On Being UL
Crossword clue, 5 letters:
Ideological businessman.
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BROKE
We have all worked with and for various businesses. We’ve seen good ones, and some not-so-good. A few observations:
A good business watches the competition.
A great business watches the market.
A poor business does neither. It keeps doing the same thing, over and over. A poor business sticks to ideology, insisting the market should be what it isn’t any more, and perhaps never was.
There is a fourth type of business that isn’t necessarily the ‘best’, or at least not the most profitable; and that is the trail-blazer. The true innovator not only anticipates the market, he changes it. The visionary business creates something that people did not see coming, and did not know they needed, nor even wanted.
Now, unless the visionary business has iron-clad protection for intellectual properties, it is rarely the most profitable, and in fact, it often fails. Look at the Wright Brothers… and then look at their descendant Jack Northrup, who gave us the flying wing. Neither created businesses that survived. It is ironic, but the business that all the other businesses chase, is often not the most profitable.
For the university, however, generating visionary innovations, being the trail-blazer, brings the most students, researchers, donations, political support, and research grants. That’s an important difference between a business and a university.
I am working on my next book which has the modest title, On Being Einstein. That may sound ridiculous, but my thesis is quite simple: What makes for an Einstein? Is it someone with a great memory and a very fast, powerful mind? Or is it someone who is willing to ask questions, and consider daring ideas, that others are not willing to consider?
Put in those terms, the questions are clearly rhetorical. We have all known people with fantastic memories and fast, powerful minds. But I would guess that none of us have ever met someone to rival Einstein.
So if I were to write, ‘On Being UL,’ what might that mean? And as you read through the following, ask yourself where we really want UL to excel… or if we would rather to stick to passing, outdated, ideas.
Because most of the people here talk sports, and only sports. When someone as rude as myself asks, Why do we play sports? I get answers such as:
“You have to have sports. Sports bring in donors, students, political support, researchers, and national recognition.”
I remember an administrator who insisted the same things to me some years back. I thought about it, and I said, “I know someone who proves you wrong.” He sneered and asked, “Who?”
And I looked at him and said, “You.” It was true; even though UL has had variable success in athletics, and even though we’re certainly not one of the big-time sports programs, this guy had brought in dramatic improvements in donors, students, political support, researchers, and national recognition with his programs.
Again, that was some years back. So let’s review that list.
Donors: UL is wrapping up a half-billion dollar fund-raising campaign. The other schools in the UL System, and most of the schools in the ‘Belt, can’t imagine such a thing. Not many schools of our size can.
Students: UL is only growing slowly in numbers, but quite rapidly in the caliber of the students we are admitting. Which is the best we can do in the short run, because we don’t yet have anywhere to put more students.
That aside, here’s a question I don’t hear asked: What kind of student do we want? And what kind of student do big-time sports bring in?
Are we sure they are the same?
It’s an important question. I recently watched the LSU president testify before the state Senate, and he was talking about how LSU needed more money because they were losing prized students to other states. When he was asked where LSU was losing students, in order he mentioned Alabama, UL, (yes, he called us UL) and then other places. Now, I don’t know why no one asked him how he considered losing students to another state school was a problem for the legislature; nor do I know why no one asked him how UL was doing this without asking for more money.
However, the question may be moot, because our students are attending games less and less. As we get more of the students we want, why do they attend games less? And how is it we are pulling students from LSU, which has the athletics program so many people think we absolutely need?
Is it possible that, more and more, the students we really want are looking for... academics?
Political Support: We have been mopping up in Baton Rouge recently, pulling in major bucks to build out our facilities and our capacity. Fortunately, our administrators are smart enough to go about this quietly, and dodge the kind of in-state sabotage we have faced for decades (tell ‘em about it, Turbine). Our people turn up, show legislators the numbers, and let them draw their own conclusions. And there is a growing awareness in the BR Skyscraper that maybe universities should be focusing on things other than than sports; and that, maybe, the state needs to start investing in academic success, rather than farm teams.
Researchers: We passed up LSU in funded research in 2022. I don’t think any of us can wrap our heads around the enormity of that. LSU has three times our faculty, four times our funding, and five times our doctoral programs…
...and we passed them up. Again, our administrators are playing those cards very quietly, but eyes are opening up in the Capital. And our people are quietly suggesting to the Leg that it invest more in the schools that are producing.
National Recognition: First, why do we need national recognition except to get donors, students, political support, and researchers? Second, are we sure that national recognition in sports gets the kind of resources we really want?
Because trust me, other universities and granting agencies— and from the preceding, apparently students and donors— are noticing our rapid rise in academics.
We have said we want to make the P4. I am watching the ever-deepening hole into which the P4 schools are pouring their resources; not just money, but administration attention, student attention, donor and governmental attention. How much are we willing to chase all those March hares down their endless warrens?
I’m not suggesting we get rid of athletics, nor even that we de-emphasize athletics. Rather, I’m urging us all to consider: Who are we? And what might UL become with a reconsideration of our priorities?
Who is UL?
We hate LSU so much we want to be just like them. Sure, LSU is the flagship... of a bunch of listing, rustbucket tubs. And yes, LSU sits atop the hill… but it’s the worst dump in the country.
Go back and look at my comments, consider what we have done with pitiful resources. Then ask yourself, Which would we choose: to be another LSU, another under-producing sports-addled campus that leads our state nowhere?
Or something else, maybe something that does not exist elsewhere, something visionary?
What might we accomplish if we play to our strengths? Could we help lead Louisiana to better education, higher incomes, cleaner industries, less poverty, less crime, and less wasted human potential?
Why should we continue to compare ourselves to LSU?
Do we want to be the ideological business, sticking to an outdated paradigm simply because we refuse to re-think it? Or do we want to look, not just at the competition, not just at the markets...
...but at the future? Great minds and great universities don’t respond to the future, they design it. They show people things they didn’t know they needed, nor even that they wanted.
Louisiana needs a new, more intelligent way forward.
And thinking in outmoded ways will never make that happen.
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Originally Posted by ZoomZoom
