reorganized its management and Whitman retained the emphasis on decentraliza- governance practices, the region’s system structures tion and increased responsibility for college and date back at least 10 years. In light of restructuring university boards that had been recommended by initiatives across the country, some review of gov- the advisory committee, but added an indepen- ernance in all New England states is likely. If so, dent entity to administer student aid programs. the New Jersey experience may be enlightening. The New Jersey Legislature also introduced provi- In 1994, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd sions to require evaluation of the restructuring Whitman used the occasion of her first budget initiative two and five years after its enactment. message to call for the abolition of the state’s In response to the legislative requirement of a board of higher education. She then appointed a five-year review, the Commission on Higher special advisory panel of educators and lay peo- Education in 1998-99 conducted a survey on the ple to formulate recommendations on how New quality and effectiveness of the higher education Jersey colleges and universities should be gov- operation. erned and coordinated. The following items were positively evaluated The basic thrust of the recommendations was and attributed to restructuring: to reconstitute the state higher education board • Timeliness in addressing issues and making but reduce its size, scope and regulatory authority, decisions; while expanding institutional autonomy and insti- • Cooperation with the various higher education tutional system accountability. This reflected the entities through the Presidents’ Council; fact that American higher education has long been • Availability of higher education information; recognized as the best in the world, largely • Institutional governing board decision-making; because of its traditionally strong independent sector and a public sector which incorporates the • Institutional governing board accountability; central features of that independent sector—name- • Institutional flexibility in establishing new acad- ly, institutional authority and limited centralization. emic programs; and The restructured New Jersey system included a • Final decisions on disputes and appeals. new Commission on Higher Education made up A few negative evaluations were attributed to of independent lay leaders charged with develop- restructuring as well, including: ing a vision for the future of New Jersey postsec- • Poor systemwide coordination of higher educa- ondary education and related measurable tion and academic programming; objectives to meet the statutory goals of accessi- • Inadequate statewide master planning; bility, affordability and quality. The boards of • An inadequate budget development process; and trustees for each college and university were given expanded responsibility, including authori- • Lack of coordinated systemwide advocacy. ty to set tuition and introduce new programs As part of the requirement that the restructur- with accountability to the general public and to ing initiative be evaluated, the New Jersey students. More specifically, a public hearing was Commission on Higher Education scheduled a required before a board could raise tuition. And conference last January. The conference, spon- a Presidents’ Council was formed of chief execu- sored by the national Association of Governing tives of the state’s public and independent col- Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), leges and universities [CONNECTION, Spring 1997]. brought together members of the commission, as The Presidents’ Council was charged with well as more than 150 legislators and college presi- seeking creative ways to share resources and dents, three national experts on higher education

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 37 Progress Report who had been involved in the origi- The breakout groups recommend- that this situation changed dramatical- nal New Jersey reorganization and a ed much more extensive and coordi- ly over the next 20 years. The authors fourth who had not. Whitman opened nated engagement of members of the argued that the time is right for the conference and delivered a Presidents’ Council with state legisla- deregulation given the challenges progress report as well as a projec- tors, particularly in the process of and opportunities presented by tion of the fiscal 2000 higher educa- budget development, and more technology and distance learning tion budget. The governor noted that extensive institutional involvement in along with a sense that public institu- while it was too early to draw con- strategic planning. tions should follow in the footsteps of clusions about the bottom-line effects They recommended the addition the private ones on which most had of New Jersey’s restructuring, the of quality standards to the program been originally modeled. reforms have improved coordination review process conducted by the In the same publication, Patrick M. and collaboration within the higher Presidents’ Council. They also Callan, president of the National education system and made it more expressed concern that the Center for Public Policy and Higher responsive to students and to the Presidents’ Council’s current staff Education, joined his colleagues in business community. Presidents are is supported only by the council offering examples of how deregula- working together in an unprecedent- chair’s institution. tion can work in a context of ed way, she said, adding that The participants expressed strong increased demand for higher educa- increased autonomy has unleashed support for expanding transfer-articula- tion, growing public concern about institutional creativity while