Clearing The Way To Be MU's Next President?

[keefe]

I swear it's mandated that they treat customers differently at Trader Joe's based on whether they bring their own bag.  Everytime I go there they're all gushing with happiness to ring up the hippies with their own bags, then me or some other dude comes and makes them use a paper bag and they practically ignore you.     

I like Trader Joe's product mix but the staff can be brutally judgmental. They often measure the Social Consciousness of customers through the prism of dress or some other artificial barometer. A dude or dudette sporting dreads is greeted like a long lost friend while the guy in the Air Force flight suit has an offending stench.

I was there around Christmas to get a few things wearing an AF leather flight jacket. You would have thought I had on a diaper full of digested animal flesh. The irony is that we had been working 20 hour days to get a mercury scrubbing technology ready for install in Germany while this guy was manning a cash register in a retail store. While he had no idea who I was he felt smugly superior because I must be some blood-thirsty, baby-killing fascist.  

[keefe]

This is why it matters and this is why the new President hire is more important that than any other in our life-time.  The University is trying to do something different and risky, not maintain the status quo
 

Well said, berg. This hire is crucial for many significant reasons.

Pilarz had a terribly naïve vision. The fact is that Marquette's core mission is to deliver the Jesuit values. Not to increase its standing in some arbitrary, artificial ranking construct.

Frankly, if the enterprise uses that yard stick to measure success then it has lost sight of its reason for being. Tightening admission standards for the sake of meeting a silly numerical target is meaningless. I believe that standardized test scores are useful as a general gauge of potential but I would always place greater weight on subjective criteria to include essays addressing questions relevant to the Jesuit values. Also, alumni interviews vetting candidates are more insightful than how a 17 year old performed on a multiple guess test.

I have mentioned here that my wife and I have both conducted interviews of applicants to two different Ivies. These institutions place considerable weight on these screening mechanisms. And I can affirm that these schools take the essays very seriously. At no time were alumni screeners told to recommend a certain % or any other fatuous standard.

If I look at the composition of classes at HBS the program assembles a genuine cross-section of the global community with a broad range of life experience and objectives. There are fighter pilots, entrepreneurs, Peace Corps volunteers. There are economically privileged and the less financially fortunate. White, Yellow, Black and Green. Red and Blue. Foreign and Domestic. The point is they assemble 800 people whose diversity educates in ways beyond the case study.

The best way for Marquette to raise its profile is to prepare its graduates for a life of service. If a university is best known for its alumni in professional sports or popular entertainment then it might be missing the mark.     

Marquette's mission is to prepare young men and women for a life of service through the integration of scholastic and moral excellence. Who cares what its USNWR rating is? We as alumni should not. I would much prefer to have Marquette embrace its core mission and genuinely prepare its students for a life of serving. Marquette champions figures such as number of alumni going on to law school or medical school. Nothing wrong with that but what are they doing with that to substantiate the Jesuit ideal? Such figures are not even half of the story. What is the balance of that narrative for therein lies the truth of the University's excellence. 

[GOO]

Well, of course there are PH.D's in the business field.  And for those with a JD the next step is LL.M. which is a masters in law and then there is some obscure degree after the LL.M. but I can't remember what that degree is... only saw it once on a law professor.

[ChicosBailBonds]

Leadership is a strange beast. We studied many models of leadership at the Air War College and it is always crucial to recognize mission first rather than resume.

George Patton was a stellar field general - the best ground commander in the US Army in WW II. He wanted overall command of Overlord, seeing it as his due for success in North Africa and Sicily and the natural career progression. But Ike knew that he was wrong for a role that required equal parts diplomat and warrior and held him in reserve until he was given command of the 3rd Army. In that position he excelled far beyond expectation. I believe he would have been a disaster in the job that was given to Omar Bradley.

Hap Arnold was the right man to guide the strategic development of the USAF. Under his stewardship beginning in WW II the Air Force developed the technological base and scientific orientation that dominates its culture to this day. Arnold would have been a terrible field commander - a role that Curt Lemay flourished in. Lemay was a brilliant field commander in both the ETO and the Pacific. His vision in both the tactical and strategic application of air power saved American lives, possibly millions. The Pacific War ended not with an invasion but through Air Power. The atomic bombings were the exclamation point on the 5th AF paragraph that destroyed Japan from within.

I could offer up other examples - Adm King vs Adm Halsey, etc... but the point is to begin with mission then select from the pedigrees that best deliver that mission. Running Manpower or a plumbing business is a different mission than leading a national University with a specific purpose.

Absolutely dead on.  One person's success in one area doesn't always translate well to another, especially something as unique as a university.  Having worked at two universities (including MU for five years), there is a different cadence than the "real world".  I worked at IU, same deal.  Much more insular.  Part of that is the tenure system that permeates...get tenure, you are set for life...that is so contrary to the real world.  Of course, much of the university isn't made up of tenured professors, and that divide in and of itself is interesting. 

A CEO that was in a sector that had a heavy mix of union and non-union would do better at a university than one that was strictly from a non-union industry IMO.

[4everwarriors]

Which is a great reason. But do take advantage of the Jesuit education. Remember that college should be much more than simply learning a trade.

Sample the broads too.

[keefe]

Absolutely dead on.  One person's success in one area doesn't always translate well to another, especially something as unique as a university.  Having worked at two universities (including MU for five years), there is a different cadence than the "real world".  I worked at IU, same deal.  Much more insular.  Part of that is the tenure system that permeates...get tenure, you are set for life...that is so contrary to the real world.  Of course, much of the university isn't made up of tenured professors, and that divide in and of itself is interesting. 

A CEO that was in a sector that had a heavy mix of union and non-union would do better at a university than one that was strictly from a non-union industry IMO.

The tenure system is essential to academic freedom but anathema to some with nothing but private sector or military experience. Bill Gates was always a CEO, from the age of 19 on. He encouraged the free exchange of ideas up until he made a decision, at which point he expected absolute obedience.

When he went over the Foundation Gates brought that same management approach which did not go over well at all with the largely academic PhDs who staffed the organization bearing his name. This is one of the reasons he brought Jeff Raikes and his team over from MS. Raikes serves as buffer and foil for Gates who decided to focus on the Global health vertical while Melinda worked US Programs.

Gates was spectacularly successful at MS but was failing spectacularly at the Foundation. Managing IT business professionals in a hierarchical enterprise is a different beast than dealing with world class academics used to complete freedom of expression. Leading authorities on tropical disease, oncology, epidemiology, etc... were appalled by Gates behavior while Gates, for his part, was furious with these employees who favored talk over action.

The titular head of the Foundation was Patti Stonesifer (married to Mike Kinsley) who, for a number of complex reasons, was unable to control Gates in any way. Gates was savvy enough to know he needed a stronger business leader to allow him to focus on Global Health while preventing him from chasing off all the help. Enter Jeff Raikes.

This case illustrates how leadership success in private enterprise does not ensure similar productivity in an academic environment.