http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/jim-yong-kim-world-bank_n_1375040.html
I was just listening to the news at the top of the hour. I was just minding my own business. I didn't expect to hear something directly affecting my job: Mr. Jim Yong Kim (as Vanguard refers to him) is Barack Obama's choice as nominee for president of the world bank.
He is a Harvard-trained physician with a Ph. D. in anthropology to go with it. Still the financial group Vanguard is placing him in a list as Mr. and comparing him to another candidate, Dr. Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The Korean-born Kim, 52, according toUSA Today represents a break from the financiers and bureaucrats who have run the World Bank. "For the first time in the bank's history, it will have a president whose life mission is what the bank aims for: the elimination of poverty . . . . It's a brash decision which breaks the standard practice of going with a banker or a political insider." Those words from a man some thought would be a good choice for the position, himself. Forbes magazine seemed to want him.
This frustrated me. Dr. Kim hasn't been responsive to my work recruiting him, but he was someone I felt we could talk to. His speeches online give me hope that this leader understands the value of liberal education. From the report, it sounded like I was the only one bothered by the appointment on the planet. Everybody seemed so happy and pleasantly surprised. It was a love fest of a news story.
Not surprisingly, Forbes found another one. Somebody at Harvard with economics degrees from BYU and MIT. Dr. Lant Pritchett. He calls the appointment "craven" and accuses the Obama Administration of caving to the left-wing. Dr. Lantt does claim credit for supporting Barack Obama's election in 2008...nothing in the article mentions his support in 2012.
I'd push a Utah/BYU/Romney connection here, but that would indicate "bias."
This is where you find pushback: people who have degrees in one thing and have held two (2) jobs. The point is specialization. It makes you an "expert." Unfortunately, the World Bank deals with complex issues, and such a specialized approach has produced failure in the past. Failure to the point where some have called for the U.S. to pull out of the World Bank, altogether.
Dr. Pritchett ends his Harvard biography with this:
[And nothing else. Some bios list non-family and non-professional accomplishments like climbing Everest or playing the cello making it seem as if all of the rest was just tossed off. I believe the only point of this is to make the rest of us, who collapse on the couch and watch Friends reruns at the end of the day, feel like slackers. I think getting the above done while being a husband and father to three children is plenty.]
I don't disagree. I just don't want someone like this running the World Bank.
Or Dartmouth.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Strategically Missing the Point
When people write blogs, they hope to get a half million hits and go viral. This has not been my experience. Nobody from one particular liberal arts college has read any of my previous posts. That's understood. My bad marketing. New plan for this LAC: put initial employment data online for everyone to see.
In May, the college will begin publishing employment and salary data for the class of 2011, building on it with every class. A spokeswoman for the Council of Independent Colleges said its president and researcher had never heard of a nonprofit, private college making such data public.Anderson knows the risks: "First, people might look at your data and not be impressed. The other risk, though, is that you have no data, and you're this black box where people dump $50,000 a year for four years."If I could pick one of those two risks, I'm going to take the first one."
I'm not naming the college, but suffice it to say the school just dropped from contention for any Henley family tuition money. It strikes me as a liberal arts college that has lost the key ideas behind the purpose of LAC's.
It all stems from the perspective of a father, I guess. What's the real purpose of higher education? Is it to prepare them for their first job at age 23...or their last job (not to mention all the ones in the middle)? This ignores what kind of mother, daughter, sister, voter, leader, and person I'm trying to create out of the 16-year-old clay I was given. It also ignores the 12-year-old son and my sick daughter of 11 years on the couch downstairs.
When I came out of college with a music education degree, my first job was at Dunn and Bradstreet (my student teaching supervising teacher got fired--bad taste in my mouth for teaching). I've held multiple jobs with multiple foci. My wife's job changes (significantly) every year...and she never leaves the elementary school she's working in. She's constantly getting more schooling to make up for her "focused" degree. My job at NITLE has shifted significantly in less than a year. My personality, a high school debate coach, other relationships, and sheer fear guide me through transitions.
If you have 4 years to prepare for a life that demands constant change, then where do you go? I think the answer is LACs, if you can afford them. This should be a priority. I think wedding rings should have precious metal in them, too. Meanwhile, a girl named Indigo prepares for her first on-campus concert in front of her peers--a chance to explore, become adventurous.
If we drop the purpose of higher education to job training for twenty-somethings, then LACs don't hold up. The smart move, then, becomes two years at a community college to get the "generals" out of the way. Then two years at a public in-state institution for the degree. Then the job. Done. Texas wants to offer degrees for $10,000, total. That's a savings of a quarter million if tuition rises. The Edpunks Guide...makes it even cheaper. Who needs integrated learning, undergraduate research, personal attention from PhD's, a community of learners...any of that? I used to have a button on my jacket that said, "I don't need college. Just the degree."
And that's what most 18-year-olds think. Except you have to work for another 45 years after college. And at age 25, you realize that you HATE accounting, or that you can't be a partner unless you can bring in business...and they fire you if you can't. Next thing you know, you're wearing a Statue of Liberty outfit, trying to get people to bring their income taxes to you instead of using Turbotax.
If only there were an integrated accounting-theatre course you had taken...
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