04-neb-053 connwin05 cover · 05-neb-059 connsum05 front 7/11/05 3:01 pm page 1. many questions....

Inside: • How Arts and Cultural Resources Enrich New England• Bestselling Author Dan Pink on the Coming Right-Brain Economy• The Rev. Dr. Thomas Sullivan on Business Ethics• A Lay Leader Looks at Catholic Higher Education

CONNECTION

VOLUME XX

NUMBER 1

SUMMER 2005

THE JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION

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Volume XX, No. 1Summer 2005CONNECTION


C O V E R S T O R I E S

14 A Vocation of the ImaginationCreating the Creative CampusEllen McCulloch-Lovell

16 The Coming Right-Brain EconomyDaniel H. Pink Says the MFA is the New MBA

18 Art Transforms EducationA Boston Pilot School Puts Student Learning Center StageKatherine Sloan and Linda Nathan

21 Arts and the CityTapping the Creative Energy of Urban YouthsSusan Rodgerson and Blenda J. Wilson

23 Investing in FuturesLyme Academy Asserts the Primacy of “The Hand of the Artist” in a Culture that Is Becoming ElectronicHenry E. Putsch

24 Creative PlacesHow RISD Invigorates ProvidenceRoger Mandle

26 Museum QualityA New Museum and Recharged College Bring Creative Energy to North Adams, Mass.Mary Grant

C O M M E N T A R Y & A N A L Y S I S

29 Just Power?Teaching Business Ethics in a Time of Maximizing ReturnsThomas Sullivan

31 CalledA Lay Leader Looks at Catholic Higher EducationJames Mullen

D E P A R T M E N T S

5 Editor’s MemoArtists Only? John O. Harney

7 Short Courses

11 Message from the PresidentBest Practices in the Creative EconomyEvan S. Dobelle

33 ExcerptsSteven P. Lanza on Plumbing Connecticut’sBrain Drain

35 BooksDorm Warning The Naked Roommate reviewed byJudith B. Greiman

36 Data Connection

CONNECTION SUMMER 2005 3

Cover design by Stacy Kim. Cover and Cover Stories images include: photo of MassMOCA courtesy of ChristopherGillooly; photo of statuettes courtesy of Caroline KellySaganich; portrait courtesy of Timothy Harney; sunflower collage courtesy of William T. Harney; and painting of vasecourtesy of Judy Lam of Artists for Humanity.


The educational challenges facing New England require a healthy exchange of

information and ideas. To help promote this dialogue, the Nellie Mae Education

Foundation is pleased to announce our new series of online commentaries: Viewpoints.

Viewpoints brings together educators, non-profit and business leaders, government

officials, and civic-minded citizens as they share their insights in an effort to

enhance the education discussion in New England.

Viewpoints can now be found at www.edviewpoints.org A permanent link to

Viewpoints, as well as information on the Nellie Mae Education Foundation,

can be found at www.nmefdn.org

1250 Hancock Street, Suite 205N • Quincy, MA 02169-4331Tel. 781-348-4200 • Fax 781-348-4299

www.nmefdn.org



E D I T O R ’ S M E M O

CONNECTION: THE JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND BOARD

OF HIGHER EDUCATION is published five times a year by the New England Board of Higher Education, 45 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111-1325 Phone: 617.357.9620 Fax: 617.338.1577Email: [email protected]

Vol. XX, No. 1 Summer 2005 ISSN 0895-6405Copyright © 2005 by the New England Board of Higher Education.

Publisher: Evan S. DobelleExecutive Editor: John O. HarneySenior Director of Communications:

Charlotte StrattonDesign and Production: tpgcreative, Boston, MA

Back Issues: Back issues of CONNECTION

are accessible on the World Wide Web atwww.nebhe.org/connection.html. Hard copies of regular issues may be purchased from NEBHE for $3.95each; annual directory issue, $20.

For advertising information, contact Charlotte Strattonat [email protected].

CONNECTION is printed in New England.

CONNECTION is indexed and abstracted in EBSCOhost’sAcademic Search Elite, Academic Search Premier andProfessional Development Collection, and indexed inPAIS International, the MLA International Bibliographyand ERIC’s Current Index to Journals in Education.

The New England Board of Higher Education is anonprofit, congressionally authorized, interstate agencywhose mission is to promote greater educational opportunitiesand services for the residents of New England. NEBHE was established bythe New England Higher Education Compact,a 1955 agreement among the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Chair: Senator Lou D’Allesandro, New Hampshire State Senate

President: Evan S. Dobelle

CONNECTION Editorial Advisory Board

Cathryn AddyPresident, Tunxis Community College

Katherine SloanPresident, Massachusetts College of Art

Robert WhitcombVice President and Editorial Pages Editor, Providence Journal

Ralph Whitehead Jr.Public Service Professor, University of Massachusetts

Robert L. WoodburyFormer Chancellor, University of Maine System

CONNECTIONTHE JOURNAL OF THE NEW ENGLAND BOARD OF HIGHER EDUCATION Artists Only?

The city of Providence may have moved rivers, jailed mayors and inspired a hitTV show in the past couple of decades, but to me, it remains first and foremostthe seat of the art school that produced Martin Mull and the Talking Heads.

So it was a bit jarring to arrive at the Rhode Island School of Design/BryantUniversity-sponsored “Success by Design” conference this past May just in time tohear Peter Dixon of Lippincott Mercer telling 450 young designers and other profes-sionals how his firm would help McDonald’s “create zones in the dining room” aspart of a design strategy to entice young adults and “captive mothers.” A self-described pioneer in corporate branding, Lippincott Mercer will also helpMcDonald’s redesign its drive-through lanes to “double the throughput” and “speedup the transaction.” But, Dixon assured the audience, “we’re not going to cookie-cutter this idea.”

For a moment, one might imagine it was David Byrne himself explaining howMcDs would redesign its restaurants with “colors that say ‘food.’” And that might’vebeen Martin Mull deadpanning Dixon’s typology of the new luxury: translucency in,solidity out; natural in, traditional out… all “great news for designers.” Or explain-ing how Apple Computer retail stores are now infused with the faint smell of apples.

Back in reality, PUMA product design expert Gavin Ivester followed Dixon witha series of PowerPointed tips for becoming a “design-led” company. Ivesterexplained how the cat suit PUMA made for Serena Williams combined quality (free-dom of movement) with style (“she felt like a rock star”). He nearly let slip that aproduct’s intrinsic value is of no value at all really. The important thing is branding—and the associations that design instills in the consumer.

Turns out RISD is about both the Talking Heads and branding Puma. And in someways, all New England is banking on the notion that what David Byrne does andwhat Peter Dixon does are two sides of the same coin, or at least the same side oftwo brains.

The idea is that New England’s rich base of arts education programs, museums,symphonies and dance troupes enrich the region’s quality of life and generate signif-icant economic activity in terms of employment, construction, ticket sales and so on.But beyond that, they serve as midwives to the burgeoning “creative economy”—that collection of right-brained, moneymaking endeavors, from architecture tosportswear design, that promises relatively little pollution and few working blistersand cannot yet be off-shored to India or China.

Indeed, it’s this creative super-supersector’s breadth as well as its verve thatmake its promise so appealing to musty New England. As grand old brick schoolbuildings are converted to elderly housing to suit the region’s declining demography,grand old manufacturing facilities are converted into art galleries and design studiosto suit its blossoming creative economy. Moribund cities spring to life.

This creative new world is not without challenges, however. New England’s nonprofit arts endowments, museums and local theater companies are engaged in aconstant battle for resources. And with each big corporate merger, a real or poten-tial patron of the arts is gone from the landscape. Moreover, the creative economyoffers most of the inequities its predecessor did. It was hard to find a black face inthe Providence audience, let alone the Boston Symphony. For the most part, well-educated white and Asian women are shaping a new web-based graphic designindustry, while under-educated Latinos sweep museum floors. And the usual patterns of income and educational attainment will conspire to keep it that way.

Moreover, school districts, rich and poor alike, marginalize art education as theybecome more and more obsessed with standardized math and language tests. Andthey’re egged on by college admissions officers who, despite rhetoric about creativethinking, subtract arts grades when computing applicants’ grade point averages—arts courses are not worthy.

The danger is that while New England celebrates the promise of the creativeeconomy, it will lose its capacity to prepare the future workers needed to sustain it, and citizen-consumers able to navigate it. Heading off that prospect will requireall the creativity the region can muster.

John O. Harney is executive editor of CONNECTION.


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S H O R T C O U R S E S


Is There a Nurse in the House?Among the paradoxes surroundingthe nation’s nursing shortage, toofew nurses earn the four-year nursingdegrees that experts say lead to bet-ter patient care. Yet 11,000 qualifiedstudents were turned away frombachelor’s degree programs in nurs-ing last year, according to theAmerican Association of Colleges ofNursing. Reason: there aren’t enoughnurses with advanced degrees toserve as faculty.

In Vermont, less than 5 percent ofnurses have the master’s degrees ordoctorates in nursing required toteach college-level courses, andmany of those who have earned thegraduate degrees work instead inhigher-paying clinical practice oradministration. As a result, thestate’s five nursing colleges couldhave to turn qualified applicantsaway if they don’t find more facultymembers. The Stowe, Vt.-basedFreeman Foundation has a remedy.

The foundation launched itsFreeman Nurse Scholars Program in2001, and since then, applications toVermont nursing schools haveincreased over 200 percent. In March,the foundation pledged an additional$1.5 million over three years to pro-vide scholarships for nurses who areinterested in graduate nursing educa-tion and teaching. The Freeman program provides up to $17,000 peryear for graduate nursing studentsand $7,500 for undergraduates.

* * * *Meanwhile, the University of New

Hampshire and New HampshireCommunity Technical College,Manchester/Stratham, signed a dualadmissions agreement allowing stu-dents admitted to the communitytechnical college’s associate degreeprogram in nursing to be conditionallyadmitted to the bachelor’s program forregistered nurses at UNH.

UNH officials say nurses whocomplete bachelor’s degrees havebetter problem-solving skills, moreeffective communication skills andmost importantly, better results with

patients. But last year, fewer thanone-quarter of the 455 students whograduated from registered nursingprograms in New Hampshire earnedthe four-year degrees.

Under the new dual admissionsprogram, students spend three yearsat the community technical collegecompleting the nursing curriculumas well as UNH general educationrequirements. In the summer aftertheir third year, they may take theRegistered Nurse exam. Then theymay work as nurses and finish thebachelor’s program at UNH part-time, or enroll full-time.

Youth GroupWhen the Portland, Maine-basedLibra Foundation created the LibraFuture Fund (LFF) to support a rangeof startup businesses and communityenrichment projects conceived byMainers between the ages of 18 and25, a key priority was to assemble aboard of directors. Who might beappointed to such a body? Businessleaders? College presidents?

Wait a minute, the idea behind LFF was to capitalize on the creativi-ty of Maine’s young people and combat nagging out-migration byincreasing the number of professionalopportunities available to youngMainers, right? So, the fund’sfounders asked, why not choosedirectors from among the very sameyoung people that the initiative wasmeant to support?

Now, every member of the LFFboard is under age 30. The twenty-somethings may not be as potent asBusiness Roundtable types. But theyare presumably in tune with whatmakes Maine attractive, or not soattractive, to young people. Andwhen they need advice, they have anetwork of more seasoned advisorsthey can turn to.

“It could be argued that the rela-tive inexperience of our board is a lit-tle bit risky, but actually it’s been ablessing. We’re able to relate to thecandidates because we’re their age.We understand the same limitations

and possibilities,” says Robie Anson,the 24-year-old Bowdoin Collegebiology grad who heads the fund.

This spring, Anson announced thefirst round of fund grants, rangingfrom about $2,500 to $5,000. Amongrecipients: Pete Morse, 24, will con-vert a farmhouse in Freeport, Maine,into a recording studio. AugustineSedgewick, 25, will run resume-writ-ing workshops for homeless people inPortland. Bryan Weber, 25, will exam-ine the technical, economic and legalaspects of extending high-speedInternet service to rural Maine.Jeremy Usher, 24, and a group of part-ners, will create internships for a newdigital design firm in Damariscotta.

A Cape Codder for RoverCranberry growing is a vital industryin southeastern Massachusetts, gen-erating $63 million in annual salesand employing more than 5,000 peo-ple. Problem is, farmers now harvestmany more cranberries than con-sumers want to eat.

A University of MassachusettsDartmouth study sees a new marketfor the tiny fruit: the nation’s 377 mil-lion cats, dogs and other pets.

The pet food market is worth $14 billion. Nora Ganim Barnes,director of the Center For BusinessResearch at UMass Dartmouth,noted: “There are now more pets inthe United States than people, andwe are taking better care of our petsthan ever. Therefore, the cranberry,known for its health benefits, iscatching on fast as a key ingredientin pet food.’’

The researchers urge the cranberryindustry to launch a campaign to con-vince pet food manufacturers of the tart berry’s health benefits. Four in 10 pet food manufacturers alreadyuse cranberries in their products,mainly because cranberries appear to reduce urinary tract problems incats and dogs. Most companies thatdon’t use cranberries say they would if the health benefits wereclearly established.