maintain- tion standards between New Jersey’s educational responsibility and quality, ing a commitment to quality, access two- and four-year institutions. severe constraints on resources and and affordability. Because of the relatively low enroll- rapidly changing technologies. Callan Whitman’s report was followed by ment of state residents in New Jersey and his associates recommend that a panel discussion featuring sponsors institutions, participants strongly sup- higher education pursue a federalist of the original restructuring legisla- ported expanding public information model that is at once centralized and tion and a summary by Martine about colleges and universities in New decentralized. The federated system Hammond Paludan, the recently Jersey. And they voiced concern about they recommend would be character- retired first executive director of the the extent of appropriate institutional ized by a strong center devoted to restructured New Jersey Commission. accountability standards such as cycli- serving its components while avoid- Paludan summarized the activities of cal program review (including, for pur- ing centralized decisions that could the past four years and presented a poses of objectivity, a third party from be made at lower levels. brief overview of constituents’ per- an institution other than the one being There is a remarkable convergence ceptions of those activities. This was evaluated) and about the lack of between MacTaggart’s conclusions followed by a discussion of New interinstitutional cooperation and effec- and those of a recent AGB report Jersey’s revised governance structure tive partnerships between colleges and entitled Bridging the Gap. The report in the context of other state struc- universities and public schools. concludes that state legislatures and tures and recommendations for The group strongly suggested that governing boards must “establish future action. Panelists noted that state incentive funds be established to relationships that allow for more flex- many of the issues identified as support institutional initiatives in ibility, less regulation and greater needing improvement—such as mas- areas such as collaboration, partner- respect of broad policy authority.” ter planning and program coordina- ships and technology as well as to MacTaggart and his associates pre- tion—reflect broad national trends address future priorities. Finally, they sent Virginia and Illinois as effective and not necessarily problems stem- strongly suggested that the higher models of federalism, offering a struc- ming from New Jersey’s new gover- education commission expand the ture of checks and balances and “the nance structure. currently required but limited institu- promise of management autonomy The conference closed with reports tional accountability reports to track within a context that promotes coop- from breakout groups. The participants progress in addressing state and insti- eration, economies of scale and flexi- generally agreed that no further restruc- tutional priorities. bility.” New Jersey may well serve as turing of the New Jersey higher educa- In a 1998 publication entitled a third model of evolving institutional tion system was required. They also Seeking Excellence Through Indepen- autonomy and public accountability— agreed, however, that there had been a dence, University of Maine System indeed, a model of federalism and lack of coordinated and effective advo- Chancellor Terrence MacTaggart and effective deregulation. cacy for system support. Some suggest- associates presented the case for ed that the executive director hold the deregulating public colleges and uni- Eleanor M. McMahon is distinguished new title of commissioner and be a versities. They noted that prior to the professor of public policy at Brown permanent participant in the activities 1960s, higher education in the United University’s Taubman Center for Public of the governor’s cabinet, although not States was characterized by relatively Policy and American Institutions. a cabinet member per se. few federal and state regulations, but

38 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION Excerpts B o o k s

Best Practices Can Work Together, has been so pop- and universities have shown an Carol Angus ular, in fact, that a second print run increasing interest in consortial enter- was needed. prises.” Best Practices in Higher Education Editors Lawrence G. Dotolo and Even among administrators and Consortia: How Institutions Can Jean T. Strandness, themselves direc- faculties, the very term “consortium” Work Together, Lawrence G. Dotolo tors of higher education consortia, conjures up vague associations rang- and Jean T. Strandness, eds., Jossey- note in the opening to their volume of ing from a loose partnership to a tight- Bass Publishers, 1999, $23 essays that a new wave of consortia ly controlled central structure with all the legal trappings of a contractual The impulse for colleges to cooperate relationship. through consortia dates back to at least Best Practices does a great deal to the 1950s and ’60s, when campuses shed light on the too often shadowy were drawn together by a range of life of consortia. With its useful case- pressing challenges: first, a boom in study format, the collection provides an the college-bound population brought updated, practical and wise guide to about by the G.I. Bill, then, the need to the art of consorting. The essays cover reshape the curriculum to reflect a the six most common activities changing world order, and later, the engaged in by over 25 percent of all pressures of student unrest. existing consortia: cross-registration of In the 1960s, Franklin Patterson, students, faculty exchange, library who had worked with Amherst, Mount cooperation, student recruitment, Holyoke and Smith colleges and the workshops and conferences, and pro- University of Massachusetts to establish fessional development (especially fac- Hampshire College, visited nearly half ulty development). The book, which of the 65 consortia that had sprung up includes an annotated bibliography during that era. In 1974, Patterson pub- and index of topics, appears at a time lished Colleges in Consort, which when current information about con- became required reading for anyone sorting is relatively scarce. involved in a consortium. The essayists include some of the Now, college consortia are hot are being formed as colleges face most experienced voices in the world again as evidenced by the heavy pressures to be more competitive and of higher education consortia today. turnout of U.S. college presidents and efficient. “While college costs have (Dotolo is president of the Virginia other education leaders at a recent spiraled upward over the last decade, Tidewater Consortium for Higher Five Colleges Inc. conference on the so have complaints about higher edu- Education and executive director of future of college collaboration. cation and demands that educational the national Association for Roughly 1,000 colleges and universi- institutions be accountable to an Consortium Leadership. Strandness is ties nationally belong to about 80 such increasing number of constituencies,” provost of the Tri-College University formal partnerships. And now this write Dotolo and Strandness. “As they consortium in Moorhead, Minn., and next generation of consortia has a new have looked for ways to save money Fargo, N.D.) They and the other con- guidebook. Best Practices in Higher and to become more efficient while tributors offer encouragement and Education Consortia: How Institutions sustaining program quality, colleges concrete examples laced with valuable

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 39 cautions about some of the pitfalls of tives of a three-year-old consortium Each essay offers anecdotal evidence embarking on and sustaining a consor- “which is still being created” and a 30- of the important role consortia play in tium. year-old consortium “in the midst of helping institutions respond to new pres- That kind of grounding in reality con- being re-created.” sures. In a chapter entitled “Faculty stitutes a valuable service to colleges This chapter and others emphasize Development: Working Together to and universities that come to the table of the importance of a commitment from Improve Teaching and Learning,” collaboration with vague or precon- the top. Whether beginning a consortium Dotolo notes that 20 years ago, the ceived notions of why and how schools or sustaining it over the long term, an institutions that today make up the work together. Saving money, as this executive-level commitment, Ramsbottom Virginia Tidewater Consortium for collection illustrates, is only a small part and Baus argue, is crucial to the success Higher Education were not unusual in of the formula and only one of many of the enterprise. So are clearly articulat- having no formal program to help their potential benefits to be gained from col- ed and understood missions and goals, faculties develop teaching skills. In laboration. Others include expanding balance mechanisms for creating parity those days, he notes wryly, “Most opportunities for students through cross- among otherwise unequal parties, flexi- administrators thought that sending registration and an enhanced position bility, sound decision-making processes [college] faculty to conferences was with grantmaking agencies that favor and tangible benefits. sufficient.” Once administrators began cooperative projects. Ramsbottom and Baus’s cautions are to require that faculties be evaluated In addition to exploring vital issues well-founded in their own experiences: by students, however, “and once such as technology, economic devel- “The enthusiasm and expectations that department chairs and division chairs opment, fundraising and international accompany new cooperative ventures began to keep records of student eval- education, the book offers sound frequently do not endure over time, and uations, everyone realized that a more advice on one of the most obvious neither do the organizational forms that systematic approach to improving forms of joint activity in a chapter embody them,” they warn. teaching and learning was needed.” titled, “Cooperation for Cost In a chapter analyzing “The Cons- Because the faculty were resistant to Effectiveness in Purchasing,” written by ortium Director’s Role,” Thomas R. being involved with a program Mitch Dorger, executive vice president Horgan, executive director of the New designed and offered by their own of the central coordinating agency for Hampshire College and University institutions, “the consortium became a the Claremont Colleges in California. Council, asserts that the consortium direc- clear alternative.” In a particularly engaging chapter tor must be prepared to be both “a leader entitled “Starting and Sustaining a and a servant,” capable of “discerning the Carol Angus is associate coordinator Consortium,” Claire Ramsbottom, coor- proper balance between institutional self- for information and publications at Five dinator of the newly formed Colleges of interest and collaborative cooperation.” Colleges Inc., the consortium linking the Fenway in Boston, and Frederick One of the director’s chief tasks, writes Amherst, Hampshire, Smith and Mount Baus, executive director of the Colleges Horgan, is “easing the burden on the Holyoke colleges and the University of of Worcester Consortium in member institutions [while] enhancing Massachusetts Amherst. Massachusetts, combine the perspec- their collective efforts.”

