Tennessee Tech finished in a tie for fifth place among AACSB-accredited schools offering online MBAs. This article profiles the school.
Tennessee Technological University opened in 1912 as Dixie College. The school struggled until after World War 2, but grew steadily after the war.
TTU offers six concentrations fot its MBA: Accounting, Finance, Human Resource Management, International Business, Management Information Systems (MIS), and Risk Management and Insurance. Distance courses are identical in content to classroom courses.
The TTU MBA is a 30-hour (ten class) regimen which may be taken at whatever pace the student prefers.
According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of TTU’s MBA students is 530; TTU’s website says its minimum GMAT score for admission is 450.
Tuition and fees for Tennessee Tech’s online MBA students are $385 per semester hour for Tennessee residents and $858 per semester hour for out-of-state residents. So tuition and fees for a Tennessee resident at TTU would sub-total $11,550 for an MBA program, while out-of-state residents would pay $25,740 for tuition and fees. Add in the books and course materials and you’re looking at about $14,550 for a Tennessee resident and $28,740 for a non-Tennessee resident to earn a TTU MBA.
According to the AACSB, 236 of 1,482 total students are MBA students (15.9%).
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
John Moore Two Thumbs Down
Somebody want to explain to me why a company that "is not accepting new customers" would advertise on TV, newspapers, the phone book and the web?
Argh. Still looking. House and personal temperatures continue to rise.
Argh. Still looking. House and personal temperatures continue to rise.
No Air Conditioning
Attic unit runs, but not the backyard unit. That thing just hummmmmmmms in an ominous way.
House temp up to 83 and climbing. Wife is not happy.
Seeking assistance.
House temp up to 83 and climbing. Wife is not happy.
Seeking assistance.
Top Online MBA School Profile - #4 University of Colorado at Denver
Colorado at Denver finished a very solid fourth place among AACSB-accredited schools offering online MBAs. This article profiles the school.
The University of Colorado at Denver was founded in 1912 as the downtown campus for the University of Colorado.
UCD offers an MBA with specializations available in Business Marketing, Consumer Marketing, Business Intelligence, Business Strategy, Change Management, Corporate Financial Management, Decision Sciences, Enterprise Technology Management, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Financial Analysis, Human Resource Management, Information Systems, International Business, Investment Management, Managing for Sustainability, Services Management, and Sports and Entertainment Management. UCD also offers professional post-graduate certification for additional classwork. UCD also offers dual MS/MBA degrees in accounting, finance, information systems, international business, management or marketing. UCD students may finish their MBA in as little as 16 months or as long as 5 years.
According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of UCD’s MBA students is 600; UCD says the average GMAT score for enrolled students is 560.
According to the AACSB, 1,207 of UCD’s 2,857 total students are MBA students (42.25%).
Sixteen classes are required for the UCD MBA, or 48 semester hours minimum.
Tuition for the MBA for Colorado residents is $482 per semester hour, and $1,146 per semester hour for out-of-state students. There is an online fee of $100 per course, plus $50 for online labs. Consequently, Colorado students would expect to pay $25,536 in tuition and fees for an MBA, while out-of-state students would pay $57,408 in tuitition in fees. Add another $3,200 in books and course materials, and a UCD MBA for a Colorado resident costs around $28,736 and $59,608 for an out-of-state student.
The University of Colorado at Denver was founded in 1912 as the downtown campus for the University of Colorado.
UCD offers an MBA with specializations available in Business Marketing, Consumer Marketing, Business Intelligence, Business Strategy, Change Management, Corporate Financial Management, Decision Sciences, Enterprise Technology Management, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Financial Analysis, Human Resource Management, Information Systems, International Business, Investment Management, Managing for Sustainability, Services Management, and Sports and Entertainment Management. UCD also offers professional post-graduate certification for additional classwork. UCD also offers dual MS/MBA degrees in accounting, finance, information systems, international business, management or marketing. UCD students may finish their MBA in as little as 16 months or as long as 5 years.
According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of UCD’s MBA students is 600; UCD says the average GMAT score for enrolled students is 560.
According to the AACSB, 1,207 of UCD’s 2,857 total students are MBA students (42.25%).
Sixteen classes are required for the UCD MBA, or 48 semester hours minimum.
Tuition for the MBA for Colorado residents is $482 per semester hour, and $1,146 per semester hour for out-of-state students. There is an online fee of $100 per course, plus $50 for online labs. Consequently, Colorado students would expect to pay $25,536 in tuition and fees for an MBA, while out-of-state students would pay $57,408 in tuitition in fees. Add another $3,200 in books and course materials, and a UCD MBA for a Colorado resident costs around $28,736 and $59,608 for an out-of-state student.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Top Online MBA School Profile - #3 East Carolina University
East Caroina also finished less than one point out of first place, but had to settle for third among AACSB-accredited schools offering online MBAs. This article profiles the school.
East Carolina University was founded in 1907 as a training school for teachers, with its first classes beginning in 1909. The original name was East Carolina Teachers Training School, changed to East Carolina Teachers College, then East Carolina College, and finally East Carolina University in 1967.
ECU’s Business School was founded in 1936, offers full-time and online MBA degrees. ECU allows students to take from one to five courses per semester, with concentrations available in Accounting (with undergraduate degree in Accounting), or General Business MBA, with optional certificates available in Finance, Environmental Planning, Health Care, Hospitality Management, Management Information Systems, Professional Investment, Security Studies, Sport Management, and Supply Chain Management for additional classwork.
ECU also offers an MBA for medical students. According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of ECU’s MBA students is 526; ECU says the minimum acceptable GMAT score is 500.
According to the AACSB, 854 of 3,444 total students are MBA students (24.79%).
Tuition for MBA students at ECU is $219 per semester hour for North Carolina residents, and $725 per semester hour for out-of-state students. ECU offers scholarships to MBA Students, but only five a year for merit and five a year for need. Assistanships are avaiable only to full-time MBA students. Waiver for the out-of-state premium is considered only for a limited number of applicants, and requires at least a 650 GMAT score for consideration.
Twenty classes minimum must be taken for the ECU MBA, so tuition for in-state online students would cost $13,140, and out-of-state students would need to pay $43,500. The additional courses for specific concentrations would add about $1,971 to an in-state student’s tuition cost and another $6,525 to an out-of-state student’s total tuition. That does not include course materials, though, so with 20 classes you’re looking at about another $4,000 in textbooks and supplemental material, so the actual price tag is around $19,111 for an in-state ECU MBA, and 54,025 for an out-of-state MBA from East Carolina University.
East Carolina University was founded in 1907 as a training school for teachers, with its first classes beginning in 1909. The original name was East Carolina Teachers Training School, changed to East Carolina Teachers College, then East Carolina College, and finally East Carolina University in 1967.
ECU’s Business School was founded in 1936, offers full-time and online MBA degrees. ECU allows students to take from one to five courses per semester, with concentrations available in Accounting (with undergraduate degree in Accounting), or General Business MBA, with optional certificates available in Finance, Environmental Planning, Health Care, Hospitality Management, Management Information Systems, Professional Investment, Security Studies, Sport Management, and Supply Chain Management for additional classwork.
ECU also offers an MBA for medical students. According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of ECU’s MBA students is 526; ECU says the minimum acceptable GMAT score is 500.
According to the AACSB, 854 of 3,444 total students are MBA students (24.79%).
Tuition for MBA students at ECU is $219 per semester hour for North Carolina residents, and $725 per semester hour for out-of-state students. ECU offers scholarships to MBA Students, but only five a year for merit and five a year for need. Assistanships are avaiable only to full-time MBA students. Waiver for the out-of-state premium is considered only for a limited number of applicants, and requires at least a 650 GMAT score for consideration.
Twenty classes minimum must be taken for the ECU MBA, so tuition for in-state online students would cost $13,140, and out-of-state students would need to pay $43,500. The additional courses for specific concentrations would add about $1,971 to an in-state student’s tuition cost and another $6,525 to an out-of-state student’s total tuition. That does not include course materials, though, so with 20 classes you’re looking at about another $4,000 in textbooks and supplemental material, so the actual price tag is around $19,111 for an in-state ECU MBA, and 54,025 for an out-of-state MBA from East Carolina University.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Top Online MBA School Profile - #2 Drexel University
Drexel University just missed taking top honors among AACSB-accredited schools offering online MBAs. This article profiles the school.
Drexel University was founded in 1891 as Drexel Institute, a private school focusing on “Art, Science, and Industry”. The Philadelphia, PA school operates the Bennett S. Lebow College of Business. Drexel offers full-time, part-time, Distance and Executive MBA programs. In terms of online MBAs, Drexel’s program is called the MBA Anywhere program. The MBA Anywhere offers concentrations in Finance, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, or Engineering Management. Drexel also offers an online Corporate MBA in Pharmaceutical Management.
According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of Drexel’s MBA students is 600; Drexel says the minimum acceptable GMAT score is 600.
The MBA Anywhere at Drexel is a 20-course curriculum, featuring 17 “cohort” classes taken at the same time as contemporaneous classmates, plus three on-campus residency seminars, all to be completed in 24 months. The rigorous 60-credit course load is more difficult than most MBA programs, but the program is nationally recognized; the Lebow School is often highly regarded as a prominent “second tier” Business School and BusinessWeek ranks Drexel’s Part-Time MBA as the 10th best in the nation, making it arguably the most prestigious university to offer an online MBA.
One significant advantage to Drexel is that the Lebow school operates an MBA Career Services office, designed to help MBA graduates make immediate use of their MBA in their career. This office is open to MBA Anywhere students just the same as any MBA student at Drexel.
According to the AACSB, 747 of 3,283 total students are MBA students (22.75%).