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S H O R T C O U R S E S


Back to the BaseThe Pentagon’s latest round of pro-posed military base closures wouldhit New England disproportionatelyhard. The Naval Submarine BaseNew London in Groton, Conn., thePortsmouth Naval Shipyard on theMaine-New Hampshire border andOtis Air National Guard Base inMassachusetts would close com-pletely. And the region would loseapproximately 13,600 personnel—nearly half the jobs cut nationwide.

Maine alone would lose 7,000 jobsunder the 2005 Base Realignment andClosure (BRAC) initiative—equal toone-third of all job growth forecastfor Maine over the next five years,according to University of SouthernMaine economist Charles Colgan.

Maine’s Brunswick Naval AirStation would be “realigned,” a fateperhaps worse than closure, accord-ing to Colgan. Brunswick’s squadronof P-3 submarine-hunting aircraftand their well-paid crews wouldhead for Florida. But the naval airstation would remain open as areserve base for less economicallypotent weekend warriors. What’smore, stuck in khaki, Brunswickwould be deprived of base closure’s economic silver lining:redevelopment for civilian use.

Down the coast, the early 1990stransformation of Pease Air ForceBase into an international tradeportcost New Hampshire 400 jobs but ledto 5,000 new ones. Still, DennisDelay, director of special projects for New Hampshire’s WorkforceOpportunity Council, told a meetingof the New England EconomicPartnership (NEEP) in May that thePortsmouth shipyard closing wouldcost many more civilian jobs thancould be created around the site.Besides, the key to BRAC’s impact ishow fast the Department of Defensegets the bases off the military rollsand available for civilian develop-ment, what kind of environmentalproblems exist at the sites and howthey will be cleaned up. The shipyardin Kittery quietly housed a nuclearreactor for years, which could makecleanup more complex.

In some ways losing personnelunder BRAC is a blessing. AsFairfield University economistEdward Deak told NEEP: “In thecase of the New London sub base,7,000 military personnel would shipout, so the employment impact onNew London is not as bad as if they were left behind suddenlylooking for jobs.”

Among victories for those fightingto keep New England bases open was certainly the expansion ofHanscom Air Force Base in Bedford,Mass., which would gain about 1,000jobs. But even this bounty poses a dilemma. Most of those transfer-ring to Hanscom previously workedat the air base in Rome, N.Y., wherethe average home price is $78,000.“Where are they going to find homes for that price?” American

Demographics founder Peter Franceseasked the NEEP audience.

How high are the economic stakesin this round of base closings? NEEPofficials made a special point of ask-ing their national economic forecasterto come back in November not withhis usual single forecast for the NewEngland economy, but with two: oneassuming the bases remain open andone assuming they close. They expectthe two forecasts to be very different.

URI, not ACIFully 70 percent of the more than1,000 juvenile delinquents doing timein the Rhode Island Training Schoolwill end up back in the correctionsystem, most likely the TrainingSchool or the Adult CorrectionalInstitutions (ACI) in Cranston.Hardly any will go on to college.

University of Rhode IslandPresident Robert L. Carothers wantsto change that. Carothers has pro-posed creating a transition school for about 200 Rhode Island boys who run afoul of the law and serve their sentences. And the realcarrot: Carothers would pledge fullscholarships to URI for those whofinish the program.

Carothers told a breakfast meet-ing in April that planning and starting

up the school would cost about$170,000, while keeping one offenderin the state training facility for a yearcosts taxpayers $115,000.

State Sen. Daniel J. Issa (D-Central Falls, Cumberland,Pawtucket) filed legislation to createa school called the University ofRhode Island Academy for PostAdjudicated Youth, aimed at easingthe transition from the criminal jus-tice system to society. The idea, Issasays, is to break the “jail trail” that somany juveniles have followed. A bumper sticker touted by theRhode Island’s Black MinistersAlliance summed up the hope inRhode Island: “URI, not ACI.”

ClarificationA Short Courses item in our last issue[“Dean of Presidents?,” Spring 2005]suggested that eight New England col-lege presidents have served their insti-tutions for at least 20 years. We missedone: Richard Sanders took the reins ofthe community college in Waterbury,Conn., back in 1984, and remainsthere today. The name of the institu-tion has changed, however. It wasMattatuck Community College whenSanders began. In 1992, it merged withWaterbury State Technical College tobecome today’s Naugatuck ValleyCommunity College.

S N I P P E T S

Academic Sharing“If public colleges and universitiesagreed to provide one elite publicprogram in a discipline (forinstance, one university would hosta premier program in biotechnolo-gy and one in nanotechnology),they could serve the entire regionmore efficiently and effectively thanif each covered several areas.”

—From “Sustainable Prosperity:An Agenda for New England,” an

analysis of regional economiccompetitiveness prepared for the New England Council by

the consulting firm A.T. Kearneyand released in June.



For the past five years “creativeeconomy” has been one of the more influential ideas in

economic planning. More and morethinkers and policymakers are heralding the unexpected benefits thatcreative endeavors bring to economiesas a whole. Popular writers such asThomas Friedman, David Brooks andDaniel Pink have recently explored theimpact creative culture and thoughtcan have on the global marketplace.

Closer to home, the New EnglandCouncil, the region’s oldest businessgroup, has launched a CreativeEconomy Initiative to take a compre-hensive look at the economic role ofartists, designers, performers andrelated businesses. Its findings arestartling: from 1997 to 2001, the number of jobs in the “creative cluster” of arts-related companiesgrew twice as fast as the New Englandeconomy as a whole. As of 2000, thatcluster supported 245,000 jobs, or 3.5 percent of the total jobs in theregion. That’s higher than the nationalaverage and a larger share than eitherof the better-known software or med-ical technology industries. The initia-tive has given us a clear picture of a tremendous, hitherto virtually invis-ible, economic engine.

This issue of CONNECTION includesthree case studies of successful creative engagement. In Old Lyme,Conn., the Lyme Academy College ofFine Arts has invigorated a town witha long tradition of support for the artsby teaching old methods for a new

era. In Providence, the Rhode IslandSchool of Design has embraced acommitment to the city and helpedtransform a now-bustling downtown.And in North Adams, Mass., an oldindustrial complex now houses aworld-class art museum with strongties to the nearby MassachusettsCollege of Liberal Arts.

What these stories have in commonis that a college in each case has taken the initiative and forged a newworking relationship with the creativecommunity in its area. From theirexamples, we can draw three lessonsabout how colleges can and shouldhelp foster the creative economy inNew England.

Colleges first of all make excellentstewards of the arts. Museums such asthe renowned Yale Center for BritishArt provide a stable home where cultural heritage can be safeguardedand shared. They also host visitingartists, hold symposia and attracttouring exhibitions that would other-wise come only to major cities. Thissemester, the University of Mainebrought Persian photography to Orono,Williams College finished constructionof a cutting-edge theatre complex, andthe University of Connecticut wel-comed the “conceptual juggler”Michael Moschen.

Amherst, Hampshire, MountHolyoke and Smith colleges and theUniversity of Massachusetts Amhersthave gone the extra step of coordinat-ing their museums’ programming andpromotion through the Five Colleges

consortium. Their “Museums10” ini-tiative extends to shared thematicexhibitions, the first of which willfocus on Dutch culture.

That sort of collaboration couldwork anywhere with several colleges,or where colleges have a neighboringindependent museum. The PeabodyEssex Museum in Salem, Mass., forexample, has a spectacular collectionof Asian art and artifacts, with a strongemphasis on the China trade. It repre-sents a great opportunity for nearbyschools and colleges to develop a comprehensive K-16 Asian studiesprogram that would prepare studentsfor the post-globalization economy.

Second, there’s the matter of realestate, because another element common to all of the stories in thisissue is the importance of abundant,affordable space where artists can dotheir work. Lowell, Mass., andManchester, N.H., had enormousindustrial complexes just begging fornew life; Providence had the benefitof an entire downtown district readyfor a makeover. In Maine, Gov. JohnBaldacci sees the creative economy asa vehicle for reviving old mill townsand attracting new business. He hasput real weight behind that vision,raising awareness through a confer-ence and a task force and proposingstate support for art education andpolicy in his latest budget.

When there is space available at areasonable price, government andsmart institutions can step in andplant the seed for renovation and

Best Practices for a Creative EconomyEVAN S. DOBELLE

M E S S A G E F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T


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rediscovery. A well-placed museum,or campus building, or theater canstart the process of renewal, as artistsand students move in and businessessuch as fine restaurants follow tomeet the demand.

The situation is different in thosecities where real estate is at a premi-um and the needs of higher educationand the creative community seem at cross-purposes. In Boston, forexample, the simultaneous expansionof several universities has helped boost real estate values over the past decade, but also moved largeinstitutions to think about theirimpact on the fragile creative commu-nities nearby. Emerson College hasexpanded while bringing new life andculture to Boston’s downtown. Itsdevelopment has enhanced the city’stheatre, radio and writing scenes and preserved several historic build-ings. It’s just one result of how

innovative planning and collaborationbetween colleges and residents couldgo a long way toward protecting ourcreative resources.

But higher education’s most vitalrole in this sphere is to prepare thepeople who drive the creative econo-my: tomorrow’s architects, painters,sculptors, writers, dancers, designers,thinkers, entrepreneurs. It is in thisarea that bold leadership will pay the most dividends. We are waking upto the fact that music, dance and otherarts programs are not luxuries. In thenew economy, committed study in thearts can be as financially rewarding asit is enlightening. And artists, art organizations and arts-related busi-nesses bolster our economy as theyfeed our imaginations.

Moreover, the type of thinkingencouraged by artistic study is indemand in all sorts of fields, eventhose not traditionally considered

“creative.” The more students learn totrust their intuition and take risks, thebetter-suited they will be for a quicklychanging world. Artistic instruction incollege and earlier can instill thesevital traits.

We can only grow stronger byembracing and supporting our innova-tors and creative thinkers. NewEngland has been denigrated by someas an old, cold “cultural theme park”that has little to offer business. Butour cultural strengths are nothing tohide, and can instead be a distinctadvantage. Maybe it’s time we stopped worrying about being a “theme park”and instead focus our energy onbecoming a global cultural capital.

Evan S. Dobelle is president and

CEO of the New England Board

of Higher Education and publisher

of CONNECTION.

M E S S A G E F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T



Innovation is a touchstone of American identity. We trust in our creative powers. We define our-selves as explorers. We have built intercontinental

railroads and ocean-linking canals, sent men to themoon and created the microchip. If we are confront-ed by disease, we expect to find the cure. If weneed a solution to a problem, we invent it.

Part of our confidence is based in our democratictraditions. Our freedom of expression is enshrined inthe First Amendment. Our amalgam of many peoplesbroadened the reach of our imaginations. Perhapsbecause we are a nation of nations, in Walt Whitman’sphrase, we are also a nation of creators. The Library ofCongress reports that in 2003, Americans registeredmore than 530,000 copyrights for music, art, manu-scripts and software. The U.S. Patent Office receivedmore than 365,000 applications for patents.

Looking from our past to the future, we must asksome pressing questions. Is our faith in our creativitysubstantiated? Is it a talent that only some possess oris it a set of perceptions and skills that can be taught?Are we recognizing and supporting creativity in ourschools and society? Or are we slowly starving it bynot nurturing our young people’s creative capacities, by not rewarding exploration and innovation as aresult of scarce support for the arts and scientificresearch? What is the role of colleges and universitiesin answering these questions and encouraging the nextgeneration of American innovators?

Recognizing the public benefits of higher education andthe arts, the American Assembly of Columbia Universityconvened a 2004 conference called “The CreativeCampus,” from which important recommendationsemerged about better integrating arts offerings on campusinto the curriculum, serving the surrounding communityand preparing students for the demands of arts careers.

After that conference, then-Princeton sociologistSteven Tepper, who served with me on the conferenceadvisory group, published an article in the Chronicle

of Higher Education acknowledging that “creativity

abounds on campuses,” but perhaps “in spite of our policies.” Noting that we live in a “scorecard society,”Tepper proposed a Creativity Index to measure what heidentified as the five elements that encourage the cre-ative process: collaboration, cross-cultural experiences,interdisciplinary exchange, time and resources, and aclimate that tolerates failure.

My view is that the “creative campus” must bethought of at a more profound level than as a place thatsupports the arts. Higher education talks about creativitybut is not willing to face how its very institutional struc-tures and measurements often work against the condi-tions in which creativity flourishes. The order needed todefine course sequences, confer credits and fulfill majorsat many institutions may not respond well to challengesfrom students or faculty who want to range across disci-plines, receive credit for independent and creative workor define their concentrations of study differently.

In his 1952 introduction to The Creative Process,

University of Utah professor and poet Brewster Ghiselinobserved that “every creative act overpasses the estab-lished order in some way,” and “is likely at first to appeareccentric.” In an educational system that prizes highretention and completion rates, what room is there foreccentricity? It is possible that institutions have becomeso consumed with quantifying success that they will dis-courage hard-to-measure qualities like “unquenchablecuriosity” and “fierce determination,” the vital elementsthat University of Chicago psychologist MihalyCsikszentmihalyi identified in Creativity, his study of innovative individuals.

For Ghiselin, the inventor is “drawn by the unreal-ized towards realization. His job is, as Wordsworthsays, ‘widening the sphere of human sensibility… theintroduction of a new element into the intellectual uni-verse.’” What is required of the choreographer makinga dance or the scientist conducting an experiment is anopenness of mind, an acute attention and a “surrender”to the “widest and freest ranging of the mind.” However,to complete this process, “what is needed is controland direction,” Ghiselin reminds us.

The institution that would foster creativity is calledupon to do many things: provide access to a broad

A Vocation of the ImaginationCreating the Creative CampusELLEN McCULLOCH-LOVELL

In an educational system that prizes high retention and completion rates, what room is there for eccentricity?

The Library of Congress reports that in 2003, Americans registered more than 530,000 copyrights for music, art, manuscripts and software.

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range of knowledge that contains the seeds of its ownexpansion; encourage the flow of curiosity across disci-plines; and give the creator the discipline and craft tomake the barely glimpsed idea visible.

Institutions should not be so consumed with mea-surements that they do not allow for the unstructuredtime necessary for discovery and experimentation—tolink previously unrelated elements, recognize emergingpatterns and take risks—all so essential to creativity. In addition to developing new measures of creativity,colleges should also pay more attention to qualitativeassessment, such as portfolios, poster sessions, presen-tations and performances.

The myth of the lonely creator must yield to the understanding that creativity is a group activity,informed by past ideas, expressions and even failures.It thrives on collaboration. Without collaborators orwitnesses, creativity never emerges to do its influen-tial work. Again, college plays a key role for such discoverers. “This is the period when they found their voice,” according to Csikszentmihalyi. “Collegeprovided soul mates and teachers who were able toappreciate their uniqueness.”

To support this process, we faculty and administra-tors must see creativity as a value and steep ourselvesin its theory and tools. We must not only teach stu-dents how to think, but also how to think about think-ing. We must be wise enough to know when to reward

the creative perception and also know when to chal-lenge it; when to urge more freedom of thought andwhen to demand more discipline. We must develop apedagogy of creativity.

Stimulated by Richard L. Florida’s book, The Rise

of the Creative Class, college leaders readily talkabout preparing students for the creative economy asknowledge workers. However, colleges and universi-ties, responding to students’ anxieties about findingjobs after graduation, run the risk of narrowing theirstudents’ exploration of knowledge and training forexisting conditions. There is room for creativity evenin this goal. Reassuring an anxious parent about a lib-eral arts education, one Marlboro College graduatesaid recently: “We don’t get jobs, we create jobs.”

The vocation we prepare liberal arts students for isone of the imagination. In addition to supplying thenewest scientific and artistic breakthroughs, encourag-ing creativity will cultivate students’ abilities to engagein the kind of thoughtful, compassionate and problem-solving democratic process on which our nation thrives.

Ellen McCulloch-Lovell is president of Marlboro

College. She was formerly president of the Center for

Arts and Culture and served as deputy assistant to

President Clinton and advisor to the First Lady on the

Millennium, where she spearheaded historic preserva-

tion, educational, cultural and environmental programs.


In many ways, MBA graduates are becoming thiscentury’s blue-collar workers—people who entereda workforce that was full of promise only to see

their jobs move overseas,” according to a recentHarvard Business Review piece by author Daniel H.Pink. “At the same time, businesses are realizing thatthe only way to differentiate their goods and ser-vices in today’s overstocked, materially abundantmarketplace is to make their offerings transcendent—physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.” Asa result, Pink contends, “the MFA is the new MBA.”

A contributing editor at Wired magazine and formerchief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore, Pink is theauthor of A Whole New Mind, exploring “six essentialabilities that white-collar workers must master to survivein an outsourced, automated, upside-down world.” Hisearlier bestseller, Free Agent Nation, looked at the grow-ing numbers of people who work for themselves.

CONNECTION Executive Editor John O. Harney askedPink about his views on the growing importance of thearts to the economy:

HARNEY: You’ve written about how the MFA

is becoming the new business degree. What

skills do art graduates offer employers that

MBAs don’t?

PINK: Let me take a step back and explain what Imean. It used to be that logical, linear, SAT-like, zero-in-on-a-right-answer abilities were enough to make itin the economy and have a decent standard of living.Today those abilities are still necessary, but they’re no longer sufficient. The abilities that matter mostwill be the sorts of things we’ve often overlooked andundervalued: artistry, empathy, seeing the big picture.Why? Three big forces are tilting the scales away fromthose “left-brain” abilities and ever more toward“right-brain” abilities. Those forces are: Abundance,Asia and Automation.

In a materially abundant society, you can’t sell a product, a service or an experience that’s merely functional. It also has to appeal to nonmaterial sensibilities—beauty, spirituality and emotion.

Meanwhile, all sorts of routine left-brain work—

basic accounting, basic programming, basic financialanalysis—is migrating overseas. And other routineleft-brain work is being automated. Think of TurboTax software automating many of the functions ofaccountants. So to make it in this environment, you’llhave to do something that people overseas can’t docheaper, that computers can’t do faster, and that satis-fies the growing aesthetic and emotional desires of anabundant age. MBA programs generally don’t teachthese kinds of abilities. MFA programs do.

HARNEY: MFAs may be good for business, but is

the growing connection to business good for art?

And for art education?

PINK: Probably. In particular, I think it’s essential foryoung artists and designers to be literate in business.Many of them are going to be working in or with orga-nizations dominated by left-brain people who don’tshare their right-brain sensibility. Part of what it takesto accomplish great work in a business setting dependson an artist or designer’s ability to persuade businesspeople in their own language.

HARNEY: If art education will be applied increasingly

to business, how should we revisit the relative

merit of different college arts programs?

PINK: I’m not sure that fundamentally changes. Art education is valuable first and foremost for its ownsake. It just so happens that the set of abilities itimparts is becoming increasingly valuable in business.And all aspects of art education in some fashion can beuseful in a business setting. Studio work gives all of usa taste of the joys and challenges of creation, while theCritique method can begin to deepen an artistic sensi-bility and develop the aesthetic literacy that’s neces-sary for business today.

HARNEY: How long will the United States be a leader

in programs to prepare these skilled people? What’s

to stop these high-end creative jobs from following

financial jobs to India and elsewhere?

PINK: This is a crucial question. There’s nothing perma-nent about the advantage that the United States (orCanada, Japan and Western Europe) hold in thisregard. But I believe there’s a fairly long way to gobefore the United States loses its edge in creative fields

The Coming Right-Brain EconomyDaniel H. Pink Says the MFA is the New MBA

“


on a large scale. This is true for lots of reasons. First,countries such as India are just finding their footing onInformation Age work. The offshoring of knowledgework overseas is still incredibly overhyped in the shortrun, though it will have a huge effect in the long run.Second, I think the United States offers a very hos-pitable soil in which these creative abilities can takeroot. That’s less true of other parts of the world. TheUnited States isn’t perfect—but you’d be hard-pressedto find a country nimbler or more accepting of risk.

HARNEY: What does the artistically driven future

mean for the current emphasis on standardized

testing and the devaluing of arts in schools?

PINK: Schools are one area where I’m not optimistic. In fact, the trends, as you point out, are moving in theexact opposite direction—with this obsession overstandardized testing and cuts in art, drama and musicprograms. We’re entering the Conceptual Age, yet manyschools are madly trying to perfect the Industrial Agemodel. It just doesn’t make any sense.

HARNEY: What kind of economic advantage will

the presence of top art colleges confer on a city

or region like New England?

PINK: This is a controversial subject because economicdevelopment depends on a range of factors from publicschools to a place’s transportation infrastructure toaffordable housing. But it seems sensible that having arobust art and art education community wouldenhance a region’s advantages.

HARNEY: What advice would you offer regional

economic development officials in light of the

importance of artistic aptitude?

PINK: Call your school board and your legislators and tell them to stop cutting school arts programs and to quitimposing standardized tests on students and teachers.

HARNEY: What are all those MBAs going to do now?

PINK: They’ll have to begin to tap the artistic, empathicabilities that are present in all of us. The challenge isthat many people haven’t been called on to use theseabilities, so their muscles have atrophied. They—andthe rest of us—will have to work these muscles backinto shape. And indeed, many MBA programs arebeginning to include classes in design, storytelling and emotional intelligence—in part because theirenrollments are shrinking.

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Become a Friend of NEBHE and receive a year of CONNECTION plus CONNECTION’s Campus Newslink!

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Inside: • Troubled Students Strain Campus Services• Campus Buzz: Alcohol and Higher Education• Uncomfortable Truths about Campus Rapists• Taxing Times for Boston Colleges?

CONNECTION

VOLUME XIX

NUMBER 1

SUMMER 2004


E M O T I O N A L R E S C U E

Inside: • Can College Towns Keep the Sims Happy?• Comic Relief for White River Junction• Graduation Rates in an Age of Swirling Students• Conversations with Underrepresented Students• First Thing We Do, Let’s Share All the Lawyers?

CONNECTION

VOLUME XIX

NUMBER 4

WINTER 2005


Engines of Growth

How Colleges AnimateNew England’s Economy

Inside: • States Ask High School Seniors: “What Next?”• For Women, Earning Lags Learning• Higher Education’s Indebted Future• Will New England Continue to Attract the World’s Students?• 60-plus Tables and Charts on Demography, Enrollment, Finance … and More

CONNECTION

VOLUME XIX

NUMBER 5

SPRING 2005


Trends &Indicatorsin Higher Education

2005

Inside: • How Arts and Cultural Resources Enrich New England• Bestselling Author Dan Pink on the Coming Right-Brain Economy• The Rev. Dr. Thomas Sullivan on Business Ethics• A Lay Leader Looks at Catholic Higher Education

CONNECTION

VOLUME XX

NUMBER 1

SUMMER 2005


Past Issues of CONNECTION

are now available at www.nebhe.org/past_issues.html


Is the MFA really the new MBA? Bestselling authorDaniel Pink and other thinkers are challenging uswith that question these days. According to Pink,

the United States and other developed countries arequickly moving beyond an Information Age thatrequired essentially linear, logical and analytical skillswhich could be measured, at least in theory, by SATand MCAS scores alone. As outsourcing becomesubiquitous, as computers can do routine, sequentialtasks far faster and more accurately than the best-educated human being can, and as individuals in an affluent society look for beauty and meaning intheir lives, Pink argues that we have moved to aConceptual Age in which “mastery of abilities that we have often undervalued and overlooked marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who fallsbehind.” The abilities that matter most for this neweconomy are artistry, empathy, passion, seeing thebig picture and the transcendent—right-brain skills thatwe have always associated with learning in the arts.

Slowly, business and civic leaders are realizing thatto compete successfully with China, India and otheremerging nations in an instant worldwide economy, we must develop creative, innovative thinkers—people who can harness and transform science andtechnology and envision solutions to seeminglyintractable social and civic problems. “To flourish inthis new environment,” argues Pink, “we will need tosupplant well-developed high-tech abilities with apti-tudes that involve the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities,to craft a satisfying narrative and to come up withinventions the world didn’t know it was missing.”

These, and the capacity to empathize, are fundamentalhuman traits. But in our rush to do things faster andcheaper than the rest of the world, we have let this right-brain, artistic side of our lives atrophy. It is time, Pink

argues, in our schools and colleges and in our businesses,to re-emphasize the right-brain thinking we all possess.

DisjunctureAt the very time that innovative thinkers such as Pinkand others are calling for a new emphasis on creativity,much national and state-level debate centers on verylimited definitions of student success and emphasizescurricular content that can be easily assessed by quan-tifiable tools. The quantifiable measures required bymany state education laws and the federal No Child LeftBehind Act are actually driving out the kind of learningand pedagogy that help develop the very right-brainthinking that these futuristic thinkers are calling for.

Does a disjuncture always have to exist between thepolitically driven agenda of the bureaucracies that con-trol our schools and a meaningful pedagogy that couldempower a diverse generation of young people tothrive in the new worldwide economy?

A report issued by the American Association ofAmerican Colleges and Universities last year suggestsotherwise. Greater Expectations: A New Vision for

Learning as a Nation Goes to College calls for sweepingchanges in higher education. As college-level educationbecomes almost universal, colleges and universities mustaddress for the first time the experiences of a studentbody that is vastly diverse in aspirations, prior learningexperiences, economic and ethnic backgrounds andlearning styles.

Greater Expectations calls for a major pedagogicalshift from teacher-centered to learner-centered educa-tion; to integrated and collaborative, rather than soli-tary, isolated learning; and to a coherent, sequentialcurriculum that is developed and refined over time by agroup of colleagues responding to the real learningexperiences of their students. The report calls for amovement away from time-based, piecemeal measuresof learning and toward portfolio, outcomes-basedassessment. It calls for empowering students tobecome engaged and responsible for managing theirown learning process. It insists that the teacherbecome primarily the mentor or coach and the studentthe performer, writer, creator and thinker.

Art Transforms EducationA Boston Pilot School PutsStudent Learning Center StageKATHERINE SLOAN AND LINDA NATHAN


Many of the characteristics identified in Greater

Expectations as critical for the future success ofundergraduate education emphasize the “right-brainthinking” that Pink and others call for. Interestingly, thepedagogical methodology outlined in the report is atthe heart of the Critique method used widely in studiocourses in the visual arts, music, theater and creativewriting. The Critique essentially puts the student at thecenter of the learning process. It expects the student tobe a passionate and committed creator, and requiresthe student to produce a coherent and increasinglysophisticated body of work, subject to rigorous analy-sis and assessment by faculty-mentors, student-peers,and often outside experts.

