Adventures in Diversity

Some of my best friends are…. sorry, different article. I am a big fan of affirmative action and sensible diversity regulations, especially in public sector jobs, being a native Appalachian I can certainly understand how generations of cultural and economic disadvantage become a self-repeating cycle that only direct intervention of some form can remedy. Specifically, if appropriate precautions have been taken to make sure all communities are notified of an opportunity, and all applicants are equal in ability, then I see no harm in selecting an economically disadvantaged person over someone else that has had and will have other opportunities.

As a practical progressive, I appreciate the idea that in modern America it would make more sense to base affirmative action plans on socio-economic class rather than gender or ethnicity. It could reasonably be argued that poor whites from Mingo County are in as much need of assistance as poor blacks in Mississippi.

I recently sat on a search committee to hire a member of upper management for a large public university. The search committee itself was 50% women and included 2 of the highest ranking African – American administrators the university employed. Notices of the position were advertised in professional minority publications and a well – known search consultant firm was hired to make it a true, broad national search.

But after sifting through many “race-blind” resumes, conducting phone interviews with the semi-finalists, and spending large numbers of university work-hours on the process, the search was suspended indefinitely for only one sited reason: the emerging candidate pool was not diverse enough. That is, the top 2 to 4 candidates were all white men.

The real problem was that in my opinion there were at least two exceptional candidates who would have been a great asset to our institution – passed over because their skin or gender were not correct.

In my view, non-discrimination means making sure that everyone has a fair shot. It should not mean reserving spaces at the table for specific physical attributes based on non-professional criteria.

New Statewide Teaching Award

Rocket Boys teacher Freida J. Riley will have a new statewide award recognizing the best teacher in WV named for her.

Riley, a graduate of Concord University which already honors her with a scholarship, was indentified as key to the development of the "Rocket Boys" as a scientific endevor and to their future academic and professional careers.

"a new state award recognizing an outstanding West Virginia teacher will be launched beginning next year to coincide with the annual October Sky Festival in McDowell County, and the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik." Full Story.

A WV University Wins a National Title

While many of us, including myself, will be stapled to the couch watching WVU throtle the Ramblin' Wreck, here is a story about West Virginia's smallest public university winning a national title on an academic field of battle versus many larger schools:

"Concord University won the Phi Alpha Delta Prelaw Fraternity’s National Mock Trial Competition in Washington, D.C., on November 10 through the 12, defeating the University of Arizona in the finals. In addition, it won “Outstanding Defense Team” for the third year in a row. " Full Story

While smacking around a bunch of southern techies on the football field will make us all feel good, it is victories on the intelectual fields that provide one more stone in the foundation of a new West Virginia.

BTW, if WVU or Marshall had won, it would have been in every paper in the state. Because it happened at a small, academically focused public university (Division II on less) it barely made a blip.

As a professional academic, and former employee of said institution, I can say that Concord remains one of the best kept secrets of West Virginia.

West Virginia University for Sale

Fresh off the rumor mill, Take Me Home has learned from a source inside West Virginia University that the “fix” may already be in for the next President of WVU. The only problem is that he may not be qualified what so ever.

The insider claims that Milan Puskar, chemical tycoon and source of the largest single gift in WVU’s history ($20 million), is pushing to name the successor to David Hardesty who announced his intent to retire back in August.

According to the source, the unnamed candidate has no experience in academia or in the management of large institutions higher education.

While I have no problem with donors getting buildings, stadiums, scholarships or much anything else named after them, the idea that the Presidency of West Virginia’s flagship institution is up for sale is an indicator of a new level of corruption in West Virginia; and that is saying something.

West Virginia Education: Failing to Help the Most Needy

It was recently reported by a study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute's entitled "How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?" and based on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress scores and Advanced Placement testing data that West Virginia scored a “D-“ when it came to educating our poorest and most needy children.

This is of course absolutely no shock.

You can also bank on the idea that while hands will wring and protest lodged against the study itself, nothing will be done about it.

After all, West Virginia is a state that despite being the home of many poor rural student would be the first person in their family to go to college, designed a “scholarship” program to reward those who already had a great deal going for them.

I write of course of the PROMISE Scholarship program, a program to provide in state students, who reach a certain level on the various sections of the ACT or SAT test and leave high school with a 3.0 GPA in core academic subjects. The PROMISE was presented as a way to reward “good” students.

It is nothing but bunk that is little more than a back door tax cut for the upper middle class.

In his many comments on the subject, former Governor Bob Wise implied three major goals for the Promise Scholarship: Reward good students who “work hard and play by the rules,” reduce student loan burden, and keep West Virginia students in state after graduation.

