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UMUC - European Division - Mason G Daly - European Guidance Conference - February 27 1964 - Wiesbaden
No full textEurope;Hoffmann, RosemaryDr. Mason G. Daly
Director
European Division
University of Maryland
Wiesbaden
February 27, 1964
European Guidance Conference
There are two overwhelmingly great tragedies in American Education. The first is simple, awful, and persistent. It is that “equal opportunity for every American to be educated” remains a mockery and a delusion. It is at best a far goal toward which we continue to struggle more or less on our hands and knees. In failing to live up to our ideal we have contributed to the greatest immorality known to modern man: the immorality of illiteracy. Surely if God were handing down “do nots” through a 20th century Moses, the greatest human sin of all would be illiteracy.
As a nation we have always had the high purpose, the slogans, the declarations of faith in human dignity and destiny; we have always had the power of self-correction written into our system, and we have always made appropriate noises about self-correction; and we have made enormous progress in the right directions. But when we take out that one basic slogan about education, which is the only thing which will ever merge and weld our citizenry into a steady national heartbeat, never mind the diversity of color and faith, we realize how tragic is the delay.
A lot of people, especially an educator speaking to other educators, talk about the educational revolution we are now in. Indeed, whether we credit the revolution to the Russian sputnik scare or to better PTA or to better counseling, we are surely in some kind of great awakening, thank goodness, in the field of education. This awakening, thank goodness, in the field of education. This awakening appears to be so great that it makes most of what has gone on in education in the last fifty, even one hundred years (and there was plenty going on) seem ??? great paralysis. And I would content that one of the best labels you can give the present revolution in education – a good label, I think, for a long time to come – is “the Colored Revolution.” How fortunate for education and for the nation that this Colored Revolution is upon us, finally, full-force. It has not been - is not – easy for a nation which has systematically insulted the colored tenth of its population – to ever approximate its great goal of equal educational opportunity, and the tragedy has gone on long enough, and has damaged our moral leadership in the world, as well, quite long enough.
The other great tragedy in American Education, upon which I will dwell at greater length, and upon which I believe all educators at all times in all places have a greater immediate influence, is the tragedy of “the American Intellectual who remains in the masses,” the tragedy of the mind which has no emergence, which remains tuned to the wave lengths of mediocrity. I wonder if it might be said right here that ??? development, historically, has been an effort to sort out the individual from the masses. It is right here I believe I should say to you in a paraphrase of Shakespeare:
There are more things in Counseling and Guidance here
Than are dreamed of in your philosophy!
Guidance, it has been said has always been something of an educational tourniquet, seeking bravely to staunch the loss of human potentialities caused by an educational system which lets more good blood escape than a bad butcher. We have, happily, developed an education system which more and more gets the grat mass of young intellect into classrooms, classroom which contain some sort of teachers and books and equipment, as well as an American or a Confederate flag in the corner, a picture of Washington and of Lincoln or Lee on the wall. In these classrooms a bleeding away of human talent is never satisfactorily staunched. Counsellors and Guidance people may not be flattered to be referred to as tourniquets; certainly you are more than that. But you have uite a mission, as you increase and as you increase your talents and tools in handling the tourniquet successfully.
You, and the impulse ehind your present work and training and future, make up a bright, new social movement in education, as you do your cousins in the business world. Or so it seems to me. The impulse to have trained counselors, scientific guidance (an impulse far from realized) is a good impulse, and it contains a partial promising remedy to my second tragedy of American Education. Yours is a young social movement in our educational world – indeed, in our binsess world. Just because of that you should not forget that there is need for much discussion and debate about your function, your place in the school system, your sometimes unearned renown, your displacement of parental functions, your brashness in the business world. That you realize the need for discussion and debate is suggest by this meeting and the concerns of this meeting. Surely you are all reasonably sure that you have a bright future and a chance for greatness; surely you are all ready to listen to one at least who thinks that bright future can be corrupted, that your chance for greatness can be crippled; that it may be better to bleed some more than to have the gangrenous results of a badly applied tourniquet.
I argue, it is a corrupted brightness if you operate a Conformity Emporium. There are conformist school counselors who have decided that the conforming child is the preferable child, and ultimately the preferred adult. That conformist promotes the tragedy of the American Intellectual remaining in the masses. That conformist is concerned with “well-roundedness” more than with intellect. That conformist is concerned with the charting and labeling and graphing and identifying of problems and problem children - a process that is often banal and usually unscientific. It is especially unscientific because we are so remote from anything like a safe understanding of that greatest of unknowng spaces, that uncharted, devious space, almost as unexplored and unknown as Venus – the human cranium. The conformist forgets there are some wonderful possibilities of human development between monolithic conformity and disheveled Bohemianism. The variations cannot all be charted and labeled and isolated. They do not all develop in the same year or in the same environment.
There are conformists among counselors who move in on a bunch of growing youngsters, tossing tests and check lists at them as avidly as the school nurse sticks needles in them. I’ve seen some of those tests. If they do not trouble my youngsters one day, they trouble me now, if for no other reason than that they go so far to expose to you counselors too much about my always chaotic, but not therefore unhappy, home – a home full of tensions and troubled moments but also, I hope, full of stimulation, conflicting ideas, and moments of intellectual challenge. If my home has no right to privacy from some of these testers and charters, my children in growing up have some right to the privacy of the soul, some right to be non-nomal if not outright abnormal. I say to counselors that the search for the non-conformist is a valid search, providing its purpose is not to glorify conformity, but rather to identify and encourage diversity in intellectual development. And let that searcher and his searching devices be humble and tentative every step of the way, and maybe just a bit prayerful, as he probes the mysteris of space in that three pound brain.
It is a corrupted brightness when you counselors succumb to Career-it is. The essence of the trained and cultivated mind is that it transcends the world of the useful and pragmatic. Americans have been, still are, obsessed with a successful career, and something called “good citizenship,” and schools, and counselors, have reflected that obsession. The combination of parents and career obsessed counselors creates too many neurotic causalities among high school youngsters and even grade school kids, among the youngsters who need less guidance about a career than they need guidance about the essence of education. When the counselor is both test-obsessed and career-obsessed the wreckage can be appalling.
A test, and there are many such on the market or in the locked cabinets of counselors, can discover in my daughter a so-called “high musical interest.” It is not, as far as I know, able to tell whether she will be a good composer or a good chorus girl. I would bet on the later. But there are counselors so test obsessed they forget the breadth of musical interest, and difference between interest and talent, and especially they forget the humble nature of their counseling tools.
One of the great virtues of a good counselor must surely be, in addition to recognizing the limitation of his tools, his ability to overcome “career-itis” in himself, and especially overcome it in the pimply faced youngster who has thoroughly confused education with a career. That good counselor has a mean fight on his hands. He has the tormented youngster driven to an early career-decision by career-minded parents. I don’t blame the counselor for reaching for the nearest test, I don’t blame him for profiling that kid into something. How wild it must be to have a 13-year-old decided upon architecture or archaeology or anthropology before he can define or even spell the term. How patient you all have to be with the West Pointer’s kid who you know, even without a test, is temperamentally and mentally far removed from success in that school on the Hudson. How nearly you perform a miracle when you counsel career-decision delay for the bright but baffled youngster who may not find direction until the end of a good liberal arts baccalaureate. How much you contribute to wiping out the tragedy in American education by this sensible, patient, delaying tactic. How much you do, in fact, save that too-eager parent, both in money and in heartache in overcoming an early dose of career-itis. How incredible, really, that educational institutions, including Harvard, have joined up with Madison Avenue in the barraging parents and pupils with charts on earning power, charts blandly predicting the individual’s financial pot after sixty years with this or that specialty career – a pot based on a specialty and a career that might very well be automated right out of existence in ten years, let alone sixty. These charts of career status and financial reward can be interesting and even serve as a needed stimulus to some bright but becalmed baton-twirler, but they are not the essence of education or of counseling.
It is a corrupted brightness in the counseling world if you get charmed into over-professionalizing your status or so this educator contends. First, you know very well that hanging out a counselor’s shingle does not make you a psychologist or eve a pseudo-psychologist, despite the psyches placed in your hands by pupils and parents, despite the respect and awe you may be able to generate in your colleagues, despite the increased validity of testing tools becoming available to you, despite the growing status of your field (which like other new fields gains confidence and often smugness in being paid more than the old reading-writing-‘rithmetic plodders who have been counselors and inspirations long before the need for you was discovered and more or less defined). The moment a career field gets so established that it holds national conventions, develops its own degrees up to and including the post doctorate, it is in danger of over-professionalizing and tarnishing thereby its bright new coat of armor.
The counsellor’s shelf of ready references and reminders of conscience should certainly include Gross’s “The Brain Watchers,” which may not impress some of you as much as it has me, but it should be around to prick the conscience of every counselor who is getting too professional and self-conscious about his calling; around any counselor whose professionalizing is becoming so compelling and life-consuming that he has little time, interest or impulse to develop his own breadth of intellect. If the old cliché “the one who can’t, teaches” applies to the ordinary pedagogue, the counselor who must lead and advise others in all kinds of human endeavor must have modesty, intuition, and the widest possible knowledge. He must fight against the narrowing, immediate requirements of his important job and save a little time at least for the heart of the matter, his own intellect and its nurture.
The brightness of your new social movement can be corrupted by the last agency in the world which should be guilty of waylaying you in your good work: the college and university. We have turned you into a super catalog-reader, a translator of our tiresome prose and our frantically changing regulations – regulations about so-called admissions requirements which are not so much intellectual selection as a too-desperate run for cover as we see the hoards of new Americans streaming toward our clogged fountains of learning. We expect miracles of you. We confuse and frighten our public with declarations about rising standards and costs (selection is unfortunately possible by both academic and economic devices), for the sake of dignity, we label our worried condition a search for the scholarly elite. And we turn the search back to you. In addition to expecting you to administer not only College Entrance Board and a host of other not so validated devices, we call on you to fill in questionnaires and critiques about our prospects which would turn Freud into a charlatan, and certainly turns each of you into a too-important, too-omnipotent being in the minds and futures of too many pupils and parents. We have made you into the poor devil who is, in spite of himself, a kind of “personality board” to supplement the “college boards,” and often the two “boards” together add little or nothing to the academic record already recorded about each of our prospects that old standby, the high scool record. If we keep this up in some quarters, we had better not settle for anything less than an experienced Ph.D. in psychology in each of your slots, and it would be useful if that psychologist had several years in theology and, for read safety, an M.D. as well. I figure the Orwellian ultimate in this so-called quest for the scholarly elite will be so far advanced by the time my children vie for college entrance, that I will have to answer for every bad gene I have transmitted. I will have to painfully recall my entire genetic heritage to explain my child’s failure to score 700 on the college boards.
The screening of younsters for college need not be as severe today as the popular press, our college catalog, some counselors, and the future portend. Surely you will keep your counseling career brightest by calming needless fears, by reminding ambitious and promising youngsters that there are more than an elite few campuses that give status and security and intellectual stimulation. Surely you can and do lift many hundreds of youngsters in these American high schools in Europe out of the mass of mediocrity into which they will slip, by insisting to them and their prents that there is room in the frightened admissions files of good schools everywhere, that there is always a time and a place for the right intellect to find the right way so long as it finds challenge right now in broad learning – let the specialization and the career wait.
I suggested that there is something almost Orwellian about college selection. Isn’t it getting just a bit too Orwellian, in 1964 not 1984, by the way, to find systems set up for matching the personality of a scholar with the personality of a school, thus guaranteeing success and stable behavior for both? I suppose I don’t really have any objection to exploring this intriguing possibility. Perhaps tests will show that ivy towers, like students, have tender, responsive psyches. Syracuse, with a grants from the college boards, is full steam ahead, according to Gross, and has already personality-texted 100 campuses with a questionnaire called the College Characteristic Index. Among the 300 question inventories filled out by students rating the personality of their schools, are such traits as “Sexuality-Prudence,” a kind of eroticism rating, I guess. The charting is done from True – False statements including:
Bermuda shorts, pin-up pictures, etc., are common on this campus.
Some of the more popular students have a knack for making witty sublte remarks with a slight sexy tinge.
To get her ready for one of these more socially oriented institution, it may be already too late to get your daughter started on some serious all-night carousing.
That there is not always a measurable link between the intellect of a student as shown on his high school record and some personality evaluation, which is too often hounded out of you when you are too busy to use coherent English, should not be so dismaying. A college that fights for some such equation, a counselor who makes a fetish of this approach, a system which does not allow for the genius, the unpredictable, even the total misfit who shows signs of a good mind, is flying in the face of human advance, is forcing college entrance and advanced learning into patterns that may be more predictable and comfortable, but patterns that are not really from the loom of life. Scholars and schools are not meant to be so compatible that there is no spark of friction. With happy conformity there are not real individual scholars and there are no really distinctive schools. I hope you will help to save us from our Orwellian tendencies until we get beyond this present period of worried adjustment to too-rapid growth.
The bright promise of your developing profession will also continue, I think, in direct proportion to your adjustment to our drastically altering culture. I’m not sure you can keep up. I’m not sure anyone can keep up with our cultural change. But we all had better try, and you are particularly challenged to keep up if you are to guide the new generation in solving its problems and mapping its future. It is hard to contemplate the structure of our society in just 10 years from now, even if that structure is not rent by any bombs or international blows. In a decade your present perspectives will be archaic, some even dangerous. Your language, your environment, your classrooms, your testing procedures will be, in many cases, beyond recognition. Do you think that ten years go even a dictionary would have helped in dealing with a recent New York TIMES advertisement calling for applications from person with experience in: transistorized circuitry, inertial guidance, gyrodynamics, shielding design, ferret reconnaissance, human (?) science, mciro-miniaturization, and data telemetry. I almost tremble with anticipation in thining about the ads of ten years from now, don’t you? I do tremble with anticipation, and with some insecurity, no doubt, in thinking ahead to the electronic equipment just about to be used on a large and fruitful scale in teaching all sorts of things: in looking ahead to the certainty that the day is fast approaching with a simple Americn home will have a communications room wher the child and adult will have his own television monitor; where research will be done in that simple American home through the facilities of the Library of Congress without a book leaving that library, because the day is near when a library of 20,000 volumes will be a mere six foot shelf.
