Battles of Higher Education

Higher education is a very labor intensive and often very divided industry. On one hand, we want the best for our students (or we should), but on the other hand, we are capable of some vicious guerilla fighting that makes one wonder if these folks believe in their own education (admit it, it is true).

Reading an Article today titled: “Those Self-Defeating Lobbyists at One Dupont Circle”, got me thinking about the self-defeating infighting that goes on in the industry.

“What you might not know, if you work for a college or university, is that you, too, have lobbyists. In their current incarnation, they may be doing you more harm than good”.

 

“The higher-education lobby is located at One Dupont Circle, in Northwest D.C., and that's how people here talk about it: One Dupont says this, One Dupont says that. Like 10 Downing Street or the Kremlin. The building itself houses dozens of organizations representing public colleges, private colleges, land-grants, community colleges, registrars, accreditors, and so on. They're led by the American Council on Education, which technically represents everyone but protects the interests of wealthy and powerful institutions most of all”.

(http://chronicle.com/article/Those-Self-Defeating-Lobbyists/141339/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en)

This is not an agree or disagree article, but I would like to point out that there seems to be a lot of internal hostility right now, at a time when enrollments are down, money is tight, and this supposedly’ recession proof’ industry is suffering. Where are the students in all this arguing? Are we helping them by fighting amongst ourselves?

Sometimes you do need to fight for what you believe in, but never at the expense of those we are supposed to be helping.

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam