Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

In my previous post I wrote about one of the two most useful and important pieces of wisdom that had ever been shared with me. The title of this post represents the other. 

It is a quotation from Voltaire translated as "The perfect is the enemy of the good", or "The best is the enemy of the good." It came to me stated a little differently, as an admonition: "Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good." That is how I remember it, and strive to put it into practice. President Geoff Gamble of Montana State University shared it with me in this form, shortly after he arrived from the University of Vermont in 2001. I was the interim provost at the time. Geoff was a terrific mentor and the eight years we worked together were very productive and even fun (most of the time). 

Geoff’s point, and presumably Voltaire’s, was that a single-minded insistence on perfection (or on getting exactly what you define as a perfect outcome) may be (and frequently is) counter-productive. Perfection is nearly always unattainable. One can pitch a perfect game, or receive a perfect score, occasionally experience a “perfect day”, but that’s about it. Recognizing the wisdom of “never let the perfect be the enemy of the good” in no way precludes us from setting high goals and striving for excellence. In my experience, I have found this maxim to be consistently valuable in devising strategies to achieve ambitious goals, in implementing those strategies, and in assessing progress.

The central question then becomes: “Is this a step in the right direction?” Any particular outcome may fall well short of our ultimate goal, but if it has moved us forward along the path to achieving the goal, then we should recognize that progress and focus on planning and executing the next step that would advance us further.

The University of Rhode Island is just completing its 17^th Diversity Week, and our efforts towards building a diverse community are a timely example how “never let the perfect be the enemy of the good” can work effectively in practice. Our goal is to build a broadly diverse community where every member is welcomed, affirmed, respected, and supported. If we could achieve that for every member of our community every day, it would indeed be perfect, I think. We are far short of achieving such an outcome. It is useful to frequently remind ourselves that we have a lot more work to do – you can’t solve a problem until you admit it exists – and the Diversity Week program provided many such useful moments. But the speakers, panels, and performances also provided many, many examples of progress: of good things already achieved and of ambitious efforts to forge ahead towards our goal.

Thank you to all who planned and facilitated this year’s program, to all those who participated, and all those who support the University of Rhode Island’s efforts to build an inclusive, caring community.

The Importance of Risk

The University of Rhode Island and CVS/Caremark Corporation celebrated our long-standing partnership last week in the new College of Pharmacy building.  It was abundantly clear throughout the festivities that this has been an enormously productive and beneficial partnership for both institutions. 

Larry Merlo, the CEO of CVS/Caremark, spoke with pharmacy students during the morning. They were paying close attention, and one of Mr. Merlo’s points seemed especially well received.  He said, in essence, “do not fear failure”. In order to innovate we must, he pointed out, accept the risk that not everything we attempt will succeed.  Exactly right. Success, and high levels of performance, are not equivalent to, and do not require, perfection. Perfection is an unattainable goal, but success and leadership are not.  CVS/Caremark has distinguished itself both by its success and its leadership within the industry.  There can be little doubt that these achievements are related to the company’s willingness to accept the risks of occasional failure in order to be consistently innovative.

I learned a very similar lesson in a different way.  As a first-year graduate student in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, I was privileged to join the research laboratory of Professor Harry B. Gray – one of America’s (and the world’s) most distinguished researchers in chemistry.  Harry had (and has) a global reputation for being one of the most brilliant and innovative research scientists in the field of chemistry.  As a 22 year-old I was certainly aware of his success and leadership, but only later when I was starting my own career did I fully realize what an honor it was to work with Harry. 

Needless to say, the standards and expectations in Harry’s lab were extremely high, and largely self-imposed by the members of his research group. Harry had set an extremely high standard for himself and all of us wanted our work to be as close to that standard as we could possibly achieve.  So I was very pleased when one of my first projects went very well and led in a relatively short time to publication in the Journal of the American Chemical Society – one of the world’s most prestigious journals for research in chemistry.  Moreover, it was published as a “communication” – a mode reserved for work deemed especially interesting and timely.  It was my first scientific paper.

The paper did receive a fair amount of attention, which, of course, made me even happier.  One reason for the attention was that the experiments had been carried out on a unique instrument (really, there was only one such instrument in the world at the time, if I remember correctly) that existed in the Physics Department at the University of Rome.  The instrument in Rome (a magnetometer, i.e. it measures magnetism) was based on one invented in the Physics Department at Caltech and which utilized a SQUID – not calamari but a “superconducting quantum interference device”. This sounds like something Sheldon would say on the Big Bang Theory, but I assure you it’s quite real.  