A Princeton professor recently found out from his young son that the culture was changing faster than the professor when he told the son about the great Einstein who had lived in Princeton. He explained something about Einstein’s theory of relativity without dismaying the son. He thought his son would be interested to know that Einstein suffered when he had to deal in simple arithmetic, and told how the great man always fumbled when making change on the trolley car. The son’s face clouded with bewilderment and like a shot he asked, “What’s a trolley car?”
An admission’s man at Cal Tech recently said that freshmen of ten year’s ago would fail miserably in competition with today’s freshmen. Let’s home and expect that that admissions director or his successor will say the same thing ten years from now.
Let’s anticipate with both pleasure and trepidation the certainty that one of the greatest challenges to our society, right up there with the challenges of the population explosion and nuclear warheads in wrong places, will be the challenge of leisure time. For the first time in human history a large segment of mankind will have time to contemplate the overwhelming fact of mortality, and we know that much of that segment will be incapable of being anything but bored. The terror of tedium faces that segment because it will not be ready to make genuine use of leisure, will be thoroughly unready for contemplation, for noble thinking, for the development of wisdom and virtue, all of which must surely be the intended destiny of mankind.
We see, then, a great need and growing hope of getting rid of these two tragedies in American education. The present “colored revolution” will move us closer, faster than ever before, to the realization of our great and good slogan, “equal opportunity to be educated.” There are comforting signs that we are getting ready for a future without that tragedy, and also ready for a future that better serves the individual while it serves the mass in education. Through good counselors, and by many means, we can devise a system that finds the individual American intellect and lifts it toward the poetry and purpose that is in its separate soul. Surely your determination to see the individual intelle
UMUC - European Division - Ramstein Commencement - Mason G Daly - May 7 1965
No full textEurope;Hoffmann, RosemaryDr . Mason G. Daly
Director
European Division
University of Maryland
RAMSTEIN -7 May, 1965
I knew I would end up at an enormous disadvantage this evening, being introduced by old sweat-shirt Rolmer, member of the faculty - kindly man that he is, he was bound to be hard on the bureaucrat who most symbolized the Establishment in Heidelberg - and following, as is so often my fate at banquets and conventions and conferences, the leader of that Air Force education Establishment at Wiesbaden - which is, if anything, more astonishing and bureaucratic than ours in Heidelberg - following that dynamo of dispatches and directives who has just spent more time with deans from the University of Southern California in the last six weeks than he ever had to spend with directors of the Maryland program in sixteen years.
I first knew K. Douglas Beakes so long ago that the K stood for something, although I've forgotten what and he won't tell me now. He was at the time, as I was, more hirsute and less of a balding egg-head. He was in Austria, an education advisor, becoming a ski expert and courting a red-head. He won many skiing trophies, won the red-head, and wrote a book on skiing. When the Austrians changed the world's whole approach to skiing, he had no choice but to move on and enlarge his professional career.
I next knew him when he was an advisor in Morocco. He and his red-head were producing by then, and he was writing a book on teaching Arabic . Books on that subject are so rare that it is still something of a classic. His career has continued on its logical path to its present eminence. He moved on to the second slot in USAFI, thence to Chief of Education
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for Air Force, Europe. He may know more about off-duty educational effort than any of us present , because he achieved much of his doctorate study and all of his research and dissertation writing on his own off-duty time - which was mainly, the Air Force saw to that , between ]2:22 at night and 4:48 in the morning. I think it is well that he did wind that degree up before the coming of Dean Hancey and USC, because he no longer has even those precious morning hours left to himself. He sees his lovely red-head now only at Christmas and every second wedding anniversary. He has pretty well dropped skiing and Arabic, and devotes his writing talents to issuing USAFE interpretations and clarifications of Air Force directives (I almost said restrictives, rather than directives) .
A military community with a flourishing education program in its midst is bound to be highly agitated and usually confused about its goals. The Air Force more so than the others for some reason, it seems to me, and it requires, therefore, a near genius to interpret for it its own goals. No service is more responsive to new educational developments, more sensitive to charting its levels of educational achievement, more ready to launch the latest in language teaching, programmed learning devices and machines, graduate programs.
The Air Force, you know, worried itself sick until it riffed out or educated into respectability those old fly-boys, the ones with the crumpled hats, those old rye-slugging, crapshooters of World War II vintage. The Air Force pled with Maryland and other schools to do something about their everlasting shame when those fly-boys showed up, on the charts as under-educated and over-sexed. LeMay stuck that cigar in the side of his mouth and proclaimed What we educators could never have dared dream -proclaimed that every last one of those guys must get a university degree, and wear a regulation hat, or get out. What a declaration! Repeated every few minutes from that level!
Of course the directive writers were soon at work grinding out what they call “implementations” of that cigar-flavored declaration, and marvelous things happened, unbelievable things happened, paranoia prevailed in every education center around the world. Tuition assistance money flowed out of those implementing documents, limited only by the fact that there wasn't any money to begin with, or by the fact that an Air Force budget computer broke down somewhere and, well, there was a 10 billion shortage for the fiscal year - and those Sidi Slimane runways still had to be plowed up and turned back into a camel pasture.
Those first “implementing” documents were relatively simple, but today it takes a computer and Doug Beakes writing amendments 24 hours a day to sort out and explain their temperamental purpose and devious intent.
I've read everything that LeMay and that type ever said about educating airmen. Lovely stuff. Would fill a half page double spaced. Sound, straightforward, succinct heartening . But a decade or so of “implementation” produces striking and unexpected and wonderfully tangled and contradictory interpretations.
In a six month period they can write a four foot shelf of directives which require another six months and a sixteen foot shelf of explanations. In the initial six month period they decide LeMay's half page philosophy meant that every minute in the classroom must be job related. So, in the next six month period all hands turn to interpreting that to mean that the course being taught in Oriental Philosophy to an airman stationed in Thule, Greenland, who has the vital job of keeping the sewage flowing under the frozen tundra, is job related. Thousands of pages of justification and explanation, and countless nights of sweating in fear that there has been a misappropriation of funds.
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Six months later the “implementers” take a 180 degree turn, admit that the sewage stirrer in Greenland was in the wrong MOS to begin with, admit that no classroom in the world can keep up with the burgeoning technology of the oh-so-dynamic Air Force, and LeMay's little piece of paper is suddenly meant to encourage the broadest, most humanistic education devised by man since the ancient Greeks . More humanities, please, some philosophy, and aesthetics, please, to keep the electronic circuits and silositting from driving these poor airmen to blowing themselves and the whole world up. A new flood of confusing pentagonese and more piles of paper, more paranoia in the education center.
Next, a tape recorder got switched on somewhere and brought a native speaker in Bulgarian or Basque or Bantu right into the classroom in an Alaskan or Alabaman air base and all fly-boys could now be directed to speak two languages just like that native. That's what LeMay meant all the time. While the Army was plodding along putting up a few punctured asbestos booths with a modest Grundig for the listening amazement and amusement of the individual student, the Air Force launched the most modern console systems, electronic laboratory wonders just a little less impressive than the cockpit of a B 54 .
The new approach, usually referred to as audio-lingual or (more dreadfully) as oral-aural, swept up the energies and talents of the Air Force at all levels, and USAFE led all the rest. Although there are still many fly-boys no more proficient in two languages than I am, there is promise in the air. And, you know, this “implementation” has not suffered a reversal yet, and it must be at least 18 or maybe 24 months old. Why, it's even swept old Maryland into its orbit, and although we refuse to call the new approach either audio-lingual or oral-aural because, thank heavens, it isn't quite either , we are excited enough to be off-balance, and we've started our own little shelf of interpretations and justifications hoping for absolution for our
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daring. If Air Force's representative , Doug Beakes, has contrived to lead us down the academic garden path, he's going to stay down there with us and so is Curtis LeMay , disability retirement or no.
Yes, the torment and turmoil of education in the military is endless and self-generating. Less than six months ago the Air Force from on high and USAFE down below here declared, that any post-graduate program it sponsored in its midst must be for the good of the Air Force as a whole, not the nation in the abstract or the individual in particular. Aerospace Management, fine; preparation for post-retirement teaching, absolutely out of the question. There were days and weeks and even months of a madness which sounded as though Air Force had given up on that sewer stirring airman and oriental philosophy, even at the undergraduate level. That “implementation”, spawned right off the same old piece of paper, has now, in the usual six short months, been interpreted in the light of that big Texan and his Great Society pronouncements. Air Force is now gung-ho, and quite properly so, to see whole new programs introduced to get soon-to-retire service personnel ready for a teaching career . How sensible, how valid - especially in the services who try desperately to keep a valuable man in uniform. That valuable man, however happy he may be in uniform, can see that he must wonder what he is retiring to, not just what he is retiring from, can see he may spend more years in so-called retirement than he did in service. But still the ironies are there to be ironed out. Set up a whole program for postretirement career, for the big re-tread and re-settlement out in that Great Society. But still no officer can get a penny of tuition assistance if he is within two years of being let out of the gate.
Programs of education in the military, indeed in most of American society, do not operate by logic or legality - obviously. If they did, the airman in Thule wouldn't do anything but stir
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sewage , we wouldn't be holding this event honoring graduates of the University of Maryland at this unlikely place and time , Doug Beakes would have time to up-date his book on skiing rather than innovate new dimensions into USAFE education . Where the need has shown itself to rise above logic and legality, certainly we have risen above reason itself, in our paranoiac education centers . And, so help us all, we will rise above the next “implementation.”
We all here should realize that we are a part of the greatest segment of American higher education -the adult segment seeking fulfillment, enrichment, the better life, whatever cliche fits. Even Harvard has more people in its night, just-slightly off-campus classes than it has ln Harvard College itself. The will of John Lowell, who died in 1836, started all this at Harvard, and that will contains a statement of the heart of the whole matter. Lowell left a fund to be used to maintain public lectures in Boston, as the will said, “upon philosophy, natural history, and the arts and sciences…. for the promotion of the moral, intellectual and physical instruction and education of the inhabitants of said city.” As if that directive was not rich and broad enough, he added a codicil that permitted the teaching of “any subject that.... the wants and taste of the age may demand.” Although Lowell's will provided that some of the lectures might be free (a thing Maryland cannot find a way to do, as you know), it added that each student should pay a sum “not exceeding the value of two bushels of wheat,” for the “more abstruse, erudite, and particular,” subjects. Obviously Maryland only teaches the abstruse, erudite, and particular subjects, but with government subsidy for tuition, my friends, you are getting a great deal indeed for your bushels of wheat.
Will all of the University of Maryland faculty please rise. Will all of the University of Maryland administrators please rise. I ask you all to please join me in applauding our raison d 'etre, these graduates and their fellow students
UMUC - European Division - Mason G Daly - REMARKS at Farewell Party for James and Penny UMPHREY - March 25 1966
No full textEurope;Hoffmann, RosemaryREMARKS at Farewell Party for James & Penny UMPHREY
March 25, 1966
Except that the cast changes slightly, the show remains the same. The YEAR OF THE RAT, under the damp direction of Daly, is still running to packed houses of Marylanders who have a reputation for enjoying a good farewell party, a good blast-off, a good departure. This long-running show hit the boards in this very hall a bit over a year ago and, bad as the show is, it just won't fold. So here is another production of the YEAR OF THE RAT.
This RAT family should be told about Rats in Japan and they will realize how appropriate our symbolism is. In Japan, the RAT is associated with DAIKOKU, one of the Seven Deities of Good Luck. Daikoku is a word which translates into "great-black" because he hangs around Japanese kitchens and he gets all smoked up in those open fires. But any picture of Daikoku has a few Rats rampant around him. That is because Daikoku is also the deity of rice, and in addition to hanging on the wall of Japanese kitchens, he hangs somewhere enshrined in every Japanese rice granary or store house. Now, rats may live on a ship, but rats also make their nests in granaries and are therefore a close associate of the deity of rice. They help the deity by serving as messengers for Daikoku. So Japan, Jim and Penny, was a paradise for rats in olden times. They could not be killed because of their assistance to Daikoku.
To show you that rats are RATS the world around, let me point out that Japanese do not talk about rats leaving the sinking ship; they talk about rats leaving the granary. Like ship rats, granary rats sense danger, disaster before it strikes. Japanese rats desert that granary when they know it is about to be destroyed by fire or flood or typhoon.
-that's the end of scene one-
The logistics of ridding the division of a director is staggering. The Lefflands, Colwells, and Tottens had many children. Wheaton had fire sales and finger paintings. The Umphreys have Tink. We all know that Tink will travel in more style than her human parents. More paper work, more planes, more shots, more hostesses, more of everything. Tink couldn't come tonight, but we have not forgotten the dear dog.
bowl
bone
flight kit: -cards, asperin, tooth brush,
pot for tinkling, parachute, squash ball, and flight map.
-end of scene two-
The Umphreys are connoisseurs of wine. The best in Splätleses and Ausleses are well known to them. We searched the Mosels and Rheins and rivers of Europe to get them something really exotic - and easy to transport. We have it here. In fact, it is a brash, non-exotic domestic wine from our golden state of California. It comes in this handy flask. It is called "Thunderball." At the very top, for your later interpretation, is the title as placed there when it is bottled in Germany.
We just happened to have something from which you can drink this small bottle. In the way of Marylanders in Europe, we just happen to have a MUG to go with you. It happens to be in excellent taste, however; a fine Norwegian mug from Trondheim, hand made, and we think rather well and appropriately engraved.
Let me give you some very important personal and profound advice about drinking in the orient, my young friends. That rice wine out there - that hot sake - is something to be watched. You'll end up with more than Tink to care for. You'll end up with your own Chimi and Chiro too.
-end of scene three-
Jim Umphrey is really not such a unique young man as his steady climb to importance in this division and to almost top billing in that other division would imply. His experiences are altogether typical. He is an able man, yes; he is an amiable man, yes; he can do anything a man of his status and stature is expected to do, yes; but he is altogether typical of so many of us.