Does the Promise reward good students? Both the ACT and College Board have issued statements against the use of the test as a benchmark for scholarship. While the tests are particularly good at the extremes of the scale, and therefore very useful tools in determining English and math class placement, the fact is that the scoring system can vary greatly with out any real measurable difference in academic ability. In fact, the SAT can vary as much as 125 points and the ACT by 1.43 to 2.20 points. While this variance represents no real difference in ability, it can result in a difference of thousands of dollars in scholarships. I believe that we do a disservice to both the ACT and the College Board and a greater disservice to the people of West Virginia when we misuse these tests for purposes for which they where not intended and are ill-suited. The Promise has operated as a poorly constructed fishing net, allowing many quality students to go unrewarded.

Does the Promise reduce loan debt? Certainly for those students who receive the scholarship, but that begs the question; what type of student receives the scholarship?
While there is some doubt about their ability to predict overall academic ability, the ACT and SAT can highlight certain educational disparities and level of preparedness. Both tests acknowledge that there is a direct correlation between family income and test score. Therefore it may seem that granting scholarships on the basis of these financial disparities, especially in a state so very poor, is a little misguided. For example, let us look at Webster County, which has the lowest per capita income in West Virginia, according the West Virginia Bureau of Employment Programs. Individuals there earn an average of $13,183 per year. (Per Capita Income or PCI) Only 9.67% of 2001 Webster County high school graduates were granted a Promise Scholarship. In the state’s wealthiest county, Kanawha ($27,508, PCI) 22.4% of the students received a Promise Scholarship. Do we really believe the kids in Charleston are twice as smart than those in Upper Glade? Or is it that those who live in the State Capitol have twice the advantages of those who live in a poor rural county? Instead of rewarding students for great achievement in a fair determination of relative ability and commitment, we are in effect punishing children for not being as fortunate as others.

We do know what type of student needs to take a loan; typically those from poor, working and lower middle-class families who are not poor enough to qualify for state and federal grants. According to Figure 1 these are the types of families least likely to receive a Promise Scholarship. We may have to wait a few more years for definitive proof, to determine the effect on loan burden, but there are doubts so long as those most likely to earn a scholarship are the ones least like to need a loan.

The new individual test score requirements for the Promise, which requires not only a 21 ACT composite, but also a 20 on all subject tests will exacerbate the problems of income disparity. With a statewide average of only a little over 16 on the Math section of the ACT it is unlikely that the promise will be in the grasp of the typical and otherwise deserving West Virginia high school senior. It cannot be ignored that even in the counties with the best Promise award rate, only about 1/3 are gaining any benefit from the program.

Finally a consideration for the third goal of the promise; to keep our students in West Virginia after graduation. For seven years I had the privilege of teaching about 50 of the state’s best and brightest high school students at a weeklong seminar. I always asked how many wished to stay in state after college and a strong majority always raises their hand. When I ask how think they must leave to find a career, another vast majority appears.

Our students do not want to leave this most beautiful and peaceful of states, but they often find themselves forced to do so. While other states have found success in retaining graduates by simply enticing them to remain in state for college, those states possessed a greater, more diverse economic base than West Virginia. I am afraid that due to the continued lack of professional and technology based jobs in West Virginia, the Promise will become a free job training program for our sister states.

While this is not the venue for discussing West Virginia’s economic development, it is a place to acknowledge that while the goals of the Promise are laudable, the only responsible question is if the current program matrix is actually doing the job we need it to do. I would argue that this is not the case and that the program, like most young efforts at social policy, needs considerable upgrading. In order to affect the former Governor’s goal in a more efficient and more socially just way, I would suggest the following: Make the Promise and West Virginia Higher Education Grant Program one unified program: the WV Promise Grant Program if you will.

Grant tuition and regular fees to any WV high school graduate with at least a 3.0 high school GPA in core courses, who then enrolls in a West Virginia college, university or community college. Private colleges would participate much as they do now. This will hopefully correct the problem of income disparity attached to the SAT and ACT.

If students stay in West Virginia up to two years after graduation (with an exemption for graduate or professional school) then the grant will remain just that. However if the student should leave the state in that time, the grant will become a loan to be repaid with a reasonable rate of interest. The combined, but not reduced budgets of the Promise and West Virginia Higher Education Grant Program would be used to make interest payments on the loans (as opposed to paying for the entire program “up front”) only having to pay full tuition and fees if the student completes all program requirements. Those that move out of state will continue to help their home state by repaying the program. The requirement to stay in state for two years will create a base population, educated and expectant, that will demand economic development and offer a ready made and talented workforce.

It should be stressed that these suggestions are just that. It would be the height of arrogance to assume that the answers to such a complicated issue lay with the confines of one mind, or even one isolated group. The best solutions are inspired by dynamic interactions of diverse stakeholders. I am firm in my conviction that should such a discussion take place that we can build a socially responsible program that will make college an option for all of our students and be a model for the rest of our country.