Several months after the paper appeared we got a call from a new company in San Diego that had built a SQUID-based magnetometer and wanted us to come down and test it. So, I prepared some new samples, drove from Pasadena to San Diego (a distance considered minor in CA and nearly impossible to Rhode Islanders), met my new colleagues, and started work. 36 hours later I knew, without any doubt whatsoever, that the results in my first paper were simply, and completely, wrong.  It was a very long drive back.

I was embarrassed: my first published work was wrong and worse, I had let down my mentor and PhD advisor.  I needed to tell Harry as soon as possible so I just walked into his office (his door was nearly always open) showed him the new data, and summarized the analysis. I started to apologize; he stopped me mid-way through. “Come with me”, he said. He walked into his library, opened a file cabinet, and pulled out a reprint of an early paper of his.  “See this”, he said, “it’s one of my first papers as an assistant professor at Columbia. And it’s wrong. Worse, it was one of my scientific competitors who demonstrated that fact.” 

Then Harry said, “Dave, you’ll never do anything important if you’re not willing to be wrong.”  I’ve never forgotten that. It was, and still is, the most valuable piece of wisdom that Harry ever shared with me – and I cannot calculate the value of all the knowledge and wisdom he provided.

I think it is simply true that unless you are willing to accept the risk of being wrong, the risk of failure, you are very unlikely to do anything innovative or important.  This is true, I believe, for individuals as well as organizations.  We should always strive for excellence, but if perfection is the goal, then neither perfection nor excellence will be achieved.  So thank you Harry, and thank you, Larry, for sharing that wisdom in 1977 and in 2013. 

Moving In

Actually, we didn’t. Lynn and I, along with Rhody and Lily (our son’s dog on temporary assignment to URI) live here. But about 6,000 students did move in over Labor Day weekend. Advanced students, staff, faculty, deans and administrators very much enjoyed welcoming the new students to the campus and assisting them in settling in. Thanks to all who helped make our annual “move-in” weekend such a tremendous success.

Move-in weekend is more than welcoming new students to the campus, however.  It is about welcoming new students to the University of Rhode Island community.  The URI community is an increasingly diverse one (for example, 22% of the entering class self-identified as individuals of color, and 49 states and 27 nations were represented). It is a community that is vibrant, engaged, and strives to be welcoming and supportive of all its members.  It is a community that spans the entire university, from Athletics to WRIU, and is characterized by the following statement regarding its “cornerstones”, see (uri.edu/provost/documents/cornerstones.pdf):

The University of Rhode Island is a principled community guided by values. As members of this community, we subscribe to the following principles, which form the foundation of our endeavors.

We pursue knowledge with honesty, integrity and courage.

We promote independent choice, intellectual curiosity, open-mindedness and free expression.

We respect the rights and dignity of each individual and group. We reject prejudice and intolerance, and we work to understand differences.

We accept personal responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

We actively cooperate to improve the University, the state of Rhode Island, and the global community beyond our borders.

We strive to be a community where the environment and property are treated respectfully.

We seek to create and maintain an environment conducive to personal health and wellness.

We work to develop skills that promote lifelong learning, leadership and service.

Welcome to the University of Rhode Island.

The Boy Scouts Have It Right

Opportunities generally seem to present themselves at inopportune times; challenges invariably do.  Challenges seek us out, but opportunities frequently have to be discovered and then pursued.  And we should not assume that we can always tell one from the other, at least initially.  Indeed, discerning the opportunities amidst the challenges may require substantial analysis, thought, and deliberation.  It seems to me that the best advice we can offer one another in times like these is simply: “be prepared.”

Obviously, being prepared means something different for a climbing or backpacking trip as compared to university operations.  One of the reasons I believe that shared governance is critical to the success of a university is that it is an essential factor in order to “be prepared.”  Shared governance assures that multiple minds, with diverse experience and expertise, and representing a variety of perspectives, will be involved in assessing the challenges and opportunities that arise.  What may appear to be insignificant or unimportant to a single individual or group, others may properly recognize as a serious threat or a significant new opportunity.  Moreover, broader participation assists in formulating the best institutional response.

Shared governance also fosters greater transparency and accountability.  In higher education, “accountability” is frequently invoked in the context of an institution’s external constituencies.  Accountability in this context is certainly essential. Equally important is the accountability of the many members of a university community to each other, which is aided by robust, collegial shared governance.  Mutual accountability creates the appropriate environment for consistent and sustained transparency. In turn, a commitment to accountability and transparency is central to the goal to “be prepared.”