Tuition for MBA students at Drexel is the same, in-state or out-of-state. Drexel charges $54,000 in tuition and fees for a one-year full-time MBA, not including course materials, room and board. Per credit-hour charges are $915 each, so a 60-hour curriculum would cost $54,900. Drexel advises online students to inquire for specific costs for online classes, indicating additional fees would be applicable, although their website says the MBA Anywhere is a flat $54,000.
That does not include course materials, though, so with 20 classes you’re looking at about another $4,000 in textbooks and supplemental material, so the actual price tag is around $58,000. But at least it’s simple and clear, no hiding the cost.
Drexel University was founded in 1891 as Drexel Institute, a private school focusing on “Art, Science, and Industry”. The Philadelphia, PA school operates the Bennett S. Lebow College of Business. Drexel offers full-time, part-time, Distance and Executive MBA programs. In terms of online MBAs, Drexel’s program is called the MBA Anywhere program. The MBA Anywhere offers concentrations in Finance, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, or Engineering Management. Drexel also offers an online Corporate MBA in Pharmaceutical Management.
According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of Drexel’s MBA students is 600; Drexel says the minimum acceptable GMAT score is 600.
The MBA Anywhere at Drexel is a 20-course curriculum, featuring 17 “cohort” classes taken at the same time as contemporaneous classmates, plus three on-campus residency seminars, all to be completed in 24 months. The rigorous 60-credit course load is more difficult than most MBA programs, but the program is nationally recognized; the Lebow School is often highly regarded as a prominent “second tier” Business School and BusinessWeek ranks Drexel’s Part-Time MBA as the 10th best in the nation, making it arguably the most prestigious university to offer an online MBA.
One significant advantage to Drexel is that the Lebow school operates an MBA Career Services office, designed to help MBA graduates make immediate use of their MBA in their career. This office is open to MBA Anywhere students just the same as any MBA student at Drexel.
According to the AACSB, 747 of 3,283 total students are MBA students (22.75%).
Tuition for MBA students at Drexel is the same, in-state or out-of-state. Drexel charges $54,000 in tuition and fees for a one-year full-time MBA, not including course materials, room and board. Per credit-hour charges are $915 each, so a 60-hour curriculum would cost $54,900. Drexel advises online students to inquire for specific costs for online classes, indicating additional fees would be applicable, although their website says the MBA Anywhere is a flat $54,000.
That does not include course materials, though, so with 20 classes you’re looking at about another $4,000 in textbooks and supplemental material, so the actual price tag is around $58,000. But at least it’s simple and clear, no hiding the cost.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Top Online MBA School Profile - #1 Auburn University
Auburn University won a close contest among AACSB-accredited schools offering online MBAs. This article profiles the school.
First off, Auburn University is a well-known name among American Universities. Founded in 1856, the Alabama university first established its name as a liberal arts school, and indeed that remains its primary focus. Auburn also takes pride in its Business School and MBA program, which offers full-time, part-time, Distance and Executive MBA programs. In terms of online MBAs, Auburn boasts that over 1,100 alumni have earned an “Outreach” MBA from Auburn.
Auburn says that online classes average 10-15 students, providing a strong opportunity for contact and discussion with the professors. According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of Auburn’s MBA students is 606.3; Auburn’s website says its mean GMAT score for new entrants is 643. Tuition for Alabama residents in 2008 was $3,120.00 for 10-15 hours, plus $8.00 per semester hour; if less than ten hours was taken in a semester, there is a registration fee of $540.00 plus $258.00 per credit hour taken. Online students must also pay a $67.00 fee per semester plus $166.00 online service fee per semester hour (all rates for Alabama residents). If a student is not an Alabama resident, the following conditions apply - $9,360.00 for 10-15 hours, plus $8.00 per semester hour; if less than ten hours was taken in a semester, there is a registration fee of $1,620.00 plus $774.00 per credit hour taken. Online students must also pay a $67.00 fee per semester plus $166.00 online service fee per semester hour. The Distance MBA at Auburn has a minimum required curriculum of 12 courses, or 36 semester hours. Auburn’s website indicates the degree in meant to be earned over seven semesters. Auburn has a one-time requirement for a five-day on-campus Strategy Case Analysis competition. Applicants with “strong academic backgrounds” and GMAT scores above 620 are often awarded “Graduate Assistantship” titles which include tuition waiver and a living expenses stipend, although this is not available to distance MBA students .
Therefore, most residents of Alabama would pay $19,585 in tuition and fees and non-Alabaman students would pay $45,649 in tuition and fees for an Auburn MBA. Add in the books and course materials and you’re looking at about $21,025 for an Alabama resident and $47,089 for a non-Alabama resident to earn an Auburn MBA.
Auburn offers 12 options in MBAs including dual MS/MBAs in Information Systems or Industrial Systems. According to the AACSB, 562 of 4,375 total students are MBA students (12.8%).
First off, Auburn University is a well-known name among American Universities. Founded in 1856, the Alabama university first established its name as a liberal arts school, and indeed that remains its primary focus. Auburn also takes pride in its Business School and MBA program, which offers full-time, part-time, Distance and Executive MBA programs. In terms of online MBAs, Auburn boasts that over 1,100 alumni have earned an “Outreach” MBA from Auburn.
Auburn says that online classes average 10-15 students, providing a strong opportunity for contact and discussion with the professors. According to the AACSB, the average GMAT score of Auburn’s MBA students is 606.3; Auburn’s website says its mean GMAT score for new entrants is 643. Tuition for Alabama residents in 2008 was $3,120.00 for 10-15 hours, plus $8.00 per semester hour; if less than ten hours was taken in a semester, there is a registration fee of $540.00 plus $258.00 per credit hour taken. Online students must also pay a $67.00 fee per semester plus $166.00 online service fee per semester hour (all rates for Alabama residents). If a student is not an Alabama resident, the following conditions apply - $9,360.00 for 10-15 hours, plus $8.00 per semester hour; if less than ten hours was taken in a semester, there is a registration fee of $1,620.00 plus $774.00 per credit hour taken. Online students must also pay a $67.00 fee per semester plus $166.00 online service fee per semester hour. The Distance MBA at Auburn has a minimum required curriculum of 12 courses, or 36 semester hours. Auburn’s website indicates the degree in meant to be earned over seven semesters. Auburn has a one-time requirement for a five-day on-campus Strategy Case Analysis competition. Applicants with “strong academic backgrounds” and GMAT scores above 620 are often awarded “Graduate Assistantship” titles which include tuition waiver and a living expenses stipend, although this is not available to distance MBA students .
Therefore, most residents of Alabama would pay $19,585 in tuition and fees and non-Alabaman students would pay $45,649 in tuition and fees for an Auburn MBA. Add in the books and course materials and you’re looking at about $21,025 for an Alabama resident and $47,089 for a non-Alabama resident to earn an Auburn MBA.
Auburn offers 12 options in MBAs including dual MS/MBAs in Information Systems or Industrial Systems. According to the AACSB, 562 of 4,375 total students are MBA students (12.8%).
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The 25 Top Online MBA Schools 2009
In my earlier article I discussed the different types of MBA programs in terms of how to earn them. This article ranks the 25 best, in my opinion. So to start, let me explain why I believe I have any business ranking online MBA programs. The short answers are one, no one else is really doing it to any serious effort; and two, there are some reasonably objective criteria by which such programs can be measured against one another. I will also say that a great deal more information is available now than in 2006, so my rankings will be a bit different, as they now use ten types of data to reach the results. That data was provided by the websites of the schools evaluated, as well as information from the Association for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business(AACSB), the largest international accrediting body for business schools.
I’d like to stop here and go over some information about the AACSB, and its member schools. The AACSB has 1,081 accredited colleges and universities for business worldwide. Of those, 512 schools offer a Masters degree of some type of business major, and 498 offer the MBA degree. But only 3.4 percent of MBA students earn their degree online. Consequently, I only found 77 AACSB-accredited schools which actively offer an online MBA at this time. That cuts down the field considerably. There are a handful of schools which also advertise an online program, but have no participating students at this time, and there are also a few schools which are just starting up online MBA programs – I left them off because there is not enough data at this time to say how well they are doing with their new programs. So later there may well be more schools to consider, but for now we are looking at a field of 77. And in case you’re wondering, none of those for-profit schools you see advertised on TV are AACSB-accredited; schools like the University of Phoenix, Devry, or Capella may or may not give you a good education and may or may not be worth the money, but they are none of them accredited with the AACSB, and that’s a serious problem you should know about before signing up with them. Those schools will be discussed in a future article.
So, how to rank the online schools? When I started looking up the data, I found eight relevant types of information, plus two rankings I could use to leaven my subjectivity somewhat. First is the question of how many concentrations the school offers, second is the general and scholarly orientation of the school, third is the average GMAT score earned to enter the program, fourth is the overall student-to-faculty ratio for masters programs, fifth is the in-state tuition, sixth is the out-of-state tuition, seventh is the proportion of MBA students to the total student population, and eighth is the graduation percentage per year. I initially planned to use those categories in equal weighting, then add balance from BusinessWeek’s rankings for Part-Time MBA schools and Get Educated’s value rankings. I realized, after looking more closely however, that this resulted in a skewed ranking, one that might look good on paper but would not really serve the student’s best interests. So here is how I redid that data:
First and foremost is the variety of concentrations available. Schools which only offer one type of MBA, and only one focus, do a disservice to the professional. For instance, I am pursuing my CPA license and so a program which focused on Accounting was important to me, but other MBA candidates might take more interest in Finance, Marketing, or Entrepreneurship. Therefore, whether a school offered multiple choices of concentrations became significantly more important in points, now weighted at 35.0% of the total value. The in-state and out-of-state tuition also weighed heavily, at 15.0% and 12.5% of the total score respectively. The school’s average GMAT score was also important, worth 12.5% of the total. The proportion of masters students to the overall population weighed 10.0% of the total score, the student-to-faculty ratio weighed 5%, the proportion of MBA students graduated each year weighed 5%, and the rankings from BusinessWeek and GetEducated each counted for 2.5% of the score. So, with that weighting, here are the top 25 Online MBA programs for 2009. I will write up brief capsules of the top 10 programs in future articles:
1. Auburn University (Alabama) 95.60%
2. Drexel University (Pennsylvania) 94.75%
3. East Carolina University (North Carolina) 94.67%
4. University of Colorado at Denver 94.58%
5 (t). Tennessee Technological University 94.50%
5 (t). University of Houston at Victoria (Texas) 94.50%
7 (t). Morehead State University (Kentucky) 94.33%
7 (t). Wayne State University (Michigan) 94.33%
9. University of Colorado at Colorado Springs 94.25%
10. University of North Dakota 94.17%
11 (t). Georgia Southern University 94.08%
11 (t). University of Texas at Dallas 94.08%
13 (t). University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh 94.00%
13 (t). University of Wisconsin at Whitewater 94.00%
15. Texas A&M at Commerce 93.92%
16. University of Michigan at Dearborn 93.42%
17. Nicholls State University (Louisiana) 92.75%
18. Suffolk University (Massachusetts) 92.25%
19. Georgia College & State University 88.00%
20. Colorado State University 87.92%
21. University of Florida 87.17%
22 (t). Florida State University 87.00%
22 (t). University of Nebraska at Lincoln 87.00%
24. University of Wyoming 86.75%
25 (t). Durham University (UK) 86.67%
25 (t). University of Texas at Arlington 86.67%
25 (t). University of Massachusetts at Lowell 86.67%
25 (t). University of North Texas 86.67%
I’d like to stop here and go over some information about the AACSB, and its member schools. The AACSB has 1,081 accredited colleges and universities for business worldwide. Of those, 512 schools offer a Masters degree of some type of business major, and 498 offer the MBA degree. But only 3.4 percent of MBA students earn their degree online. Consequently, I only found 77 AACSB-accredited schools which actively offer an online MBA at this time. That cuts down the field considerably. There are a handful of schools which also advertise an online program, but have no participating students at this time, and there are also a few schools which are just starting up online MBA programs – I left them off because there is not enough data at this time to say how well they are doing with their new programs. So later there may well be more schools to consider, but for now we are looking at a field of 77. And in case you’re wondering, none of those for-profit schools you see advertised on TV are AACSB-accredited; schools like the University of Phoenix, Devry, or Capella may or may not give you a good education and may or may not be worth the money, but they are none of them accredited with the AACSB, and that’s a serious problem you should know about before signing up with them. Those schools will be discussed in a future article.
So, how to rank the online schools? When I started looking up the data, I found eight relevant types of information, plus two rankings I could use to leaven my subjectivity somewhat. First is the question of how many concentrations the school offers, second is the general and scholarly orientation of the school, third is the average GMAT score earned to enter the program, fourth is the overall student-to-faculty ratio for masters programs, fifth is the in-state tuition, sixth is the out-of-state tuition, seventh is the proportion of MBA students to the total student population, and eighth is the graduation percentage per year. I initially planned to use those categories in equal weighting, then add balance from BusinessWeek’s rankings for Part-Time MBA schools and Get Educated’s value rankings. I realized, after looking more closely however, that this resulted in a skewed ranking, one that might look good on paper but would not really serve the student’s best interests. So here is how I redid that data:
First and foremost is the variety of concentrations available. Schools which only offer one type of MBA, and only one focus, do a disservice to the professional. For instance, I am pursuing my CPA license and so a program which focused on Accounting was important to me, but other MBA candidates might take more interest in Finance, Marketing, or Entrepreneurship. Therefore, whether a school offered multiple choices of concentrations became significantly more important in points, now weighted at 35.0% of the total value. The in-state and out-of-state tuition also weighed heavily, at 15.0% and 12.5% of the total score respectively. The school’s average GMAT score was also important, worth 12.5% of the total. The proportion of masters students to the overall population weighed 10.0% of the total score, the student-to-faculty ratio weighed 5%, the proportion of MBA students graduated each year weighed 5%, and the rankings from BusinessWeek and GetEducated each counted for 2.5% of the score. So, with that weighting, here are the top 25 Online MBA programs for 2009. I will write up brief capsules of the top 10 programs in future articles:
1. Auburn University (Alabama) 95.60%
2. Drexel University (Pennsylvania) 94.75%
3. East Carolina University (North Carolina) 94.67%
4. University of Colorado at Denver 94.58%
5 (t). Tennessee Technological University 94.50%
5 (t). University of Houston at Victoria (Texas) 94.50%
7 (t). Morehead State University (Kentucky) 94.33%
7 (t). Wayne State University (Michigan) 94.33%
9. University of Colorado at Colorado Springs 94.25%
10. University of North Dakota 94.17%
11 (t). Georgia Southern University 94.08%
11 (t). University of Texas at Dallas 94.08%
13 (t). University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh 94.00%
13 (t). University of Wisconsin at Whitewater 94.00%
15. Texas A&M at Commerce 93.92%
16. University of Michigan at Dearborn 93.42%
17. Nicholls State University (Louisiana) 92.75%
18. Suffolk University (Massachusetts) 92.25%
19. Georgia College & State University 88.00%
20. Colorado State University 87.92%
21. University of Florida 87.17%
22 (t). Florida State University 87.00%
22 (t). University of Nebraska at Lincoln 87.00%
24. University of Wyoming 86.75%
25 (t). Durham University (UK) 86.67%
25 (t). University of Texas at Arlington 86.67%
25 (t). University of Massachusetts at Lowell 86.67%
25 (t). University of North Texas 86.67%
Top 25 Rankings to be Edited
I discovered some new information which may change the rankings for the 2009 Top 25 Online MBA Schools. The short version is that the information from the AACSB is in conflict with school-specific data in some cases. The rankings will be posted once I have confirmed certain points.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Rating The Distance MBA
It’s been a couple years since I posted my ranking of the Top 25 Online MBA Schools, so I am having another look at business schools which offer the Online MBA, where most or all of the coursework necessary to earn a Masters degree in Business Administration. That is, now that I have completed my MBA from the University of Houston at Victoria, I am looking at the degree from the other side of the road and considering what it means to earn an MBA, to earn an online MBA, what sort of path should be chosen for different career conditions, and if you do decide to go after an online MBA, which schools are the best choice.
Not everyone should pursue an MBA, and not everyone who should earn an MBA will find the online course the best path to success. There are basically three ways to earn an MBA; full-time, part-time, or online. If your goal in life is to become the CEO or COO or a Fortune 500 corporation, a lot of people will tell you that you need to graduate from a top school, which in the case of the MBA means attending a prestigious and expensive school with a huge reputation, and you have to do it as a full-time student. Of course, doing so is no guarantee that you will win that much-desired CEO spot; work out the statistics and you will find that well over 90 percent of graduates of even the most prestigious business schools never end up as CEOs of major corporations. Have a look at the people in those roles and you will not only find people who did not go to the “top” schools, but some who never earned an MBA and a few who never even earned a college degree at all (you can do that if you found and build your own successful company). On the other hand, most top executives do earn MBAs, and most of them go to well-known universities as full-time students. So if you put in the time and expense to get accepted to a prestigious school as a full-time student, work yourself silly getting top grades, you should expect to have the best prospects in general of all the MBA graduates. That is, if you have the means to get into a top school, if you can afford to go to school full-time and not have to raise a family or work full-time, if you’re still in your early twenties, and if the economy doesn’t make that student loan a killer six months after you graduate. For a lot of working people, one or more of those conditions is not feasible. And for those people, other options need to be considered. If you’re not going to Harvard or the Wharton School or something along those lines, all you really need from your school is a name that will be recognizable, an education worth the time and money you put into it, and a whole lot of work on your part. In my case, I decided to go after the MBA when I was 45, with a family and a full-time job in management. The only possible way I could do it would be to get an online degree. That’s how I chose the University of Houston at Victoria.
UHV is part of the University of Houston system (duh), but not all UH campuses are created equal. Short version, the main campus and Downtown campus have all the students they want, so there is no pressure for those schools to offer online classes. The Victoria campus is another story; it’s far enough out there that the online students make a significant difference in the enrollment size and the school wanted the best faculty they could get, which could only be justified by having a decent number of students. Two things besides the convenience of UHV’s classes I liked were the low tuition and the AACSB accreditation of UHV. The school name is no embarrassment, and I earned my MBA without going into debt.
Now, I have to mention something very important about an online MBA. If the school is any good, the MBA will be just as hard to earn online as it would be any other way. While you can turn in assignments and go to the online library whenever you want, you still have deadlines, the standards and grade requirements are the same as face-to-face classes, and the participation is much stricter than face-to-face. After all, in a face-to-face class you can sometimes hide out in the back and avoid discussions when you are not prepared, but in an online class every comment you make (or the lack of meaningful discussion) is on the record, and a professor can easily tally up just how much you really did to advance the discussion. Also, professors talk with each other, and online students who are exceptionally good or bad will be known to the faculty just as well as those who attend class in person.
The online MBA, then, is for the most part the same as any other MBA, except that you will have to be organized and self-motivated to get the work done, the school will in most cases be a more common public school (most accredited private schools do not offer online degrees) which means your results will depend more on your resume and personal work history than how glamorous your school name is, and if you have planned it right you can get your MBA without a nervous breakdown or a second mortgage. In my opinion, the online MBA will become more popular and common as it works out well for students, universities, and businesses.
The next article on this topic will examine the AACSB-accredited business schools which offer online MBAs, and the 2009 ranking of the Top 25 schools for an Online MBA.
Not everyone should pursue an MBA, and not everyone who should earn an MBA will find the online course the best path to success. There are basically three ways to earn an MBA; full-time, part-time, or online. If your goal in life is to become the CEO or COO or a Fortune 500 corporation, a lot of people will tell you that you need to graduate from a top school, which in the case of the MBA means attending a prestigious and expensive school with a huge reputation, and you have to do it as a full-time student. Of course, doing so is no guarantee that you will win that much-desired CEO spot; work out the statistics and you will find that well over 90 percent of graduates of even the most prestigious business schools never end up as CEOs of major corporations. Have a look at the people in those roles and you will not only find people who did not go to the “top” schools, but some who never earned an MBA and a few who never even earned a college degree at all (you can do that if you found and build your own successful company). On the other hand, most top executives do earn MBAs, and most of them go to well-known universities as full-time students. So if you put in the time and expense to get accepted to a prestigious school as a full-time student, work yourself silly getting top grades, you should expect to have the best prospects in general of all the MBA graduates. That is, if you have the means to get into a top school, if you can afford to go to school full-time and not have to raise a family or work full-time, if you’re still in your early twenties, and if the economy doesn’t make that student loan a killer six months after you graduate. For a lot of working people, one or more of those conditions is not feasible. And for those people, other options need to be considered. If you’re not going to Harvard or the Wharton School or something along those lines, all you really need from your school is a name that will be recognizable, an education worth the time and money you put into it, and a whole lot of work on your part. In my case, I decided to go after the MBA when I was 45, with a family and a full-time job in management. The only possible way I could do it would be to get an online degree. That’s how I chose the University of Houston at Victoria.
UHV is part of the University of Houston system (duh), but not all UH campuses are created equal. Short version, the main campus and Downtown campus have all the students they want, so there is no pressure for those schools to offer online classes. The Victoria campus is another story; it’s far enough out there that the online students make a significant difference in the enrollment size and the school wanted the best faculty they could get, which could only be justified by having a decent number of students. Two things besides the convenience of UHV’s classes I liked were the low tuition and the AACSB accreditation of UHV. The school name is no embarrassment, and I earned my MBA without going into debt.
Now, I have to mention something very important about an online MBA. If the school is any good, the MBA will be just as hard to earn online as it would be any other way. While you can turn in assignments and go to the online library whenever you want, you still have deadlines, the standards and grade requirements are the same as face-to-face classes, and the participation is much stricter than face-to-face. After all, in a face-to-face class you can sometimes hide out in the back and avoid discussions when you are not prepared, but in an online class every comment you make (or the lack of meaningful discussion) is on the record, and a professor can easily tally up just how much you really did to advance the discussion. Also, professors talk with each other, and online students who are exceptionally good or bad will be known to the faculty just as well as those who attend class in person.
The online MBA, then, is for the most part the same as any other MBA, except that you will have to be organized and self-motivated to get the work done, the school will in most cases be a more common public school (most accredited private schools do not offer online degrees) which means your results will depend more on your resume and personal work history than how glamorous your school name is, and if you have planned it right you can get your MBA without a nervous breakdown or a second mortgage. In my opinion, the online MBA will become more popular and common as it works out well for students, universities, and businesses.
The next article on this topic will examine the AACSB-accredited business schools which offer online MBAs, and the 2009 ranking of the Top 25 schools for an Online MBA.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Rumors of War
This post is intended for the eyes and minds of Christians. That does not mean no one else may read it, but the context will be difficult for someone lacking the Christian focus. For example, Christians believe in the will of God, and also the veracity of Holy prophecy. Human history can be best interpreted in the illumination of God’s will and its clear enunciation in prophetic Scripture. The lack of clear Scripture can also provide meaning and improve understanding, when contemplation is used along with reason.
The Bible is full of prophecy, but that prophecy is spotty in places and times. There’s no end of people jumping up trying to show how a certain prophecy fits a given situation, but in the main it seems obvious – to me at least – that when considering prophecy we must remember that the Lord gives it for a purpose, which is aligned with His will, rather than our curiosity or desire to feel important. When Scripture is read holistically, it becomes obvious that prophecy is issued in support of God’s will, a signpost if you will of a major point in time. We see many things which matter to us but which may well be, from the larger perspective, insignificant. Which brings me to the discussion of our present wars.
I believe that President George W. Bush was doing God’s will when he was President. Even so, things did not work out in the Middle East as he hoped. Part of this was due to the despicable way politics were played in the House and Senate, as well as the cowardly refusal of Europe to stand up for a moral cause, but in the larger sense I believe President Bush misunderstood his role to some degree; the Lord was willing that Iraq should be reformed and established as a democratic republic, but not that the whole of the Middle East should be given peace and made whole – there are many greater issues which we must understand will continue to the very end of this age. This is difficult to understand, in the same way that to us it makes no sense that disease, poverty, famine, and all the other ills of this world should continue. There is good and there is evil in this world, for purposes beyond our ken, and all our hubris and technology cannot change this.
Wars are paradox. On the surface there is nothing good about war, senseless destruction, pain, loss and death. And in too many cases the victor in war is cruel and malicious, by no moral right able to claim the rule of nations. Innocents are often the worst hurt and the first victims. Yet wars, for all their terror and destruction, have ended tyrants, slavery, established protection of the rights of the people, and enabled representative government. In many nations the army boasts the most trustworthy and honorable men, the best in character and fortitude. The best leaders and rulers, especially in democracies, most often have served in their nation’s armed forces. Such men understand the cost of war and the need to plan carefully the nation’s welfare, protecting the nation’s strength while avoiding needless violence. The Bible tells of different kinds of war. Some wars are human vanity and therefore are evil and useless, while others serve God’s will and therefore while terrible they at least happen for a better reason than human arrogance. That is, humans start wars for evil purposes but God brings good out of them so that the suffering may be limited and goodness may advance. In some cases a war may even be fought for good purpose, though without God’s help all wars must of nature devolve into chaos and evil. It is therefore of paramount importance that any leader considering war must commit his efforts to the Lord’s service, and first seek the Lord’s counsel that his course of action will be grounded in true obedience to God rather than human arrogance.
This brings me around to the current situation in the Middle East. Looking at the long view, things do change and sometimes the change can be sudden, but for the most part few things change and there are some things which seem to be very much locked into place for some reason or purpose. I am not saying that democracy, human rights, and peace should not be sought, but for all our best ideals we must realize that some limits exist, and our inability to see them does not make them illusory. Jesus warned that we would hear of war, and rumors of war. That second part is intriguing, as it reminds me that war is a subtext to human history – even in peace the threat of war, the danger of it showing up must always be kept in mind. The same Christ who warned that those who live by the sword will die by it (Matthew 26:52) also specifically instructed His disciples to buy weapons (Luke 22:36). This is a dangerous world for individuals, peoples, and nations. What will be will include war.
The chaos surrounding the presidential election in Iran should surprise no one. What remains to be seen now, is what will come of the revolution now beginning there. Iran was the cradle of resurgent Jihadism, that foul cult which seeks to control nations and people through a fascist theocracy. History shows this cult popping up from time to time, and its always bloody. Even Islam had a big problem with the Jihadists. For example, the English word assassin is derived from the word hashishin, the drug-controlled killers from the Nizari branch of Shiite Islam who killed political enemies and targets on instructions from men who would establish the Fatimid Empire in the Middle Ages. A similar Jihadist movement erupted in Sudan and Egypt against the British Empire. The region has always held the potential for intense hatred and violence, and no one, no mater how strong or well-meaning, has been able to end the causes or settle the countless feuds and grudges. Because the hatred and violence in the Middle East is noted in both the books of Daniel and Revelation, we must sadly accept that they serve some vital role in the way of things, and while some part of the region may be stabilized and made safe for decent people, as a whole this monster is beyond our strength to slay. What we may hope and pray for the people of Iran, is that through God’s grace the people may rise to establish a more democratic government, to make homeless the beast of Jihadism for a time, to weaken it and dislocate its strength. But we must not expect more than has been done before, for reason that we cannot see the limits which affect all concerned.
The Bible is full of prophecy, but that prophecy is spotty in places and times. There’s no end of people jumping up trying to show how a certain prophecy fits a given situation, but in the main it seems obvious – to me at least – that when considering prophecy we must remember that the Lord gives it for a purpose, which is aligned with His will, rather than our curiosity or desire to feel important. When Scripture is read holistically, it becomes obvious that prophecy is issued in support of God’s will, a signpost if you will of a major point in time. We see many things which matter to us but which may well be, from the larger perspective, insignificant. Which brings me to the discussion of our present wars.
I believe that President George W. Bush was doing God’s will when he was President. Even so, things did not work out in the Middle East as he hoped. Part of this was due to the despicable way politics were played in the House and Senate, as well as the cowardly refusal of Europe to stand up for a moral cause, but in the larger sense I believe President Bush misunderstood his role to some degree; the Lord was willing that Iraq should be reformed and established as a democratic republic, but not that the whole of the Middle East should be given peace and made whole – there are many greater issues which we must understand will continue to the very end of this age. This is difficult to understand, in the same way that to us it makes no sense that disease, poverty, famine, and all the other ills of this world should continue. There is good and there is evil in this world, for purposes beyond our ken, and all our hubris and technology cannot change this.
Wars are paradox. On the surface there is nothing good about war, senseless destruction, pain, loss and death. And in too many cases the victor in war is cruel and malicious, by no moral right able to claim the rule of nations. Innocents are often the worst hurt and the first victims. Yet wars, for all their terror and destruction, have ended tyrants, slavery, established protection of the rights of the people, and enabled representative government. In many nations the army boasts the most trustworthy and honorable men, the best in character and fortitude. The best leaders and rulers, especially in democracies, most often have served in their nation’s armed forces. Such men understand the cost of war and the need to plan carefully the nation’s welfare, protecting the nation’s strength while avoiding needless violence. The Bible tells of different kinds of war. Some wars are human vanity and therefore are evil and useless, while others serve God’s will and therefore while terrible they at least happen for a better reason than human arrogance. That is, humans start wars for evil purposes but God brings good out of them so that the suffering may be limited and goodness may advance. In some cases a war may even be fought for good purpose, though without God’s help all wars must of nature devolve into chaos and evil. It is therefore of paramount importance that any leader considering war must commit his efforts to the Lord’s service, and first seek the Lord’s counsel that his course of action will be grounded in true obedience to God rather than human arrogance.