Rising Like UPhoenix of large, for-profit education institutions, University of California-Berkeley and Edmund T. Cranch including contemporary efforts employ- ultimately a doctorate from Cambridge. ing extensive use of information tech- Restless in early academic appoint- Rebel with a Cause: The Entrepreneur nologies for distance learning. ments, Sperling returned to California Who Created the University of Phoenix To understand the background that and in 1960 began a 12-year associa- and the For-Profit Revolution in shaped his life, Sperling describes his tion with San Jose State College (now Higher Education, John Sperling, John childhood in a dysfunctional, Missouri University) as an academician. There, Wiley & Sons Inc., 2000, $27.95 Ozarks family that experienced the he took on a series of assignments— vicissitudes of the Great Depression. team-teaching in a humanities pro- John Sperling’s personal account of his Born in 1921, he was swept up in gram, preparing material to teach efforts to initiate change in higher edu- events associated with World War II. As economics to high school students, cation provides both instructive histo- with many others, service in the armed improving access for disadvantaged ry and perceptive insight for the forces forces gave him exposure to quality Hispanic students, and developing a at play in the present ferment in high- higher education which motivated him system of higher education for working er education. to pursue further education through adults—that forged the pedagogical Rebel with a Cause offers an engag- the G.I. Bill. For Sperling, this process and entrepreneurial skills which would ing account of the roots of resistance to led to an undergraduate degree at lead to his eventual break with tradi- education reform that led to the creation Reed College, graduate study at the tional academics.

40 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION Though San Jose State included a community outreach/economic development component in its mission, the A Handsome History college was unable to embrace some of John O. Harney Sperling’s academic initiatives. He The College on the Hill: A Browser’s History for the Bicentennial, turned to other regional institutions in David Haward Bain, Middlebury College Press, 1999, $35 the hope they would accept his adult education program called the Institute for Professional Development. In this, I’ll admit it was the Middlebury pub- he ran square into the constraints of lic affairs office’s pitch of more than departmental control and academic in- 600 pictures that initially attracted fighting. me to The College on the Hill—and it In 1972, with $26,000 in savings, is the rich images that help make the merchant marine-turned-professor David Haward Bain’s 464-page his- launched a company dedicated to pro- tory accessible to people who have viding working adults with the oppor- no connection with Middlebury. tunity to earn academic degrees in the Following the format of “a print same time it takes full-time students to version of a documentary movie,” do so. Today, his Apollo Group, with Bain skillfully juxtaposes archival its University of Phoenix subsidiary, is materials from the college’s original a $500 million public company. charter through colorful 1920s cov- Rebel with a Cause is Sperling’s ers of The Blue Baboon magazine to exciting account of how far accrediting the oddly penetrating, black and agencies and other entrenched organi- white full-page photo of former zations will go to suppress innovation President Olin Robison. and reform in higher education. High The only visual disappointment drama unfolds in the collision between comes in the sections on the 1990s a handsomely illustrated coffee reform and tradition, as regional which settle for college catalog-style table book. accreditation and state regulatory agen- fall foliage shots and mortarboards This is the history of a campus as cies move to eliminate Sperling’s new flying heavenward. quirky and independent as Vermont venture. Only his understanding of aca- Still, The College on the Hill, itself. Here in 1879, President Calvin B. demic politics and his experiences as a tracing Middlebury’s evolution from Hulbert forbade students to kick a social activist enable him to fend off the its founding in 1800 to its upcom- football among the college buildings vicious attacks and collusion of educa- ing bicentennial year, is more than and issued 25 demerits to C.G. tional bureaucracies. Leavenworth when he violated the The account is directly pertinent to rule. Here in the later 1950s, frat the current tendency of some state brothers accepted national expulsion commissions to impede the introduc- to ensure the participation of future tion of for-profit programs and to the U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron attack by the American Association of Brown, an African-American, in the University Professors on initiatives that white-only Sigma Phi Epsilon, then utilize technology-based means of voted overwhelmingly for Richard delivering educational programming. Nixon over John F. Kennedy in a Sperling’s experience illustrates the 1960 mock presidential election. irony of accreditation and regulatory Bain, who has taught at Middle- agencies that for decades have bury for nearly 15 years, writes for a approved the for-profit continuing variety of magazines and is the author education divisions of traditional non- of several books including the new profit colleges. Thus, a for-profit com- Empire Express: Building the First ponent is legitimate as long as it Transcontinental Railroad and 1993’s subsidizes a “pure academic” endeav- Whose Woods These Are: A History of or. But if the for-profit undertaking the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. stands on its own base, as in the case of the University of Phoenix, it is John O. Harney is executive editor viewed as undermining the perceived of CONNECTION. Continued on page 42

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 41 Excerpts B o o k s Continued from page 41 integrity of higher education. John Sperling has been vindicated A Break from Pork by the marketplace success of the University of Phoenix and the Apollo The following is excerpted from “The Third Imperative,” an essay Group, of which he is CEO. The uni- published in “Policy Perspectives” (November 1999, Vol. 9, No. 1), versity now claims operations in 35 the periodical of the Knight Higher Education Collaborative. The states, including a growing online collaborative is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight learning division, and serves more Foundation. than 120,000 adult students. With financial resources now at his dispos- n many ways, Washington appears to have lost connection al, Sperling remains a reformer. He is with the values and commitments that were the underpinnings committed to “giving back” to society I of the nation’s substantial investment in higher education at through his support of initiatives to midcentury. Reestablishing that connection will require that higher tackle other “impossible” problems education understand the environment that any interest group accepts as the current playing field in contemporary Washington. A cynical view of this field might suggest that any astute institution should immediately retain the services of a K Street firm to make sure it wins its own share of pork. To the extent that traditional higher education institutions remain content that intensive lobbying in pursuit of their individual interests is the answer, however, they become part of the problem, and they contribute to the perception that higher education is, after all, no more highly principled than any other industry seeking to advance its fortunes. A fundamental challenge to higher education institutions will be to explain their values and purposes in terms that resonate in today’s society and among its political leadership. Any effort to reacquaint the public with the values that underlie traditional colleges and universities is necessarily an act of education; as such, it calls upon the members of academic communities to apply the very skills they have developed as teachers of students. As one faculty member has observed, “Working with those who lobby for universities, I’m struck by the fact that what they say to us is almost identical to what I tell beginning graduate students about how to teach. The basics are the same: determining what different individuals know about a subject initially, explaining things at a level that they can understand, and presenting ideas in terms of issues that are important to them.” Universities and colleges such as reforming America’s War on must realize the extent to which their scrambling to feed at the Drugs, redirecting health care to trough of Congressional pork compromises the very premises on emphasize wellness and longevity, which the nation’s commitment to higher education has been ful- and increasing the world’s food supply filled. What is needed is a “lobbying” effort on behalf of all high- through saltwater agriculture. er education institutions to renew the national awareness of their Through his spirited memoirs, important contributions to society as not-for-profit institutions Sperling has given back in another way: concerned with both education and the creation of new knowl- by encouraging education reformers to edge. Higher education institutions do far more to advance their persist in their efforts to effect change. cause in the public arena when they work collectively than they accomplish through the individual appeals; our hope is that high- Edmund T. Cranch is director of the er education’s associations will play an increasingly important New England Board of Higher role in forging that unified voice and appeal. Education’s Telecommunications and Distance Learning Program and former president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

42 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION CAMPUS