Like most Marylanders, he didn't know Maryland existed until he fumbled into us while doing a cut-rate grand-tour of the old world. He taught part-time for peanuts before coming on full-time for just a little bit more than peanuts. He had that "flexibility" that causes us to almost beatify a teacher, and the record shows that he paid dearly for his flexibility. Let me just read from a letter he received in December 1959 from the Heidelberg office:
Dear Jim: you don’t know what you got yourself in for by saying the word "Turkey" over the phone. You are being bartered at the moment by international cable for Izmir - English 2 and Speech 103. No travel. Tech. Sgt. there cabled me that they have an estimated eighteen bodies for Speech and fifteen for English. The last teacher there was evacuated out this term, term two, because he got a kidney condition. Its tentative, of course. If you do not go to Turkey, you are slated for Matz. I regret not to be able to get to Berlin while you are there. It would have done me a world of good to see Umphrey in residential grandeur. You will find a big change in Izmir!
Now, after all that about Izmir, backed up by Metz, do you mow where Jim Umphrey taught that term: High Wycombe and Greenham Common.
The qualities of this typical, flexible young man were noted every few minutes. In January 1960 the then director wrote: Mr. Umphrey’s record as a Maryland teacher is one of which he can be proud. By the time he leaves us for service in the States, ax it will be a solid asset in support of his application for any position in his field.
Jim's flexibility, and vulnerability, is illustrated finally by the letter that changed his life, our lives, Penny Jackson's life, and ultimately the fortunes of the Far East Division. Let me read just a bit of it. It is dated October 1962:
…we are bogged down somewhat here in an overload of work and so we are asking you to foresake teaching in the second term and come to work in and out of the office at Heidelberg....answering telephone calls, pacifying recalcitrant advisors and teachers, working on Term 3 schedule.....it will give you a new insight into the University for which you work.....we realize it will be quite a switch...we go to work in the morning and work until five....it will test new capacities for you, be an experience you might like to have on your record some time, even though it is but a short time. So sit down and take a good long time to think this over--about ten minutes--and let us know that you will be pleased to be with us.
Over a year later we got an inkling of just how pleased he was when he forged Don Totten's signature over an assignment letter addressed to James Umphrey. It said:
This is Just a note to tell you what you already know: your term 3 assignment (tentative, of course). Since you have been to Sidi Slimane before, I won’t bother with details. Morocco is located in the extreme northwestern part of the continent of Africa and you should have no trouble locating it.
Now, all these years later, old MARAB himself moves on to become the Sage of Sukiran and Saigon, of Osan and Pusan and Inchon, of Bien Hoa and Sasebo and Kimpo, of Atsugi and Iwakuni, of Yokosuka and Misawa, of Uibonju and Taegu, but especially Fuchu.
We have here an appropriate poster of prediction. This is FUKUROKUJIM - who will soon replace Fukurokujin, the present high-craniumed God of Intellect in the Orient.
To Jim we say "Omedeto gozaimasu" which means congratulations on your promotion and upon the continued recognition of your flexibility.
We say "arigato gozaimasu" which means thanks for everything - and we say it with this fine mid-nineteenth century print of the old Ritter - with a few scattered early Marylanders wandering around.
- and we say "sayonara" - the Japanese aufwiedersehen.
That's the end of almost all of the scenes, but you can just bet you do not get away without some appropriate singing. After the so-called trio finishes, Jim, It's your curtain call..
UMUC - European Division - Mason G Daly - European Teen Time Forum: The Open Mind - November 30 1963 - Heidelberg
No full textEurope;Hoffmann, RosemaryDr. Mason G. Daly
Director
European Division
University of Maryland
European Teen Time Forum
Heidelberg, Germany
30 November, 1963
THE OPEN MIND
I will start by telling you an American fable, first told by William Saroyan and then retold by Carl Sandburg. It was about a man who got to pawing around a second-hand store. He found an old cello with only one string on it. He took it home, sat in a corner of the front room, found a place for one finger to hold down that one string. Then he sawed back and forth with a bow. Hours and hours, every day his patient wife had to listen to him sawing back and forth on that one string with his finger always on that one place.
Weeks passed and she noticed he never once changed his finger from that one place as he sawed back and forth on that one string. Sometimes she went so far as to wish he would drop dead. Other times she hoped and prayed he would suddenly realize what he was doing and stand up and smash the cello and throwaway the bow. But this didn't happen. He went on playing.
He had taught her to speak softly, or else. So one day she said softly to him that she had watched other players playing the cello. And, she said, they always had four strings to the cello. And more than that, they kept changing their fingers from one place to another all of the time. She had particularly noted, she said, that they never kept one finger in the same place on one string.
He looked at her with a slow burn. He laid down the bow and cello. He told her, "I might have expected this from you. You are a woman. Your hair is long, your understanding short. Of course the other cello players are always moving their fingers from one place to another. They're looking for the right place. I have found it!"
There was a drunkard who was disgracing and distressing his family. Someone suggested that they take him to see the Jack Lemmon movie, "Days of Wine and Roses" to see the true degredation of the drunk. He came out after two hours, joined his family, and made a promise. "I'm through! I'm finished! I'll never, so help me, go to see a movie again!"
The behavior of these two men is just like a fish story I know. A very simple, true fish story about simple fish -some minnows and a pike.
Now, any of you who are fishermen know that minnows are the natural food of the pike. A glass tank was set up one time for the minnows and the plke. However, instead of putting them together so that the pike would inevitably eat the minnows, the tank was constructed so that there was a glass barrier between the minnows and the pike, a clear glass wall. Of course, the pike, who was hungry, took out after those minnows. He kept smacking his nose up against the glass partition. Again and again. A smacked nose. Nothing to eat. Hundreds of times he levelled off and headed for those minnows and hundreds of times he got bruised. But he did finally give up. He learned something. Even the nervous system of a pike can learn something. What had he learned? "Don't eat minnows." "Don't eat minnows. "
At this point, the glass partition was removed. The minnows and the pike now swam about freely together, even bumping into each other. What about the pike's behavior now? Did he eat the minnows?
Not at all. He didn't touch them. The pike had learned his lesson. He had learned what he had learned and he was stuck with it! Don't eat minnows! And he died with that knowledge.
Now men, you and I have a somewhat more highly developed nervous system than the pike, and I trust we can exercise somewhat better judgment, maybe we will even survive.
There is one philosopher who, when asked the real difference between man and the creatures around him, said it was just 3/4 of an inch of cranium gray matter, very wrinkled, jammed into the top and front part of our skulls. It is that precious gray matter which makes the difference, I guess, between a mere biological brain, which most creatures have in various amounts, and a mind, which is what men are supposed to have.
It is the condition and uses of that mind that I will deal with, in a modest, simple way here this evening. I am told, and I believe it, that you have fresh intellects, that you are bright ones among your peers, otherwise you would not be here tonight.
I know there is not one among you who will ever develop the mind you hav e to its full potential, because life is too short and too cluttered with the necessities of living and being social, raising a family. I know there are others among you who will let that mind be crippled and limited by subtle, vicious, destructive diseases of the mind which short-circuit, shut off the miracle of its development and power -I hope never to the point where you will be content to fiddle on one string with one finger in one place, I hope never to the point of missing the message of the movie on drunks, I hope never to the point that you turn into a pike in the midst of plenty.
I know that your wonderful minds are always vulnerable to sickness, contamination, to the shutting out of light and learning. Not the kind of sickness that puts you in a hospital or on a psychiatrist's couch, but the kind of sickness that makes you a danger to the main goals of our civilization, a destroyer of the American image at a time when that image must be right for our survival. This is a great moment for the American mind, for your mind, if we can keep it receptive, inquiring, questioning, exploring, in a word if we can keep it OPEN.
I dare you to tell me that you, anyone of you, are not already a little sick in the head, that you are not in danger of getting sicker. You have your blind spots, closed off areas, just as surely as the fiddle player, the drunk, and the pike. Some of you have already been destructive, at times to the whole society around you, regularly to individuals around you, often just to yourself.
I am not going to cry out for perfection from this night forward. I have no handy diagnosis and cure to purify and immunize you against this sickness. No mental innoculation will be performed. I know my own limitations so well, because I have suffered from and still suffer from the disease of the closed mind, and I know that my past behavior has often been, and unfortunately will again be damaging and destructive to me and to those around me.
The introduction tonight told you that I grew up in South Dakota. Until I was well into my teens I lived on a cattle ranch right on the edge of a huge Indian reservation in the west of that state. I was a true cowboy from the moment I could straddle a horse. I never saw a western movie and there was no television, so I knew what cowboys really were. I knew that cowboying was bone-crushing hard work. I had no idea there was any glamor or six-guns attached to it. Also, because I had never seen a western movie, I had no idea cowboys and Indians were apt to shoot at each other.
The Indians I saw were generally placid, poor, frequently tubercular, very segregated. They had a few boney saddle ponies and a lot of scroungy dogs. When I got a chance, I was darned glad to have an Indian boy or girl for a playmate because playmates were hard to come by in that unsettled open space.
But you know, without the questionable blessing of western movies my wide-open little boy's mind got clouded and closed because I had rather typical western South Dakota parents of the time and all of our neighbors were much the same. Those older people had long ago made up and closed their minds about the Indian. They had some handy State and Federal legislation to back them up, to reassure them that Indians were lazy and no good parasites on government dole. Just by association they were able to convince me that an Indian with a drop of alcohol in his blood was worse than a mad dog; that no Indian was to be trusted, that every Indian would steal us blind; there were always jokes around the household about the "squaw-man" -the man who took an Indian woman for his actual or common-law wife, never mind that the young woman was attractive and probably better educated than he was.
It didn't take long for the poison to infect me and disease my young mind. Soon, at the 4th of July celebrations and county fairs, I watched the Indians with suspicion as they pitched their tents around the grounds. I giggled with misunderstood and misdirected superiority at the feeble attempts of little Indian lads to join in our games. I pointed with glee at the occasional "squawman" and laughed at the ugly jokes I overheard from the adults. I smirked when the women folk talked about how dirty the Indians were, forgetting that I had to be dragged screaming to my Saturday night bath.
The first overwhelming, sweaty fear I have ever known in my life came about this time when I would get caught out on the prairie in a dark moonless night, when my little closed mind convinced me that I would be killed by Indians.
My superiority, to oversimplify all of this, was really based on absolutely nothing I had myself seen or experienced. That made me miserably insecure about my supposed superiority. And this insecurity turned to fear, and fear turned to hate. For many years all you had to do was say the word "Indian” and I was subject to an ugly feeling in my stomach, and I was ugly in my thoughts and in my language. And I was a danger to myself and to my state and country. My closed mind was another generation IS mind ready to pass on the poison at the next voting booth, ready to pass on the poison to my own children and to all those who came in contact with me. I had the answers for all time-about all Indians.
And you know, the lesions on my sick brain were slow in healing, are probably still there. I remember how stunned and unbelieving I was to find myself at college when I was 17, seated next to an Indian girl, the only Indian who was brave enough to come into our midst that year; seated next to her because my name was Daly and her was, ironically, Dakota. She was lovely. She bathed. She was brighter than 1. She didn’t have tuberculosis. She didn’t want to live her life on government handouts. By the next year I eagerly voted for her as homecoming queen. This is more than just “some of my best friends are Indians.” This is more than just “there are always exceptions to prove the rule.” This was a life-saving, life-giving revelation. This kind of thing cures diseased minds and saves the world.
You have seen closed minds like mine pried and blasted open more than any other teenage American group, I think. Because of an armed forces policy of integration you are truly in integrated schools. What was all the fuss about in Alabama, you may have asked. Just a bunch of razor-backed crackers cutting up. Oh, no! Who were those pretty young things and bright young men on the sidewalks swearing, spitting, crying tears of frustration and hate as their fellow Americans entered their school yards?
Tens of thousands of Americans were genuinely dismayed, even perversely disappointed, when we elected a Catholic president three years ago and didn’t wake up the next morning to find a hot -line out of the Vatican telling the White House what to do; indeed, did not find the Pope sitting at the President’s desk. I venture to guess that some of those tens of thousands were represented among your own parents and relatives, and that some of you, along with them, have had a slow re-opening of the closed mind.
Is it, my young friends, too trite and tiresome to remind ourselves of ugly American behavior, which we have shared, by pointing to obvious cases of the closed mind? Can we be reminded too often that whole segments of humanity, even whole nations and hosts of nations close minds collectively so that other human groups are labelled dangerous or wicked, even eligible for complete extermination?
Just by associating with closed minds some people have outlawed Indians or Moslems or Hindus or Jews or Democrats or Republicans or Capitalists or Trade Unionists or Socialists or Communists or Roman Catholics or Methodists or Seventh Day Adventists. If this happens by mere association to minds that are young and vulnerable (or to minds that are old and underdeveloped), think what happens when the closed-circuit is national and supernational, when sickness is taught in every communication media and in the classroom.
The mind, wonderful tool that it is, is an indiscriminate sponge most of the time. A loaded sponge inside a kind of solid cranium is not easy to squeeze free of poison to make room for fresh fluids of intellect. That delicate sponge, once it has received and stored false fluids, is damaged and dirtied, often for ever.
Think of the young Soviet mind that was exposed to a piece of violent Soviet hate-America propaganda back in the mid-50 IS. To illustrate the crass hypocrisy and materialism of our nation, the Soviets mocked-up a phony Coca Cola poster which showed Christ on the cross begging for a drink of coke. Do you think that young mind will ever recover from that, or ever again fail to fear and hate capitalism?
Is that so extreme? There is a growing segment of American people whose minds are sopping up posters and pictures and propaganda which depict Adlai Stevenson as a communist, and Chief Justice Warren as sitting on the right hand of the devil. These dreadful things are possible. They are possible in any society and in any person. In you. In me. Each of us has some of this sickness in us. Each of us has destroyed our society around us, others/around us, ourselves, just a bit. We are all of us, every day of our lives, victim s of closed-mind behavior. In little ways and in big ways we are cello players, alcoholics, indeed, pikes starving to death in a pool of minnows.