This brings me around to the current situation in the Middle East. Looking at the long view, things do change and sometimes the change can be sudden, but for the most part few things change and there are some things which seem to be very much locked into place for some reason or purpose. I am not saying that democracy, human rights, and peace should not be sought, but for all our best ideals we must realize that some limits exist, and our inability to see them does not make them illusory. Jesus warned that we would hear of war, and rumors of war. That second part is intriguing, as it reminds me that war is a subtext to human history – even in peace the threat of war, the danger of it showing up must always be kept in mind. The same Christ who warned that those who live by the sword will die by it (Matthew 26:52) also specifically instructed His disciples to buy weapons (Luke 22:36). This is a dangerous world for individuals, peoples, and nations. What will be will include war.
The chaos surrounding the presidential election in Iran should surprise no one. What remains to be seen now, is what will come of the revolution now beginning there. Iran was the cradle of resurgent Jihadism, that foul cult which seeks to control nations and people through a fascist theocracy. History shows this cult popping up from time to time, and its always bloody. Even Islam had a big problem with the Jihadists. For example, the English word assassin is derived from the word hashishin, the drug-controlled killers from the Nizari branch of Shiite Islam who killed political enemies and targets on instructions from men who would establish the Fatimid Empire in the Middle Ages. A similar Jihadist movement erupted in Sudan and Egypt against the British Empire. The region has always held the potential for intense hatred and violence, and no one, no mater how strong or well-meaning, has been able to end the causes or settle the countless feuds and grudges. Because the hatred and violence in the Middle East is noted in both the books of Daniel and Revelation, we must sadly accept that they serve some vital role in the way of things, and while some part of the region may be stabilized and made safe for decent people, as a whole this monster is beyond our strength to slay. What we may hope and pray for the people of Iran, is that through God’s grace the people may rise to establish a more democratic government, to make homeless the beast of Jihadism for a time, to weaken it and dislocate its strength. But we must not expect more than has been done before, for reason that we cannot see the limits which affect all concerned.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Christ in Modern Life
One thing which every believer in Christ must eventually face is the claim that their faith is not real because it is not relevant. That is, we live in an age of increasing secularism, where every virtue promoted by Christians is also promoted by men who have no interest in receiving Christ as their Lord. The argument they present, based on decades of hearing it over and over, is that Christianity offers nothing better than what is offered through personal devotion to morality. A Muslim, for example, is capable of being just as moral as any Christian, a Buddhist is equal in morality to any Christian, even an atheist can claim the same moral bearings as any Christian. And the trick to the argument is that they are correct, but only because they compare their position to Christianity, not to Christ. What is missing in their comparison is the personal presence of Christ in the believer’s life, the one-to-one correspondent relationship between God and Man through the Divine intercession of Jesus Christ. Theocratic Muslims speak of Jesus but deny His Person as the Christ, as do orthodox Jews. Buddhists deny the personhood of God altogether, as indeed do the atheists. God is problematic for many people, so they rebel against Him without seeming to, by focusing on the imperfect human rather than on the perfect Lord. This is the same mistaken assumption used ever since the beginning, where men deny the Lord while claiming only to challenge human assumptions and imperfect claims. Those who do not accept Christ do so thinking that the fault lies in believers’ not submitting proof by human standards of the truth of Christianity, never seeing that this is rebellion against God by nature, the demand that God submit to human tests and conditions. The unbeliever commonly retorts that this amounts to a demand for submission to a claim without evidence, which oddly enough is exactly what nominal Islam demands but not Christ; the thing about the follower of Christ is not submission without evidence, but belief based on a completely different order of evidence. And therein is a hint about how eternal life happens.
I am forty-nine years old, with bad knees, slow reflexes and all the accouterments of age and a few surgeries. I live with an abdominal cancer which is incurable but otherwise leaves me alone for the most part. If I were given the chance to live forever in the nominal sense, I’d really hope for some way to significantly upgrade my physical body. Living forever with the body of a young adult or a youth is a mush different proposition to getting by with a middle-aged or senior body. Whether from hope or perspective, therefore, it would seem that eternal life is not merely extending the physical existence to an infinite duration. This by the way is also why I reject reincarnation – what is the point of repeating the same situations and decisions over and over again – simply doing something again does not mean you will make better decisions or navigate the maze perfectly, especially when you do not remember what happened the last time?
The plain fact is, we all sin. All of us. If you think you’ve never sinned I can’t hope you would understand, because you are still in denial. Most of us are able to admit that we sin, whatever definition we want to give to the word. For me, it’s about whether we do God’s will, but another meaning that can be used in a similar way is whether we hurt someone else. Everyone hurts other people, usually without intent but sometimes deliberately, which we usually try to excuse by claiming the guy deserved it. At best it runs into trouble as soon as we start thinking about it. A lot of people try to get past that by lowering the standard of good – no one is perfect, so it’s acceptable to be imperfect. That only diminishes us, however, and cheapens the virtue of those few who earnestly try to live as well as they can, seeking perfection even if it is impossible. The very meaning of heaven, to live and dwell with God Himself, means that such cheapening of goodness is impossible, it runs counter to God’s will that we should be perfect as He is perfect.
In the modern world, God is cast as irrelevant, a quaint notion from a bygone era, in the same class as fairy tales and mythology. Religion is tolerated as an idiosyncrasy, whimsy rather than an important quality to the person, while the clear exercise of faith is often harshly suppressed and attacked. This is to be expected, given the inability of the modern world to address the nature of faith, let alone its mission and demands. I wrote earlier that Islam and Buddhism, along with all the other religions and philosophies, predicates its reasoning along nominal human thought and beliefs, while Christ alone stands for personal rebirth in a new identity, not merely forgiven of sin or continuing in the same old life, but recreated in perfection where the old life not only has no punishment, but is shed forever in favor of a perfect personage. There is, quite literally, no way to explain this new reality in terms that would make sense in this world. This is one reason why faith is the essential component for the Holy Spirit.
Let me put it this way. If someone were to say to you that you could buy your ticket to heaven for a certain amount of money, you would very likely reject that notion immediately, and for good reason – a heaven based on human wealth would be no heaven at all as we understand the word. The same could be said if one were to suggest a heaven based on physical strength or attractiveness. So, it clearly becomes apparent that a heaven which some people could achieve through pure opportunity rather than virtue of something available to everyone but aligned with pure goodness rather than human avarice and selfishness. Consequently, the dogma of every religion is necessarily a false key to the kingdom of heaven, since such dogma is immutably linked to intellectual comprehension. There are no secret teachings or words of power, because if such things existed, the lucky or intellectual people would have an inside track to heaven ahead of anyone unable to receive a good education or who might have an intellectual handicap. We must, as Christ explained, become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Our intellect, like our bank accounts, physical strength, or any other superficial quality, is only of small value, useful if the heart is aligned with God but a trap to lure the unwary towards idolatry of their own desires. The Holy Spirit moves on highways of faith and by direction from God alone.
The modern world asserts individual control and decision, more than at any time in the past. Yet the essence of human identity is our need to become something greater than ourselves, a role which we cannot accomplish on our own effort or initiative. The modern world asserts human ability to solve any problem through ingenuity in innate goodness, though anyone who lives long enough will see the fatal flaw in such claims. The modern world imagines that things progress ahead and anything from the past is inferior to the present and the future, while the hard-learned truth of experience shows the existence and precious value of the eternal and the ancient. We march ahead in pride towards finite and mortal prizes, and so never notice that while God walks along with us, we turn our backs to Him time and again, and so we also turn away from the greater goals and purpose for which we were ordained.
This world mocks the solitary lives of monks and nuns, and treats active clergy as outcasts. The believer who demonstrates an active faith will be viewed with suspicion, whether he is Christian, Muslim, Mormon, or what have you. God speaks to us all, but one to one as He did with Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah, yet speaking to all humanity through each of us. God speaks with absolute authority and power, yet is absolutely rejected by all but a few whose hearts focus outside themselves. In this, the choice is as it always ways and ever will be.
I am forty-nine years old, with bad knees, slow reflexes and all the accouterments of age and a few surgeries. I live with an abdominal cancer which is incurable but otherwise leaves me alone for the most part. If I were given the chance to live forever in the nominal sense, I’d really hope for some way to significantly upgrade my physical body. Living forever with the body of a young adult or a youth is a mush different proposition to getting by with a middle-aged or senior body. Whether from hope or perspective, therefore, it would seem that eternal life is not merely extending the physical existence to an infinite duration. This by the way is also why I reject reincarnation – what is the point of repeating the same situations and decisions over and over again – simply doing something again does not mean you will make better decisions or navigate the maze perfectly, especially when you do not remember what happened the last time?
The plain fact is, we all sin. All of us. If you think you’ve never sinned I can’t hope you would understand, because you are still in denial. Most of us are able to admit that we sin, whatever definition we want to give to the word. For me, it’s about whether we do God’s will, but another meaning that can be used in a similar way is whether we hurt someone else. Everyone hurts other people, usually without intent but sometimes deliberately, which we usually try to excuse by claiming the guy deserved it. At best it runs into trouble as soon as we start thinking about it. A lot of people try to get past that by lowering the standard of good – no one is perfect, so it’s acceptable to be imperfect. That only diminishes us, however, and cheapens the virtue of those few who earnestly try to live as well as they can, seeking perfection even if it is impossible. The very meaning of heaven, to live and dwell with God Himself, means that such cheapening of goodness is impossible, it runs counter to God’s will that we should be perfect as He is perfect.
