What to do with my Humanities Degrees?

Indeed, what to do with my humanities degrees? Three of my four degrees are in music, which is part of the performing arts, a subset of the humanities. I love my degrees; I became an adult attaining these degrees and they transformed me into the musician, the academic, and the person I am today. The only problem with the super-majority of my degrees is that my full-time gig is no longer music. I came to terms with this in my previous article My Complete Failure, but for many who have humanities degrees and do not work in the field, this is a difficult problem.

My other degree is an MBA. I completed my MBA from University of Phoenix Online a few years ago and I learned a great deal. Not only was I exposed to the ins and outs of business, I now understand the business mind-set that was foreign to me for so long. Along with the knowledge and skills that I have acquired on-the-job, my MBA has been a valuable asset that I will use every day.

Now the big question: what do I do with my humanities degrees?

I should rephrase this; how do I market myself in my professional life? Do I present myself as a humanities person with business experience? Do I present myself as a business person with some humanities chops? Or do I throw out my musical training and portray myself as 100% business?

I ask these questions because I have known many humanities graduates who struggle to know how to market themselves in non-humanities environments. *When I use the term market, I mean presenting oneself to possible employers or knowing how to network in a current job. Struggling in non-humanities environments is an understandable conundrum; humanities is about thinking, reflecting, and being creative, three skills that generic, aggressive business types overlook. Humanities majors, in the business setting, often come off as thinkers who can be perceived as negative and ask too many questions. This is funny because the brightest leaders in business always ask...no beg their people to take the time to think, reflect, and be creative to help make their organizations better.

As for me and my background, I chose to market myself as a humanities major that is guided by practical business principles. Since I work in higher education there is no need to toss my humanities persona in the trash although it did take me a a few years to realize this. If I was going to work for a company like Verizon, for example, I might need to market myself first as a business person who has sharp critical thinking skills and is creative because of my humanities background.

Finally, how you market yourself when getting a job or career advancement is largely up to you, but you have to be authentic. If you are not on your resume, CV, or during an interview, employers can recognize this and even if they don’t during the screening process, they will when you show up for work. Be comfortable with who you are and learn how to focus the unique skills that have been acquired during your humanities studies.

But be warned; being authentic does not always equal a better job or promotion. Some employers will not hire you just because of your humanities degrees and will choose an MBA because it is a safe and understood personality type.

Getting a job is one of the hardest and most stressful endeavors one can go through and getting the ‘right’ job is even harder. Going for a promotion this is equally difficult because you are a known quantity and competing against co-workers that are often equally as capable. But as long as you are authentic, work hard, network, and strive for self-realization, you will find a place in this big crazy world that not only respects you and your humanities background, but allows you to use your talents and have a job you can be proud of.

It’s Not Just a Physics Problem

Colleges and Universities cannot continue to operate as if it were the good ol’ days.

I know, this is a silly statement that most would immediately shoot down because of the use of “good ol’ days,” but I stand by it. The decades after World War II saw the astounding growth of America’s colleges and universities; the US population grew, students from around the world started attending, and the government, federal and state consistently funded higher education. Colleges and universities all around the country were able to expand and start departments because of the needs of their localities and funding, although not plentiful, was there.

Fast forward to 2013; things have changed. The government, federal and state have limited resources to spread around and need to fund other things such as defense, primary and secondary education, IRS, veterans affairs, homeland security, justice, health-care, and the like before higher education takes precedence. Besides the intense scrutiny of for-profit education, all of higher education is being questioned, rightly and wrongly because of tight purse strings. This leads us to an article at Inside Higher Ed about how the University of Southern Maine is looking to eliminate their physics department.

Rewind to August 2012 and my article about classical music training in Arizona. In this article I predicted that classical music training at Arizona’s three large public institutions will drastically change by 2025. To summarize; Arizona State University will continue to have a robust school of music because of its location while the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University will slowly be bled dry, both being reduced to marching band departments (not a bad thing). To conclude the article I stated, “My prediction is not limited to Arizona. This prediction can be applied to countless content areas and replicated in every state in the union where higher education budgets are at the whim of lawmakers and the rise and fall of the economy. This is not just a music problem; this is the new higher education reality.”

Back to 2013 and the University of Southern Maine’s physics department. Because of low student enrollment the University of Southern Maine is looking to cut its physics department. If this goes into effect, the university will continue to offer electives in physics but if a student wants major in physics they will have to pack their bags and go to the University of Maine (as stated in the article). This would cause some hardship for students who were not intending on going to the University of Maine but if a school like University of Southern Maine has to cut physics then the University of Maine’s will only grow and the quality offered at that school will improve. At the end of the day students of Maine will still be able to study physics, Maine will most likely have a larger more renowned physics program at the University of Maine, and the needs of the people of Maine will be met.

As I stated in my article about classical music training, this scenario will be duplicated countless times in many different content areas where enrollment is small or shrinking. I greatly empathize with faculty members and staff that will be affected by department reductions and closures over the next ten years but there is no way to avoid this reality. The good news is that higher education is not going to suffer and America’s colleges and universities will continue to be the best in the world; individual colleges and universities and the state systems that support them have to adjust.

When it comes to which content areas will be affected, this will be decided by administrators, faculty, higher education boards, and politicians. Unfortunately I have to include politicians because as with everything, there is always a political element to higher education when it comes to money and the allocation of scarce resources. In my next article on this subject I will go over a scenario in which a state system tries to decide which content areas to reduce, which ones to consolidate, and which ones are cut.

Big Time College Football: An Introduction

Like a segment of the US population, I love college football. I grew up watching that indomitable UTEP (University of Texas-El Paso) football team lose most of their games; how they tried to win and how the city of El Paso cheered for victories, but it was rarely to be. The most exciting game each season was when UTEP played New Mexico State during the, ‘Battle of I-10’. This rivalry was exciting because whoever won would have bragging rights for that 40 mile section of I-10 between El Paso and Las Cruces and during particularly difficult years, it might be the only win of the season.

As I grew up into young adulthood in the 90s, I stood by my beloved college football and watched it every Saturday. When Sunday arrived I loathed the NFL; bloated salaries, lack of subtlety, and overt, in-your-face capitalism. As a student of the fine arts I could not support an organization that was only about one thing, making money. But how I loved college football; the young men that played college football played it for the love of the game; each player had a fierce passion, enthusiasm, and a deep commitment to their team and their school. I felt a kinship with these players because I felt the same passion and commitment for classical music; all was perfect.

                                          

But then something changed. I got a little older and started looking at higher education as the place where adults, young and old go to be transformed through academic learning and first-hand experience. If a student goes to college they go to improve their life through academic enhancement, skills acquisition, and career preparation. Ideally this preparation is grounded in a solid liberal arts foundation with a core program that allows them to be successful at whatever they do after college.

This brings me back to college football. According to the NCAA, 1.7% of senior football players will be drafted into the NFL. This laughably small percentage is well, small. In any highly competitive field, and I mean highly competitive, only a small percentage of people actually get ‘jobs’ but this tenuous reality is not the case for the vast majority of students who get degrees at America’s colleges and universities. Do only 1.7% of MBA graduates get jobs? Do only 1.7% of MDs or JDs eventually find employment? Of course not. The comparison is apples to cannon balls. If a student becomes a student-athlete for a football college program, they have a 98.3% chance of not being drafted into the NFL (it is understood that different colleges and conferences have different stats).

Most college football players know that the likelihood of getting into the NFL is slim, but do they know the chance of them finishing an undergraduate degree is also diminished by playing big time college football? I am going to ignore the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate because in my opinion, it is pretty goofy. There is nothing like creating some metrics to make yourself look good, no matter how well meaning. I am going to strictly look at outcomes, and the 2012 Adjusted Graduation Gap (AAG) Report, provided by Dr. Richard Southall, delivers. According to the Adjusted Graduation Gap, the SEC is minus eighteen and the PAC-12, which is the worst of the worst, is minus twenty-seven. This means that when you take the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) for these conferences and add the Adjusted Graduation Gap you will have the graduation rate for big time college football programs. This shows that student athlete graduation outcomes at big-time football programs struggle because of the demanding requirements of playing Division I football and the variety of student specific issues that contribute to this struggle.

Now do most athletes who play college football expect to get drafted into the NFL? No. Do most of them study hard to attain their degrees? Yes. But the reality is that many big time college football programs are businesses that have nothing to do with the colleges they are attached to. Although BSC schools are some of the most highly regarded research institutions in land, what do research dollars, mostly driven by graduate students, have to do with undergraduate football student athletes besides getting alumni to donate money?

College football, specifically big time college football, does did not meet the needs of the student athletes who play the game. To make things worse, high profile colleges programs make millions of dollars on the talents off these young adults and pay them a pittance, sorry, give them scholarships and grants for their efforts. Administrators talk about student athletes and drop names such as Robert Griffin III and his impressive academic accomplishment at Baylor, but in reality, a noticeable percentage of student athletes go to big time programs only to prepare them for the NFL.

With so many fond college football memories, I, like many, am concerned about the countless football controversies. Besides the acute trauma that occurred at Penn State, most football controversies are about money (on the back end, Penn State is also about money once you get past the horror). How many years did it take for the powers-that-be to agree on a playoff system in college football? This type of ‘controversy’ takes the attention off the real reason students go to college, to get an education and prepare them for the future.

Research Project: Winter 2013

Ever since I wrote the article Competitive? about the first two-weeks of the 2013 NCAA football season I have been fascinated by how much revenue college football teams make. Some teams make a lot of money while others, often in the same conference, do not. Throughout the fall and winter of 2013-2014 I am going to look at the numbers for BCS a non-BCS teams and ask a series of questions:

Revenue questions:

- Do the larger revenue schools win the majority of the time? What is the percentage?

- Do the smaller revenue schools ever have a chance to beat larger revenue schools? What is the percentage?

- Why are certain schools more successful with lower revenue? Is there a limit to how successful they can be?

- Can a program such as Boise State ever grow to compete with the likes of Alabama or USC?

- Can a school such as North Dakota State ever become a BCS program?

College football questions:

- How important is the brand?

- Can BCS teams ever become semi-pro?

- How would colleges handle the transition if programs went from student-athlete centered to athlete centered that are semi-autonomous?

- What would happen if a semi-pro college football team went bankrupt?

- Now would the NCAA change to allow for semi-pro football and basketball teams?

- Does the NFL want to have a semi-pro feeder league? Might they be worried about Saturday competition?

These are just a few of the questions I have come up with so far; the list is not complete, it is not exhaustive. I have not done a literature review, I have not asked the leading researchers in the field any questions, I have not reviewed the top journals or books; I am curious to see where my interest in college football will lead me.

Concerning the numbers, I will be using the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool provided by the US Department of Education to look at the 2012-2013 college football season (last year’s season) using the 2011-2012 revenue numbers. The numbers for the 2012-2013 season have not been published yet. An interesting quote on the frontpage of the website states “Please note that valid comparisons of athletics data are possible only with study and analysis of the conditions affecting each institution.” I agree with this statement to a point but for the most part this is a cop-out that I will address later.

Competitive?

The 2013-2014 NCAA football season is up and running and during the the first two weeks a few games were exciting, there were a handful of upsets, but mainly were blowouts. Below are a few of the scores from week one and two with the revenue of each program. Revenue amounts was retrieved from FindtheData.