Can we, I wonder, really recognize the closed-mind in ourselves and in others? Do we really know when we are acting like alike? Oh sure, some of the time, here and there, now and then. We are quick enough to say the other guy or gal is a nut or something. We are quick enough to laugh at the guy who won't dance or go to the movies or join the Boy Scouts or go to the doctor because religion or creed closes that to him. We are quick enough to deplore the use of police dogs in southern riots. We rightly shudder at national action which tried to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
But what are our defenses, our reflexes against the closed mind, what real defenses do we have against sopping up poisons into the cranial sponge? A few. Not many. Not enough. But there are some simple important ones, some life-giving currents that won't short-circuit all of the time, some devices which give you a measure of humanity in your approaching manhood or womanhood, that give you some soul to support our complicated culture, that separate you from the pike in your behavior as surely as that 3/4 inch of gray matter separates you from the pike as a biological organism.
The pathetic truth of the matter is that these simple devices are as obvious as they are neglected, are as available as the time of day to everyone of us all of the time. You can use them in your classrooms, your homes, your churches, your teen clubs on your dates, in your personal, private thoughts, indeed, in your very dreams. These devices are not the only ones we use or need to use, they are often called by other names. But if the American culture is to fulfil its destiny and survive, everyone of you sharp teenagers had better develop some devices to keep your minds wide open. Let me suggest a few:
The first: The Black and White device. There was a nationwide television discussion program which purported to deal with big issues. There was a moderator who always began by holding up a White Ball, and he asked the studio audience what they saw. "A Ball," they said in unison. "What color," he would ask. "White," they always replied. He then turned the ball around in his hand and said, with too much satisfaction, "What color?" And they all responded, "Black," because the ball was really half white and half black.
The moderator then went on to introduce the controversial topic of the day, stating that of course every issue had two sides to it. Fortunately, most such panels prove the moderator to be wrong, show that few real issues of the world are so simple, are all "White" or all "black", all one thing or all another.
Any time you find anyone, especially yourself, arguing that either you must be for or you must be against, that anyone is all good or all bad, that you give him an inch he will take a mile, that she loves me or she loves me not, there is a strong chance that more nonsense than sense is being talked.
The point is, between black and white there are vast gray areas which must not be ignored. When you have a debate in school, “Resolve that medicare for the aged should be adopted," even though we and our congress must one day vote yea or nay on some version of that resolution, you soon discover the gray areas between the black and white of the issue you are debating. She loves me or she loves me not. If she is worth arguing with yourself about in these terms, fellows, she can surely see through her blinding adoration enough to know that she isn't exactly considering Sir Galahad. Even love should be able to discriminate some of the time.
How simple it really can be to check whether or not you are being crowded into a "Black or White", "either-or", "this or that" evaluation, and how very few things in life can be treated in that manner. It is like getting on one side of a wall, closing and locking the door between, closing down and locking the mind.
Another: the Un"loading" device. In order to talk at all with our language we have to use words which are general, multi-meaning, and often loaded with all sorts of emotional dynamite. If I were to say there is a Russian sitting in this audience right now, you would have far different reactions than if I were to say there is an Englishman sitting in your midst. Russian. English-man. Never mind that the Russian may be a refugee working for Radio Free Europe and the Englishman a wild-eyed Marxist. And what do I mean labeling him "wild-eyed" for that matter?
You and I in all situations load our language and our words. You dismiss a classmate by saying he's a "creep" or a "square" or whatever your vernacular of the day requires. The banter of every day life sanctions this, even requires it, I suppose. But life cannot always sanction or survive loaded language at more important levels because communication is too often crippled and destroyed.
People and nations are partly destroyed by emotional labels used consciously and deliberately by tyrants and despots. They are often used carelessly and unconsciously and even righteously by the common guy who doesn't know a loaded word when he hears or uses it.
In the name of the 'American Way" all sorts of terrible and trivial things happen, as well as generous and humanitarian things. This is "Appeasement" says the politician who thought we should have invaded Cuba, and the word is loaded, in need of un-loading, in need of definition. This is "creeping Socialism" says the opponent of the education bills floundering around congress just now, (note my "floundering around") and that undefined, well loaded term is enough to swing negative votes, a s the guy who uses the term well knows.
How contradictory and like quick-silver these loaded words can be. We can say we are defending "democracy" and we can admit that that defense includes "dictatorships" and "police states." We can laud our "free enterprise" system which can be said to be bloated with "payola" and "monopolies." It is the "free world" against the "slave world" we can say (and note the Black and White there), and we can point to a "fascist" government in control of countries in that "free world."
Language is limited enough, loaded enough, without any of us unconsciously or maliciously speaking in loaded terms or listening to loaded terms. The un"loading” device, then.
Next, the Scape-goating Device: In the Old Testament the sins of the tribe were transferred to a goat, with appropriate ceremony, and then, poor beast, the goat was driven off into the wilderness where the wolves soon ate him.
Hitler used the Jews as his goat. The Indonesian President may have used the Dutch in New Guinea and may now be lighting on the Malaysians. I guess we are restless to know the Russians frequently, and the Chinese most of the time, seem to use us as goats. And, let's face it, vice versa in our own politics and press.
Do you recognize a scape-goat when you see the beast? Do you know your own goats? A good goat is usually easily identified, handy, vulnerable, a bit weaker. Maybe a kid brother or kid sister. Maybe someone with a darker skin, an obvious accent, a crippled arm, a stutter. He has to be around, handy for our little ceremonies, and it's wonderful if he was already someone else's goat before we landed on him. It maintains our shaky status and excuses our inadequacies. It is behavior on a par with the pecking system in a pen of chickens. That system has one chicken who can, and indeed does, peck every other chicken in the pen who comes too close. The next chicken pecks all but the one who pecks him. And so on down to the one poor chicken who gets pecked by everyone.
The primitive tribe behaved naturally in its scape-goating rituals, almost instinctively. It used up lots of good goats, of course. You and I are not primitive, and we should know when we're scape-goating.
The Dating Device: I'm pretty daring, I suppose, to talk to this crowd about a dating device. You probably know more about dating devices than my generation ever dared dream of. (Tho
UMUC - European Division - Mason G Daly - Army Education Conference: The Uses of GED - June 4 1964 - Berchtesgaden, Germany
No full textEurope;Hoffmann, RosemaryDr. Mason G. Daly Director European Division University of Maryland
Berchteseaden June 4, 1964 Army Education Conference
THE USES OF GED [General Education Development]: A Professional Manifesto
After the presumptuous ring of that title, I believe I should fall back on scripture to bolster my courage and bless my purpose. I will take a few lines from Ecclesiastes, and hope it helps:
To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven……. a time to keep and a time to cast away ……a time for silence ; a time to speak.
I might argue that is is not seasonal at all to hold an education conference at this time, but there is purpose under heaven , I am told, in pairing conferences this week so that if one in particular is held in the Walker, the other has a better chance to make at the Berchtesgadener Hof, never mind Maryland registration week. Ecclesiastes would seem fairly relevant to GED in this time of keeping slots and of casting them away. You have given me a time to speak, and I am unable to keep silent about this absolutely remarkable time in GED history.
Every sign I read points to the certainty that this is a time when just about everyone up in the Walker-Civilian Personnel conference and everyone down here in the valley-GED conference is speaking out about the purposes , practices , processes , and personnel of GED. So keep your seat belts buckled. I am joining in, and I am going to take you on a fairly lively ride, pointing to some of the signs as I see them.
Educators 1n this "looking glass land" of education for the military -all of us , that is -to get anywhere must run twice as fast (or is it twice as s lowly) as any other educators. While all other populations to be educated promise to grow and grow, ours promises to diminish. If we do not turn into haggard educational hucksters , the boys up in the Walker will turn us into educational dodos, or, worse yet, send us home. Behind our facade of wildly fluctuating quarterly reports, that can never seem to be made to glitter, our slick-paper job descriptions, our education centers which must not look too much like cemeteries with lights , we discern here today in Berchtesgaden, not an auditorium full of happy people living in a society permeated with security, but a bunch of guys whose lives know much frustration and some fear, whose lives know the disruption of the dreaded musical chairs of civil service and most recently the big ruptures of reorganization; whose faces and bent backs show other evidences of professional and emotional ill health. We are all, let's face it, too middle-aged with cynicism and too full of wonder and worry about Warren Winstead's replacement, to be turned into smiling, smiling portraits of optimism and well-roundedness by any GED reorganization or middlemanagement courses at Bad Tolz.
This GED in Europe would seem to be on the make. I t is being institutionalized as never before. It will no longer be a dangling, sometimes unstructured part of something else. So this is no time to keep silence in remembrance of things past. Rather it is a time to speak out, to join in the anatomy lesson on the GED "body politic." There are signs which summon us to a breakthrough. And , to continue my muddled metaphors , this is a time to sharpen definitions , puncture balloons , and put the new GED into clear perspective.
Now just who am I to take off on such flights of metaphor and presumption. Well, I share a good sized shred of the same heritage. I stand in roughly the same place in the educational universe at this (I hope transcendent) hour of GED. I speak the same language. I suffer from many of the same insecurities.
I am very much with you in your present "period of adjustment." I use the same PX's and get my liquor at the same class VI counter. I may have been overseas too long, but Ray Ehrensberger won't fix up a direct exchange, even if I were ready to give up my cheap Scotch. Furthermore, we, you and I, have had a long and still abiding, usually fruitful and warm (sometimes heated) fellowship in GED. I was never directly asked to give any advice or consent in the present GED metamorphosis; in fact , I haven't been asked , as much as I need it , to take some middle-management with you. Still, as is your generous way, you annually give me your platform and, as is my way, I am most at ease speaking about our imperative partnership, our perilous profession, our joint image, and our future destiny. It is most certainly not a time when you can hope to have me keep silence.
I suggest the motto of this conference would better be stated: Changing Army Education in a Changing World. Although an argument might be formulated that the entrenched, long-tenured overseas educator doesn't welcome or risk change, there is some likelihood that the home-steading type most surely recognizes the change which is upon him; or, if he does not, he is so benumbed by cheap Scotch that he cannot effectively carry on decent guerrilla warfare against that change. He knows better than any newcomer this is not the Army of yesterday with its basics, its woefully under-educated officer corps, its segregated units, its hordes of draftees. He doesn't need to be fresh from Fort-something-or-other in CONUS to know that both the world and the Army are changing in dismaying, drastic ways . It doesn't take a nervous system somehow re-sensitized in the good old USA to tremble with awe and anticipation and anxiety about the shape of things to come. Only 6000 inducted this month. Married men exempted. Society's rejects funnelled into Johnson's new programs rather than the Army. Larger classes at the academies on the Hudson and in Colorado. Missiles instead of men. Co-existence as much as cold war. No wonder Warren Winstead got a new job.
It isn't altogether true that history has swirled past us GEDers stuck off here too long in Europe - this distant, dark-side of the moon. It is no more true that new blood, high in statesidecontact-corpuscle-count will refresh and revitalize the old corpse, than it is generous to look upon new blood as a carrier of change, something as infectious and feared as Typhoid Mary. As I read the signs about the often over-simplified matter, there is far more likelihood we will all go home all at once (and heaven help the balance of stateside education then), than there is any likelihood that any civil service formula, even with computer magic , can circulate and rotate education advisors in and out of stateside and overseas jobs for the regular refreshing of ideas and for the lowering of the level of Scotch in the blood stream. Given the formula , the balance of job exchange necessary, the switch from Scotch and Schlitz might be effected with gratifying ease . But no civil service or military Einstein can come up with such a formula at such a time in this changing Army and this changing world. Or, so the signs seem to say to me.
What is needed now, today, is a professional manifesto in GEO, a professional manifesto that accommodates new blood and old blood (there is no really significantly incompatible alcoholic Rh factor), a professional manifesto that gets on with what needs to be done to change Army education to fit a changing world. Go ahead and seek the elusive rotation formula, that's useful; but in the meantime let's grant that this old institution (GED) will be p6pulated for as long as it exists with many old timers, let's show that this old institution (GED) is not immovably moored to one place in time. It is just now being up-graded in organization so that all the old ones and all the new ones can experience strengthened status in our important calling, a status the military has not always been prepared to recognize, a status that is not yet fully assured. This old institution (GED) can, with any blood at all, break with at least some of its bleeding bureaucracy, eradicate at least some of its clinging obsolescence, and make this overseas military community, whatever its make-up and however changing its mission, a more intellectually integrated part of a fast changing world .
I believe there is the professional poise in this auditorium , the potential for professional extension and for professional up-grading (and I don't mean GS grades, although any of that kind of up-grading is alright, too) to come up with a fairly decent professional manifesto .
But it is right here, reference this poise , extension, up-grading in the profession, that I believe the old GED world is most like an Alice-in-Wonderland looking-glass land, most open to criticism. It does sometimes hump a long at twice the speed of other educational outfits to approximately stand still. It has sometimes let Europe seem like the dark side of the moon. It has sometimes let civil service strictures and slottage, military budgets and bumbling, make its professionals less imaginative, informed educators and more pale, palsied GS-somethings seeking safety in governmental sinecure. I hope it has the poise to prevent this happening in the now renovating GED structure. I hope it has the poise to show anyone that the way to better advisor-dom is not simply to exchange Mannheim , Germany , for Mountain Home , Idaho. The view from the education center is little changed. Same quarterly reports , same test s to keep locked in the safe , same counting of credits , just another tiresome university , same civil service regulations with the same bumpings and riffings and built-in anxieties , same distance to conventions and conferences because TDY money is always short , especially for civilians dealing in that intangible, education.
We know very well the mere change of scene does not guarantee professional outlook or development. We know very well what we need as professionals is repeated contacts with our peers in adult education, attendance at professional conferences, hardly more distant from Mannheim than from Mountain Home, seminars about service needs in education, short and long exposures to the literature and thought in adult education in the United States and, for that matter, just across the channel in the United Kingdom. 6.