Studio workCreativity or imagination is central to the arts, and fos-tering this capacity in students through the Critique isat least as important as developing mastery of skill ortechnique. The Critique emphasizes the process asmuch as product and progressive assessment as muchas summative measures. The Critique also seeks todevelop creative problem-solving skills. The time need-ed to achieve these ends varies widely from student tostudent. So completing a uniform number of class min-utes or semester weeks becomes far less the measureof assessment than the quality of a final portfolio ofcreative work. During the learning process, the studentproduces a progressively complex body of work for allto see. Students also learn to become articulate abouttheir work. They must be able to defend their thoughtprocesses, explain the materials used, and the artistsand traditions that have influenced it, both orally andin writing. Faculty engaged in the Critique methodserve less as teachers in the traditional sense than asmentors, coaches or expert observers. Often, studentsand faculty from other courses participate in theCritique, so that student work becomes transparent.

Because faculty see the work of their studentsdevelop, and assess it constantly over the course ofseveral years, the Critique method enables wholedepartments to plan coherent and integrated curricularsequences within a discipline or across disciplines. The result is often a vibrant and meaningful curricu-lum based upon observing what learners really requirefrom them as mentors to grow creatively, intellectuallyand professionally.

Greater Expectations calls for profound shifts ineducational approach: from teacher to learner, fromlecturing to mentoring, from empowering the teacherto empowering the learner, from rote learning to criti-cal thinking. And it insists that individual studentsdemonstrate accountability for their own learning—for all students in all classes, not only in studio classes.The report calls for re-emphasizing the right brain inlearning. The important question, then, is whetheressential characteristics of the Critique—which does

these things so well—can be fruitfully transferred andadapted to liberal arts as well as professional educa-tion in our schools and colleges. A brief look at theexperimental curriculum at the only arts-centered pilotschool within the Boston Public Schools provides someinsight into this question.

Piloting right-brain thinkingThe Boston Arts Academy (BAA) was founded sevenyears ago under the sponsorship of the ProArts Collegesof Boston, a consortium of Massachusetts College ofArt, Berklee College of Music, Emerson College, theBoston Architectural Center, the Boston Conservatoryand the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Faculty andstaff from these colleges and Boston-area universitieshave served as academy curriculum advisors, mentorsand board members. The colleges have also providedscholarships, summer programs, facilities and advancedcourses for students of the school, as well as studentteachers and interns in various disciplines.

The BAA’s student body reflects that of Boston’s public schools as a whole, except that its students arechosen on the basis of auditions. From its beginning, theacademy has been committed to the academic success of its students and to their growing abilities in visual arts,music, dance and theater. The school has established aremarkable record of acceptance to college of more than95 percent of its students. Many of its graduates attendProArts Colleges and other performing or visual artsschools, but many go on to non-specialized liberal artscolleges, community colleges and universities as well.

The BAA is the only arts school in the nationalCoalition of Essential Schools founded by Ted Sizer andcolleagues at Brown University. The academy is com-mitted to empowering students to be active learners.The BAA is a very lively place, filled with the sounds ofstudents creating, working and rehearsing throughoutthe day, into the evening and on weekends. However,walking around the school, one also can note how thehigh level of student engagement in arts courses carriesover to humanities and math, writing and science.

All teachers—whether in studio courses or other aca-demic disciplines—have embraced a strong commitmentto a coherent, integrated, arts-centered curriculum.Right-brain thinking—problem-solving, synthesis, artisticand creative expression and passion—are given equalimportance to left-brain skills such as analysis, logic andcomputational literacy.

Authentic assessmentThe centrality of the arts at the BAA allows the school’sfaculty to think deeply about curriculum and assess-ment. In good arts education, culturally relevant peda-gogy is the norm, because much in the arts can revolvearound cultures and experiences that are not one’s own.The teachers call this authentic assessment. In the arts,since process is often as important as product, teachers


are more comfortable with assessment that is not a sin-gle-mode, right- or wrong-answer test. In addition, thearts often include a wide range of learners, so differen-tiated instruction is the norm not the exception. Artsteachers rarely talk about their inability to teach a the-atre or visual arts class with students at different levels.At the BAA, the pedagogical approach for learning inthe arts is used across the entire curriculum.

BAA students continually present their work topeers, to their teachers, to other teachers, to parentsand to a range of community members. Students pre-pare portfolios in math, science, world languages andthe humanities. In late spring, students demonstratetheir accomplishments through portfolios, perfor-mances and exhibitions. Students usually have pre-pared deeply for this particular event and they knowtheir areas of study well.

In addition, math and science fairs and an annualSenior Humanities Exhibition bring outside academicexperts and community leaders, parents, alumns and others to the school as reviewers of student learning.The teachers use the term authentic assessment

because they believe this form of evaluation promotesfurther understanding and learning for both teachersand students. The inclusion of outsiders or a committeeto judge the assessment also highlights the importanceof the student’s work. It matters if a student is present-ing to people other than peers and teachers.

Unlike pencil-and-paper standardized tests that usually have only one right answer, authentic assess-ments focus on a student’s process of learning andability to describe, define and reflect on where one isin the learning process as well as his or her ability tomaster a given set of concepts.

Furthermore, teachers have the opportunity to gaininsight into their own pedagogy as they witness theirstudents describing the learning process and their mas-tery over some aspect of the content that was taught.The use of authentic assessment is much more risky forteachers since it quickly can expose a student’s lack ofunderstanding and thus make a teacher feel vulnerableabout his own ability to convey knowledge and infor-mation. A student defending or presenting her mathportfolio or Spanish oral exam to other audience mem-bers, who may sit on a committee to judge the work,make the classroom teacher much more vulnerable tocriticism about what was taught and how. The trueexhibition is the performance itself and this is whenthe public judges the piece.

As with all art forms, this public performance createsan authentic environment for reflecting on what makesgood work. And this is perhaps the most rigorous formof assessment for students. Something dramatically dif-ferent happens when students present their artwork.

There is a passion and a level of ownership of techniquethat may not be as prevalent in academic portfolio pre-sentations, perhaps attributable to the power of studentssuddenly seeing themselves as learners and creators ableto solve problems and bring unique contributions orunderstanding to a set of constraints or criteria. The connection to artists past and present who matter to astudent has an enormous influence. Students see them-selves within the landscape of other artists who areexamining myriad realities and they are excited to bepart of that. Students appreciate being able to expressthemselves, to be themselves and to be respected andaccepted by others—peers and adults alike.

Empathetic thinkingThe experience to date at the Boston Arts Academysuggests that learning and pedagogy in the arts caninform, even transform, liberal learning for a diversepopulation of students and in the ways the Greater

Expectations report calls for. And the experience canfoster the kind of right-brain, innovative and empatheticthinking and passion that Daniel Pink’s Conceptual Agedemands. The arts give voice to the soul and to ourability to express and communicate human emotion ina way that no other discipline has approached.

We think that passion and commitment can transferto academic classes. The dullness of the traditionalschool day leaves so many adolescents numb, alienated and disconnected. When school can put therelationships found in the study of technical or expres-sive arts at the center of study, learning becomes ameaningful and rich experience. When students haveto authentically demonstrate their mastery of an idea,concept or skill in a manner that is both rigorous andworthy of professional critique, schoolwork becomesreal work. It matters.

Pink’s Conceptual Age may not require an arts cur-riculum as intensive as the BAA’s for all students. Butthe principles at the core of comprehensive arts educa-tion and the pedagogy of the Critique encourageschools to put relationships between students and car-ing, expert teacher-mentors in the center. It must mat-ter to adults in a school that students use their mindswell. And it must matter that students’ imaginationsand creativity count. By embracing arts education, itsuse of the Critique, and its open approaches to assess-ment, as an educational birthright for all young peopleand adolescents, we might better understand how toreinvigorate our academic classrooms, reform ourschools and prepare a new generation of thoughtfuland creative college students.

Katherine Sloan is president of Massachusetts

College of Art. Linda Nathan is headmaster of the

Boston Arts Academy.


When visitors enter the offices of the Nellie Mae

Education Foundation, they are often taken by the art

on display. The collection is striking and vibrant. Like

all good art, each piece makes a statement—some-

times quietly, but boldly. And when foundation staff

proudly tell guests that the exhibit was created by

Boston high school students, the reaction is frequently

one of astonishment.

The artwork is the creation of student-members

of Artists for Humanity (AFH), a nonprofit social

enterprise whose mission is to provide urban youth

with keys to self-sufficiency through paid employ-

ment in the arts. The foundation has partnered

with the after-school arts program since 2000. At

least once each year, foundation staff select pieces

of work by the young artists for display in their

Quincy, Mass., office.

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation provides

grants to programs that take on some of the most

critical obstacles to educational success, and one

of its four areas of focus is after-school learning.

Students who participate in after-school programs,

especially underserved students, tend to be more

engaged in learning, have improved attendance and

grades and higher achievement in reading and math.

Long-term investments, such as the one the founda-

tion makes in AFH, represent the best strategy for

high-impact grantmaking.

Artists for HumanityFounded in 1991,Artists for Humanitybegan by producinglarge-scale collabora-tive paintings reflectingthe cultural diversity ofurban communities andthen marketing thework to Boston busi-nesses. The program

evolved into a structured, four-year paid apprentice-ship program that pairs teens with experienced artistsin fine and commercial arts. Participants learn aboutAFH through friends, schools, community centers,referrals and city-sponsored recruitment events. AFHnow employs 100 young people each year.

AFH is open to all teens from the City of Bostonwho are between ages 14 and 18, enrolled in schooland have a desire to work and learn. Demonstratedartistic ability is not a requirement but the desire tohave a voice is. AFH believes young people’s belief in themselves is inextricably linked to their academicaccomplishments. Working at AFH studios engagesyoung people in the creative process, through whichthey experience free thinking, the courage of theirconvictions and trust in their individuality. A contextof respect, responsibility and mentoring defines theAFH experience and fuels students’ drive to succeed.

Artists for Humanity does not impose any artisticstyle on students. But constructive critique figuresprominently in the mentorship. Mentors spend part ofeach day providing teen participants with one-on-onetutelage, which enables them to discuss the work’sdirection, give constructive advice on techniques andensure that the participant is working to his potential.Once a week, each studio has a group critique, in whichindividual teens present their works in progress totheir peers. The young people compare the project’sdevelopment with the artist’s intentions. In the processthey learn from each other in a supportive environ-ment. They also begin to understand the value of relat-ing to others and exchanging ideas.

All AFH participants first complete 72 volunteerhours during which they participate in regular studioactivities. The volunteer hours allow the youths todetermine whether AFH is a good fit for them whilethey earn school credits for community service. Uponcompleting the volunteer requirement, the young people begin earning wages (from minimum wage to$9 per hour) as well as a 50 percent commission on all sales of their fine art (100 percent if they brokerthe sale themselves).

AFH has fully equipped, staffed studios in five artis-tic media: painting, sculpture, photography, silk-screenand graphic design. Studios meet after school duringthe school year and weekday afternoons during thesummer. Students are placed with professional urbanartists and young artist mentors where they learn tocreate and eventually sell their own artwork. Theirwork is often exhibited in the offices of nonprofit andbusiness organizations, as well as galleries and busypublic spaces. One of their pieces, a contemporary

Arts and the CityTapping the Creative Energy of Urban YouthsSUSAN RODGERSON AND BLENDA J. WILSON

Pain

ting

by F

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version of Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What

Are We? Where Are We Going?, is on permanent dis-play at Logan International Airport’s Terminal E.

Arts educationResearch strongly linksarts education with stu-dent achievement andself-esteem. Creativeexpression inspires students to ask thequestions that lead to discovery—aboutthemselves and theworld. This helps themlearn to make goodchoices and opens up

a world of vocational options, including fine and commercial arts.

Arts education fosters high expectations by assert-ing that a young person’s voice has meaning. Whenoffered creative forms of expression, young people areinspired by vision. AFH provides youth with the oppor-tunity to express their voice in positive ways that arevalued by others.

Through hands-on experience in creativity, team-work and self-governance, AFH also provides youngpeople with the necessary guidance and tools for a suc-cessful transition to adulthood. This intrinsic compo-nent of art instruction advances cognitive and creativegrowth, which in turn, has a powerful impact on per-sonal, academic and professional lives.

Unfortunately, the questions and creative thoughtsthat motivated the world’s great philosophers, scientistsand mathematicians are in jeopardy, as public schoolsemphasize curricula designed for standardized testing.Students need a fuller educational experience, one that

teaches them to posequestions as well as toanswer them. Arts edu-cation offers this fullerexperience.

Nurturing achievementMore than one-quarterof Boston public schoolninth-graders will neverfinish high school. Butall the Boston youthworking at Artists ForHumanity graduate fromhigh school and contin-

ue on to higher education and career opportunities. Forthe past four years, all but two of the high school

seniors working in AFH studios were headed for col-leges and art schools, including Boston University,Massachusetts College of Art, New York University,Northeastern University, Pratt Institute, Rhode IslandSchool of Design, the University of Pennsylvania andVassar College.

