Engineering Faculty - How Not to Talk to Parents and Potential Students

We’ve been making the rounds with my youngest daughter who is a junior in high school. She’s interested in a college that has a strong Mechanical Engineering program. She’s not interested in going to a large university - she’s looking for something a little smaller.

So far we’ve checked out some really good schools and have had some great visits. One in particular was so bad though I just have to write about it. No names.... Here’s how the day went in bullet form:

• 3 hour ride so we leave early.
• Get to the school and find the admissions office.
• Admissions office staff tells us about our appointment with the Mechanical Engineering Department Chair. We get the name and “office” location of the chair and head over to the Engineering building.
• We get over to the Engineering building and find out the “office” is actually a small conference room. 
• There are two other families with us. Two of the potential students are female and one is male.
• The department chair (at least I think he was the department chair but not 100% sure) shows up.
• The professor/chair spends 15-20 minutes talking about himself. The awards he has received, the grants he has. When he found out we were from Massachusetts of course he just had to tell us about all the time he had spent and great work he had done at MIT.
• So far, just a waste of everyone’s time. No real damage.... yet.
• It gets bad though when someone breaks in with a question.
• One of the parents asks about curriculum. He goes into a diatribe about how he is teaching the same courses as MIT using the “big thick classic books”. He mentions ABET but does not describe what it is or means. Other families are so lost.
• He then stressed over and over again about how much time students have to spend reading these classic textbooks each week. He indicated with his fingers (about an inch) saying “this thick” for each class. He says "this thick" and indicating with his fingers at least 10 times. Each time he does it is with a scowl on his face. 
• He then tells us the problem with American students is "you are lazy" and “you will likely fail”. This time with a look of disgust on his face.
• “You will have at the most 4 hours per week of free time. You can use this time to go to the mall (and that is a "waste of time") or to do your laundry. You will have no other free time and must constantly study those classic textbooks reading "this thick every week.”
• Then we got more of the lazy American student language.
• At this point I cut it off and told him we had another appointment and had to leave. The other two families got up and followed us as quickly as they could out the door.
• I did tell them don't listen to that guy.
• 3 hour plus ride home with traffic. What a wasted day.

Lucky for us my wife and I are both engineers and we were able to prevent some of the damage to our daughter. I cannot help but think about those other two families and those two 17-18 year olds whose dreams of studying engineering were likely destroyed in about 20 minutes by this guy. One of the families had a younger sibling and that kid has likely been damaged too. Nice work.

Again, no names here. I am sending a link to this post though to the admissions director at that school.

UPDATE 3/30/12:

The Dean of the Engineering school called late this afternoon and we talked for a long time. Good honest discussion and he is going to be sure this does not happen again. I was impressed with his understanding and dedication to the program and especially the students. 

I feel confident the problem will be taken care of. You know I'll be checking! 

I spend a lot of time (it's 100% of my own time, not work) writing and I wonder sometimes if what I'm doing is having any impact at all. Today was pretty good!

Online Courses - Preparing for H1N1 at the University of Southern Florida

Last week I read an interesting article in the St Petersburg Times about how the University of Southern Florida (USF) is taking precautions for H1N1. The article did not focus on the usual (and so important) hand-washing, vaccination, go home if you are feeling sick content we've all been seeing. It focused on the use of online content as a backup in the event USF gets shut down because of the virus. Here's a piece from that St Petersburg Times article:

University of South Florida students returning to class Monday found something new on every course syllabus: A paragraph outlining USF's plan to hold classes online, via e-mail or a video service like Skype, in the event of emergency. And one of this fall's worst-case scenarios concerns a possible severe outbreak of swine flu that could force the suspension of classes, perhaps for weeks. "In my mind, that's a high probability," said Tapas Das, USF's associate provost for policy analysis, planning and performance.

A couple of weeks ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a document titled CDC Guidance for Responses to Influenza for Institutions of Higher Education during the 2009-2010 Academic Year. In the document, the CDC says to decrease the spread of flu, CDC may recommend preemptive class suspension if the flu starts to cause severe disease in a significantly larger proportion of those affected than occurred during the spring/summer 2009 outbreak.

Is USF going too far with their preparation? I don"t think so after taking a look at what the CDC experts are saying. The university seems to be making a strong preemptive effort to prevent an entire semester from being canceled because of the flu.

My favorite piece of the St Petersburg Time article is the last few lines:

At first, Das said, it was hard to imagine teaching some courses in nontraditional ways. But he said USF professors have been working on backup plans to continue teaching even courses like music, theater and dance.

"This is, perhaps," he said, "an opportunity for us to be more creative."

Very nicely said Associate Provost Das. Could this be an opportunity for all of us involved in higher education to be more creative?

What Is An Agent Of Change?

When you manage people, you are in it together.
And because you are the leader, you own all the outcomes, good and bad.
- Jack Welch

With the coming presidential election we've been hearing the word change used a lot. It's nothing new - it just seems to be ratcheted up because we're dealing with some extra hot issues this round. So..... what is this change stuff all about? Jack and Suzy Welch have an interesting perspective. In the October 20, 2008 Business Week WelchWay column, they are asked the following question by Anil Kale from Pune, India:

What kind of person is a change agent?

Jack and Suzy's answer is an interesting one. They start by saying that true change agents must have a single critical trait - power. They say most questions they get about change come from people deep within their organizations who have a burning desire to improve things and are frustrated with the organizational inertia in their way. They have good ideas, passion, dedication and hunger to be change agents but worry they cannot be.

Jack and Suzy go on saying by and large, change is still made by people with some sort of authority. It's driven by managers who have a platform to advocate for a new direction and the ability to hire, promote, and reward those who embace it. Change agents must be leaders to be effective - unfortunately - not all leaders are change agents.

Here's three other traits (besides power) that Jack and Suzy say are essential:

1. True change agents see a future no one else does, and that vision won't let them rest. They don't lead change because it "makes sense" or because change is "necessary." They lead change because they believe their organization must get ahead of an approaching "discontinuity" in order to survive and win. Typically, they've risen through the ranks because they've seen around corners before, and they're recognized for what they are, serial visionaries.

2. Change agents have the courage to bet their careers. True change agents are willing to take bold action - and accept the consequences. They know that leading change can be messy, with few clear-cut answers about how events will play out.

3. Change agents have something about them that galvanizes teams and turns people on. Perhaps the biggest misconception about change agents is that they're Lone Ranger types. In fact, the most effective change agents have a fervent core of supporters, cultivated through intensity and caring.

What's the business award? According to Jack and Suzy - for some change agents, it's the organization's survival. But for many others, it's not nearly as dire. It's growth, and all the good things that come with it: more and better jobs, new products, global expansion, not to mention their byproducts - excitement and fun.

True change agents have power, vision, bravery and support - Jack and Suzy say these people are rare - from my perspective I would agree.

*****
Take a look at Jack and Suzy's Business Week piece here. You can also listen to a podcast titled True Change Agents, found on their website The Welch Way.