In the modern world, God is cast as irrelevant, a quaint notion from a bygone era, in the same class as fairy tales and mythology. Religion is tolerated as an idiosyncrasy, whimsy rather than an important quality to the person, while the clear exercise of faith is often harshly suppressed and attacked. This is to be expected, given the inability of the modern world to address the nature of faith, let alone its mission and demands. I wrote earlier that Islam and Buddhism, along with all the other religions and philosophies, predicates its reasoning along nominal human thought and beliefs, while Christ alone stands for personal rebirth in a new identity, not merely forgiven of sin or continuing in the same old life, but recreated in perfection where the old life not only has no punishment, but is shed forever in favor of a perfect personage. There is, quite literally, no way to explain this new reality in terms that would make sense in this world. This is one reason why faith is the essential component for the Holy Spirit.
Let me put it this way. If someone were to say to you that you could buy your ticket to heaven for a certain amount of money, you would very likely reject that notion immediately, and for good reason – a heaven based on human wealth would be no heaven at all as we understand the word. The same could be said if one were to suggest a heaven based on physical strength or attractiveness. So, it clearly becomes apparent that a heaven which some people could achieve through pure opportunity rather than virtue of something available to everyone but aligned with pure goodness rather than human avarice and selfishness. Consequently, the dogma of every religion is necessarily a false key to the kingdom of heaven, since such dogma is immutably linked to intellectual comprehension. There are no secret teachings or words of power, because if such things existed, the lucky or intellectual people would have an inside track to heaven ahead of anyone unable to receive a good education or who might have an intellectual handicap. We must, as Christ explained, become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Our intellect, like our bank accounts, physical strength, or any other superficial quality, is only of small value, useful if the heart is aligned with God but a trap to lure the unwary towards idolatry of their own desires. The Holy Spirit moves on highways of faith and by direction from God alone.
The modern world asserts individual control and decision, more than at any time in the past. Yet the essence of human identity is our need to become something greater than ourselves, a role which we cannot accomplish on our own effort or initiative. The modern world asserts human ability to solve any problem through ingenuity in innate goodness, though anyone who lives long enough will see the fatal flaw in such claims. The modern world imagines that things progress ahead and anything from the past is inferior to the present and the future, while the hard-learned truth of experience shows the existence and precious value of the eternal and the ancient. We march ahead in pride towards finite and mortal prizes, and so never notice that while God walks along with us, we turn our backs to Him time and again, and so we also turn away from the greater goals and purpose for which we were ordained.
This world mocks the solitary lives of monks and nuns, and treats active clergy as outcasts. The believer who demonstrates an active faith will be viewed with suspicion, whether he is Christian, Muslim, Mormon, or what have you. God speaks to us all, but one to one as He did with Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah, yet speaking to all humanity through each of us. God speaks with absolute authority and power, yet is absolutely rejected by all but a few whose hearts focus outside themselves. In this, the choice is as it always ways and ever will be.
Friday, June 12, 2009
On Political Hate
On Wednesday, a gunman with a rifle opened fire on people at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. A security guard was killed and the suspect, 88-year-old James von Brunn, a white supremacist previously sent to prison for trying to kidnap the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, was shot and is now hospitalized. Assuming he recovers, Brunn will be charged with murder. By any decent person’s understanding, the crime was senseless and hateful, ‘hate’ being the apparent prime motive.
A predictable flood of left-wing media has used this crime to claim that Brunn represents a valid and significant threat, that conservative political opinions lead to extremism and hate.
Dan Gainor wrote a pretty comprehensive summary of just how hypocritical the left-leaning media and blogs are being about Brunn.
Some conservative pundits have been claiming that the crime demonstrates that leftist politics are the source of Brunn’s hate, or at least a major reason why he returned to violence.
AJ Strata posted a very intelligent article on Wednesday, noting that this not an ordinary Left-wing or Right-wing supporter, or even a fanatic, but a flat-out evil man whose politics are frankly irrelevant to the matter, except that political dialogue in the U.S. has become even more polarized and hysterical.
It turns out that von Brunn was not merely a white supremacist and anti-Semite, he also despised President Bush and Senator McCain, and considered 9-11 to be a government conspiracy. He is no conservative, and he is no liberal. Anyone claiming such is ignorant, a liar, or worse.
In short, Brunn appears to be both insane and violent, no more a valid example of considered political opinion than Charles Manson or Ted Bundy. James von Brunn is solitary example of corrosive hatred, and while I must agree that there are others out there who hold similar beliefs or who consider murder a reasonable response to conditions or leaders they dislike.
This brings me to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. The man accused of that crime is Scott Roeder, who allegedly justifies the murder of Tiller on Dr. Tiller’s abortion of unborn babies. A similar cacophony of anger has occurred between Left and Right on this incident as well, some on the left claiming that Tiller’s murder demonstrates that abortion opponents do not really value life and do not condemn violence against abortion providers whose actions are legal and, to the mind of the Left, important and necessary. Some on the right claim that the outrage over the death of a man who made a fortune through the deaths of countless innocents proves the hypocrisy of the Left’s claim to compassion. Both extremes insult the majority of Americans, who would not condone killing either babies or doctors, whatever their politics.
I am not about to pretend that Democrats and Republicans have similar opinions on the major issues, let alone the same ones. But neither am I willing to agree to the broad brush condemnation of millions of intelligent, mature individuals, simply because they have a different perspective and want to pursue different policies than I do. Also, in my experience I have seldom found any large group that was a proper fit for me in all respects. I am a republican and a conservative (small 'r', small ‘c’) yes, though that is partly in default to the fact that the democrats have abandoned all of those principles that – before 1964 – would have attracted me. I also know from personal experience that it can be painful to take exception to certain expected positions – I was once cut from a prominent national blog for not agreeing to promote the site owner’s specific positions on every political issue. I have strong opinions, but respect the law and the Constitution, as written. It seems to me that the leadership in our political parties, like the political factions which chase contributions and viewers/readers/voters, seeks only to provoke and outrage, counting on strong negative attacks rather than offering real solutions. And what solutions are proposed, far too often are merely demands and political payback to cronies, cynically couched as leadership or crisis response. Consensus exists in the dictionary, but never in the Congress.
Stephen Johns did not die for a political cause. He died defending innocent people, doing his job. What happened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum should outrage both Republicans and Democrats, because a good and decent man died because of the hatred in an indecent man’s heart. Dr. Tiller’s murder should outrage both Republicans and Democrats alike, not because of Dr. Tiller’s beliefs or actions, but because the law was ignored and a man took it upon himself to kill another man because of the hatred he had against him. William Long did not die because of his political beliefs, or anything that could rationally be construed as a crime or moral offense. He died because another man acted in hatred, hatred against America and hatred against her defenders.
There are real and important differences between differing political parties and there are many political viewpoints and opinions. These differences should be discussed candidly and civilly, using the blessing of a free and functioning democratic republic to decide the nation’s course and actions. But all decent people should all be able to agree that hatred and violence against other citizens is abhorrent, and is not the result of any mainstream political party. These crimes were not born from either Democrat or Republican policies or candidates, and it is petty and false to pretend they were. The spirit which moves a man to murder someone is not concerned with how they voted or who is in office. Even political assassins are often unconcerned with the politics of their victims. John Hinckley shot President Reagan for reasons that made sense only to him, and which had nothing to do with his politics. Lee Harvey Oswald is on record as saying he liked and admired the Kennedies. There simply comes a point where it is necessary to realize that insanity does not operate in ways that rational people can explain, and it serves no one to try to attack the beliefs of tens of millions of people for the actions of one or a few madmen. It insults the victims to do so, as well.
A predictable flood of left-wing media has used this crime to claim that Brunn represents a valid and significant threat, that conservative political opinions lead to extremism and hate.
Dan Gainor wrote a pretty comprehensive summary of just how hypocritical the left-leaning media and blogs are being about Brunn.
Some conservative pundits have been claiming that the crime demonstrates that leftist politics are the source of Brunn’s hate, or at least a major reason why he returned to violence.
AJ Strata posted a very intelligent article on Wednesday, noting that this not an ordinary Left-wing or Right-wing supporter, or even a fanatic, but a flat-out evil man whose politics are frankly irrelevant to the matter, except that political dialogue in the U.S. has become even more polarized and hysterical.
It turns out that von Brunn was not merely a white supremacist and anti-Semite, he also despised President Bush and Senator McCain, and considered 9-11 to be a government conspiracy. He is no conservative, and he is no liberal. Anyone claiming such is ignorant, a liar, or worse.
In short, Brunn appears to be both insane and violent, no more a valid example of considered political opinion than Charles Manson or Ted Bundy. James von Brunn is solitary example of corrosive hatred, and while I must agree that there are others out there who hold similar beliefs or who consider murder a reasonable response to conditions or leaders they dislike.
This brings me to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. The man accused of that crime is Scott Roeder, who allegedly justifies the murder of Tiller on Dr. Tiller’s abortion of unborn babies. A similar cacophony of anger has occurred between Left and Right on this incident as well, some on the left claiming that Tiller’s murder demonstrates that abortion opponents do not really value life and do not condemn violence against abortion providers whose actions are legal and, to the mind of the Left, important and necessary. Some on the right claim that the outrage over the death of a man who made a fortune through the deaths of countless innocents proves the hypocrisy of the Left’s claim to compassion. Both extremes insult the majority of Americans, who would not condone killing either babies or doctors, whatever their politics.