AMHERST, MASS. — A University of produce commercially important PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University Massachusetts Amherst professor was marine species offshore and relieve and MCI WorldCom launched a $5 awarded $168,614 by the National pressure on wild fish stocks. The million program to support technology Science Foundation to study how funds also help establish a UNH learning projects linking schools and unpaid workers in western Office of Technology Management to community organizations with local Massachusetts contribute to the disseminate research results. colleges. The national program, economic well-being of their funded by the telecommunications communities. Julie Graham of the AMHERST, MASS. — Hampshire firm and administered by Brown, will UMass Department of Geosciences will College officials signed a five-year provide underserved schools and produce an audit of informal economic agreement with the U.S. Fish and communities with multiyear grants practices in Pioneer Valley, highlighting Wildlife Service to reopen the federal worth up to $40,000 annually. activities such as caregiving and agency’s 136-acre Berkshire National voluntarism that do not show up in Fish Hatchery in Great Barrington, AMHERST, MASS. — The University of mainstream economic statistics or Mass., and operate the hatchery as a Massachusetts Amherst received a five- figure prominently in policymaking. hands-on aquaculture training center. year, $2.5 million grant from the The cold water fish production facility Minority Graduate Education initiative BURLINGTON, VT. — The University of closed in 1994 due to budget cuts. of the National Science Foundation to Vermont’s John Dewey Project on Hampshire has operated aquaculture increase the number of minority Progressive Education received programs for two decades. students enrolled in doctoral programs $220,000 from the Paul Foundation in science, math and engineering. The and the Vermont Department of DURHAM, N.H. — The University of grant helps UMass recruit minority Education to study service learning New Hampshire was awarded a three- undergraduates from members of the across the state. Researchers will year, $900,000 grant by the U.S. Office Five Colleges Inc. consortium and investigate how community service- of Special Education Rehabilitation selected U.S. institutions with large based curricula affect school- Services to prepare students to work minority enrollments. community relations, school culture with preschool and kindergarten and student learning. The project, children with pervasive developmental FALL RIVER, MASS. — A Bristol undertaken in collaboration with the disorder or autism. The program Community College English professor Foundation for Excellent Schools and provides education and training for 40 became the first Massachusetts faculty several other Vermont nonprofits, will undergraduate and graduate students member to be named Outstanding also provide training to teachers who and provides annual stipends of Community College Professor of the want to include service learning in $15,000 in exchange for a commitment Year by the Carnegie Foundation for their classrooms. to work with disabled children for two the Advancement of Teaching and years after graduation. the Council for Advancement and STORRS, CONN. — The University of Support of Education. The found- Connecticut dedicated a new $2 million FAIRFIELD, CONN. — Fairfield ations cited Assistant Professor Ellen research vessel to be used for University was awarded $166,599 Olmstead’s efforts to use literature to undergraduate and graduate education by the U.S. Department of Education reach minority students in south- as well as commercial fishing and to support a local literacy initiative eastern Massachusetts. deep-sea diving expeditions. The 76- offered in partnership with the foot Connecticut will enable UConn nonprofit Action for Bridgeport WENHAM, MASS. — Gordon College marine scientists to stay at sea for up to Community Development. The goal is was awarded two grants to work seven days and deploy and retrieve to establish satellite computer stations with the school system in nearby gear, including a submersible. The in area schools and institute computer Georgetown, Mass. A $23,000 vessel was partly funded by a $1.5 tutorials for children and their parents. Eisenhower grant from the Massachu- million grant from the Connecticut setts Department of Education gives Department of Economic Development. SALEM, MASS. — Salem State College Georgetown teachers the opportunity was awarded a five-year, $1.3 million to take graduate education courses at DURHAM, N.H. — The University of grant to address a severe shortage of Gordon. A $25,000 grant from the New Hampshire received $1.4 million teachers serving non-English-speaking Massachusetts Campus Compact from the National Oceanic and Atmos- students in communities north of program funds an afterschool program pheric Administration to support the Boston. Salem State will prepare 25 where up to 30 Gordon students will Open Ocean Aquaculture project, a teachers aides, or “para-educators,” be trained to tutor needy schoolchildren joint effort by UNH and the Ports- and 15 first-year teachers for and involve Georgetown senior citizens mouth Fishermen’s Cooperative to certification as bilingual teachers. in education projects.