However, for a university to thrive in the current climate of substantial and rapid change, it must be flexible, adaptable, and responsive – and this means that some of our current practices in shared governance must also adapt.  In short, shared governance needs to become more flexible and responsive; we need to make decisions more quickly and without regard to the academic calendar.   Given the magnitude of the issues we have successfully dealt with in the past, and the technologies now available, I am confident we can create a 21^st century version of shared governance that enables us to truly be prepared to deal with all the challenges and opportunities that may come our way.

The Real Issue Associated with MOOCs

As I observe, and occasionally read, the ever-escalating number of articles, polemics, assessments, testimonials, and critiques of MOOCs, I sometimes wonder: “what am I missing here?’  It seems to me that MOOCs are a 21^st century, university-level textbook.  Take a star professor (or at least a successful teacher), add state-of-the-art presentation and graphics, mix in a student guide with exercises/problems/study questions, include course and reference materials for instructors, build a marketing campaign, and in the 1990s you got a textbook. In 2013, a MOOC may result.  Both reflect the perspective and pedagogical approach of the author(s). Both may be used by thousands of students simultaneously, who may, or may not, interact very much with each other, or with the instructor for that matter. 

More importantly, in this context students largely split into two major groups.  I was able to learn a lot from textbooks or monographs. Most academics likely share that ability; it’s an attribute that helps us succeed over a lifetime in the academy. Most of the students I taught at Amherst College or Montana State University had difficulty learning material solely from a book, no matter how distinguished the author.  The early results on MOOCs appear to suggest a similar divide among students, based on actual completion rates.  MOOCs, like textbooks, will likely become a very useful tool for learning.  I am skeptical that MOOCs, by themselves, will be adequate for a majority of students to actually master material at the level required.  I also think the Provosts associated with the Committee on Institutional Collaboration (see the link below) did an excellent job outlining the advantages and issues associated with MOOCs and other online learning approaches.

But none of this gets at the real issue. My concern about the current debate regarding MOOCs is that it distracts us from the more important task of fundamentally remaking undergraduate education to meet the urgent challenges of the 21^st century.  Consider this: the vast majority of colleges and universities continue to structure education around an academic calendar originally designed to accommodate agriculture, and continue to use some version of an arbitrary credit system vaguely related to occupying a seat in a room for a specified period of time. Further, progress towards a degree is largely measured by the satisfactory accumulation of such credits within specified time periods. I would guess that most of us who have taught in universities have encountered students who could complete all the work associated with a 14-week semester course in 10 weeks, or even seven. We have likely also had students who probably could have succeeded in that same course if they had 15 weeks to do so.  In addition, our grading systems and standards are highly idiosyncratic, and comparisons among and between institutions are frequently fraught with difficulty. To be sure (and when done well and systematically), the definition of specific educational outcomes and the implementation of assessment strategies is an incremental improvement. 

We can do better, and we must.  The magnitude and complexity of the global challenges we face simply demand a more highly educated populace.  We must be able to improve access and student success without driving the cost of public education beyond the means of our average citizen.  To do this we must be serious about creating a 24/7 learning environment for students that takes full advantage of all the relevant and supportive technologies, enables students to learn at the rate best suited to them, continuously challenges students to excel, engages students in research, scholarship, and creative work, and provides opportunities for them to engage in solving real problems.  MOOCs may become a very valuable tool in this endeavor, but only that. 

(See: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/716121-cic-online-learning-collaboration-a-vision-and.html)

20,000 Voices and Fisher v. Texas

Once again, all higher education institutions, especially selective public universities, have been confronted by the continuing issues surrounding the role of diversity on our campuses.  It is certainly an American set of issues, but not uniquely so.  One of the outcomes of globalization and global mobility is that increasing diversity – religious, ethnic, racial, economic – is raising a host of questions, problems, and issues at colleges and universities across the world.  American higher education has been grappling with the questions, problems, and issues for decades, but with mixed success, as is evident from the recent Supreme Court decision.

I think one of the difficulties is that our focus on creating and accommodating diversity has generated suspicion among many Americans about our motives, and whether there is any underlying and principled rationale for building diversity, or even attending to it at all.  Most American colleges and universities believe that diversity is central and important. Judging by the briefs filed in this and other cases, many sectors of our society also believe that diversity is important, even critical.  The decision in Fisher v. Texas, and much of the accompanying commentary, suggests that we have not yet provided a compelling rationale for our convictions about the importance of diversity, at least to a sizable fraction of our fellow citizens and several members of the Supreme Court.  I think it is possible to do so.