I am not about to pretend that Democrats and Republicans have similar opinions on the major issues, let alone the same ones. But neither am I willing to agree to the broad brush condemnation of millions of intelligent, mature individuals, simply because they have a different perspective and want to pursue different policies than I do. Also, in my experience I have seldom found any large group that was a proper fit for me in all respects. I am a republican and a conservative (small 'r', small ‘c’) yes, though that is partly in default to the fact that the democrats have abandoned all of those principles that – before 1964 – would have attracted me. I also know from personal experience that it can be painful to take exception to certain expected positions – I was once cut from a prominent national blog for not agreeing to promote the site owner’s specific positions on every political issue. I have strong opinions, but respect the law and the Constitution, as written. It seems to me that the leadership in our political parties, like the political factions which chase contributions and viewers/readers/voters, seeks only to provoke and outrage, counting on strong negative attacks rather than offering real solutions. And what solutions are proposed, far too often are merely demands and political payback to cronies, cynically couched as leadership or crisis response. Consensus exists in the dictionary, but never in the Congress.
Stephen Johns did not die for a political cause. He died defending innocent people, doing his job. What happened at the Holocaust Memorial Museum should outrage both Republicans and Democrats, because a good and decent man died because of the hatred in an indecent man’s heart. Dr. Tiller’s murder should outrage both Republicans and Democrats alike, not because of Dr. Tiller’s beliefs or actions, but because the law was ignored and a man took it upon himself to kill another man because of the hatred he had against him. William Long did not die because of his political beliefs, or anything that could rationally be construed as a crime or moral offense. He died because another man acted in hatred, hatred against America and hatred against her defenders.
There are real and important differences between differing political parties and there are many political viewpoints and opinions. These differences should be discussed candidly and civilly, using the blessing of a free and functioning democratic republic to decide the nation’s course and actions. But all decent people should all be able to agree that hatred and violence against other citizens is abhorrent, and is not the result of any mainstream political party. These crimes were not born from either Democrat or Republican policies or candidates, and it is petty and false to pretend they were. The spirit which moves a man to murder someone is not concerned with how they voted or who is in office. Even political assassins are often unconcerned with the politics of their victims. John Hinckley shot President Reagan for reasons that made sense only to him, and which had nothing to do with his politics. Lee Harvey Oswald is on record as saying he liked and admired the Kennedies. There simply comes a point where it is necessary to realize that insanity does not operate in ways that rational people can explain, and it serves no one to try to attack the beliefs of tens of millions of people for the actions of one or a few madmen. It insults the victims to do so, as well.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
When Morons Have Power
This week’s edition of BusinessWeek warned that casinos are losing money. Well, duh. It’s not hard to figure that when you have no disposable income, you will be even less inclined than usual to do things that are wasteful and expensive. Or at least that’s how normal people think. For some reason, some people with a lot of power make incredibly stupid decisions. Today’s example is Drayton McLane, owner of the Houston Astros Major League Baseball club.
The Houston Chronicle released a study which showed that MLB has been trying to protect fan interest and attendance during the recession, and one of the steps taken by almost every club is to allow fans to bring in their own food and drink. While certain conditions apply (no glass bottles for example), every Major League club but one allows folks to bring in their own food and drink. That exception is the Houston Astros club.
The Astros actually set up sentries at the gate to catch anyone trying to sneak in food. Ahhh, but it gets better. An NBC reporter noted “inane stadium policies seem to be Houston's stock in trade. From personal experience, you should know that if you should purchase a beer on one level of Minute Maid Park you are not permitted to bring said beer with you to your seat on a different level. Attempts to figure out why that's the case via conversation with the guard stopping you from the stairwell will result in splitting headaches.”
Nice to know that the ‘Stros are building a national rep in that category, huh?
The Astros first tried to claim that they are bull-headed about food price because they have low ticket prices, but that turns out to be a lie as well: 19 of the other 29 teams offer lower average ticket prices than the Astros.
The team also tried to suggest that we are paying for a quality team. Problem there is that the Astros are in last place in the NL Central, and playing like they mean to stay there.
McLane then tried to claim that banning outside food at Astros games “has been kind of a tradition in Houston”, said Astros owner Drayton McLane, who purchased the team in 1992. Spoken like a descendant of Louis XVI, not a guy who knows baseball or gives a fart about anyone but himself. Even Steinbrenner would know better than to toss out that kind of arrogance to the public.
So all that establishes that the Astros club doesn’t care a fig about its fans, and is just a business based on greed. That proves poor morals, not bad business, right?
To answer that, let’s consider the business model of MLB club. There are four sources of revenue for a ball club; ticket sales, shares of broadcast revenue, marketing and souvenir sales, and concession sales. McLane is not about to open his books to the public – that kind of honesty has never been how Baseball clubs work – but we can figure out some general numbers from public data. USA Today says that the Astros have a payroll of $103 million, which happens to be the highest in the NL Central. The average ticket price for an Astros game is $28.73, and average attendance for Astros home games so far this season is 29,932, lowest in more than a decade.
That’s down 13.9% from last year’s average at this time, which was also no record-setter. But the revenue from attendance, using the year-to-date pace, would produce $69.6 million for the Astros, more than $33 million short of the payroll even if it cost nothing to operate the stadium, equip the team or pay anyone else. The drop in attendance from last year means at least $11 million lost in lower ticket revenue, unless the Astros do something to attract more fans.
The same effect happens in broadcast games, in fact it’s amplified. The networks only run games that they believe have significant fan interest. While the Astros would receive a minimal amount of attention, their poor performance and low fan attendance would reduce their network profile, meaning fewer televised games and lower revenue from broadcast. Specific numbers are closely protected, but it’s just common sense to conclude that empty seats mean lower broadcast share revenue.
Then there’s souvenir and marketing sales, like jerseys and bobbleheads and so on. How hard is it to understand that if folks don’t buy tickets and go to the games, they won’t buy anything from the gift shops? And even though many stores sell Astros merchandise, last-place teams are not known for strong team product sales. Combine the lousy performance this year, the recession, and management’s jerkwad attitude towards the fans, and it’s very reasonable to guess that product sales are sharply down, by even more than attendance.
Then there’s that concession revenue. Just how stupid McLane is being, becomes evident when you think about the fact that absolutely no one will buy food at Minute Maid Park unless they actually go to a game there, meaning that Drayton’s ridiculous attitude is punishing the people he should be bending over backward to make happy – the fans who are still coming to games. As attendance goes down, concession revenues will also necessarily decline, and given the nature of concession inventory, profit margins will also fail. I used to run movie theaters, and I know that when attendance falls below certain levels, your losses from unsold food increase, no matter how well you try to plan ahead. That is, a 14 percent drop in attendance will necessarily mean about a 16 percent drop in concession profits, unless you lose even more.
Forbes says that the Astros' operating income is only 8.76% of their total revenue, meaning that unless the Astros had a 5.1% profit margin or better in 2008, they are going to lose money this year. This is because so much of the Astros’ costs are fixed, like payroll and leases; they are not going to be able to reduce costs to any great degree, because their variable costs are below 10 percent of their total costs. The short version of MLB clubs’ model is that they are profitable only when their home games have high attendance; low attendance produces business losses. Accordingly, the only sane strategy for a team owner is to attract the maximum number of fans, and this is why 29 of 30 clubs have relaxed their rules on outside food and drink – it’s much better to lose a bit of concessions revenue but protect the fan base, than to lose money in all four categories through sheer stupidity.
It’s curious that Drayton McLane could fail to understand this rule of business. McLane is very wealthy, and became so through running his father’s grocery business, spending 14 years as a general manager of operations. The key seems to be that from 1964 on, McLane moved out of operations and into distribution planning. That is, McLane has not had real contact with regular people for decades and has increasingly come to believe not only that he is competent at whatever he chooses to do, but also that only he understands the situation and the best plan of action. Not so long ago, Sports Illustrated wrote that McLane is obsessed with control, unwilling to allow anyone else to make adjustments, even when those people know far more than he does about what needs to be done.
It appears that this is another such situation.
In the 2005 season, the Astros started off horribly but rallied and frankly got a lot of luck on their way to the World Series, where reality set in and they were swept by the Chicago White Sox. The Astros have not even made it to the playoffs since then, something McLane seems to miss every time he raises prices or does something else to show his contempt for Houston and the people who live there. The bottom line is that McLane does not understand the bottom line, strange as that may sound. He has the power to do what’s needed, but would rather ram the iceberg at full speed in order to prove he has control.
Sadly, there are many people like McLane around right now, in all sorts of positions of power.
The Houston Chronicle released a study which showed that MLB has been trying to protect fan interest and attendance during the recession, and one of the steps taken by almost every club is to allow fans to bring in their own food and drink. While certain conditions apply (no glass bottles for example), every Major League club but one allows folks to bring in their own food and drink. That exception is the Houston Astros club.
The Astros actually set up sentries at the gate to catch anyone trying to sneak in food. Ahhh, but it gets better. An NBC reporter noted “inane stadium policies seem to be Houston's stock in trade. From personal experience, you should know that if you should purchase a beer on one level of Minute Maid Park you are not permitted to bring said beer with you to your seat on a different level. Attempts to figure out why that's the case via conversation with the guard stopping you from the stairwell will result in splitting headaches.”
Nice to know that the ‘Stros are building a national rep in that category, huh?
The Astros first tried to claim that they are bull-headed about food price because they have low ticket prices, but that turns out to be a lie as well: 19 of the other 29 teams offer lower average ticket prices than the Astros.
The team also tried to suggest that we are paying for a quality team. Problem there is that the Astros are in last place in the NL Central, and playing like they mean to stay there.
McLane then tried to claim that banning outside food at Astros games “has been kind of a tradition in Houston”, said Astros owner Drayton McLane, who purchased the team in 1992. Spoken like a descendant of Louis XVI, not a guy who knows baseball or gives a fart about anyone but himself. Even Steinbrenner would know better than to toss out that kind of arrogance to the public.
So all that establishes that the Astros club doesn’t care a fig about its fans, and is just a business based on greed. That proves poor morals, not bad business, right?