CONNECTION FALL/WINTER 1999 43 CAMPUS

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Harvard CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — Harvard Springfield Public Schools and University launched a $21 million University’s Kennedy School of Baystate Health Systems, the college affordable housing initiative, including Government established a new Sultan will contribute $600,000 in services, a $20 million, low-interest loan of Oman Professorship in scholarships and tuition waivers for program and a $1 million grant International Relations. Funded by the students interested in pursuing health program for Boston and Cambridge government of Oman, the careers. nonprofits that create or preserve professorship will focus on advanced affordable housing in the nation’s scholarship, teaching, research and WORCESTER, MASS. — Worcester hottest housing market. Though outreach in international affairs. Polytechnic Institute was awarded median home prices in Massachusetts $500,000 from the W.M. Keck are twice the U.S. average, residential AMHERST, MASS. — The University of Foundation of Los Angeles to support vacancy rates stand below 2 percent. Massachusetts Amherst was awarded a WPI research centers on highway and The initiative also establishes a faculty- three-year, $300,000 grant from the environmental infrastructure. led research and advisory panel U.S. Information Agency to create Researchers with the Highway charged with helping local nonprofits interdisciplinary land and property Infrastructure Program focus on with their affordable housing efforts. management courses at three development of materials for highway universities in northwest Russia. construction and restoration as well as SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — Springfield Under the program, a team of 10 roadside safety technology. The Technical Community College was UMass faculty members, Environmental Infrastructure Program, awarded a two-year, $49,500 grant administrators and graduate students meanwhile, focuses on water from the U.S. Agency for International will work with counterparts from protection and pollution prevention. Development to create a Novgorod State University, Pskov comprehensive telecommunications Polytechnic Institute and St. NEW HAVEN, CONN. — Two Yale curriculum for Athlone Technical Petersburg State Technical University University electrical engineers were College in Cape Town, South Africa. to develop new land-use courses, awarded $2.6 million by the National The project, launched in cooperation create instructional materials and Science Foundation to study how with the American Association of improve existing degree programs. schools of fish, herds of deer and Community Colleges, will also bring flocks of birds maintain their spacing South African faculty to Springfield. KINGSTON, R.I. — A University of and move flawlessly as groups without Rhode Island health promotion apparent leaders. The research by PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University partnership was awarded a four-year, electrical engineers A. Stephen Morse was awarded $250,000 by the $2.8 million grant from the National and Peter Belhumeur and a team of National Endowment for the Institute on Aging to study new and marine biologists and experts in Humanities to add eight new states, more effective ways to improve the computer vision, control systems and including New Hampshire and health of people over age 65. An robotics, may help engineers design Vermont, to a program that engages interdisciplinary team of URI vehicles that move in tandem Americans in a public discussion of professors and students and a Brown perfectly with one another. foreign policy. Through Brown’s University professor will research Choices for the 21st Century health promotion and disease WALTHAM, MASS. — Brandeis Education Project, Americans, ranging prevention programs with the city of University was awarded a five-year, from high school students to senior East Providence, which has Rhode $2.7 million grant from the National citizens, convene at public libraries to Island’s greatest concentration of Science Foundation to support take part in foreign policy discussions elderly people. neuroscientists and computational led by local scholars. theorists doing interdisciplinary work SPRINGFIELD, MASS. — Springfield in computational biology. The AMHERST, MASS. — The Hampshire Technical Community College was collaboration is based on the idea that College-based Five College Program in awarded a three-year, $850,000 grant computational scientists can help Peace and World Security Studies was by the U.S. Department of Health and neuroscientists map the network of awarded $250,000 by the John D. and Human Services to encourage neurons whose electrical signals drive Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to disadvantaged Springfield youths to human actions and behaviors. The support the program’s interdisciplinary pursue health careers. The program grant will advance the studies of 11 study of violence and conflict resolution will include a citywide Health Career graduate students annually and a in the post-Cold War era. The grant is Outreach curriculum for disadvantaged smaller number of undergraduates and the MacArthur Foundation’s fourth in students in grades 4 through 12. postdoctoral researchers in the field. four years to the program. Working in conjunction with the

