1. Another year gone. At the beginning of the year, we were living in Fillmore, New York, in a house we had to buy because we had no other real choice. It was a nice house and a nice town. Our roosters were of course a nuisance to the neighbors. That made me uncomfortable. We did get COVID, but by then we'd had the vaccine.
I always felt in-between in New York. There was a heaviness there in my spirit. Once I stopped working at Houghton, we knew we would eventually either move back to Indiana or follow the Spirit somewhere else. We didn't broadcast that sense, of course. We let things play out until the right time. Angie enjoyed teaching at Houghton Academy, although they hadn't recovered from COVID enrollment crisis, which meant a lot of extra work for peanuts or nothing.
Indiana it was. We were grateful to find a nice house outside Marion where we have, for good or ill, multiplied chickens (and two ducks that were supposed to be females but aren't). The market was crazy when we bought, but at least we caught it before interest rates soared. I like the house, although I still remain separated from most of my books, my one materialism.
Angie had a bad accident at the end of August that could have killed her. We were quickly putting the chickens in the coop as a large wind storm approached, and a large tree branch fell on her head, flattening her. Fractured vertebrae, subdural hematoma. She is in the final stages of recovery, thank the Lord. She will hopefully return to work at least part-time this coming month.
My children are all on a good path. Stefanie gets married in April and has a good job working out of Miami. Stacy has emerged from COVID working at a fulfilling job in Chicago. After finishing at Purdue, Tom has decided to become an electrician and is studying in Chicago as well while working. Sophie has just finished one semester on a master's degree at the University of Edinburgh.
2. I have continued to work for Campus Edu this year. It has been a very stimulating year, working with a number of colleges to build next-generation digital courses aimed to appeal to digital natives. I've learned a lot. With the departure of Erin Crisp, I have slid into the chief academic role, a position very familiar to me from Wesley Seminary and IWU. Here is a reflection on three takeaways from this past year.
I often ask myself what I would do if I had the authority to lead a college. Right now I'm working on the service side. We're trying to help colleges from the outside. What would I do if I were in the driver's seat of a college? Here are some of my current thoughts for anyone to use:
Residentially, there has to be something different that draws students to your campus.
- For Christian colleges, ideology is usually somewhere in the mix. Maybe it's a denominational school. Maybe it's a conservative school. Maybe it's a "social justice" school. It's at least a consideration--what "idea flavor" does your school have?
- By the way, I don't think trying to suddenly switch your "brand" works very well. You just lose the group you have without necessarily gaining the group your BOT or alumni think you should be going after. Changing brand usually takes some time. On another note, your real brand is decided by outsiders. You can't just say, "We're this," if everyone thinks you're "that." Perception is reality when it comes to marketing.
- Location, location, location. Who or what is within 50 miles of your campus? This can be a problem for schools in the middle of nowhere. If you are in an area with significant economic challenges, leverage PELL.
- Tuition/room-board. Tuition resets have not historically done much good, but I still believe that most Christian colleges should only cost about $20,000 total to attend.
- For most colleges, a warm, fun atmosphere is ideal. What are your rooms like? What are your dorms like? What are your athletic facilities like? It is not uncommon for a third to half of a school's students to be involved in athletics of some sort. I get push back from faculty saying, "They should be here to study." But "shoulds" don't get students to a campus.
- A former employee at a college did a Minecraft version of the campus. I thought this was brilliant. What would have been even greater if the students designed and regularly played something like this so that the lines between the real campus and the imaginary one began to blur into each other.
- You should have clear paths to jobs. You need the staples--some relevant business program. Nursing has been drying up, but I still believe in it. You might want to specialize (e.g., rural nursing). Something relevant in computer science or cybersecurity. Partner with nearby industry in STEM.
- Don't let the curriculum get pruned down to those staples or the same blase core that everyone else has. What are your flavor majors? What's the unique thing that some niche knows you are the place to come for?
- Partner with other schools online (Campus is perfect for this) to retain the majors you think you need to close because they are financially unsustainable? Share faculty with partner schools for them.
- I believe in the Campus product. We have trailers for our "digital" courses. I love this. Our gold courses have short video overviews for every module. For my philosophy class, we did some quick videos to introduce hard readings.
- Eventually, there will be AI interactive components to online courses (and residential). I can see Oculus-like virtual learning in them as well. This is not that far off. Online courses will increasingly have a video game feel. Why not use students in a game design major to help design online course experiences? Virtual classroom learning experiences are sneaking up on us.
- The residential campus should become increasingly hybrid. I think it's at least worth exploring having some classrooms equipped for HyFlex classes, with some students participating live in the class at a distance. There are ways to keep it from being what it was during the COVID nightmare.
First, I self-published the second and third volumes of the systematic theology material I blogged several years ago. More of this to come.
- Christ and Salvation -- volume 2
- The Spirit and the Church -- the third volume
I would say I have the equivalent of one semester of Hebrew content in this course and will continue to add until it has a full year's worth of content. It teaches Hebrew while reading through the book of Jonah (Jonah 1-2 is complete). I think it will be a good course, with vocabulary as part of it. I'm going to charge $24 to have permanent access. Supplemental written material will eventually fill it out.
5. I stopped taking courses with Southern New Hampshire and Arizona State. Just don't have the bandwidth.
Thus concludes 2022. On to 2023.
3 comments:
When I think about identity, one school comes to mind, Asbury. My perception may not be universal or even widespread; I think of the (in my mind) deeply spiritual aspects of the schools history and how that has shaped the identity of Asbury U. (Of course, a recent book takes them to task for being less than fully egalitarian in practice, but I don’t know how much affect that might have in the future.)
I don’t know much about any other church schools except the schools I either attended or have visited. I wonder how you go about evaluating your identity, real or perceived, in order to help facilitated growth and recruitment? In my limited perspective few schools really “pop” in any distinct way. I think of Houghton; we had a staff person who graduated from there, and I know it’s cliche but I always think 1) 30 miles from the nearest sin, and 2) the “miracle” of river rock as a building material.
Again, I’m pretty ignorant about it all, and don’t hear gossip from anywhere these days, but I certainly get the impression that these are challenging days for many religious/denominational schools.
What is the recent book? For a very long time, Asbury's revival helped give it a unique identity. Houghton's stories are potentially a powerful identity tool, I agree.
Lisa Weaver Swartz: Stained Glass Ceilings. I haven't read it. Scot McKnight blogged about it.
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