When teens join Artists for Humanity, they grow andmature in ways they never imagined. When JonathanBanks entered AFH studios in the summer of 2001, hewas a lonely, unsure 15-year old who had been in fostercare for many years. After he completed his first paint-ing, he exuded sheer joy. Told that his painting wasgood, he began talking about his next project, and awonderful dialogue began between Jonathan and AFHartists. Jonathan grew in trust and self-confidence, bol-stered by the experience of creating something fromnothing within a supportive environment. He eventuallybecame a peer mentor in the photography studio, andwas selected to serve as a Teen Ambassador for AFH’sMellon City ACCESS partnership, a role that positionedhim as a representative of the arts organization beforeBoston business and community groups. Last year,Jonathan graduated from high school with honors, and is now attending the Art Institute of Boston on full scholarship. He still keeps in touch with people at AFH and visits the studio.

AFH has the highest expectations of young people—as artists, entrepreneurs and students—and they striveto meet these expectations.

AFH complements the learning opportunities avail-able in public schools, but also serves as an advocate fora stronger arts presence within the academic environ-ment. While AFH employs 100 young people a year,thousands more miss being exposed to art educationopportunities. AFH seeks to ensure that all young peoplehave access to the life-changing experience of the cre-ative process; the opportunity to hone their questioningskills and discover new forms of expression; and thechance to explore the arts as a valid career choice. Afterall, these students could be the next great philosophers,scientists and mathematicians.

Susan Rodgerson is founder and artistic director of

Boston-based Artists for Humanity. Blenda J. Wilson

is president and chief operating officer of the Nellie

Mae Education Foundation in Quincy, Mass.

More than one-quarter of Boston publicschool ninth-graders will never finish highschool. But all the Boston youth working atArtists For Humanity graduate from highschool and continue on to higher education.

Cassandra Lattimre, youthparticipant at Artists forHumanity, works on her self-portrait.

Artists for Humanity’s painting studio in action.

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Page 21 features artwork by Artists for Humanities participants Danielle Jones, Judy Lam, Billy Nunez and Cassandra Lattimre.


Most college students and parents want high-er education to marry two lifelong goals:pursuit of what one loves and financial

security. They know the subtext: college is an invest-ment, and the higher the education level oneachieves, the higher one’s potential income for life.So what about the education of artists?

Most art departments and colleges educate for careersin the so-called “applied arts.” The majority are in design-based fields, and their graduates do, in fact, find finan-cially rewarding careers ranging from architecture oranimation to aerodynamics or automobiles—and thoseare only a few of the A’s.

There is only one accredited art college in NewEngland, however, that is “fine arts only.” In fact, thereare only three nationally accredited fine-arts-only art col-leges in the United States: the San Francisco Art Institute,the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the LymeAcademy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, Conn.

Of those three, the Lyme Academy—with only twoB.F.A. programs, one in painting and the other in sculp-ture—is uniquely dedicated to classical, Renaissance traditions in drawing, printmaking, painting and sculpture.That means four years of intensive drawing as opposed toone semester or one year in other art programs. It meanstwo or three years studying human anatomy. It means in-depth study of the humanities. Student work is repre-sentational based on a foundation of historical disciplines.The Lyme Academy asserts the primacy of “the hand ofthe artist” in a culture that is becoming electronic and digital. It’s about a commitment to the foundational disci-plines that led to creation of the images by which Westerncivilization defines itself, from Michelangelo to Picasso.

Founded in 1976 by the sculptor Elisabeth ChandlerDeGerenday and accredited by the New EnglandAssociation of Schools and Colleges in 1997, this fine-arts-only, tradition-based upstart came to be, in somedegree, because of place. Old Lyme may be the onlytown in America that defines itself by art. Even theplaque in front of Town Hall boasts about the town’s his-tory of supporting artists. A few years ago, the town’sPlanning Commission asked taxpayers to rank the rela-tive importance of items such as public schools, care forthe elderly, protection of wetlands and nature, public

safety and security, and the rest. Art and culture rankedas the first priority—with 66 percent of the votes.

The people of Old Lyme represent high levels ofeducation, career accomplishment and affluence. Theyinclude significant numbers of business leaders whokeep second homes or spend retirement in this beauti-ful place. They continue to invest their time and moneyin supporting the artistic and cultural resources of theregion. They know the Lyme Academy has an increas-ingly positive economic and quality-of-life impact on thetown and the region. Call it a “return on investment” as this young college adds an estimated $2 million a yearto the economy and pushes up local real estate values.Meanwhile, the expanding campus creates a “greenway”which protects the historic town from the intruding inter-state highway. The college acts as a generator pumpingout artistic energy, intellectual discourse and new gal-leries and artist communities that renew urban areas in nearby New London, Norwich and New Haven.

Moreover, Old Lyme’s art patrons are deeply proudthat in an era of trash art and reality TV, the LymeAcademy is committed to a centuries-old tradition of adifferent reality—one in which the human experience ofbeauty is central to civic life.

The Lyme Academy is the result of a consensus amongthose who represent the highest levels of educational andprofessional achievements, special financial capacity anda dedication to “that which one loves.” Their investmentof choice is aimed at developing creativity in our youngpeople through charitable contributions to the college aswell as sustained purchasing of student and alumni art.Such patronage itself is a noble and foundational tradition,dating back to Solon and Pericles in classical Greece.

Those who support the education of fine artiststoday are investing in “futures.” They know that therecord of our civilization will be in direct proportion tothe ability of fine artists to express our highest aspira-tions and darkest fears in timeless images which affirmthe struggle and integrity of the human spirit. TheMichelangelos of the 21st century need a foundation inthe traditional disciplines, which will empower them togive society visions not yet seen.

Henry E. Putsch is president emeritus of the Lyme

Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, Conn.

Investing in FuturesLyme Academy Asserts the Primacy of “The Hand of the Artist” in a Culture that Is Becoming ElectronicHENRY E. PUTSCH


At this moment, designers are creating dynamicchange in the global economy. Highly sophisti-cated companies and developed nations now

recognize that a primary differential in the competitiveedge of their products and their nation’s well-being iscreated through effective design. Government andcommunications, medical devices and procedures, military strategies and political programs all are being “designed” using practices taught in quality art schools. Meanwhile, these schools are realizing the benefit to society and to themselves of directinvolvement in communities. American UniversityProfessor Shalini Venturelli has noted: “For the very first time in the modern age, the ability to create newideas and new forms of expression forms a valuableresource base of society and not merely mineral, agri-cultural and manufacturing assets.” She calls this asset“cultural wealth,” and describes it as a new “measureof the vitality, knowledge, energy and dynamism in theproduction of ideas that pervades a given community.”

Institutions like Rhode Island School of Design(RISD) provide New England with cultural wealth in a variety of ways, including the great art and designhoused in their museums and their vibrant faculty andstudent body, which numbers in RISD’s case, 1,900undergraduates and 375 graduate students from theUnited States and almost 50 countries.

Traditionally, institutions have relegated their relationship with their neighbors to a discreet set ofactivities referred to as “town-gown relations,” butRISD considers itself an active participant in the ongo-ing redevelopment and future aspirations of the city. Inthe 1970s, Gerald Howes, a RISD architecture professor,conceived of a plan to change the fundamental struc-ture and appearance of Providence. After the city relo-cated railroad tracks and uncovered a long hidden riverrunning through its center, RISD found itself with aspectacular riverfront campus. RISD’s reorientation todowntown Providence physically positions the college

for direct collaboration with leaders of the city’s busi-ness community, government officials, nonprofit organi-zations and local residents. This engagement has helpedRISD to flourish and also helped revitalize the city.

With a population of just over 175,000, Providencehas the advantage of size. The city can claim an inti-macy, a sense of community. So in addition to collabo-rating with the college’s immediate neighbors, RISDfaculty and staff engage in a multitude of conversa-tions to improve the city, ranging from the RhodeIsland Economic Policy Council’s attempt to desig-nate Providence a world design capital to the RhodeIsland Public Expenditure Council’s debating of state budget issues to the CEOs for Cities and theProvidence Foundation’s work on revitalizing thecity’s downtown.

RISD is committed to helping nurture Providenceinto a creative city that is competitive with any in the21st century. But what exactly can an institution ofhigher education bring to the infrastructure, the vitalityof a city, and the quality of life for all its residents?

RISD’s contributions take many forms. The Centerfor Design & Business, for example, is a joint venturebetween the college and Bryant University, establishedin 1997 to unite the design and business communitiesfor purposes of economic development. The joint ven-ture includes a Design & Business EntrepreneurshipCenter, which provides mentoring and training fordesign-related businesses. Funded by the U.S. SmallBusiness Administration, the entrepreneurship centerspecifically helps design-based inventors, innovatorsand product developers during the critical stages ofgrowing successful businesses.

An “incubator” program helps the region’s designerssucceed commercially. The program offers design entre-preneurs regular meetings with a multidisciplinary men-tor team, business and commercialization skills training,professional development sessions, one-on-one consult-ing, entrée to a network of business contacts, sharedwork and conference rooms and access to RISD andBryant assistance with business plan implementation.

CITY-STATE, an urban design lab based at RISD,works in collaboration with Brown University andother colleges and universities on design projects that

Creative PlacesHow RISD Invigorates ProvidenceROGER MANDLE


help cities and towns plan together. In collaborationwith the Rhode Island Foundation, RISD faculty andstudents have convened business and community lead-ers for an exhibit and symposium on the role of designin addressing the issue of affordable housing.

The college’s Art Education Graduate Program and Center for the Advancement of Art and DesignEducation, meanwhile, help integrate the arts into theprograms of many Rhode Island school systems. A part-nership with the Providence Board of Education hascreated an arts-focused curriculum for one-third of thestudents at Providence’s Hope High School. This formalagreement with Hope High School positions RISD tohelp create and mentor an arts community within theeconomically distressed school and has provided twoscholarships for Hope students to attend RISD.

RISD attracted internationally recognized nonprofitorganizations to relocate to Providence as part of aneffort to create a cluster of important cultural resourcesin the city. Most recently, Yo Yo Ma and his Silk RoadProject announced their decision to relocate their head-quarters to Providence to connect to the RISD commu-nity. Several years ago, RISD welcomed the Alliance ofArtist Communities, the national service organizationsupporting artists’ communities. The Pont Aven Schoolof Contemporary Art has also relocated its U.S. head-quarters to the RISD campus.

While RISD has been helping revitalize downtownProvidence, the college has been growing too. The college’s endowment quadrupled from $67 million in1994 to $250 million in 2004. RISD’s first comprehensivecapital campaign, designed to solidify funding for schol-arships and endow faculty and curatorial positions, newtechnologies and facility upgrades is nearing completion.

The cornerstone of the campaign is the college’snew Chace Center, designed by leading architect JoseRafael Moneo. This six-story building, which will riseon Providence’s North Main Street, provides new teaching space and attractive public areas, expands the RISD Museum’s exhibition galleries and researchspace, and creates a “front door” for the museum to the City of Providence.

The museum was founded as part of RISD in 1877.Its permanent collection of nearly 80,000 objectsincludes paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, cos-tumes, furniture and other works of art from every part of the world, including pieces from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and art of all periods fromAsia, Europe and the Americas, up to the latest in con-temporary art. The museum is RISD’s largest culturalresource, offering a wide array of educational and pub-lic programs, such as school tours and professionaldevelopment opportunities for K-12 teachers through-out the region.

For a college of art and design, the urban land-scape is exceptionally important. The shift of RISD’s

physical presence from the periphery to the heart ofthe new Providence is emblematic of the college’s current engagement with the community. RISD hasrenovated a historic warehouse into a home for itsIndustrial Design Department, beautified the river-front through landscaping, renovated two downtowncommercial spaces into graduate studios and theCenter for Integrative Technologies and openedrisd|works, a retail store and gallery that showcasesthe work of RISD faculty and alumni.

RISD is also in the final phase of converting the for-mer Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building, built in 1917,into an innovative living-learning center that will fea-ture library and residence spaces. Plans call for a com-plete renovation of the 12-story building, which willhouse The Fleet Library at RISD on the first two floors.The remaining 10 floors will provide living space for512 students. The library will become a unique andimportant art and design resource, enhancing opportu-nities for artists, designers, entrepreneurs and smallbusiness owners in Providence and throughout south-eastern New England.

Creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship lay at the heart of Providence’s history and its future. As thecity is recognized symbolically as a world design capi-tal, the designation will answer Venturelli’s challenge“not how to prescribe an environment of protection fora received body of art and tradition, but how to con-struct one of creative explosion and innovation in allareas of the arts and sciences.” That’s crucial, for asVenturelli warns: “Nations that fail to meet this chal-lenge will simply become passive consumers of ideasemanating from societies that are in fact creativelydynamic and able to commercially exploit the new creative forms.”

Many RISD graduates stay in New England after college, but many go on to other art capitals interna-tionally where they remain in contact with RISD andProvidence. In this way, RISD supplies the talent thatwill allow nations to respond to Venturelli’s challenge,for our students will have learned from their role inRISD’s interaction with Providence and our region.

Roger Mandle is president of Rhode Island School

of Design.

RISD attracted internationally recognizednonprofit organizations to relocate toProvidence as part of an effort to create a cluster of important cultural resources in the city.