44 NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION CAMPUS

LOWELL, MASS. — A University of BOSTON, MASS. — Three Boston year colleges. In announcing the freeze, Massachusetts Lowell assistant professor University physicists received a $1.1 Marlboro cited a recent anonymous $12 of civil and environmental engineering million grant from the National million gift, the largest ever made to a was awarded a $210,000 “Career” Science Foundation to search for the Vermont college. Marlboro tuition and award from the National Science yet-unobserved subatomic particle room and board stand at $25,550. Foundation to develop technology to known as the Higgs boson and to measure soil contamination in real study the “top quark,” the subatomic FARMINGTON, CONN. — Tunxis time. Pradeep Kurup’s work integrates particles that make up protons and Community College began offering a recently developed electronic nose neutrons. John Butler, Meenakshi comprehensive training program to technology with cone penetration Narain and Ulrich Heintz are among prepare technicians for high-demand technology to detect hazardous the group of scientists who jobs in telecommunications cabling. materials at a site, rather than boring discovered the top quark in 1995. The Tunxis program, one of only two test holes and transporting samples to structured cabling programs in the labs. The prestigious “Career” awards WALTHAM, MASS. — Bentley College nation, was launched in partnership are made to young faculty who received a $15 million gift from 1967 with the Dallas-based Cabling combine innovative research with graduate Elkin McCallum, who Business Institute and Connecticut’s education and outreach; Kurup’s attended the college while working College of Technology, a statewide research includes a summer program on the loading dock at Lowell-based initiative linking students to degree for Lowell high school students. Joan Fabrics Corp., and later rose to programs. Connecticut’s public be CEO of the textile company. The colleges, meanwhile, announced plans WORCESTER, MASS. — A University gift is the largest in Bentley’s history. to be the first in the United States to of Massachusetts Medical School offer degree credit courses in cabling researcher was awarded a two-year, HARTFORD, CONN. — Trinity College installation, testing and design. $200,000 grant by the Sidney Kimmel appointed former U.S. Congress- Foundation for Cancer Research to woman Barbara Kennelly of Hartford WORCESTER, MASS. — Becker study how certain cellular substances to be a presidential fellow. Kennelly, College is making good on control the growth of cells. Kai Lin, a who retired from Congress in January Worcester’s designation as the UMass assistant professor of pharm- 1999 to run for governor, will teach a “Heart of the Commonwealth.” acology and molecular toxicology, is seminar in government affairs, give a On a fall evening, two one of 10 scientists nationally to win faculty lecture and be available for Worcester firefighters entered a the Kimmel startup grants for consultations with students and burning warehouse in an effort to outstanding cancer reasearchers. faculty. Kennelly will also continue to save the lives of homeless people serve as counselor to the U.S. said to be living in the old build- STORRS, CONN. — A University of commissioner of Social Security. ing. When the firefighters became Connecticut psychology professor was disoriented, four of their brethren awarded a $3.5 million grant from the KINGSTON, R.I. — The University of went in to help. A wall collapsed National Institute of Mental Health to Rhode Island received a two-year, and the six never came out. teach clinicians to encourage safer sex $500,000 grant from the Feinstein The tragedy moved Becker practices among patients with HIV. Foundation to create a URI Center for President Franklin M. Loew to Jeffrey Fisher will work on the project a Hunger-Free America and establish extend full-tuition scholarships to in conjunction with researchers from an academic minor in hunger studies. the 17 children left fatherless by the University of Western Ontario, After the first two years, the found- the tragedy, three of whom are Yale University and Hartford Hospital. ation plans to endow the center with now in high school. up to $3 million. “The families of those fire- LONGMEADOW, MASS. — Bay Path fighters, who sacrificed their College received a $180,000 grant MARLBORO, VT. — Marlboro College lives in the effort to save others, from the Davis Educational Foundation announced it will freeze tuition and need and deserve our utmost to begin building two state-of-the-art room and board charges at their current support,” Loew noted in a presentation classrooms, fund a new levels for the upcoming 2000-01 missive to Worcester Mayor faculty position and support faculty academic year. This marks the second Raymond Mariano. development. The project will enable year in a row that the college has Becker’s Worcester campus faculty from all disciplines to integrate resisted a price hike. In 1999, Marlboro opened in 1887. The college also leadership, communications skills and reduced tuition by $1,500, bucking a operates a campus in nearby technology skills into Bay Path’s national trend that saw tuition rise by Leicester, Mass. core curriculum. an average of 5 percent at private four-

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