Week 1

19.9x

Oklahoma 34 ($58.8 million)

LA-Monroe 0 ($2.95 million)

17.43x

Texas 56 ($95.7 million)

New Mexico State 7 ($5.49 million)

13.85x

Oregon 66 (revenue of $27.7 million)

Nicholls State 3 ($2 million)

12x

Michigan 59 ($70.3 million)

Central Michigan 9 ($5.82 million)

11.44x

Florida 24 ($72.8 million)

Toledo 6 (6.36 million)

9x

Wisconsin 45 (revenue of $43.3 million)

Massachusetts 0 ($4.77 million)

Week 2

20.82x

Texas A&M 65 (revenue of $45.4 million)

Sam Houston State 28 (revenue of $2.18 million)

18.27x

Wisconsin 48 (revenue of $43.3 million)

Tennessee Tech 0 (revenue of $2.37 million)

8.77x

Louisville 44 (revenue of $25.7 million)

Eastern Kentucky 7 (revenue of $2.93 million)

8.54x

Nebraska 56 (revenue of $54.7 million)

Southern Mississippi 13 (revenue of $6.4 million)

4.45x

Clemson 52 (revenue of 31.7 million)

South Carolina State 13 (revenue $7.11 million)

4.2x

Ohio State 42 (revenue of $60.8 million)

San Diego State 7 (revenue of $14.4 million)

Looking at the above scores along with the revenue and the multiplier of how much more revenue the ‘big’ school has than the ‘small’ school makes me wonder:

- Why do BCS schools play a two or three game preseason; who benefits?

- Is it  good experience for smaller revenue schools to get blown-out by BCS schools? Do their football players learn valuable lessons? Do the smaller schools get a payout?

- During these games, do neutral fans enjoy watching Clemson score 52 points or Wisconsin blank Tennessee Tech?

- Why is the BCS not semi-pro?

In my opinion, the only people who enjoy these games are the fanbases of BCS schools and the media outlets that cannot get enough of Alabama or Michigan. I personally would rather watch a WAC or a Conference USA game than a BCS team play a low revenue non-BCS team early in the season (of the schools I attended, one is BCS and the other is not). These games are not competitive, they pad early season stats, commentators get excited about early Heisman buzz, and worst of all, they are dull and not entertaining.

During the 2013-2014 NCAA football season I will write a handfull of article explaining why big time football (and basketball) needs to stop acting like it is populated by student athletes who are amatures and become semi-professional.

Addendum (added Sept 22):
I am not sure where FindTheData got current revenue numbers since last season’s revenue numbers, 2012-2013 football season, have not been published on the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis Cutting Tool yet.  

Elite Family Planning

In my previous article about a concerned Princeton mom, Anything but Egalitarian, I commented on the message this mother was communicating to her her sons and Princeton women. Her short letter to the Daily Princetonian gained a great deal of media attention so it seems logical in today’s media environment she was approached to write a book about her views on life and the such (I am sure her life story will make for an interesting book).

As previously stated, I support individuals no matter what they choose when it comes to family and career (minus being addicted to heroin and/or being self-destructive). If you want a family, great; If you want to be single and dedicate your life to your job, go for it! I do have a problem when people force their own beliefs on others and are judgmental or even aggressive/demeaning when others do not conform. And this is where the comments section of a recent article about this book deal naturally went; smart people telling others how they should live their lives.

Below are my favorites:

     “I don't entirely disagree with her, except on the not-so-small point that you don't need a 

     husband to have babies.”

Funny because of all the things this commentator could have focused on, this was it. For me, I might have agreed with this statement before I had my own child, but now that I have a son, raising a child solo would be extremely difficult. It is true you do not need a man to have a baby but I suggest having a partner (non-gender specific) and a village to help in loving and raising the child.

     “Females seem to peek in maturity at about 13 years old, continuing the ‘ME, ME, ME!’ 

     approach to life from then on.”

Not much to say besides I wonder why this person even posted this comment. This dude obviously does not have any faith in the abilities of women and is repeating the old adage of the ‘me’ obsessed generation (was that the silent generation, the baby boomers, or generation x, y, or z?).

     “There's nothing wrong with taking care of cats and today's single women do very little

     spinning. I don't see things the way Ms. Patton does, but the "uproar" in response to a 

     simple expression of currently unorthodox views tells us a good deal about the demand for 

     conformity to the tribal creed at Princeton.”