Nestled in the valley between the Berkshirehills and the Taconic range, North Adams,Massachusetts, in many ways is typical of

old New England mill towns working hard to createa new identity in the global economy. WhenSprague Electric left town in 1985, the city of16,000 reeled from the loss of 4,000 blue-collarjobs. Today, North Adams is reinventing itself as acenter for arts, culture and the “creative economy.”Moreover, the city is doing so by building uponexisting assets. The vacant Sprague physical plant,good public schools, strong leadership, an excellentstate college, the local workforce and a spectaculargeography offer fertile ground for entrepreneurship.

The former Sprague site itself has been transformedinto the world-class Massachusetts Museum ofContemporary Art (MassMoCA), which has served as amajor catalyst in this new economy since opening fiveyears ago. North Adams and surrounding communitieshave experienced an infusion of artists, writers, film-makers and others who bring new ideas, new energy, a degree of wealth and a willingness to take risks. Thisspirit, evidenced in yet another successful transforma-tion of former mill space into live/work artist housing,was largely inspired by the creative vision of EricRudd, an artist, sculptor and founding director of theContemporary Artists Center. Now, the city is poised togive new life to the old Mohawk Theater, a priority forlocal politicians. This increasingly creative and entre-preneurial economy, driven in part by the array of artsand cultural institutions across Berkshire County, willdemand skills and educational levels that are different,but not wholly separate, from those that provided afoundation for success in earlier times.

The New England Council has noted that “a strongarts and cultural sector is vital to the future of NewEngland’s economic growth and competitiveness.” Thecouncil found that the cultural sector represented nearly4 percent of New England jobs and generated $6.6 bil-lion in tourism revenue in 2000. In addition, the sectorhas been growing faster than any other part of the econ-

omy, particularly in Western Massachusetts, where theeconomic base has shifted away from one dominated bylarge manufacturing companies and their well-payingjobs. As in so many “company towns,” successive gener-ations of families enjoyed access to reliable, well-payingjobs where advancement and new opportunities couldbe realized through seniority and training on the factoryfloor. No longer. In place of the manufacturing economy,however, the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts(MCLA) is providing new hope and innovation.

As the old electric supply plant has been reinventedas MassMoCA, the old Normal School has evolved intoa modern state college offering a wide range of acade-mic degree programs in the arts, sciences, humanitiesand business. Among these programs is MCLA’s Fineand Performing Arts Program, specializing in arts man-agement, the visual arts, music and theatre.

Recently, MassMoCA and MCLA have collaborated onprojects and programs including student performancesand partnerships with K-12. Leaders from MassMoCAand MCLA, who serve as important stakeholders in the Regional Competitiveness Council, the PittsfieldEconomic Development Authority, the BerkshireChamber of Commerce and the recent Northern Tier initiative are proposing initiatives involving public andprivate colleges from Boston to the Berkshires to pre-pare students to compete in this new economy.

The local impact of MassMoCA, meanwhile, isbeyond theoretical. MassMoCA operations and non-local visitors have injected approximately $14 millioninto the local economy per year since the museumopened. Additionally, the museum constantly is renew-ing exhibits and renovating more space, thereby pro-viding design and construction jobs to local workers.MassMoCA Executive Director Joe Thompson hasbeen entrepreneurial in luring law firms, restaurantsand other businesses to the former Sprague site.Dozens of professionals and paraprofessionals nowcommute daily to the old factory. Across River Street,the famed Porches Inn offers a unique lodging experi-ence for travelers to the museum, MCLA and other destinations in the area. In addition to Porches, thelocal Holiday Inn enjoys capacity bookings manynights of the year. Downtown North Adams now hosts upscale restaurants.

Museum QualityA New Museum and Recharged College BringCreative Energy to North Adams, Mass.MARY GRANT

Become a Friend of NEBHE and receive a year of CONNECTION.For more information, visit www.nebhe.org/friends.html.


Williamstown, Mass.—North Adams’s neighbor to the west —is home to Williams College, the Clark ArtInstitute and the Williams College Museum of Art. Withthe Williamstown Film Festival, the WilliamstownTheatre Festival, fall foliage season, ski season and thearea’s bountiful recreation opportunities, this north-western corner of Massachusetts is now busy most ofthe time. Between Williams College and MCLA, eventssuch as commencements, speaker series, concerts, the-atrical productions and Division III athletic events bringmany thousands of visitors, including alumni, to thearea every year. By itself, MCLA generates nearly $90million for the local economy. Overwhelmingly, drivingthis vibrant local economy is the powerful and efficientthree-cylinder engine of arts, culture and education.

Businesses and local economies compete in a global, creative arena. Those who work in this neweconomy must be able to think critically and adapt to changing situations and emerging technologies.Creativity—the ability to conceptualize, analyze andthen respond rapidly to new situations, problems andopportunities—is paramount among the professionalskills required to compete successfully in the new econ-omy. As creative economy expert Richard Florida has

written: “Creativity involves the ability to synthesize, andrequires self assurance and the ability to take risks. It isnot the province of a few select geniuses … it is a capac-ity inherent in varying degrees in virtually all people.”

Unleashing and channeling this creativity has beenat the heart of North Adams’s success.

Advances in science and technology, entrepreneurialsolutions to business and social problems, works of artthat both inspire and provoke discussion and strong for-ward thinking communities are all connected by a com-mon thread of creativity. These connections are at timestenuous and, as Florida notes, “creativity requires sup-port—sustaining it requires attention to and investmentin the economic and social forms that feed creativeimpulses.” The collaboration between MassMoCA andMCLA is an example of a creative work in progress, andthe synergy developing between the local communityand its cultural and educational institutions is still tak-ing root. Nevertheless, these partnerships offer greatpromise for promoting and sustaining the reinvention of Berkshire County. Stay tuned.

Mary Grant is president of the Massachusetts College

of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Mass.

Cl i f fo rd Ade lman • Ph i l ip G. A l tbach • Rober t A . Antonucc i • Ph i l ip E . Aus t in • Chr i s t ina L . Baker

Sandy Baum • Edgar F. Beckham • Bar ry B lues tone • James T. Bre t t • F reder ick S . Bre imyerDav id W. Breneman • William M. Bulger • Leon F. Burrell • Anthony Carnevale • Robert L. Carothers

Daniel S. Cheever Jr. • C lay ton Chr i s tensen • Pe te r C lave l le • E l i zabe th Co leman • Ann Coles

Pau l Combe • Ca ro le A . Cowan • Trudy Coxe • Edmund T. C ranch • Joseph M. C ron inJohn C . Dan ie l s • Brenda Dann-Mess ie r • Howard Dean • Chr i s Dede • A lan M. Dershowi tz

Wi l l i am R . Di l l • Chr i s topher J . Dodd • Cynth ia Mi ldred Duncan • Judi th S . Ea ton • Wi l l i am Far re l l

Sandra Fea therman • Neeta P. Fogg • Barney Frank • R ichard M. F ree land • Rober t F reemanRoss Gi t te l l • Judd Gregg • Pau l E . Har r ing ton • Ter ry W. Har t le • Dona ld W. Harward

Wi l l i am P. Haas • Dona ld He l le r • Deborah Hi r sch • Michae l Hoberman • Haro ld L . Hodgk inson

Wi l l i am T. Hogan • Kenneth Hooker • James M. Je f fo rds Theodora Ka l ikow • Er ika Ka tes

S teven K. Ka tona • Vic to r H. Kazan j i an J r. • Edward M. Kennedy • John F. Ker ry • Jorge K lor de A lva

C. Evere t t Koop • Dav id C . Knapp • Yolanda K . Kodrzyck i • Char les E . M. Ko lb • Rober t Kut tner

Pa t r i ck J . Leahy • Pau l LeBlanc • Joseph I . L ieberman • Dav id L i sak • Es te la López • I ra Magaz iner

Edward J . Markey • George McCully • William McDonough • Patricia McGovern • Margaret A. McKenna

Michael S. McPherson • Thomas M. Menino • Ian Menz ies • Jamie B . Mer i so t i s • Ca thy E . Minehan

George J . Mi tche l l • Mar io J . Mol ina • Thomas G. Mor tenson • E l i zabe th Pad jen • Thomas D. Parker

R ichard Pa t tenaude • Lorna Pe te r son • Nea l R . Pe i rce • S tephen Reno • Col leen J . Quin t

Piedad F. Robertson • Peter Sacks • Thomas P. Salmon • John J. Sbrega • Douglas Sears • John Silber

Sylvia Simmons • Katherine Sloan • Olympia J. Snowe • Mary Huff Stevenson • James S tu rm

Judith A. Sturnick • Andrew M. Sum • John H. Sununu • Abigail Thernstrom • John F. Tierney • Glen L. Urban

Dav id Wagner • Dav id Warsh • Cynth ia V. L . Ward • Wi l l i am F. Weld • Donald P. Wharton

Ralph Whitehead Jr. • Blenda J . Wi l son • Regina ld Wi l son • Gordon C. Wins ton • Rober t L . Woodbury

Readbetweenour

bylines



Those who advocate integratingethics into the mainstream busi-ness curriculum are right. But

the problem is, most people in busi-ness, and especially in businessschools, do not understand whatexactly ethics is.

Ethics is about power—particular-ly, whether power is used justly ornot. This is especially true in business,where the power we wield is signifi-cant and far-reaching. Ethics is notabout window-dressing with nicediversity programs. It is not aboutprivileged people “giving back,” nor isit about making donations from com-pany profits to favorite causes ofdirectors and officers. Ethics is howwe choose, in virtually every decisionwe make, to treat the people we workwith and for, and the world around us.

If I am the CEO of a company, andI use my position of fiduciary respon-sibility for my own gain or the gainof my cronies, I am abusing mypower—that is, I am using it unjustly.The injustice can arise in a variety ofways, but what virtually all recentcorporate scandals have in commonis a violation of the trust that a CEOwill act in ways that genuinely bene-fit all stakeholders. This is especiallyegregious when CEOs use the com-mon confusion between “shareholdervalue” and “share price” to justifytheir actions. To see what I mean,consider the difference betweenWarren Buffet’s approach, whichinvolves investing in companies thatproduce value by staying profitableover the long term, to that of, say,Bernard Ebbers, recently convictedof fraud for trying to manipulateWorldCom’s results to give the illu-sion of profit.

Managers have tremendous powerwith respect to their employees, theirdirectors, their shareholders, theinvesting world and their customersas well as others. Too many of themhave neglected the ancient truth thattremendous power carries with it, bydefinition, tremendous responsibility.

What may be lost in businessschools is the slippery slope thatbegins with the simplest assumptionsabout markets and the alleged right-ness of their behavior. We teach toooften that the marketplace is thearbiter of value, and of values, ignor-ing the realities of harm and injusticethat markets sling about them on theway to determining price. What islost here is the power that resideswith someone with the most basicknowledge of markets, not to men-tion someone with significant knowl-edge of and influence over markets.In a Feb. 8, 2005, New York Times

op-ed, headlined, “How Wall StreetLearns to Look the Other Way,” YaleUniversity economist Robert J.Shiller, offers former New York StockExchange (NYSE) chairman RichardGrasso as an example of someonewho used his knowledge of the mar-ket to maximize his pay packagebeyond what would seem reasonable.Shiller also suggests that Grassocounted on the collusion of a varietyof people—those who were “lookingthe other way”—to achieve that end.It is embarrassing that it took out-

siders to point out that $139 millionseems out of proportion to the actualjob. The irony here is that what theNYSE needed at that particular timewas someone with even the mostbasic sense of justice to be in charge,rather than someone who apparentlytook advantage of the power that chiefofficers have, both at the bargainingtable and within an organization, tonegotiate a huge amount of pay.

Blaming business schoolsBut it’s unfair to blame businessschools for teaching students that theyshould maximize their own personalreturn. Why leave to ethics professorsthe daunting task of suggesting that ajust distribution of the wealth createdby any business venture is closer towhat “ethics” is than anything else?The argument for this is simple: thosewho guide their actions by the princi-ple of maximize my own personal

gain at all costs will need to acceptthat same principle when others withmore power take something awayfrom them. Conversely, those whoguide their business actions (not tomention their other actions) by a prin-ciple of distribute the rewards—andresponsibilities—of this enterprisejustly can reasonably require the sameof others.

Some will object, “Who decideswhat principle to use?” Well, we do.If businesses do not regulate them-selves (which might best be under-stood as seeing to it that they behavejustly toward all stakeholders), some-one else will certainly step in and doit for them. If you think figuring outwhat “justice” is presents some chal-lenges, you’re right. But that’s a poorexcuse for not trying. Much of the

Just Power?Teaching Business Ethics in a Time of Maximizing Returns

THOMAS SULLIVAN

Ethics is how we choose, in virtu-ally every decision we make, totreat the people we work with

and for, and the world around us.



history of the study of ethics is con-cerned with discerning the just, orthe right; my own favorite is some-thing like: Always treat others as

though each of them is as valuable

as you, both to you and to them-

selves. Imagine businesses led bypeople who adhere to this principle.There are clear examples in the busi-ness world today of leaders who do,and they have some things in com-mon: none of them are in jail; theircompanies are successful; good andeffective people like to work forthem, etc. Think of Jeff Swartz ofTimberland, who responded to anearnings crisis in his New Hampshire-based company, in part, by increasingthe ability of his employees to servein their local communities, ratherthan decreasing their availability, asmany other CEOs might have done.Then imagine businesses that do notfollow this principle. Again, there areeasily accessible examples in thenews pretty much every day, fromMartha Stewart to the folks at Enron.

