Union for Adjuncts?

I had an idea for some entrepreneur.  What if there were an organization for adjuncts that coordinated between universities and the massive adjunct work force right now?  Here are some potential aspects to such an organization:

• Maintained evaluative information on adjuncts--teaching evaluations, areas of greater or lesser expertise, past courses taught etc., belief/philosophy compatibility information
• Provided teacher training to adjuncts (online/onsite, various online platforms), information on various universities and their beliefs/philosophies (what they're looking for)
• Provided health care/retirement options for adjuncts
• Universities would have to pay a slightly higher rate than normal for the use of this adjunct pool, who would presumably be a cut above random adjuncts, more dependable, etc. ($1000 a credit hour?).  
• Presumably the vast majority of the teaching would be online
• Part of the funding for the organization might come from endowment, grants, etc. This endowment might pay the salaries of a small infrastructure while also supplementing pay per course.
• 8-10 courses a year might be considered a maximum load, taught throughout 12 months.

The goal would be to provide at least the possibility of a $40,000 a year option for a quality adjunct with health care.  I wonder if someone will do this...

Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Since Stephen Covey died this week (from injuries sustained in a bike accident), I thought I'd finally pick up the book that's been sitting on my desk waiting to be read for well over a year now: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  After thumbing through it I can see what an impact this book has had on American business culture, not least including the church business. I can hear the presentations and PowerPoints of countless mediocre copyists, throwing around words like "paradigm" and flashing the picture of the beauty/hag to talk about self-perception (now I know where that picture came from).

But it does seem a quite remarkable book.  I didn't realize that I had already read it... in the language of American culture.

1. Be proactive.
How many times have I heard this sentiment.  "We can see where this is headed.  We need to be proactive."  I can think of leaders at IWU who've used this principle and forestalled trends that hadn't even gained steam.  And I can think of crises where leaders ignored impending data they were warned about years in advance to no avail.

2. Begin with the end in mind.
Mind you, this book is full of psycho-babble of a sort.  It's not too bad (although the animated movie Hoodwinked came to mind where the evil bunny has written a Personal Mission Statement).  But this principle is now the key to good education practice.  A good educational system is one that is "outcomes driven."  You know exactly what you want the student to know when a course, degree, or program is over and you design things with that goal in mind.

3. Put first things first.
I smiled when I saw this.  Wasn't this a motto at IWU before World Changers?  If so, then I have no doubt that then President Barnes or the board got the motto from this book. It's intuitive for some.  Very difficult for others.

This is where the "4 Quadrant" model comes from that I learned from Russ Gunsalus and have used to frame my own activities as an administrator.  Quadrant I activities are pressing and important.  They inevitably get the focus of our attention.

Quadrant II activities are important, but not urgent.  These are the ones we can easily put off but can't afford to.  The danger is that Quadrant III activities will suck up all our time--things that are urgent but ultimately not too important.  This is the biggest problem area for so many of us.  In a business (or church), these are the tasks we need to delegate to others.

Quadrant IV activities are finally the not urgent and not important.  People we consider failures at life are those who spend all their time on these sorts of things (watching TV) when there are important Quadrant I and II things that need to be done.

Interlude
There's quite a nice list in between Habit 3 and 4.  Covey calls them six major deposits for building up your "emotional bank account" with others (a cheesy way of talking about your trust level with others).

• Understand where other people are coming from.
• Attend to the little things.
• Keeping commitments
• Clarifying expectations
• Showing personal integrity.
• Apologizing when you make a withdrawal from the "emotional bank account."
• Unconditional love.

4. Win-Win
I immediately thought of the movie, Letters to Juliet when I saw this phrase.  It's another phrase tossed about in pop culture.  In Letters, the fiance keeps doing selfish things that push his bride-to-be away.  He calls it a "win-win" for both of them, but really it is always a "win-lose" for him.

Lose-Lose is pretty much how Congress has been operating of late.  If both sides have a win-lose mentality, then usually both will lose.

5. Understand first, then be understood.
This is common sense relational advice.  "Diagnose before you prescribe," which amounts to the advice not to jump to conclusions.  Listen before you leap.

6. Synergize
Another word that has trickled throughout American entrepreneurial culture.  "Look for synergies."  It's looking for common energies heading the same direction independently and then hooking the two together to see what happens.

7. Sharpen the saw.
The final habit is about renewing yourself as a person. Paying attention to your body, your soul, your mind.

Great book!

Schenck University

I have an idea for this summer I thought I would share and get input from the great cloud (i.e., you, whoever might be reading this). Here's the essence:

Hebrews 
1. Using some medium (Google Hangouts, Vimeo, etc...), I would record a programmed series of lectures on Hebrews over the course of the summer, probably two a week.  It would be a kind of video commentary that could be packaged and sold as a DVD at the end, maybe with some edited version of the "Explanatory Notes" I've done in the past.

2. I would roll these out in conjunction with some chat or interaction time, perhaps on this blog, perhaps on Facebook.

3. I would store them on a site I have called "cafetutor.com," which I just noticed is down for some reason.  The videos and explanatory notes would be free (but of course I'd put up a Pay Pal link on the side just in case someone wanted to waste their money ;-).

4. I would also offer a sample undergraduate and graduate syllabus for what a Hebrews course might look like.  For some appropriate fee (significantly less than taking a course somewhere), if a person wanted actually to produce the papers and artifacts from these syllabi (and including a final, recorded interaction between me and the person), a person would have the kind of artifacts that could be brought to an accredited institution and evaluated for "credit by assessment."  In other words, a person might be able to get undergraduate or graduate credit if they presented the artifacts to a college or seminary, including my feedback and recorded final interview.  This is an extension of the open course ware out there right now.