In the new GED can’t there be a breakthrough for professional status and attitudes that shatters the strictures and budgeting for this kind of spending? Can't there be a breakthrough which challenges some of the existing fetish about professional up-grading through the tiresome adding up of education credits for education credits' sake, for the civil service point gate, never mind their irrelevance? Let's see a demand for education for the sake of professional relevance and up-dated knowledge, never mind the points. Let's get far out in a wonderful, but I think plausible and maybe even possible, professional land. Let's see, in the new structure, a budget for your own learning and professional extension. Why is it really so far out to demand what in industry and in some corners of government, and even here and there in universities, is commonplace and legislated for -subsidies and rebates and refund plans when real education takes place, when a conference or a course is attended, when a language is learned, when a talent is extended, when a profession is enriched and up-dated. Why is a final-semester or final-year plan not as valuable in an education advisor as it is in a uniformed man? Why indeed, must I sound outrageous when I say to hell with refreshing at Mountain Home, give the guy a sabbatical!?
You see, don't you, what too many years of overseas ' Scotch can do? I've become a nut! So nutty, so hopped up, that I think even momentarily that the new GED should be manned by an elite corps of professionals who take this opportunity to build in a dynamic system of self-renewal, an elite corps of adult educators who do not allow themselves to be isolated from other adult educator s , who do not allow themselves to be stymi ed by the count down of regulations intended for clerk-typi sts in civil service, who can command the funds and the respect to bring stimulating educators into their midst, more regularly and more intimately, and for more than a thirty minute talk at a once-a -year Berchtesgaden do. I'm so charged up that I can even wonder why the system can't subsidize a Master's or Doctor’s degree for a deserving professional, by some kind of sabbatical release, reasonable financial aid, or at least by the encouragement of a slot held open for him. If your good man wants a year to do an MA at Middlebury in French, why lose him, and why let anyone say that MA warrants less support or adds less to an advisor’s worth than some statistical project e valuating toilet facilities, leading to a Master’s degree in junior high school principalship?
Why can't the system send every professional in the ranks to one adult education conference stateside at least once every two years where contacts and ideas are enlarged; and I don't mean budgeting in the system for more TDY mileage for the top-dogs in the ranks , I mean for all of the ranks . Some fairly dulled eyes were lighted up with a real professional glow when a dozen or so of you by some budget miracle got back to Maryland's worldwide armed forces education conference a couple of years ago. What a shame and what a commentary on restrictive rules and restricted funds that Air Force in Europe can be represented at this good conference by only one man (although I'm relieved that someone around Europe is registering Maryland students this week ! )
What a fumbling instrument the new GED will be, if there is not enough professional poise and vision to up-grade every member with a decent and dynamic professional manifesto at this critical crossroads in its history .
While the new GED is going about up-grading its status, as I am confident it will, I hope it will study its reflection in the eyes of the military, in the "looking glass land" of education within a military command, in particular the reflection of its position in the realm of priorities in that mysterious spelling-out of what is always called "the primary mission."
The primary mission of this military community is, I am sure, spelled out in some sort of specifics about containment and cold war and readiness. How often you and I have had to bow to the command or commander who, with “primary mission" impunity and logic, has decided he had to dehydrate our activity because of our place in the priorities. We are always fair game when the cry "primary mission" goes forth.
But we must be the ones, my friends, because we believe it, not because it is our living, to show the military that the primary mission is only in a matter of degree more self-contained and separate from the welfare and intelligence of its least component, the drafted GI, than it is self-contained and separate from the wisdom and intuition of one Robert MacNamara. (Talk about presumption! I have it, do I not?)
Well, I really believe that we can get almost dead-center in that "primary mission" realm if we take a real professional stance, come out with a ringing professional manifesto. I really believe that the reinstitutionalized GED can switch itself from being about the most vulnerable element in this military community, to being one of the most vital elements in this military community - just as education is more and more considered the most vital element in national survival.
The professional up-graded, then, a professional manifesto formulating, the reflection of the organization improved in the eyes of the military.
What else is there to be done in changing this Army Education program to fit the changing world? Obviously, the uses of GED are always in need of re-examination and change, and obviously there is no better time than the present moment in GED history for setting up a system sensitive enough to constantly re-examine and change."
Clark Kerr in his stimulating book, "The Uses of the University," finds in his California institution (undoubtedly the most dynamic system of higher education in the world today) that the educational balance is always changing and finds that this is the unbalancing reality that saves it all from stagnation. The Uses of his university shift, reshape, appear and disappear. Well, to point to the obvious, and to assert there is more similarity between this education system and that one than the borrowed title of my speech, let's speak out about some shifts, changing shapes, appearances and disappearances in the Uses of GED.
The "timeless priorities" of this man's Army are not so timeless after all. New Uses will mold the good old GED and' the good old-timer in GED, if there is the guts, now that there is the organization to eliminate some non-essentials , and if there is the vision, now that there is a better looking-glass, to anticipate new essentials of the changing Army education in a changing world .
Our courage to eradicate and eliminate, and our powers to anticipate, are not always reassuring. Sometimes some of us (and realize I am speaking of Marylanders and GEDers, quite interchangeable cohabitors of GED-wonderland), some of us are more caretakers of past practices than we are up-to-date educators; some of us are more civil-service office-holders than leaders in change. We do find ourselves bottlenecked in our own bureaucracy, miserably contemplating banal charts, and regulations and records and reporting and testing and crediting that hasn't changed a great deal in a couple of decades . And our powers of anticipation-yours and mine-are hardly phenomenal to judge by the number of Maryland classes we hopefully schedule and drearily cancel each term. (Sometimes I think we are yet going to introduce Mark Hopkin's classic learning situation in Maryland overseas -you know, the teacher at one end of the log, and one student on the other end).
But although we know very well that we will never eradicate all of the bureaucratic nonsense and dodo practices and even dodos from our GED world, we hope that we now have, in the new structure, a chance to eradicate, we now have in the new structure a chance to anticipate, and shape still better Uses of GED.
I am told that this process of experimentation, innovation, and essential change takes what industry and all outfits on the make, even respectable universities, call "research a d development." Research and development shapes the chrome on a Cadillac and it shapes the nose -cone for the trip to the moon; it reshapes the bosoms of America, and the Arctic gear of Little America; it shapes some of Harvard , much of California, and, from what I understand, all of Warren's new Florida school ; it shapes everything of the hard and soft sells of creature comforts in America , and promises to enter more vigorously into the hard and soft sells of the soul . The phrasemakers call for "research in depth," then call for innovation following rigorous experimentation and testing and validating. Then you come out with the new Mustang and hope mightily that it won't turn out to be an Edsel .
Reorganized GED now, and in the foreseeable future, should face massive innovation and change such as it has never experienced in its distinguished career. I have the presumption to suggest it needs continuing research about its basic structure. As jarring as it may be, I hope you face continuing administrative reorganization, more musical education offices. You'll be in bad shape if you break old patterns only to fix new ones. There needs to be -there must be -a kind of "dynamics of planned change" built into your new system -because there must be a constant search for the best possible institutional arrangement of authority, responsibility, jobs, and personnel.
The logic of some of your new districts and arrangement of personnel in them is not yet based on very great depth in research or development. They are, I have the presumption to trust, a starting arrangement subject to the dynamics of planned change, subject to further depth research and further innovation. What a travesty it will be if after a shake-down period you find that jealousies , little human kingdoms , the myopia of selfish motives , fix the new arrangement of GED into a calcified cluster of Edsel districts and Edsel centers .
I have the presumption to ask, are your districts going to be dynamic centers for research and development into the proper Uses of GED, or are they going to be an arbitrary rearrangement of existing bureaucracy to enhance the status of the new superstructure? New ideas, new uses, new dimensions, new purposes, the re -examination and revision of old programs, re-treading and re-grouping of professionals you have.
Surely the new GED outfit will make every new district a "research and development center,” each with separate projects and the common mission. Not busy work. Not more surveys. Real projects to find out real things. Real centers of resource. Real "professional programming," I think some management wags call it. Busy work by any other name is yet banal. Research and development just might be another name for survival for every one of us.
One project I have the presumption to suggest [c]ould be piloted and pushed into the dimension of a resource center, which waits to be done in depth, is a project on post-service careers. Not post-retirement only, not just the usual tailspin around some middle-aged colonel who is about to retire, although you have woefully little that is up-to-date and helpful to him at most centers right now. What about the excitement, deserved attention it would draw to your purpose in life, your purpose in the military community, and especially, what about the greater service to America, by paying professional attention to the postservice careers of the 18-monther who is an unskilled, unteste
Use of social media in response to Hurricane Sandy in local emergency management organizations
No full text•Hurricane Sandy pounded U.S. East Coast as Category 1 hurricane from Oct.29 through Oct. 30 2012
•Affected the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, and Maryland
•>72 deaths
•~50 billion estimated losses
•7,5 million power outages
•Social Media (SM) heavily used both by response agencies and the public
•Most popular were Twitter and Facebook
•3.5 million tweets with #sandy in the last 24 hours of the hurricane
•Surveys sent out to select major Maryland jurisdictions including city and county governments
•Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MD State), Baltimore County, Howard County, and Annapolis City Department of Transportation respondedUse of Social Media in Response to Hurricane Sandy in Local Emergency Management Organizations
Dr. Irmak Renda-Tanali May 2013
Research sponsored by:
UMUC Faculty Research Program Spring 2013 Introduction and Background Research Design Findings Conclusions Intoduction
•Hurricane Sandy pounded U.S. East Coast as Category 1 hurricane from Oct.29 through Oct. 30 2012
•Affected the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, and Maryland
•>72 deaths
•~50 billion estimated losses
•7,5 million power outages
•Social Media (SM) heavily used both by response agencies and the public
•Most popular were Twitter and Facebook
•3.5 million tweets with #sandy in the last 24 hours of the hurricane Research Design
•Surveys sent out to select major Maryland jurisdictions including city and county governments
•Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MD State), Baltimore County, Howard County, and Annapolis City Department of Transportation responded
Survey Questions
1.At the time of Sandy, who was responsible for SM (SM) broadcast and monitoring? State the position and who this person reports to.
2.What SM channels were used to communicate with affected citizens? (Twitter, Facebook, ?)
3.Did your organization use Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS)?
4.How frequent were the updates to the public (from your organization)?
5.Were there any protocols established in terms of handling inquiries to SM postings or comments? If so, were they handled ad hoc or were previously established?
6.Were there times when the volume of (a) inquiries from public, or (b) situational information was overwhelming? If so, how did you handle it?
7.What were the major advantages of the use of SM during Sandy? (considering the preparation, response, and recovery stages) (examples include increased situational awareness, better resource mobilization, coordination etc.)
8.What were the main challenges of the use of SM? Impediments? Lessons learned? What changes did you implement to your SM use as a result of Sandy experience?
9.Going forward, do you believe SM is more integrated to the operational missions of your organization after Hurricane Sandy experience? (e.g. newly established protocols/policies, more people signed up for future alerts, increased awareness etc.). If yes, please elaborate. If not, why? Findings
• The Maryland State Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Counties had pre-established protocols for SM use and had personnel assigned to disseminate and respond.
•Facebook and Twitter were the most popular SM outlets.
•MEMA SM account received >1,000 comments at the peak of the storm.
•Governor O’Malley’s Twitter account was active immediately, during and after the storm.
•Howard County vetted information on their FB site through their PIO.
•Howard County posted situation updates every hour on FB and Twitter as well as their main county website. Findings
Advantages of the use of SM by local government response agencies:
•SM provides an additional outlet to reach the public and acts as a force multiplier through the public’s sharing and re-tweeting messages coming from them.
•Removes barriers in communicating with the public.
•Allows efficiency in terms of reaching one key audience – the media – simultaneously.
•Increases situational awareness.
•Helps measure the overall effectiveness of messaging going out to the public.
•Helps determine what is relevant and what is not. Findings
Lessons learned about the use of SM during Hurricane Sandy:
•May not predict the volume of SM public inquiries coming in during the event.
•May not have the means to act.
•Internet may be down during a large scale emergency.
•Have a credible authority in place.
•Make it part of the overall communications plan for the event
•Have policies established beforehand. Conclusions and implications for future
•SM has become indispensable in emergency management. With each event, over time, these agencies have started to integrate SM into their operational missions more and more.
•Hurricane Sandy was a great opportunity for them to put their SM procedures into practice. They saw a drastic increase in followership on their SM accounts during the event. They expect that people will recognize their SM accounts as a trusted and reliable source of information during an emergency or disaster in the future.
•Thus they started implementing changes based on those lessons learned. They have more people and departments signed up and using SM.
•The number of PIOs trained in their SM policies and procedures has grown.
•Currently, this is the most expedient way to provide information to the media and the citizenry. . This research was funded by UMUC’s Faculty Research Grant Program for Spring
2013
For questions, contact:
Dr. Irmak Renda-Tanali
[email protected]
Phone: +1 (240) 864-2435
Thank you
Crisis preparedness: Enhancing organizational resilience through the strategic planning process
No full textThe purpose of this study is to analyze the extent that preparing for crisis by building resilience capacity using organizational development interventions in the strategic planning process will increase organizational resilience.© File copyright Colin Purrington. You may
use for making your poster, of course, but
please do not plagiarize, adapt, or put on
your own site. Also, do not upload this file,
even if modified, to third-party file-sharing
sites such as doctoc.com. If you have
insatiable need to post a template onto your
own site, search the internet for a different
template to steal. File downloaded from
http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/
posterdesign.
Purpose
and
Scope
of
Research
The purpose of this study is to
analyze the extent that preparing
for crisis by building resilience
capacity using organizational
development interventions in the
strategic planning process will
increase organizational resilience.!
Research
Ques2ons
Implica2ons
for
Management
!
Preparing for crisis enhances organizational
resilience, which is increasingly important in a
turbulent environment. Leaders and managers
can ensure organizational survival in a crisis by
considering crises while strategic planning.!
!
Argument
Literature
Cited
!
Seminal!
!
Boin, A. (2004). Lessons from crisis research. !
Jaques, T. (2007). Issue management and crisis
management: An integrated, non-linear, relational
construct. !
Jaques, T. (2009). Integrating issue management and
strategic planning: Unfulfilled promises and future
opportunity.!