This suggests another objection tojust distribution of rewards: Every-

body’s doing it. Take, for example,the shady business practice of mis-representing company performanceby “managing earnings.” Everybodymanages earnings, don’t they? Well,perhaps, but the issue of materiality-—what to disclose—is just as impor-tant in ethics as it is in accounting.We tolerate a certain degree of earn-ings management, but we also recog-nize—and punish—egregiousviolations of that tolerance. Managingearnings is like speeding in a car. Thehard cases are the ones in the mid-dle, but judgments will be madeabout those cases, and it is prudent,at least, to find oneself closer to theside of “one or two cents per share”(a few miles per hour over the speedlimit, within the bounds of toler-

ance), than “over the top” (20 milesper hour over the speed limit, andaccelerating). The reason we punishthe “over the top” violations is thatthey are unjust: they misleadinvestors, they rob shareholders,employees and other stakeholders of what is their due, and they fail tohold accountable exactly those peo-ple who stand to gain a great dealfrom alleged success.

And, of course, not everyone is“doing it.” Many refuse to enter thisgame, precisely because of the pit-falls it invites. Again, to paraphraseWarren Buffet, if you do worse onequarter, just report it; that’s what isactually going on in your business.From the point of view of responsi-bility it is certainly better to knowwhether earnings are going down,because that will help you figure outwhy—and who to hold accountable.

One other objection that some-times arises is cultural relativism:

since some cultures or countries dothings differently, that must meanthat there is no standard of ethicalbehavior, right? Well, this one needsto be taken head on. Every culturethat engages in trade or commercebelieves that it is wrong to take whatis not yours. There are some interest-ing differences among beliefs aboutwhat constitutes “mine” or “yours,”but that does not change the underly-ing value. How we go about resolvingthose cultural differences will say asmuch about our adherence to princi-

ples of justice or ethical behavior asthe individual differences do. Doingbusiness in a place where the envi-ronmental regulations are less strictthan ours may be cast as respect for

local customs. But it can quite quick-ly start to look like dumping your

trash in my country because yours

won’t take it, which is hardly just orethical. While competitive considera-tions matter, surely it is the job of thegood manager to manage both thecompetitive aspects and the ethicalaspects of this decision. Using com-petition as an excuse for injusticenever works very well in the end, nomatter how well it might work in theshort term.

All of us connected with businessshare responsibility for the state ofbusiness. Teaching ethics—notmorality, which is the list or descrip-tion of rights and wrongs, but ethics,

which is the study of why actions orattitudes are right or wrong, and howto apply that knowledge—is daunt-ing. It makes sense for all of us toshare in the endeavor. We learn ourattitudes about justice from all partsof society, not just from the businessworld. The vast majority of people inbusiness are decent, hard-working,moral people who feel challenged bythe state of business and who are notsure how to go about addressing thatchallenge. Business schools can cer-tainly help by including ethics as partof every course and program theyoffer, but the job will be easier ifeverybody gets what ethics is: howwe treat others, in everything that we do. If that seems too simple, justremember the last time you weretreated badly in business. Did thatadd any value?

The Rev. Dr. Thomas Sullivan

is director of spiritual life at

Babson College.

We teach too often that the marketplace is the arbiter of

value, and of values, ignoring the realities of harm and injusticethat markets sling about them on

the way to determining price.

As this article is published, I willhave been on the job as theninth president of the College

of Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee,Mass., for under a week. It would bepresumptuous of me to claim profoundinsight into the future of Catholic high-er education. But I can offer somehumble reflection on why I have trav-eled to a Catholic liberal arts collegeand why I believe that institutions likeElms hold a special place and responsi-bility today and in the future.

My journey to Elms has led me tothink back lately to the faculty andadministrators at the College of theHoly Cross who influenced me as anundergraduate and as a person offaith. They taught me that one cangrow as a Catholic while engaging aspectrum of ideas and a diverse arrayof perspectives. The Catholic tradi-tion offers a wide intellectual field onwhich to play, and I will always owethe Jesuits a debt of thanks forencouraging me and my classmates to take full advantage of it.

The Jesuit approach to learningemphasizes the importance of “form-ing men and women for service toothers.” That mandate has alwaysbeen my passion, whether as vicepresident at Middlesex CommunityCollege in Massachusetts and atTrinity College in Hartford or in mymost recent role as chancellor of theUniversity of North Carolina atAsheville. Father General Peter-HansKolvenbach expressed the Jesuitapproach to learning well in aspeech delivered at Santa ClaraUniversity in October 2000 when hedescribed a Jesuit humanism thatintegrates and harmonizes academicexcellence with social responsibility.

“To be a university,” he said,“requires dedication to research,teaching and the various forms ofservice that correspond to its cultur-al mission. To be Jesuit requires thatthe university act in harmony withthe demands of the service of faithand the promotion of justice.”

As I transition from public highereducation back to the independentsector, I am at once struck by the similarities between the core purpos-es of each and excited by the prospectof joining the Elms community toexplore what is rich and unique aboutthe Catholic intellectual tradition.

There are many similaritiesbetween the mission of public highereducation and that of Catholic col-leges and universities. Each is rootedin a commitment to opportunity formen and women of all socioeconom-ic backgrounds, races, religions, eth-nicities, genders and identities. Eachrespects and embraces the value ofintellectually rigorous debate. Eachvalues service as fundamental to thelearning experience. Each, at its best,focuses on needs of the larger com-munity beyond the campus. Each inits truest expression asks students tobelieve in something bigger and moreimportant than the self.

In the years to come, I believe we will witness an increasing numberof lay leaders in Catholic higher education. For them, as for me, twopivotal questions will loom. First, canI energetically embrace the tradition

of the founding religious community?Second, does the mission of the institution resonate with my beliefsand values?

Although the answer to both ques-tions involves considerable soul-searching and prayer, it is reassuringto know that professional organiza-tions like the Concilium initiativesponsored by Sacred Heart Universityin Fairfield, Conn., provide program-ming and other resources specificallydesigned to help education leaders oftoday and tomorrow explore questionsrelated to tradition and mission. As anew generation of education leaderscontinues to emerge from the ranks of the laity, it becomes particularlyimportant for us to engage in meaning-ful dialogue with each other in aneffort to surface the common charac-teristics shared by all Catholic institu-tions of higher education and theunique spirit of the founding congrega-tion or charism of a given institution.

We all know that this is a time ofsignificant challenge and opportunityfor the Catholic Church, as it contin-ues to evolve in the spirit of Vatican II.Today’s leaders in Catholic highereducation have the responsibility toengage the various constituencies ofthe campus in a conversation informedby sensitivity both to tradition and tosigns of the changing times. Informeddialogue is a cornerstone of theCatholic tradition and Catholic col-leges and universities have a mostsignificant role to play as centers of such dialogue.

In this dialogue lies the opportuni-ty to reassert the rich tradition foundin Catholic teaching as well as theChurch’s lived commitment to socialjustice and human dignity.

CalledA Lay Leader Looks at Catholic Higher Education

JAMES MULLEN



The Catholic tradition offers a wide intellectual field on

which to play.



Higher education has historicallybeen one of the most importantpoints of intersection between thechurch and the secular world. Therecent study on “Spirituality in HigherEducation” by the Higher EducationResearch Institute at the University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles reveals thatmany of today’s college students aresearching for spiritual meaning andguidance. The researchers surveyedmore than 112,000 students at 236 col-leges and universities and found that80 percent of the students were inter-ested in spirituality, 76 percent weresearching for meaning or purpose inlife and 79 percent believed in God. A report on the survey notes that students “are searching for deepermeaning in their lives, looking forways to cultivate their inner selves,seeking to be compassionate andcharitable, and determining whatthey think and feel about the manyissues confronting their society andglobal community.”

We can strengthen the connectionsbetween Catholic higher educationand this yearning of young people for spiritual meaning and do so in amanner that is true to our intellectualtradition. This requires a strong liberalarts curriculum as well as program-ming that includes seminars for incoming students designed to explorethe history of a college and charism

of its founding religious community.

Through substantive campus min-istry programs, faculty at Catholic col-leges like Elms must continue to findnew ways to engage students early intheir college careers in a discussion ofthe institution’s tradition and mission.And then we must work with those

students to see the connectionsbetween that tradition and missionand the realities of their daily lives.

As a Catholic liberal arts college,Elms is called to educate students,faculty, staff and the wider communityconcerning three pivotal relationships:the relationship of faith to reason; cul-ture to gospel; and knowledge topower. While academia has focused agood deal of attention on the first twoof these relationships, world eventsbeckon leaders of Catholic highereducation to further explore the rela-tionship of knowledge to power.

Knowledge opens the door to allsorts of possibilities. It at the sametime wields its own power. Catholiccolleges and universities hold a spe-cial responsibility to use the empow-erment that comes with knowledgeresponsibly and in a manner that furthers what Pope John Paul II char-acterized as a “civilization of love.”

How we do so is perhaps thegreatest challenge of our time for theCatholic academic. Our success orfailure in this test will affect thehealth and well-being of our churchfor generations to come.

Each year, nearly three quarters of amillion students attend the more than200 Catholic colleges and universitiesoperating in the United States. They rep-resent the foundation upon which thefuture of the church rests. Moreover,like those who have preceded them,they hold the promise of leadership incommunities across the country. Theydeserve an education that is at once trueto the ethical and moral tenets of theirfaith, intellectually alive and open andfocused on the call to service.

It is in many ways this challengethat has called me to Elms and willcontinue, I believe, to call others tosimilar opportunities to serve atCatholic colleges and universities.

James Mullen is president of the

College of Our Lady of the Elms

and former chancellor of the

University of North Carolina

at Asheville.

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Excerpts

Plumb the Brain DrainFollowing is an excerpt from “Plumbing Connecticut’s

Brain Drain” an article by Steven P. Lanza in the

spring 2005 issue of The Connecticut Economy, a

quarterly journal published by the University of

Connecticut’s Department of Economics. Lanza is

the publication’s executive editor.

We’ve all heard the lament. Young Nutmeggersare leaving the state in droves. Connecticutis suffering a massive “brain drain” as young,

educated workers head for the borders in search ofbrighter employment opportunities elsewhere.

But the truth is more complicated. Many highschool graduates do leave the state to attend collegesomewhere else, but Connecticut also attracts manycollege-bound high school graduates from otherstates. The difference, our net out-migration rate,isn’t any worse than might be expected, given thefactors that influence such a statistic. What’s more,once students finish they often stay—the state’saddition to its population of college graduates in the1990s exceeded the number of degrees it granted.

Brain drain. The loss of college-educated youngadults is a major policy concern in many states,including Connecticut. According to the most recentdata from the National Center for EducationStatistics (NCES), 43 percent of college-boundConnecticut high school seniors left the state in2000 (the last year reported) to start their freshmanyear. Alarming as that figure might seem, it actuallyrepresented an improvement over previous years. In 1998, 45 percent of Connecticut college freshmenenrolled in schools out of state, while in 1996 and1994 the share was 53 percent. Throughout this peri-od, Connecticut consistently ranked among the topfive states and the District of Columbia in the out-migration of college freshmen.

Most of those who leave don’t travel far. A recentreport from the Connecticut Board of Governors forHigher Education shows that more than 70 percentof the state’s migrating freshmen attended collegeeither in other New England states or in New York,Pennsylvania or New Jersey. But in an economystruggling to add new workers and where humancapital is king, the fact that so many of the state’sbright young minds are but a short commute awayfrom a weekend visit home may offer little consolation.

Connecticut can take some comfort from the fact that much of the state’s outflow of college students is partially offset by a compensating inflow of students from other states. NCES data also show that for every 10 state residents who leave Connecticut, six or seven out-of-staters enterto begin their studies in the state. Connecticut stillranks near the top of the list of states for net out-migration, but the magnitude of the brain drain issignificantly diminished after accounting for thosenonresidents who choose Connecticut as the placeto begin their education. And after graduation,Connecticut college students often remain in theNutmeg State. One index of the extent of a college-graduate brain drain—or gain—is the differencebetween the number of college graduates a stateproduces over time and the change in the number of college graduates in its population. If the changein college graduates exceeds the number of degreesgranted, the state is a net brain gainer. Indeed, that’swhere the Nutmeg State found itself at the end ofthe 1990s.

In 1989, 590,000 Nutmeggers aged 25 and up helda bachelor’s degree or more. In 1999, 738,000 resi-dents held at least a bachelor’s degree—an increaseof 148,000. But over the same period, the state’sinstitutions of higher learning produced only 144,000degrees, so the difference—4,000—represents a netinflow of college-educated adults into the state. Ofcourse, in older states like Connecticut, educatedworkers may retire from the workforce but remainin the population.

Explaining the variation. Even the states withthe highest retention rates send some young peopleelsewhere for their education. And every state man-ages to attract at least some students from otherlocations. But what accounts for the varying abilityof states to retain and attract young people?