Independent Studies
The same thing I've suggested above for Hebrews could, in theory, be done with anything I would be qualified to supervise given my academic credentials.  I can't promise what an academic institution would accept for credit by assessment, but most institutions have this possibility tucked away in their catalogs.  If a person wanted to "do a course" with me, we could design one together for an appropriate amount and produce artifacts for that university or seminary.  We might even clear it with the university or seminary ahead of time.

Classic Book Reviews
If I might do the above in the summers, throughout the year I might video or audio record book reviews of classics, chapter by chapter.  For example, I'm looking at Varieties of Religious Experience and The Origin of Species right now in conjunction with more contemporary things I'm

Any feedback or suggestions?

Educational Non-Profit for 2/3 World?

I was thinking about Sierra Leone this week. I spent two months there in the winter of 1997, just before all hell broke loose there in the civil war. My stay there was very meaningful to me, although vastly insignificant. What followed for them was another instance of the evil in the world, another glimpse of the face of holocausts and Evil written large. "There is none righteous, no not one" is a verse inspired by such moments in history.

In my own mind, the disparity between my uncomfortable two months as an American Westerner and the scourge that followed is sobering. I cannot quite fathom the depth of the contrast. When I picture the gaze of the current national leader, Usman Forna, I picture a man who understands the evil in the world and who surely cannot look at individuals like me without a temptation to disdain at the inequity of it all. I have the time to quibble over the interpretation of arcane passages in the Bible. He has tried to negotiate the peaceful reintegration of child murders into villages where they chopped off limbs and disemboweled pregnant women.

The consequences of the civil war there linger on and now threaten more long term issues. Think of the children who lost 10 years of education who are now in their twenties. Think of the structures of education that still do not function as they once did.

I'm sure there are organizations that are already doing education as a form of foreign aid. I am vastly ignorant of the development field. But my strong suspicion is that the vast majority of aid that is in action with regard to the two-thirds world targets the lowest levels of Maslow's hierarchy--food, clothing, and health. These are Quadrant I concerns--the immediate and the significant.

Are there non-profits whose primary targets are more Quadrant II--the very significant but not as urgent? I count on you all to tell me. Of course the usual pattern is to send individuals overseas to do this sort of thing, "missionaries" and such. I strongly believe that those who go to aid with food, clothing, and medicine usually do some double duty here.

But I am an educator. Education is my greater field of expertise. Are there organizations that focus especially on long term education of those who do not have access to learning? Education is potentially something that can fend off future terrorism and build toward a more harmonious world. Certainly its absence helps catalyse them.

I'm thinking about equipping those in these locations, not about sending Westerners there. I've had the usual strange thoughts--could there be a special kind of "bare minimum" desktop designed whose sole purpose is the educational needs of students in a particular region. What distant education is appropriate might then be facilitated by local individuals. These wouldn't be too fancy and would be focused enough to where there would be less temptation to steal them--or such that someone who took them and used them would be benefited.

Idle thoughts on a Tuesday morning...

Freelance Scholars?

The Wesleyan Church and Indiana Wesleyan University have found a way to tame my blog... they made me Dean of a seminary :-) You might have noticed not only that my blog posts are fewer but that they are probably less hard hitting. I am still writing, but my brain is stretched pretty thin.

I don't regret it. The seminary we've founded will minister to an awful lot of people who otherwise would not have gone to seminary. I believe we will raise the level of competency and depth among ministers not only of my own denomination, but of a host of denominations that do not require seminary. And we are piloting possible paths for the future of ministerial education. It's a good thing.

I did have an idea, not for me, not for now. You all may know that we are in a bit of a conundrum when it comes to musicians and writers. The internet has made so much available for free that, at some point, there will be no motivation for musicians to write songs or for writers to write. For example, the IWU book store rents my New Testament Survey to students. That means I get nothing from the 100s of on campus students who use my book.

Why blog then? Why read books and put my summaries out here for free? Why share my thoughts, especially the ones that reflect competencies I have that most of my readers would not (like my ability to read Greek and Hebrew)?

I think we bloggers do it because we love ideas and we like talking. An awful lot of us would teach for free as long as our living expenses are covered.

Well, here's the idea. What if some bloggers went freelance? For a dollar every 10 pages we'll summarize x book for you. For 300 words of blog explanation, we'll describe "game theory" for you or "Schroedinger's equation." A certain amount to post it publically; maybe double to send it to you privately.

We know of freelance writers for public institutions. What about freelance scholars for the public in general? You want to know something? We'll study it for you and report back.

Not me, not now... but an idea.

Entrepeneurian Starters: Math Gaming

Man, it's going to be fun to learn math and science in the future, and the nation that gets to it first will rule the world. I can see it. I can imagine it. I just don't have the technical know how to write the games.

If you could take my son's love of Wii and Playstation and convert it into a game that required him to learn how to repair an X-wing fighter plane, to calculate what angle he had to set the artillery at to hit a target... if there were a game that involved repairing DNA or atoms... or that helped him bond molecules together or make the right antiviral to kill some microbe... it might not be as fun as light saber dualing but it could be a lot more fun than any chemistry or physics or calc class the world has ever seen.

It can be done in a way that is fun for those who have even a basic capacity for this sort of thing... And here let me mock those who make fun of people who like these sorts of things. There's nothing wrong with them as long as they, like you, do their chores and share their toys. You just may not be smart enough to experience these things as fun. It's about time to put in their place the "funists," the masses with fun prejudice who somehow have convinced themselves that most smart people are odd because they can to do things they can't. I'll let you think getting so drunk you can't walk straight is really funny if you'll allow that some people touch the universe with their minds... and you don't. Morons.

Such people aren't players in the future. They're takers, users, those that enjoy the inventions of the people they made fun of in high school. I'm talking about the future here and those who will make it. "Gaming is the future of education," and those who succeed will rule the world.