Lalonde, C. (2007). The potential contribution of the
field of organizational development to crisis
management.!
Lalonde, C. (2011). Managing crises through
organisational development: A conceptual framework. !
Mitroff, I. (2001). Managing crises before they happen. !
Pauchant, T., & Mitroff, I. (1992). Transforming the
crisis-prone organization !
Weick, K.. (2001). Sensemaking in organizations.!
Contemporary!
!
Dos Santos, F. T., & Partidario, M. R. (2011). SPARK:
Strategic planning approach for resilience keeping. !
James, E., Wooten, L., & Dushek, K. (2011). Crisis
management: Informing a new leadership research
agenda. !
Lee, A., Vargo, J., & Seville, E. (2013). Developing a
tool to measure and compare organizations' resilience.!
Wang, J., Hutchins, H., & Garavan, T. (2009). Exploring
the strategic role of human resource development in
organizational crisis management
Sandy
Mehalko
UMUC
DM
CommiAee:
Dr.
Eric
Dent
and
Dr.
Deborah
Wharff
Findings
« Crises are complex. There are many specific reasons that organizations do
not plan for crisis. ! !
« Resilience matters and consequences of crisis can be severe.!
« Understanding roles can ease an organization into a crisis plan.
« Mitigating CEO and TMT (Top Management Team) faults will enable an
organization to prepare for crisis.
« Organizations that prepare for crisis are more likely to demonstrate
resilience.!
« OD interventions integrate crisis and strategic planning.
« A shift from command/control to learn/adapt enables integration of strategic
and crisis planning. !
Future
Research
1. Validate OD and HRD as interventions that
integrate crisis and strategic planning.!
2. Measure and track avoided crises to integrate
learning.!
3. Synthesize lessons learned from documented
crises.!
Crisis Preparedness!
Enhancing Organizational Resilience Through the Strategic Planning Process!
Key
Proposi2ons
1. The definition of crisis preparedness, crisis
planning and its related terms is imprecise.!
2. There are many issues and tensions
surrounding crisis preparedness planning that
may preclude an organization from developing
them.!
3. Organizations that develop crisis preparedness
plans develop more resilience capacity than
those who do not.!
4. OD interventions can be utilized as a capacity
building process to integrate crisis
preparedness and strategic planning.
Conceptual
Framewor
Addressing the Crisis of African American Males in Community Colleges: The Impact of Leadership & Black Male Initiatives
No full textThe word “crisis” has been used to describe the impact of the current educational system (K-12) upon the lives of African American males. Black males are the group most likely to be negatively stereotyped, the most likely to drop out of K-12, the most likely to be harshly punished, and the most likely to be labeled as a trouble maker. “Social and incarceration problems of young dropouts are quite severe among all gender and race-ethnic groups but are frequently more severe among men and Blacks” (Sum, Khatiwada, Mclaughlin, & Palma 2009, para.16). It is up to community colleges to help remedy this crisis and to educate a host of unprepared Black men.
The purpose of this qualitative study is to look at what community college leadership is doing to retain and graduate African American men. The research is primarily focused on the success or failures of Black male initiatives (BMI’s) and whether or not they have been proven successful in assisting black males to succeed. Questionnaires were sent to directors of Black male initiatives to complete. In addition, document research on African American male initiatives was reviewed. Finally, the data was analyzed to address the research questions.
Researched showed that Black BMI’s help to retain and graduate African Americans at higher rates than African American men not in the program.i
Addressing the Crisis of African American Males in Community Colleges: The Impact of Leadership & Black Male Initiatives
By
Wayne R. Harewood
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of
University of Maryland University College
In Partial Fulfillment of
Doctor of Management
DMGT 891
Advisory Committee
Charlene R. Nunley, Ph.D.
Mary Ellen Duncan, Ph.D.
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Addressing the Crisis of African American Males in Community Colleges: The Impact of Leadership & Black Male Initiatives
ABSTRACT
The word “crisis” has been used to describe the impact of the current educational system (K-12) upon the lives of African American males. Black males are the group most likely to be negatively stereotyped, the most likely to drop out of K-12, the most likely to be harshly punished, and the most likely to be labeled as a trouble maker. “Social and incarceration problems of young dropouts are quite severe among all gender and race-ethnic groups but are frequently more severe among men and Blacks” (Sum, Khatiwada, Mclaughlin, & Palma 2009, para.16). It is up to community colleges to help remedy this crisis and to educate a host of unprepared Black men.
The purpose of this qualitative study is to look at what community college leadership is doing to retain and graduate African American men. The research is primarily focused on the success or failures of Black male initiatives (BMI’s) and whether or not they have been proven successful in assisting black males to succeed. Questionnaires were sent to directors of Black male initiatives to complete. In addition, document research on African American male initiatives was reviewed. Finally, the data was analyzed to address the research questions.
Researched showed that Black BMI’s help to retain and graduate African Americans at higher rates than African American men not in the program.
Keywords: crisis, initiatives, leadership, community college retention, Black males REDUCING DROPOUT RATE
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DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to the following three people who have mentored me into becoming a scholarly researcher:
To my mother, Lucille Patricia Harewood, who instilled the vision in me that I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
To my brother like no other, Dr. Vernon Proctor, M.D. brother; you have instilled in me the desire to live my dreams.
To Dr. Charlene Nunley, Ph.D. who mentored me for the past three years. Your patience, guidance, and respect have motivated me to continue my studies and scholarly research.
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Acknowledgements
To my biological family, co-workers, pastor, and members of the Clarendon Road Church family, and friends; thanks for your support and encouragement over these three years. I would like to give a special thanks to all the men and women that have mentored me. I am eternally grateful.
Many thanks to my cohort: Alfred, Brad, Carol, Cathy, Ellen James, Linda, Paul, Rod, Shelby, and Steve. Each one of you has impacted my life; I will be a better person from knowing each one of you.
I would have dropped out without the support of my faculty, Dr. James Tschechtelin, who encouraged me to uncork the genius that exists in me—Dr. Coley, Dr. Head, Dr. Ralph Juhnke, Dr. Mary Ellen Duncan, and Dr Charlene Nunley.
To my brother, Vernon Proctor M.D., who never stopped believing in me. His unwavering support and unconditional love helped to bring out the best in me.
To all my friends who were there for me when I needed them over the past three years. I want to list all your names, but I may leave one out and regret it. You know who you are—the typists, proofreaders, and editors; I could not have finished without you, Thanks.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 ...................................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1
Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................................ 3
Statement of Purpose ............................................................................................................................... 4
Context ..................................................................................................................................................... 5
Research Questions ............................................................................................................................... 10
Hypothesis.............................................................................................................................................. 10
Definition of Terms ................................................................................................................................ 10
Significance of Study ............................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................................... 14
The Status of Black Males in Education .................................................................................................. 14
Higher Education .................................................................................................................................... 17
Community Colleges ............................................................................................................................... 19
The Role of Leadership in Addressing the Challenge of African American Male Achievement ............. 22
Promising Practices in Improving the Collegiate Performance of African American Males ................... 25
Chapter 3 Conceptual Model ...................................................................................................................... 32
Conceptual Model Imroving Academic Success of African American Males in Community Colleges .... 33
ELEMENTS OF THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL ............................................................................................... 35
Black Males at Risk .............................................................................................................................. 35
Insufficient Role Models ..................................................................................................................... 35
Family’s Support Role ......................................................................................................................... 36
Penal System ...................................................................................................................................... 37
Failure of K-12 .................................................................................................................................... 38
The Significance of Community Colleges in Black Male Achievement ................................................... 39
Comprehensive Approach to Black Male Support .................................................................................. 40
Community College Leadership .............................................................................................................. 40
Supportive College Community .............................................................................................................. 42
Comprehensive Approach to Black Male Support .................................................................................. 44
Retention to Credential Leading to Transfer or Job Placement ............................................................. 46
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 47
Chapter 4 .................................................................................................................................................... 49 REDUCING DROPOUT RATE
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Research Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 49
Purpose of the Study ............................................................................................................................... 50
Subject Matter Experts/Peer Review ...................................................................................................... 54
Rationale for document review and survey ............................................................................................ 57
Research Questions ............................................................................................................................... 58
Sampling ................................................................................................................................................. 58
Questionnaire ........................................................................................................................................ 59
Evaluation of Scholarly research ............................................................................................................. 60
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 61
Chapter 5 .................................................................................................................................................... 63
Analysis and Discussions ............................................................................................................................ 63
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 63
Literature Review Findings ...................................................................................................................... 63
Expert Reviewers ................................................................................................................................... 64
Contribution to the understanding of a significant issue in community colleges: ................................. 64
Originality of topic or approach: ............................................................................................................. 65
Quality of the references: ....................................................................................................................... 65
Validity of assumptions: .......................................................................................................................... 66
Rigor (theory, argument). ....................................................................................................................... 66
Thoroughness of presentation: ............................................................................................................... 66
Validity of conclusions/propositions: ..................................................................................................... 66
Writing quality: ...................................................................................................................................... 67
Conclusions: ........................................................................................................................................... 72
Findings .................................................................................................................................................. 73
Scope of Limitations ............................................................................................................................... 75
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 75
Chapter 6 .................................................................................................................................................... 77
Conclusions and Implications ..................................................................................................................... 77
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 77
Implications for Management Practices of Community College Leaders ............................................... 77
Implications for Management Theory .................................................................................................... 79
Implications for Management Research with Community College Application ..................................... 80 REDUCING DROPOUT RATE
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Conclusions Drawn From Literature ....................................................................................................... 82
APPENDIX A ................................................................................................................................................ 90
APPENDIX B ................................................................................................................................................ 99
References ................................................................................................................................................ 101
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1- Conceptual Model..................................................................................................................... 33
Figure 4.1- Document Collection ................................................................................................................ 51
Figure 6.1 - Black Male Initiative Logic Model ............................................................................................ 79
Figure 6.2 Proposed Model ......................................................................................................................... 86
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1 Successful Black Male Programs ................................................................................................ 26
Table 4.1 - Scholarly works in 5-year increments ..................................................................................... 52
Table 4.2 - Major Themes in Literature ..................................................................................................... 52
Table 4.3- Key Subject Areas and Databases .............................................................................................. 60
Table 5.1 - Best Practices ........................................................................................................................... 71
1
Chapter 1
Introduction
Community colleges, by design, have an open door policy. One of their goals is to provide quality education at a low cost to everyone living in the community (The College Board, 2010; Smith, 2004). Historically, community colleges provided assistance and access to students who were denied admittance to four-year institutions. Moreover, “with the mission of open access, comes a moral and ethical responsibility to assure all students have reasonable opportunity to succeed” (Smith, 2004, p.8). Harper, Patton, & Wooden (2009) placed the responsibility for student success squarely on the shoulders of community college administrators and faculty. Community colleges are designed to meet the needs of the community (Tschechtelin, 2012) and African American males are an integral part of the community. In an online article, Points of Pride: Illumining the path to achievement the AtD Foundation (2012) reported the Community Colleges are the venue to open doors to secure jobs for millions of students who are dreaming of a better life. Not every Black male needs a college degree, but all of them should have the opportunity to pursue one. In addition, “community colleges, by their defined mission, are designed to provide open access to all who want to learn”
(Bush & Bush, p.57).
Various authors have used the word “crisis” to refer to the fact that America’s leadership position in the educational achievement of its population has lost ground to other nations (Hampton 2002; Jordan, 2008; Norguera, 1996; Smith, 2004; The College Board, 2010). The challenge of educational achievement is far more evident in African American males. “College REDUCING DROPOUT RATE
2
enrollment and retention of African American males is in crisis. Strategies and solutions to these challenges require the collaborative efforts of students, family, community, philanthropic leaders, and corporations” (Ellis, 2004, p.ii). The data of dwindling enrollment of males in higher education is a wake-up call for administrators at said institutions to retain those who enroll”
(Brown, 2007, p.4).
Several studies (Bush & Bush, 2010; Esters and Mosby, 2007; Hampton, 2002; Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, 2009; Suggs 2003) pointed out that Black males are the group most likely to be successful and at risk of not succeeding in college. Data released by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) survey in 2006 indicated that Black, non-Hispanic students had the lowest graduation rate (16 percent) among male community college students (Estes and Mosby, 2007). Perrakis (2009) reported that fewer male students of any race are enrolling in community colleges. She also pointed out that this trend has been occurring over the past three decades. The impact of a lack of education among Black men goes far beyond the Black community; it is systemic across our national culture. Citing NCES (2003) data, Brown notes that among males, African American male collegiate enrollment is the lowest at 37 % when compared to 44% for White males, 43 % for Hispanic males, 48 % for Asian/Pacific Islander males, and 41 % for American Indian/Alaskan native males. The mission of community colleges is currently being challenged by overcrowding, lack of finances, and declining federal and state funding. Indeed, “America’s community colleges have a unique mission to provide open access and affordable education to all who desire to learn” (Shannon & Smith, 2006, p.15).
Researchers and educators are aware of this crisis facing Black males. A plethora of meetings, conferences, and workshops across the country are focusing on this emergency. REDUCING DROPOUT RATE
3
However, the overall feeling is that we must actively work to stop the plague that is causing African American children to dropout of elementary school, high school, and young men from college (College Board, 2010).
Statement of the Problem
Fifty years after legal segregation ended, many young, Black men are still not progressing. More are incarcerated and droppings out of high school while fewer are going to college. Hefner (2004) reported that there were over 1.5 million Black men in prison and over three and a half million on probation. He went on to say that even though Black men make up seven percent of the population, they make up 42 percent of the prison population. “These social and incarceration problems of young dropouts are quite severe among all gender and race-ethnic groups but are frequently more severe among men and Blacks” (Sum, Khatiwada, McLaughlin, & Palma, 2009, p.13). Cuyjet (2006) suggests there are more Black men in prison than there are in college.
In a report from the African Male Summit, Alexander (2004) is quoted as saying ‘the US educational system is stacked against the Black male’. According to the Manhattan Institute’s Educational Research Office (2004), less than one in five students of color have taken a college prep course and/or do not demonstrate college readiness. Black male enrollment is often the lowest in community colleges. In addition, Black men have one of the lowest retention rates (Brown, 2007). The experiences of many African American men in college are characterized by a lack of preparation, poor retention, and graduation rates (Cuyjet, 2006, and Maxwell & Hampton 2002). Wood (2012) found that African American males had a dismal graduation rate of 12%, a rate lower than Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino males. Wood went on to say that African Ameri
From lab bench to innovation: Critial challenges to nascent academic entrepreneurs
No full textUniversity spinoffs created by academic researchers are an increasingly important approach to transform discoveries from university lab benches into new innovations that generate economic growth and societal impact. While late in their development these ventures may be similar in many respects to typical technology-based startups, limited research exists on how these startups emerge and the obstacles they encounter as they move from idea inception to initial commercialization. This inductive multicase study involves examining the process and key challenges faced by 10 nascent academic entrepreneurs (NAEs) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The research has four key findings. First, there is evidence that NAEs undergo a unique process and spend most of their time in a research phase where they must finish creating the technology before they can use it. Second, the phases of the process differ in their objectives, views of opportunities, structure, resources needed, funding sources, and role of the NAE. Third, in contrast with most explanations in the literature, almost all the NAEs studied were PhD students pursuing ventures based on their research. The study reveals that their decision to launch a venture evolves during a discovery process where they gain confidence in their abilities as entrepreneurs and business leaders as well as the realization that their technology discovery is
embryonic and unlikely to be licensed effectively by others. Finally, the study demonstrates that NAEs may experience serious conflicts, particularly with their faculty advisors, on issues surrounding intellectual property and equity participation. Among the conclusions are that academic ventures are different from other high-technology startups because they launch in a distinctive phase with unique challenges. Nascent academic entrepreneurs are initially motivated to exploit technological rather than market-based entrepreneurial opportunities. Students are increasingly important in bringing university technology to commercialization and, as career options become more limited, more students may become NAEs, which will likely result in an increasing number of conflicts if they form and launch companies before they graduate. These results may be of interest to NAEs who are either considering or engaged in an emerging venture. The results also have important policy implications, particularly for university leaders seeking to increase the economic impact of their institutions. The research makes contributions to management knowledge in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, especially by providing insights into the genesis of technology-based organizations and opportunities.ABSTRACT
Title of Dissertation:
FROM LAB BENCH TO INNOVATION: CRITICAL CHALLENGES TO NASCENT ACADEMIC ENTREPRENEURS
Roman M. Lubynsky, Doctor of Management, 2012
Dissertation Directed By:
Dr. Thomas Mierzwa, Graduate School of
Management & Technology
University spinoffs created by academic researchers are an increasingly important approach to transform discoveries from university lab benches into new innovations that generate economic growth and societal impact. While late in their development these ventures may be similar in many respects to typical technology-based startups, limited research exists on how these startups emerge and the obstacles they encounter as they move from idea inception to initial commercialization. This inductive multicase study involves examining the process and key challenges faced by 10 nascent academic entrepreneurs (NAEs) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The research has four key findings. First, there is evidence that NAEs undergo a unique process and spend most of their time in a research phase where they must finish creating the technology before they can use it. Second, the phases of the process differ in their objectives, views of opportunities, structure, resources needed, funding sources, and role of the NAE. Third, in contrast with most explanations in the literature, almost all the NAEs studied were PhD students pursuing ventures based on their research. The study reveals that their decision to launch a venture evolves during a discovery process where they gain confidence in their abilities as entrepreneurs and business leaders as well as the realization that their technology discovery is embryonic and unlikely to be licensed effectively by others. Finally, the study demonstrates that NAEs may experience serious conflicts, particularly with their faculty advisors, on issues surrounding intellectual property and equity participation. Among the conclusions are that academic ventures are different from other high-technology startups because they launch in a distinctive phase with unique challenges. Nascent academic entrepreneurs are initially motivated to exploit technological rather than market-based entrepreneurial opportunities. Students are increasingly important in bringing university technology to commercialization and, as career options become more limited, more students may become NAEs, which will likely result in an increasing number of conflicts if they form and launch companies before they graduate. These results may be of interest to NAEs who are either considering or engaged in an emerging venture. The results also have important policy implications, particularly for university leaders seeking to increase the economic impact of their institutions. The research makes contributions to management knowledge in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, especially by providing insights into the genesis of technology-based organizations and opportunities. FROM LAB BENCH TO INNOVATION: CRITICAL CHALLENGES TO NASCENT ACADEMIC ENTREPRENEURS
By
Roman M. Lubynsky
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Maryland University College, in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Management
2012
Advisory Committee:
Dr. Thomas Mierzwa, Chair
Dr. Hasan Sayani
© Copyright by
Roman M. Lubynsky
2012
ii
Dedication
To my wife Karen, who has been patient, understanding and a source of strength.
To my departed parents, Lew and Anna Lubynsky, who I know would be very pleased.
iii
Acknowledgements
During the course of the journey to complete a doctoral program I have received support and encouragement from a great number of colleagues, family and friends. This section provides me with an opportunity to extend my appreciation to them.
First of all, I would like to thank the hundreds of entrepreneurs who have enrolled in the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS), especially those that agreed to become participants in this study. They are the inspiration for this research. Although working with them is my job, it never feels like one. It is a pleasure to meet with them and watching them develop is an intensely rewarding experience. I must also thank the many VMS volunteer mentors who share their experience and wisdom with the ventures. I have learned much from them.
I must particularly recognize my colleagues on the staff of VMS: Sherwin Greenblatt, Alec Dingee, Roberta McCarthy, Louis Goldish, Liz Wright, Kathy Briand, Jerome Smith, Michael Foster, and Maryglenn Vincennes. They have been extremely supportive and flexible throughout this research process. They have listened uncomplainingly for a long time as my ideas and analysis evolved, and provided thoughtful and valuable comments.
I am especially grateful for the sage advice over many years that I have received from Professor Ed Roberts of MIT. Ed provided me with the opportunity to first come to MIT as a student years ago and since then has always found the time to talk with me. Without his encouragement, I would probably not have pursued this doctoral program and he provided valuable counsel as my research progressed.
I would also like to extend my appreciation to my advisors Dr. Tom Mierzwa and Dr. Hasan Sayani who patiently provided the necessary guidance and advice that enabled me to complete the research and the dissertation. iv
I am particularly grateful to a number of individuals who read portions of this document or devoted the time to sit through detailed presentations of the material. My work benefited significantly from their detailed and thoughtful feedback. They are: Tom Kalil, Paul Keel, Peter Miller, Lesa Mitchell, Yasuyuki Motoyama, Ken Nisbet, Erwin “Pete” Peters, Ed Roberts, Pian Shu, Leon Sandler, Dane Stangler, and Ben Vigoda.
Perhaps the most severely affected victims of my decision to undertake this effort are my family, especially my wife Karen. I often had to excuse myself from family activities in order to work on my studies. The work has been far more challenging, time-consuming and of far greater duration than I ever anticipated.
v
Table of Contents
Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ ix
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ x
List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................... xi
Chapter 1: Introduction and Research Problem .............................................................................. 1
Topic Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1
Background and Context............................................................................................................. 2
University spinoffs .................................................................................................................. 2
Scientists creating spinoffs ..................................................................................................... 4
Nascent entrepreneurs in general entrepreneurship literature ................................................. 5
Science-based nascent ventures are different ......................................................................... 6
Gaps in the literature ............................................................................................................... 6
Problem Statement ...................................................................................................................... 8
Statement of Purpose and Research Question ............................................................................ 9
Significance of the Study ............................................................................................................ 9
Nascent academic entrepreneurs ............................................................................................. 9
Policy makers ........................................................................................................................ 10
Scholars ................................................................................................................................ 10
Scope of Research ..................................................................................................................... 11
Delimitations and scope ........................................................................................................ 11
Assumptions .......................................................................................................................... 12
The researcher ....................................................................................................................... 13
Limitations ............................................................................................................................ 13
Discussion of Key Terms .......................................................................................................... 14
Organization of the Dissertation ............................................................................................... 15
Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................................ 17
Chapter Plan .............................................................................................................................. 19
Search Process .......................................................................................................................... 20
Innovation ................................................................................................................................ 20
Importance of innovation ...................................................................................................... 21
What is innovation ................................................................................................................ 23
Technological innovation in this study ................................................................................. 24
The long nose of innovation ................................................................................................. 25
Section summary ................................................................................................................... 26
Role of the University in Innovation ........................................................................................ 30
A unique role......................................................................................................................... 30
Universities and industry ...................................................................................................... 33
Pathways for knowledge dissemination ................................................................................ 38
Innovation systems................................................................................................................ 39
Impact of Bayh- Dole Act ..................................................................................................... 41
Section summary ................................................................................................................... 42 vi
University Spinoffs (USOs) ...................................................................................................... 42
The numbers on USOs .......................................................................................................... 44
Defining USOs ...................................................................................................................... 45
Types of USOs ...................................................................................................................... 47
Early foundations of USO research ...................................................................................... 48
Institutional-level empirical research .................................................................................... 49
Empirical research centered on TTO role ............................................................................. 51
Empirical research at level of the USO................................................................................. 52
USO process research ........................................................................................................... 55
Section summary ................................................................................................................... 57
Entrepreneurship ....................................................................................................................... 57
Defining entrepreneurship and major themes ....................................................................... 58
Entrepreneurial opportunities................................................................................................ 59
Creating new organizations................................................................................................... 63
Individuals............................................................................................................................ 67
Section summary ................................................................................................................... 72
Nascent Academic Entrepreneurs ............................................................................................. 73
Process studies of NAEs ....................................................................................................... 73
NAE and opportunity identification...................................................................................... 82
NAEs and new organizations ................................................................................................ 83
Individuals as NAEs ............................................................................................................. 86
Who is the NAE .................................................................................................................... 89
Why nascent academic ventures are different ...................................................................... 91
Discussion of Interpretive Propositions Derived From the Literature ...................................... 95
Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 100
Chapter 3: Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................. 102
Description of the Conceptual Framework Elements ............................................................. 103
Time ................................................................................................................................... 103
Process ............................................................................................................................... 104
NAE evolution and challenge areas .................................................................................... 104
The relationships of time, process, and NAE evolution ..................................................... 105
Focal points ......................................................................................................................... 107
Initial Constructs ..................................................................................................................... 108
Chapter Summary ................................................................................................................... 110
Chapter 4: Research Method ....................................................................................................... 111
Rationale for a Qualitative Research Approach ...................................................................... 111
Method and Design Rationale ................................................................................................. 113
Research Sample ..................................................................................................................... 116
Information needed for the study ........................................................................................ 118
Research Design Overview ..................................................................................................... 119
Literature review ................................................................................................................. 119
Research question ............................................................................................................... 121
Conceptual framework and a priori constructs ................................................................... 121
Identification of potential case pool .................................................................................... 122
Instrumentation ................................................................................................................... 123
Data Collection Methods ........................................................................................................ 124 vii
Interviews ............................................................................................................................ 124
Archival data ....................................................................................................................... 125
Case study protocol ............................................................................................................. 126
Findings: Methods for Data Analysis and Synthesis .............................................................. 131
Within case analysis ............................................................................................................ 132
Cross-case analysis ............................................................................................................. 132
Hypotheses shaping ............................................................................................................ 133
Enfolding the literature ....................................................................................................... 133
Reaching closure ................................................................................................................. 134
Facilitative leadership and organizational learning: How diminished structural autonomy reduces learning capability
No full textThis study evaluated the roles of facilitative leadership, cross-functional teams, and continuous environmental scanning in organizational learning. It also explored the relationship between facilitative and participative approaches to empower individual team members to make decisions that enhance and maximize the capacity of an organization to learn. In this study, the researcher found that facilitative skills and approaches are considered core competencies for leaders in organizational learning; yet, a leader’s capability to create a responsive and adaptable organization can be inhibited by the organization’s diminishing autonomy.
Organizational learning capability was assessed by comparing two groups of governmental agencies. One was led by facilitative leaders with a flexible organizational structure. The other organization was less flexible because of the need to comply with certain requirements. Three hypotheses guided the research. One hypothesis tested whether the styles of leaders in each organization supported the core beliefs of a facilitative leader. A second hypothesis tested whether leadership skills and autonomous team structure are essential for team learning and effectiveness in knowledge creation. A
third hypothesis tested whether the issue of accountability affected organizational learning.
Results of a causal comparative analysis revealed that the two organizations were divergent in their learning capabilities. In one finding, it was ascertained that the group led by facilitative leadership scored highest in all core beliefs of facilitation, except in development. This finding suggested that the absence of a communication mechanism was the cause of the low score in creativity and development for the group led by facilitative leadership. In a second finding, it was ascertained that the need for compliance with certain requirements was a crucial obstacle to organizational learning because it had a direct negative effect on the facilitative capability of a leader. In a third finding, it was noted that an unfettered facilitative approach generates internal commitment; this result implied that accountability could best be achieved through horizontal organizational structure supported by team members.Abstract
Title of Dissertation: Facilitative Leadership and Organizational Learning: How Diminished Structural Autonomy Reduces Learning Capability
Idris M. Said
Doctor of Management
Dissertation Directed by: Dr. Thomas Mierzwa
Dr. Kimberly Kelley
Graduate School of Management & Technology
University of Maryland University College
This study evaluated the roles of facilitative leadership, cross-functional teams, and continuous environmental scanning in organizational learning. It also explored the relationship between facilitative and participative approaches to empower individual team members to make decisions that enhance and maximize the capacity of an organization to learn. In this study, the researcher found that facilitative skills and approaches are considered core competencies for leaders in organizational learning; yet, a leader’s capability to create a responsive and adaptable organization can be inhibited by the organization’s diminishing autonomy.
Organizational learning capability was assessed by comparing two groups of governmental agencies. One was led by facilitative leaders with a flexible organizational structure. The other organization was less flexible because of the need to comply with certain requirements. Three hypotheses guided the research. One hypothesis tested whether the styles of leaders in each organization supported the core beliefs of a facilitative leader. A second hypothesis tested whether leadership skills and autonomous team structure are essential for team learning and effectiveness in knowledge creation. A third hypothesis tested whether the issue of accountability affected organizational learning.