Sources:
SAT Factsheet, National Center for Fair and Open Testing, http://www.fairtest.org/facts/satfact.htm

ACT Factsheet, National Center for Fair and Open Testing, http://www.fairtest.org/facts/act.html

West Virginia County Profiles, WV Bureau of Employment Programs, http://www.state.wv.us/bep/lmi/cntyprof/

County Boards of Education Public School Headcount Enrollment by Grade 2000-01, West Virginia Department of Education, http://wvde.state.wv.us/

Total Awarded Applicants by County of High School and High School, 7/8/2002, WV Higher Education Policy Commission, http://www.hepc.wvnet.edu/

Go Fighting Miners! or Towards a better higher education system.

Having spent seven years in the West Virginia Higher Education system as an administrator, like any complex system I observed a lot of inefficiencies hampering the good intentions of many talented people. However, too often I noticed how the defense of petty bureaucratic kingdoms and sacred cows took precedence over serving the students and people of West Virginia.

Yet, instead of complaining about the waste and political motivations of the creation of a commission to manage the community college system independent of the 4-year university system, or the waste and social injustice of the PROMISE scholarship program, or the malignant effects of the yearly rotation of the bulls eye that the legislature turns on our four year institutions (Concord, Bluefield State, Glenville, WVU Tech, etc.) thus weakening them and creating self-fulfilling prophecies, let us talk of solutions.

First, there is the contention that WV, a state with challenging economic problems, has too many public colleges and universities. Let’s compare apples to apples. West Virginia has 13 significant public college or university campuses compared to 16 for Nebraska; a state with a similar though slightly smaller population, with one major difference; it does not have the mountains that make commuting to class such a problem in WV. Even North Dakota, with a third of WV’s population, has 11 public campuses. Clearly the number of public campuses in WV is not out of line with our peer states. The problem is not the number of campuses, but the number of redundant administrations and services that could be done with fewer people using modern technology.

Second there is an issue of location. Starting in the 1960’s WV underwent a massive shift in the economic importance and demographic profile of particular cities. If WV were establishing colleges today, cities like Beckley, Princeton, Parkersburg and Lewisburg would undoubtedly have universities of their own, while sleepy little towns such as Glenville and Athens (Concord University) and shrunken industrial shells such as Bluefield and Montgomery (WVU Tech) would have, at best, community colleges. The location of an institution impacts upon enrollment (and therefore institutional success) through both local populations that serve as a stable student base that require minimal recruiting and out-of-town students who are partially attracted to a campus by their ability to reach the campus and the level of social activity in the location. These are pressures that affect institutional viability, pressures that continue to threaten Glenville State, WVU Tech, Bluefield State and others.

So here are my radical proposals that will offend many due to personal investments, but as I now observe for outside the system, I think are necessary for WV to compete in the higher education market.

1. The State of West Virginia should buy Mountain State University and move WVU Tech to Beckley. It is ridiculous that Southern WV’s fastest growing and largest city does not have its own university. Yes, Concord and Bluefield other have made half-hearted gestures at having programs in Beckley, but a city of 50,000+ needs its own campus. That one of the other regional college or universities has not already done so is a grave strategic blunder. By moving to Beckley WVU Tech would triple its enrollment in a year. The WVU Tech Community College would continue to be based at the current campus in Montgomery.
2. Glenville State and West Liberty should become regional campuses of WVU. Given their proximity to Morgantown with the added kick that WVU affiliation would bring I see no reason why this should not be done. Data base and processing jobs could be trimmed along with white collar management positions.
3. Concord University, Bluefield State College, New River Community College, the Wyoming Campus of WV Southern Community College and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine should be merged into a University of Southern West Virginia. (USWV – the Fighting Miners!) Talk about killing a few sacred cows. However, if these southern institutions wish to continue to prosper and maintain a political balance within the state with the two other university systems, unity is the only long-term solution. As well, money can be saved by eliminating duplicate positions and visibility can be raised by affording Division I / IA sports programs (Go Fighting Miners!).
4. All public universities should be required to offer at least one complete degree online in order to maintain their university status, with new degrees to be added every two years for 10 years. Faculty and misguided administrations are currently blocking the delivery of such innovative techniques while expensive for-profit and desperate private institutions are eagerly filling the gap. (One university leader in WV remarked to me that they didn’t believe that online education was necessarily viable and wanted to see proof. Here you are.)
5. The data processing and record keeping for all universities and colleges not part of the 3 major universities (I’m including USWV) should be unified into one statewide processing center, eliminating jobs that unnecessarily duplicate work.
6. It is extremely important to note that while this is partially a cost saving measure in the long-run, those displaced by the lost of positions must not be abandoned. Those without college degrees should be offered a full PROMISE scholarship for 4 years and those with bachelor degrees should be given 36 free credit hours in a graduate program at any state institution.
7. Shepherd University should be given the freedom to exploit their geographic position by offering in-state tuition to Maryland and Northern VA students.

I don’t pretend to know everything, but these ideas would but WV high education on a much firmer footing and make it far more competitive.

Go Fightin’ Miners!