I think this writer is a bit defensive of her cats. Even though she has embraced being a ‘spinster’ her response says otherwise. In addition, she assumes that current American culture is contrary to the Princeton mom’s views, but is it? Saying a stance is unorthodox is hard to back-up. I really like the comment on conformity in the Princeton tribe; this commentator should expand on this point and drop the other.

     “Mrs. Patton is of another generation. The culture that existed in her college years is light 

     years away from the culture that exists today.”

I have to disagree. What culture is this person talking about; the culture of graduate education or the culture that actually exists? Be weary of such grand statements when they cannot be backed-up with reality.

     “These views are only 'unorthodox' to those on the left. For the rest of us, they're called 

     common sense.”

Ah yes; everything is political to some. This comment was a reaction to one of the previous comments and I do not believe this Princeton mom’s views are unorthodox, they might be a bit conservative or overly practical but they communicate her views on family. Although I consider myself center-left, I do not view her views as unorthodox but then again I not view everything as political either.

At the end of the day this Princeton mom is going to write a book and I wish her all the luck in the world. The truth about this article, the book deal, and the media attention (including my articles) is that if this mom and article were not connected to Princeton with its $16 billion dollar endowment no one would care. Would anyone have noticed this same article at Rutgers or Seton Hall? No.

To recap; if you want to start a family and find your mate in college, good luck. If you want to work and oversee a clowder of cats, enjoy. But if you encounter someone who lives a life that is different than yours, celebrate the diversity of human existence and the plurality of personal choice. 

Oh, and don’t be judgmental.

Teaching Youth

Every generation has an label: baby boomers, generation x, generation y, and now generation z (not to mentioning all previous generations). With each generation the elders inevitably comment on how the generation currently in school lacks [important attribute] and [other important attribute]; attributes that the elder generation had aplenty.

I was reminded of this generational perception when I was reading an article by an anonymous writer for Inside Higher Ed about teaching students who seem unengaged. In my experience, many students in higher education can appear unengaged when they attend class. In addition to seeming unengaged they often lack, according to some instructors; creativity, critical thinking skills, and are interested in non-academic topics more than the subject at hand. I will come back to my own experiences and perceptions later but before I go any further I have to ask; how does this author, because of where she teaches, have unengaged students?

According to her bio, her current job is at a prestigious British university and will soon head back to an elite research institution in the United States. If she teaches at institutions that can be described as prestigious and elite, how in the world are her students unengaged; how do they lack critical thinking skills; and how can they not analyze information or think independently?

One problem that instructors face when they teach undergraduate courses is they do not understand their students. Instructors at the college level are highly intelligent people who have dedicated a portion, or a large portion of their lives to academic studies and are anywhere from ten to fifty years removed from being an undergraduate. In addition, some instructors just do not care about the daily lives of their students and the myriad of issues that young adult, and older adult learners face.

When teaching instructors need to take into consideration many factors that relate to engagement (each of these need to be considered on an individual basis). Does the student like the content of your course? Is the course relevant to their degree? Did the student get a good night sleep? Did the student have a good meal? Does the student have health problems? Does the student have personal problems? Does the student have any extracurricular activities that is diverting their attention? The list can go on and on.

When I was a teaching assistant and visiting lecturer at a large research institution for several lower division music electives most students did not care about my courses; they just wanted to get their three-credits and move on. I do not fault them for not caring, my course was one of forty in their undergraduate degrees and although I was teaching music, a subject most people like, history and survey courses can still be perceived as dull.

To counter unengaged students I have one piece of advice; be authentic.

When teaching, always communicate your passion to your students; this needs to be done every time you are with them. Do not rely on your pedigree or how many books or articles you have written to impress; live in the moment and be part of their lives. Most of your students will respond if you actively take an interest in their lives and offer help and encouragement throughout the duration of the course.

Simple advice that some instructors either forget or do not follow. If you choose not to be authentic or care about your students then your students will not care about you.