Several factors likely affect the migration deci-sion. ... Students hope to get first-rate educations,and graduates are trying to find rewarding, high-pay-ing jobs. But such opportunities involve a cost, themost obvious being the out-of-pocket expenses oftuition, room and board, which students would nat-urally like to minimize. Also important is the nebu-lous cool factor–people want to enjoy a high qualityof life outside the classroom or workplace. ...

States with faster job growth tend to have lowernet out-migration rates, as do states that invest agreater share of their budgets in higher education.Where students have more local options to attendschool, as measured by the number of institutionsof higher education per pupil, they are more apt to

Excerpts

stay closer to home for their schooling. But higherexpenses for tuition, room and board seem to beassociated with lower rates of out-migration.Perhaps tuition and related expenses are capturingquality differences in schools across states.

Out-migration is also positively associated withincome in the “sending” state, a puzzling relation-ship for those who believe that students wouldmove toward areas where the pay promises to behigher. But higher education is also likely to bewhat economists call a normal good, one for whichdemand rises along with income. So higher incomesalso make it easier to broaden the geographicsearch for high-quality education and to escape thein-state limits on higher education opportunities.

Oddly, out-migration also tends to rise with astate’s land area. One might have hypothesized thatsmall states would see more out-migration since atrip of a given distance is more likely to take oneout-of-state in a small state than in a large one. Butperhaps residents of large states are more accus-tomed to traveling long distances and so are lessaverse to crossing borders to attend school.

Lifestyle variables also have an important influ-ence on location decisions. All else equal, studentsprefer to stay in areas where the beach is a relative-ly short drive away and where there’s a local profes-sional sports team to root for. And students seem tolike congregating with others, preferring urbanlocales with high population densities.

Chasing the leak. After taking account of thevarious influences on the educational migration decision, one of the most surprising things aboutConnecticut’s high net out-migration rate is that itisn’t higher. Our model predicts a 21 percent net out-migration rate for Connecticut in 2000, but the state’sactual figure was just 14 percent. Nevertheless, theaverage state saw an 8 percent net in-migration ratethat year, so Connecticut’s number is still 20 pointshigher than other states. What, according to themodel, explains this difference?

Part of the explanation lies in the state’s compara-tively low commitment of resources to higher educa-tion. We have fewer institutions of higher learning perstudent than average, and spend less of the state’sbudget on higher education than the typical state. Ourlow job growth rate doesn’t help, either, but it doesn’thurt as much as one might imagine.

By far the biggest reason for the difference lies in the state’s high per-capita income. Connecticutincome in 2000 was $7,500 higher than average, asum that by itself would suggest an out-migrationrate for the state some 40 points above the norm.The fact that it is only about 20 points higher than

average reflects the influence of other, offsettingfactors, such as our coastal locale, high populationdensity and access to urban centers.

Backflow helps. The increase in the number ofcollege-educated adults exceeded the number ofcollege degrees produced in the state between 1989and 1999—a period that also saw, incidentally, amassive recession in Connecticut. So once theygraduate, Connecticut college students tend to stayput, or at least to be replaced by college grads from elsewhere if they leave.

Economic and lifestyle variables are also keydeterminants in the choice of where to put downroots. Four variables—job growth, average annualpay, population density and whether or not a statehas a coastline—account for more than 40 percent of the variation in the flow of the college-educatedacross states. Compared to the average state, whichsaw a net outflow of college-educated folks, at a rateof 3.7 percent, Connecticut enjoyed a net inflow. Theactual inflow, 0.5 percent, was about 1.6 percentagepoints below the predicted figure of 2.1 percent.

Connecticut’s meager job growth rate over theperiod (more than 17 points below average)accounted for nearly all the drag on the state’sinflow of the college-educated. Our high populationdensity was a bit of a hindrance too. Unlike the col-lege bound, who look for high-population areaswhen attending school, college grads prefer to settledown in less congested areas. On the plus side,Connecticut’s coastal location serves as a big draw,but by far its most attractive feature is its high pay.Average annual pay in the 1990s was about a thirdhigher in Connecticut than in other states, whichoffset the entire burden on the net in-migration ratefrom the state’s poor track record on jobs.

Fitting a plug. A state’s human capital plumbingproblems aren’t always as bad as they seem, butfashioning a plug to fit the brain drain may not beso simple, either. Stopping one leak may well createanother. Connecticut’s high incomes, for example,make the state an attractive target for skilled jobseekers. But they also make it possible forConnecticut’s kids to shop beyond the state’s bor-ders for the best schools. Pouring resources intohigher education may help to keep them in state forschool, but they’re not apt to stay if jobs aren’taround after they graduate.

Perhaps the best strategy is for Connecticut toencourage the growth of new jobs. More jobs won’tnecessarily stem the exodus of the college-bound,but they would certainly help plug the drain on college grads leaving.



B O O K S

Dorm WarningJudith B. Greiman

The Naked Roommate: And 107

Other Issues You Might Run Into In

College, Harlan Cohen, Sourcebooks

Inc., 2005, $14.95

Trekking from campus to campus with16-year-olds in tow has become the

spring and summer activity for manyAmerican families. Vacations areplanned with proximity to colleges in mind, charts are produced outliningsports offerings, academic standings andgeographic settings, and tensions areheightened as parents and teens worryabout making the right college choicesand completing applications effectively.

In March, a version of this ritualbegan in my own home. As I wrote thisreview, I was also checking websitesfor flight information and juggling college visit schedules for campuseslocated in cities across the Northeast.At each information session, earneststudents and admissions staff tellpotential applicants about courses,extracurricular activities, internationalexperiences, food service, facilitiesand the application process. What theydon’t cover is how to get through college once you get in.

The Naked Roommate by HarlanCohen picks up where the admissionstour ends. The book offers practicaladvice on almost every issue a studentmight confront when attending col-lege. Written in a lighthearted fashion,the book is structured around 107 tips that are paired with real-life sto-ries, factoids, statistics, advice andpractical messages all geared to help-ing students have an academically andsocially successful and healthy col-lege experience.

The author is a syndicated advicecolumnist for people in their teens andtwenties. His Help Me Harlan! columnis known as much for its humor as itspractical advice. The book grew out ofCohen’s own difficult transition to col-lege, which necessitated a transfer andthe experience of “being a freshmantwice.” Cohen noted that he neverexpected to have a problem but strug-gled to find his place and to get into

the rhythm of college life. He wishedthat he had had a clearer understand-ing of the expectations of college.

Based on a 10-year odyssey thatincluded visits to 250 colleges, inter-views with 1,000 college students,information sent to his www.helpme-harlan.com website and researchculled from various higher educationassociations and professionals,Cohen’s book is filled with real-lifeexamples of the issues and obstaclesthat students face. As noted in the ori-entation that begins the book, it is“based on what today’s college stu-dents are honestly thinking, feeling anddoing on today’s college campuses.”

While geared to students, the bookhas separate introductory sections forstudents, parents and educators.Although some of Cohen’s introductorycomments and asides are a bit toocutesy (he notes in the “WelcomeParents” section that it is a pleasure tomeet us) the book is a must read forcollege administrators who can learnmuch from the stories reported by stu-dents. In fact, Cohen encouragesadministrators to use the book as atext for “first-year experience” pro-grams and through his website offers afacilitator’s guide for such programs.

The Naked Roommate is a fount ofgood advice ranging from ways to han-dle difficult roommate issues to deal-ing with drug and alcohol use, Greeklife, technology, campus safety, food,

day-to-day finances, laundry, studyingand connecting with campus resources.Students and parents should read thebook all at once to get the generalsense of things to come and then overthe course of the college experience asthey confront specific events andissues. The book’s format makes it easyto check in on a particular topic whenthe need arises. Simple chapters areorganized around particular themesthat are fleshed out with useful tips,each of which is followed by a story, abottom line and occasional researchdata. The book’s clearheaded andstraightforward advice will be usefulthroughout a college journey. If strand-ed on a desert island called College,this is the one book that would providea student with the wherewithal to manage money, bloom socially, soaracademically and understand the con-sequences of behavioral choices.

The common academic theme thatruns through the book is that studentsneed to stay focused. Cohen explainsin a number of ways that the bestthings to do to ensure success in col-lege revolve around doing the work,connecting with professors and learn-ing to study in groups. He encouragesstudents to determine early on thegrades and experiences that they seekin college and to develop routines thatwill help them achieve these goals. He does not mince words when outlin-ing what can happen when the wrongchoices are made. In discussing study-ing, Cohen notes, “Minimal work +minimal attendance + minimal effort =minimal grades.”

The common social themes of thebook are that students need to get outof their rooms to try new things andthat the choices they make in the areasof sex and drug and alcohol use cansignificantly impact their futureoptions. Students will appreciate hislack of proselytizing against drinkingand drug use but will understand hisclear message that students who can-not drink or use drugs responsibly willneed to choose between going toschool and using their substance ofchoice. Students will also warm to hisclear understanding of the difficulties


D A T A C O N N E C T I O N

n Number of New England institutions that rank among the top 10 liberal arts colleges nationally in professors’ pay: 4

n Number of New England institutions that rank among the top 10 public universities nationally in professors’ pay: 0

n Number of New England institutions among 81 nationwide identified as having a“conscience,” meaning their administrators are socially responsible and their stu-dents are dedicated to serving society: 20

n Number of those that are private colleges: 16

n Average salary for New England school superintendents in 2004-05: $118,424

n Average salary for New England school teachers in 2004-05: $51,837

n Percentage of Americans who support higher pay for teachers in fields wherethere are shortages of qualified teachers: 72%

n Percentage of teachers who do: 52%

n Approximate number of percentage points by which a $100 increase in per-capita state taxes reduces jobs growth: 0.5

n Approximate number of percentage points by which one additional federal misconduct conviction per 100 elected officials in a state reduces jobs growth: 1.1

n National ranks of New Hampshire and Vermont, respectively, in federal misconduct convictions per 100 elected officials, 1986-95: 49th, 50th

n Number of U.S. eco-villages, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops,urban housing cooperatives and other “intentional communities” listed with theMissouri-based Fellowship for Intentional Community: 938

n Number located in Connecticut: 1

n Number located in Vermont: 16

n Share of Vermont farms that participate in “agritourism” such as cheese tours,hay rides or overnight stays: 1 in 3

n National rank of Maine in percentage of dwelling units that are second homes: 1st

n National rank of Vermont: 2nd

n Projected median age of Maine residents in 2030: 47

n Projected median age of Colorado residents in 2030: 36

n Percentage of Maine adults age 25 or over who have bachelor’s degrees: 24%

n Percentage of Colorado adults age 25 or over who have bachelor’s degrees: 36%

n Percentage of U.S. college undergraduates who have credit cards: 76%

n Of those who have credit cards, percentage who have at least four: 43%

n Average credit card interest rate as of May 2005: 13%

n Percentage of U.S. and Canadian white-collar workers who have shopped online at work: 72%

n Percentage of those who attribute this to faster computer connection speeds at work: 19%

n Percentage who attribute it to lack of time outside work: 14%Sources: 1,2 CONNECTION analysis of Chronicle of Higher Education/American Association of UniversityProfessors data; 3,4 CONNECTION analysis of Colleges with a Conscience findings, The Princeton Review andCampus Compact; 5,6 Educational Research Service; 7,8 The Teaching Commission; 9,10,11 TheConnecticut Economy; 12,13,14 Fellowship for Intentional Community; 15 Federal Reserve Bank of Boston;16,17 New England Economic Partnership (Maine, 20 percent; Vermont, 12 percent); 18,19 CharlesColgan, New England Economic Partnership; 20,21 Postsecondary Education Opportunity; 22,23 NellieMae; 24 Bankrate.com; 25,26,27 Bentley College and Burke Inc.

suffered by those used to socializingthrough instant messaging when facedwith real social situations.

The Naked Roommate succeeds asa key source of advice for students anda peek at college life from the studentperspective for campus administratorsand parents. While most topics andtips are not new, they are organizedand reported on in a way that is usefuland compelling to the reader. Cohen’sfresh contribution to the genre willlikely be the first in a series as he con-tinues to seek stories and tips throughhis website and campus travels.

I might not yet know which institu-tion I think best for my daughter, but I now know which book I will pack in her suitcase as she begins her college journey.

Judith B. Greiman is president of

the Connecticut Conference of

Independent Colleges.

B O O K S

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Join us in celebrating 50 years of service to New England

The New England Board of Higher Education’s

50th Anniversary Conference and Dinner Celebration

Explore the creative region!This space generously donated by MEFA, the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority.

October 28, 2005 • Mystic Marriott Hotel, Groton, Connecticut

The Conference

The Creative Region: Channeling New England’s Arts and Culture Assets for Success in the New Economy

Arts educators, legislators, business and community leaders explore ways to positionNew England in the global creative economy.

• Best-selling author Dan Pink on why the MFA is the new MBA

• New York Times columnist David Brooks on the creative economy

• U.S. Congressman Christopher Shays, Co-Chair of the Congressional Arts Caucus,on investing in arts and culture

• Washington Post Writers Group columnist Neal Peirce, America’s leading authority on metro regionalism, on positioning New England in the global creative economy

• Building Creative Communities: A forum on how arts and culture transform communities

Dinner Celebration

• New England leaders mark NEBHE’s half-century of service• Remarks by U.S. Senator Christopher J. Dodd

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