At the University of Rhode Island, and at many other universities, two relatively recent forces influence our commitment to diversity: the burgeoning diversity of our own country, and the impact of the global economy and an increasingly globalized society.  It is an educational imperative that we prepare our students to thrive in contexts where they have to work effectively with people who do not look like they do, who do not share the same world view, assumptions, politics, economic status, religion, sexual orientation, or fundamental beliefs.  Our graduates must be able to find common ground and develop shared goals with an enormous variety of others.  The massive global challenges they will face cannot be solved or overcome by a single nation or group.  Truly, the security, prosperity, and health of our students will depend upon their success in living and working productively in a world and country where they are, in effect, a minority. 

Frequently, fractious and divisive forces in our society hinder our efforts to provide our students with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.  To mitigate these influences, I think it is critical to foster a community on campus where every member is valued, respected, welcomed, and affirmed.  We do not need to agree with one another, or even to have much in common, in order to create such a community. We have this in common – we all wish to be valued, respected, welcomed, and affirmed as a person.  One of the finest attributes of a residential campus is the possibility of creating such a community – a community that encompasses the students, faculty, and staff and extends throughout the dorms, dining facilities, libraries, gyms, classrooms, and offices of the university.  Creating such a community is part of the foundation for equity and justice, not just on the campus, but also in the societies in which we live and work.

As a step towards that goal, the University of Rhode Island, through the Office of Community, Equity, and Diversity (and co-sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs, the Office of the Provost, and the Office of the President) put together a continuing event termed “20,000 Voices”, to reflect the fact that URI is striving to build a community where all 20,000 members have a voice.  The exciting work begun in the daylong initial event continues through the work of discussion groups, committees, and organizations.  I have no doubt that these efforts will substantially assist URI in becoming the kind of community of which all 20,000 of us will feel proud.  (See uri.edu/diversity/voices and the recent edition of Quadangles uri.edu/quadangles for more information.)  Thanks very much to everyone who is participating. If you haven’t been involved so far, there are still many opportunities to make a difference.

The Work Is Its Own Reward

I have been working in higher education since 1978 – at Amherst College, Montana State University, and the University of Rhode Island. The current climate for higher education is the most challenging I have experienced or observed, especially for public colleges and universities. With public higher education caught between declining state support and escalating demands to restrain tuition increases, the financial climate is increasingly difficult. Expectations for access, accountability, and innovation are expanding for many private as well as public institutions.  The sustained budget impasse in Washington is taking a toll, constraining research funding at a time when the nation, and the entire world, needs America’s research universities to do more, not less.

These factors, and many more, contribute to a growing set of issues around adaptation, flexibility, and governance.  Governance questions associated with the role of shared governance on the campus, and the role of governing boards and government off the campus, have become especially pointed and problematic. In short, problems are multiplying, resources are diminishing, expectations are increasing, and stress is high.

So, why are so many people still interested in academic careers, especially on the faculty, and why do people with desirable options outside of academe choose to stay?

I like to read Yankee Magazine. Lynn indulges me by maintaining our subscription. Several months ago, Yankee ran a story on a person who trains border collies.  One of the memorable quotes about border collies was that, for them, “The work is its own reward.”  I believe that is true for many people – staff, faculty, and administrators – who devote their careers to higher education.  Simply stated: the work we do is very rewarding. Higher education makes a profound and extremely positive difference in the lives of people, in the societies in which they live, in understanding the universe, and in sustaining the hope that we can build a brighter, sustainable future.  The work we do is good work, in two common senses of the word: it is, in my judgment, far more frequently than not, of high quality, and it is virtuous. 

That’s good, because the work is not easy and the preparation required to carry it out can be lengthy and arduous, especially for faculty.  For many of our staff, the work can be physically or emotionally demanding, and the compensation relatively low.  Consequently, although it is true that “the work is its own reward”, that should not be the only reward.  Many full-time faculty at the University of Rhode Island are significantly less well compensated than their peers, and this problem needs to be urgently addressed.  The University also needs to improve the working conditions for part-time faculty and decrease its reliance on such appointments, in part by increasing the number of full-time and tenure-track appointments.  We need to increase the number and compensation of our staff in critical areas as well.  None of these steps will be easy and, given the constraints on tuition increases, will require increased support from the state of Rhode Island.  But it will certainly be rewarding if we succeed.

It is May and Commencement is approaching.  Commencement provides an excellent opportunity to celebrate the good work of the students, of the faculty, and of the entire university community.  It is a time of achievement, a time of promise, and a time of hope.  The celebrations of the students and their families remind all of us that the work we do has tremendous rewards.