Results of a causal comparative analysis revealed that the two organizations were divergent in their learning capabilities. In one finding, it was ascertained that the group led by facilitative leadership scored highest in all core beliefs of facilitation, except in development. This finding suggested that the absence of a communication mechanism was the cause of the low score in creativity and development for the group led by facilitative leadership. In a second finding, it was ascertained that the need for compliance with certain requirements was a crucial obstacle to organizational learning because it had a direct negative effect on the facilitative capability of a leader. In a third finding, it was noted that an unfettered facilitative approach generates internal commitment; this result implied that accountability could best be achieved through horizontal organizational structure supported by team members.
KEYWORDS: facilitative leadership, cross-functional teams, environmental scanning, and organizational learningFacilitative Leadership and Organizational Learning: How Diminished Structural Autonomy Reduces Learning Capability
Idris M. Said
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of the University of Maryland, University College,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Management
Advisory Committee:
Dr. Thomas Mierzwa
Dr. Kimberly Kelley
August 2012ii
Acknowledgment
I acknowledge with gratitude all those who supported, mentored, encouraged and provided me with valuable guidance and comments throughout my doctoral journey. First, I would like to state that I am greatly indebted to my dissertation chair, Dr. Thomas Mierzwa, for his generous time and continuous guidance. I would also like to express my thanks to dissertation committee members, Dr. Kimberly Kelley and Dr. John R. Glennie, for their valuable guidance and comments.
Many thanks are due to my cohorts for sharing their valuable research experiences, views, and ideas with me. I would also like to thank UMUC WebTycho staff for a continuous job well done. I also must thank my editor, Ms. Kathleen O’Connor, for her editing skills.
Enormous thanks go to my wife, Hayat Aberra, and my two daughters, Leena Said and Huda Said, for their patience, love, care and support over the doctoral program years. I must express my very special thanks to my wife for her supportive words when I felt frustrated and unproductive from lengthy research sessions late at night. Finally, I would like to thank my family members and friends for their patience and understanding of missed get-togethers, and occasions of sharing joys and sorrows. iii
Table of Contents
Abstract………….…………………………………………………………………………i
Acknowledgment……….…………………………………………………………………ii
List of Tables………….………………………………………………………………….vi
List of Figures……….……………………………………………………………………vi
List of Appendices……..…………………………………………………………………vi
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study…….………………………………………………..1
Background of the Problem………………………………………….……………1
Statement of the Problem……………..…………………………………………...4
Research Gap and Relevance…………….………………………………………10
Purpose of the Study …………………….………………………………………13
Significance of the Study……….………………………………………………..15
Research Questions…………….………………………………………………...17
Scope and Limitation of the Study……….………………………………………18
Discussion of Key Terms………………..……………………………………….19
Dissertation Chapters………………….…………………………………………21
Chapter 2: Review of the Literature………….…………………………………………..24
Introduction………………………….…………………………………………...24
Facilitative Leadership……………………………….…………………………..24
Skills and Techniques………………………….………………………...26
Empowerment………………………………….………………………...28
Communication………………………………….……………………….28
Proposition Development……………………….………………………..29
Cross-Functional Teams……………………………….………………………...30
Proposition Development..........................................................................33iv
Scanning and Interpretation………………………………………………….….34
Proposition Development…………………………………………..…….35
Organizational Learning………………………………………………..………..35
Internal Commitment…………………………………………….………39
Organizational Change………………………………………….………..41
Organizational Adaptation…………………………………….…………45
Proposition Development………………………………………….……..45
Summary………………………………………………………………….……..46
Chapter 3: Conceptual Framework………………………………………………….…...47
Introduction………………………………………………………………….…...47
Facilitative Leadership………………………………………………………..….47
Cross-Functional Team……………………………………………………..……49
Environmental Scanning………………………………………………….……...51
Organizational Learning………………………………………………….……...53
Conceptual Framework………………………………………………….……….55
Hypotheses……………………………………………………………….………63
Chapter 4: Research Method…………………………………………………….……….72
Introduction……………………………………………………………………....72
Research Approach……………………………………………………………....72
Research Design…………………………………………………………….……81
Unit of Analysis…………………………………………………………….……86
Research Stages………………………………………………………….………87
Rationale for the Research Methodology………………………………….…….90
Data Collection…………………………………………………………….…….92
Validity and Reliability…………………………………………………….……97 v
Summary………………………………………………………………………....99
Chapter 5: Findings………………………………………………………………….….100
Introduction……………………………………………………………….…….100
Findings from Secondary Data…………………………………………….…...102
Summary of Supervisors’ Roles in Fed Govt. Agencies………….……102
National Partnership for Reinventing Govt…………………….………108
NASA……………………………………………………………..…….111
The Council for Excellence in Government…………………….……...115
Analysis, Results and Findings.…………………………………………….…..117
Comparison of Facilitative leaders.……………………………………….……117
Comparison of Organizational Learning Structure…………………….………130
Comparison of Accountability in Organizational Learning…………….………136
Analysis of the Findings.……………………………………………….………143
Revised Conceptual Framework……………………………………….……….146
Limitations of the Research…………………………………………….………147
Chapter 6: Implications and Recommendations……………………………….……….151
Introduction…………………………………………………………….……….151
Implications for Management Theory………………………………….………151
Facilitative Approaches………………………………………….……..152
Communication Infrastructure…………………………………….……154
Implications for Management Practice..…………………………………….….156
Recommendation for Future Research……………………………………….…159
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….…..161
References………………………………………………………………………….…...163 vi
List of Tables
1 .Characteristics of Organic versus Mechanistic Organizational Structures.…43
2 .Sources of Literature for Variables of related Hypothesis.………………….70
3 .Concepts and their Corresponding Theories………………………………...79
4 Data Coverage: Focus of Appendices………………………………………..93
5………….Demographics for Participants in the NPRG Survey ……..…...…………..104
6 .Frequency and Percentage of the NPRG Demographic Information .……..105
7 Regression (on NPR-program and Non-NPR program participants)..……..107
8 Summary of Adjusted R-squared, mean, & STDV of two groups..….…….108
9 Summary of 1994 NASA Survey (appendix 5) ……...…………………….114
10 Elements of Facilitative Leadership Core Beliefs of Facilitation.………….118
11 Facilitative Leadership Core Beliefs of Facilitation Analysis Table……….121
12 Facilitative Leadership Core Beliefs Analysis using NASA 1992 Data … ..124
13 Facilitative Leadership Core Beliefs Analysis using NPRG 1998 data…….126
14 Supporting Literature Table………………………………………………...131
15 Coefficients for Decision Making…………………………………………..132
16 Organic and Learning Organization - FAA Versus NASA…………...……133
List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual framework for organizational learning……………………..……58
Figure 2. Linking variables of leadership skills to measurement of skills…………..….69
Figure 3. Research design process....................................................................................83
Figure 4. Collected Data Analysis Approach..………………………………………….83
Figure 5. NASA Survey Chart…... …..………………………………………………..115
Figure 6: Revised Conceptual Framework..…..……………………………………….147vii
List of Appendices
1 Unstructured interview with CEO of CEG…………………………………180
2 NPRG Employee Survey Results..………………………………………….182
3 Summary of NPRG Survey Results..……………………………………….186
4 A Study on Facilitative Leadership...……………………………………….189
5 NASA Technical Memo (Survey).…………………………………………195
1
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Study
Background of the Problem
The researcher’s interest in the study stems from believing that facilitative leadership is most effective for continuous environmental scanning, which was premised on the notions that cross-functional teams are effective for continuous environmental scanning, and the facilitative leadership is most effective for cross-functional teams. From this premise, facilitative leadership is central to promoting continuous learning and constant change by nurturing commitments to environmental scanning and organizational learning through fostering teamwork and creating a climate of trust and collaboration for cross functional teams. Further, the rationale behind the researcher’s interest in the study is to examine the role of facilitative leadership in organizational learning and understand how collaborative approaches and shared decision making can help participants to make better decisions in the fast changing environment faced by today’s organizations.
The collaborative environment that facilitative leadership builds enables empowered individuals to respond quickly to a turbulent or fast changing environment. It also enhances the organizational ability to adapt to rapid environmental changes and address those changes. Sims (2002, p. 102) pointed out that in today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing environment, organizations should develop more facilitative approaches in order to survive and succeed in the new economy. Similarly, Bacharach (2006, p. 64) explained that when leaders respond to situations that demand fast reaction and adaptation, they resort to facilitative approaches to ensure rapid adaptation to sudden changes. Schuman (2006) wrote that a facilitative approach results in “(1) increased quality of decisions or results, (2) increased commitment to 2
implementing the results, (3) reduced time for effective implementation, (4) improved working relationships, (5) increased organizational learning, and (6) enhanced personal satisfaction” (p. 281). Accordingly, situations of ambiguity, uncertainty, turbulence, and chaos that require continuous environmental scanning can be managed effectively through teamwork and collaborative approaches of a facilitative leadership style.
The traditional or hierarchal decision making is too slow for today’s rapidly changing organizational environment. On the one hand, rapid environmental changes necessitate not only rapid responses, but also open communication that enables fast dissemination of lessons learned from an experience. On the other hand, effective and timely decision making, when supported by a leader’s participative and facilitative approaches, enables employees to become part of the shared knowledge. Moreover, employees develop their talents and capabilities to participate effectively in ongoing changes and improvements.
Such organizational changes are not possible without the leader’s commitment. A human resource department draws its effectiveness from the leader’s commitment to the screening process in order to develop and retain the workforce; therefore, it is also reasonable to expect that organizational learning and unlearning is not possible without the support of the leader. Several studies have underscored the need for employee commitment, in addition to that of leaders, to enable an organization’s communication structure to facilitate fast dissemination of actionable information required to enhance teams engagement in quality analysis and suggestions for improvements.
However, with more literature searches and secondary data, it has become clear that the leader’s supportive attitudes and practices for stimulating a learning environment 3
cannot achieve its full potential without organizational support and commitment. Therefore, the challenges of creating and fostering a learning environment require a clear knowledge about organizational learning culture and creation of a learning environment that facilitates collaborative learning. In fact, advancing the frontier of knowledge through shared learning is the lifeblood of organizational changes that help an organization to adapt to changes and prepare for forthcoming uncertainty and turbulence. Klein (1989) explained that learning was a window into knowing whether an event was to be recognized or to be refused by taking a step further to prevent its future occurrence. Thus, the scanning system process with an effective communication structure for disseminating and analyzing data has the capability of developing knowledge sharing and learning from experiences and outcomes.
The use of environmental scanning systems, when supported by open communication, knowledge sharing, and participative decision making, motivates organizational members to perform at their best and respond to events and signals rapidly. Ayupp and Anandan (2008) explained that a learning organization encourages inputs of new knowledge and the continuous learning of the organization as a team. In the process, the organization develops open communication that enables it to learn from the outcomes of its actions. Lester and Parnell (2002) pointed out that organizations at their innovative stage appear to be more proactive and tolerant of higher risk than at their stable and declining stages. However, open communication and timely response are absent in the hierarchical model because its structure creates inflexibility such that any information must travel top-down to the scene of action, thereby, hampering the organization’s ability to respond quickly to urgent situations.4
According to Bens (2007), traditional leadership depends on command and control. In contrast, engaging leadership is known for being different because its leader–employee relationship depends on communication and trust. The effectiveness of communication depends on the ability to verify the validity of the inflowing information and its fast dissemination to avoid information accumulation or overload. Moreover, the engaging leader’s ability to vividly articulate a vision energizes each team member to act as a facilitator and owner of that vision.
Subramanian, Kumar, and Yauger (1994) confirmed that effective scanning systems require environmental monitoring procedures and the ability to disseminate the collected information to the appropriate user. This suggests that it is meaningless for an organization to gather information if it does not respond by taking action from those signals before they become real problems. Indeed, information overload cripples the ability of an organization to respond in time. Drawing on reviewed literature, Webber (2002) stated that the problems of “overload and competing priorities are typically found in cross-functional structures” when well-defined roles or directions for resolving role conflicts and ambiguities are lacking. Role and priority conflicts are common in changing conditions. However, a team’s openness to learning and its attitude toward accepting change initiatives help the members to adapt to changing conditions.
Statement of the Problem
When a collaborative leader stimulates and sustains continuous learning in an organization, a new problem dimension develops where the leader’s ability to promote change is dependent on the organization’s support and commitment. The organization’s commitment to its learning process and willingness to promote change comes in the form 5
of all types of resources that help to enhance its capacity to learn, adapt and transform itself constantly.
What is behind the organizational support for change? In order for an organization to increase its capacity to grow, it has to develop a capability to respond to rapidly changing environment. The internal and external environments play a role in influencing the organization’s commitment and support for continuous learning.
Although prior research has shown that facilitative leadership is effective in developing and maintaining high performance teams, this study seeks to address the following question: How does a facilitative leader motivate and empower cross-functional teams to create an environment of organizational learning using continuous environmental scanning, and how its effectiveness is measured? This question will help to address and look at the problem more deeply.
Focused learning in a learning organization is essential. Otherwise, the efforts made by an organization in creating unusable knowledge can be considered like pouring water into a sieve, expecting it to hold the water. According to experts, the real problem is not in creating a learning environment and acquiring knowledge, but in applying the knowledge to a real work environment. Gupta (2004) wrote, “The organization must track the effectiveness with which corporations change learning into knowledge that is valuable to customers” (p. 281). Similarly, Poole and Van De Ven (2004) wrote, “The learning organization approach focuses on building individual and/or group capacity to learn rather than on immediate business problems or opportunities, assuming that the former will naturally address the latter” (p. 93).6
A facilitative leader in today’s fast-changing environment specializes in the development of proactive communication and talent enhancement that help cross-functional teams become self-managed and empowered to make all decisions about major organizational changes. This style of leadership is known for building participants’ trust, enhancing collective ability through continuous scanning, and participative decision making leading to desired results. As a