November 2008 Lawlor Focus

A Time for Giving Thanks

With all the doom-and-gloom economic news, warnings that higher education institutions without large endowments are vulnerable, a growing anti-consumerism, and a more refined discernment about needs versus wants on the part of prospective students, it's easy to succumb to feelings of anxiety. Yet the season of Thanksgiving is a catalyst for reflecting about what blessings we do have and for thinking about new possibilities.

There are many reasons for hope and optimism about the future, and perhaps one of the best has nothing to do with those nuggets of good news that exist in the marketplace, but rather with one of America's essential truths: We live and work in a culture that celebrates and fosters entrepreneurship and innovation.

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computer, is quoted by Guy Kawasaki in Reality Check as saying, "All the best things I did at Apple came from (a) not having money, and (b) not having done it before, ever." Even during a time when higher education officials are facing severe resource constraints, there are nevertheless no constraints on thinking about and implementing new ideas. As John Donahoe, eBay's CEO, pointed out in USA Today just this month, "People become more entrepreneurial in tough economic times."

Imitation is dead—trying to be just like the competition only leads to the commoditization and sameness of education, which means price becomes the sole driving factor in families' decisions about selecting a college. If the marketplace doesn't know what you value, how will they be able to determine your real value? Focusing on institutional core values gives your institution distinction and value.

For many private institutions, a core value is a commitment to cultivating well-roundedness in your students. And as Daniel H. Pink writes in A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, "Today, the defining skills of the previous era—the 'left brain' capabilities that powered the Information Age—are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once ordained or thought frivolous—the 'right-brain' qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness and meaning—increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders." This type of well-roundedness is an incubator for innovative solutions during times of difficulty.

Lawlor Recommends

As the holidays bring a window of time for reflection, The Lawlor Group encourages each of our readers to do what today's marketplace is demanding: Come together, reflect, focus on values, and if necessary, innovate.

Change is afoot. The marketplace is closing another chapter, but a new chapter awaits us. Let's give thanks for living and working in a culture that rewards new thinking, new ideas, and new opportunities.

In the news

The New York Times noted the release of a MacArthur Foundation report on teens' use of digital media with the headline "Teenagers' Internet Socializing Not a Bad Thing." But more provocatively, the findings led the report's writers to ask whether education should be a responsibility of a more distributed network of people and institutions utilizing digital media: "And rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of education as a process of guiding kids' participation in public life more generally, a public life that includes social, recreational and civic engagement? And finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from an engaged and diverse set of publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions?"

Did you know?

A U.S. Department of Education proposal (.doc) presented to Congress this month calls for awarding federal aid based on the average cost of attendance at a two-year public college, rather than the cost of attendance at a student's chosen school.