To answer that, let’s consider the business model of MLB club. There are four sources of revenue for a ball club; ticket sales, shares of broadcast revenue, marketing and souvenir sales, and concession sales. McLane is not about to open his books to the public – that kind of honesty has never been how Baseball clubs work – but we can figure out some general numbers from public data. USA Today says that the Astros have a payroll of $103 million, which happens to be the highest in the NL Central. The average ticket price for an Astros game is $28.73, and average attendance for Astros home games so far this season is 29,932, lowest in more than a decade.
That’s down 13.9% from last year’s average at this time, which was also no record-setter. But the revenue from attendance, using the year-to-date pace, would produce $69.6 million for the Astros, more than $33 million short of the payroll even if it cost nothing to operate the stadium, equip the team or pay anyone else. The drop in attendance from last year means at least $11 million lost in lower ticket revenue, unless the Astros do something to attract more fans.
The same effect happens in broadcast games, in fact it’s amplified. The networks only run games that they believe have significant fan interest. While the Astros would receive a minimal amount of attention, their poor performance and low fan attendance would reduce their network profile, meaning fewer televised games and lower revenue from broadcast. Specific numbers are closely protected, but it’s just common sense to conclude that empty seats mean lower broadcast share revenue.
Then there’s souvenir and marketing sales, like jerseys and bobbleheads and so on. How hard is it to understand that if folks don’t buy tickets and go to the games, they won’t buy anything from the gift shops? And even though many stores sell Astros merchandise, last-place teams are not known for strong team product sales. Combine the lousy performance this year, the recession, and management’s jerkwad attitude towards the fans, and it’s very reasonable to guess that product sales are sharply down, by even more than attendance.
Then there’s that concession revenue. Just how stupid McLane is being, becomes evident when you think about the fact that absolutely no one will buy food at Minute Maid Park unless they actually go to a game there, meaning that Drayton’s ridiculous attitude is punishing the people he should be bending over backward to make happy – the fans who are still coming to games. As attendance goes down, concession revenues will also necessarily decline, and given the nature of concession inventory, profit margins will also fail. I used to run movie theaters, and I know that when attendance falls below certain levels, your losses from unsold food increase, no matter how well you try to plan ahead. That is, a 14 percent drop in attendance will necessarily mean about a 16 percent drop in concession profits, unless you lose even more.
Forbes says that the Astros' operating income is only 8.76% of their total revenue, meaning that unless the Astros had a 5.1% profit margin or better in 2008, they are going to lose money this year. This is because so much of the Astros’ costs are fixed, like payroll and leases; they are not going to be able to reduce costs to any great degree, because their variable costs are below 10 percent of their total costs. The short version of MLB clubs’ model is that they are profitable only when their home games have high attendance; low attendance produces business losses. Accordingly, the only sane strategy for a team owner is to attract the maximum number of fans, and this is why 29 of 30 clubs have relaxed their rules on outside food and drink – it’s much better to lose a bit of concessions revenue but protect the fan base, than to lose money in all four categories through sheer stupidity.
It’s curious that Drayton McLane could fail to understand this rule of business. McLane is very wealthy, and became so through running his father’s grocery business, spending 14 years as a general manager of operations. The key seems to be that from 1964 on, McLane moved out of operations and into distribution planning. That is, McLane has not had real contact with regular people for decades and has increasingly come to believe not only that he is competent at whatever he chooses to do, but also that only he understands the situation and the best plan of action. Not so long ago, Sports Illustrated wrote that McLane is obsessed with control, unwilling to allow anyone else to make adjustments, even when those people know far more than he does about what needs to be done.
It appears that this is another such situation.
In the 2005 season, the Astros started off horribly but rallied and frankly got a lot of luck on their way to the World Series, where reality set in and they were swept by the Chicago White Sox. The Astros have not even made it to the playoffs since then, something McLane seems to miss every time he raises prices or does something else to show his contempt for Houston and the people who live there. The bottom line is that McLane does not understand the bottom line, strange as that may sound. He has the power to do what’s needed, but would rather ram the iceberg at full speed in order to prove he has control.
Sadly, there are many people like McLane around right now, in all sorts of positions of power.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Job Schemes
For all the talk – and dear Lord there’s been so much noise from the politicians – the economy basically comes down to people working and making money. If folks are not working, you can forget about companies making profits, about cities, states or even the federal government having any way to provide for the public welfare, not to mention all those things politicians promise every election. In the end, everything – and I mean everything is paid for by people who work. That’s why President Obama is starting to show stress in his speeches; he knows that “blame Bush” can only work so long, and as unemployment nationally creeps up to ten percent he’s headed for trouble. I’m sure he thought his “create or save” caveat for jobs was a clever way to make promises he could never be called on, but the fact is Obama’s plans don’t work, mostly because he does not understand the forces at work, and so he cannot hope to direct them to better results.
There are basically three kinds of jobs – necessary permanent jobs that need to be done by someone all the time, like firefighters, police, doctors and accountants; temporary needs that may or may not be filled long-term, like construction, retail, or manufacturing; and make-work assignments to fill one-time needs or give individuals something to do, like hiring an intern or paying your kid to wash your car. Government can create jobs, but only to a point, whether in number or duration. The most significant jobs, it must be understood, are not created by government or artifice, but by the economy’s needs and the community. The rise in unemployment happening now is the combination of hard-hit sectors shedding non-essential jobs (like real estate and automakers) and the large-scale reduction in unskilled labor. People get angry because they want their seniority to matter, but in the end the key question is whether your work is essential to your employer. Government cannot change that critical value.
The history of employment has always included changing times, as demographics and industries changed. After the Civil War in the United States, for example, many people moved to cities for work because they had lost too many young men to be able to work their farms effectively. Railroad workers, farmhands, cattlemen, surveyors, and even the Pony Express came to their end as they became obsolete. Those who could do so learned new skills and found new work in emerging industries, like automobile manufacturing and power generation in the early 20th Century. Other changes were more gradual and subtle, but no less significant, like the outsourcing of most customer service work and the use of contract labor for low-level clerical tasks. In every case, the change was in reaction to changing realities of life and business. While better-run businesses learned better how to adapt and anticipate change, in no case was the change directed or controlled by the government; strategic change is organic in nature and human actions are influenced by that change, not the other way around.
In the short term, government can create jobs, but that creation is limited by the degree of public support. The military, for example, is popular and large in wartime, but when the war ends (or public support for it) then the military contracts whether it wants to or not. Even FDR’s vaunted Civilian Conservation Corps had a relatively short life, due to its non-essential character. Job creation for the sake of job creation is by definition a failed effort even before it begins.
There are basically three kinds of jobs – necessary permanent jobs that need to be done by someone all the time, like firefighters, police, doctors and accountants; temporary needs that may or may not be filled long-term, like construction, retail, or manufacturing; and make-work assignments to fill one-time needs or give individuals something to do, like hiring an intern or paying your kid to wash your car. Government can create jobs, but only to a point, whether in number or duration. The most significant jobs, it must be understood, are not created by government or artifice, but by the economy’s needs and the community. The rise in unemployment happening now is the combination of hard-hit sectors shedding non-essential jobs (like real estate and automakers) and the large-scale reduction in unskilled labor. People get angry because they want their seniority to matter, but in the end the key question is whether your work is essential to your employer. Government cannot change that critical value.
The history of employment has always included changing times, as demographics and industries changed. After the Civil War in the United States, for example, many people moved to cities for work because they had lost too many young men to be able to work their farms effectively. Railroad workers, farmhands, cattlemen, surveyors, and even the Pony Express came to their end as they became obsolete. Those who could do so learned new skills and found new work in emerging industries, like automobile manufacturing and power generation in the early 20th Century. Other changes were more gradual and subtle, but no less significant, like the outsourcing of most customer service work and the use of contract labor for low-level clerical tasks. In every case, the change was in reaction to changing realities of life and business. While better-run businesses learned better how to adapt and anticipate change, in no case was the change directed or controlled by the government; strategic change is organic in nature and human actions are influenced by that change, not the other way around.
In the short term, government can create jobs, but that creation is limited by the degree of public support. The military, for example, is popular and large in wartime, but when the war ends (or public support for it) then the military contracts whether it wants to or not. Even FDR’s vaunted Civilian Conservation Corps had a relatively short life, due to its non-essential character. Job creation for the sake of job creation is by definition a failed effort even before it begins.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Turf War?
One of the odd things about the Supreme Court, is that the justices don’t always rule the way they are expected to rule. I hear a lot that the Presidents who appoint the justices don’t always look deep enough to know what they are getting, but sometimes they just do something surprising. Like today. It’s one thing that SCOTUS wants to take a look at the Chrysler deal, but how odd is it that it’s Justice Ginsburg who threw out that pitch?
Think about it. You might expect that from the Chief Justice, maybe Scalia or one of the more constructionist justices. But Ginsberg, an Obama fan if there is one on the SCOTUS? That’s sending a message, and that message is turf. The boundaries have been there for a long time. Theoretically, the Legislature makes law, the White House sets policy and direction, and the Supreme Court interprets law and policy by the Constitution. But in reality, there are areas where each wants to increase its power, and in politics that means at the expense of the other.
Bankruptcies are handled by the courts. Period. That’s how it works, only President All-About-Me wasn’t about the trust Chrysler’s fate to the courts, so he took a page out of the Godfather movies and went thuggy on everyone involved. Turns out that stepped on some toes belonging to people in the black robes. And today’s halt could be a shot across the bow to warn Obama off, or it could be targeting for a salvo if he tries to force the issue.
This could get very interesting.
Think about it. You might expect that from the Chief Justice, maybe Scalia or one of the more constructionist justices. But Ginsberg, an Obama fan if there is one on the SCOTUS? That’s sending a message, and that message is turf. The boundaries have been there for a long time. Theoretically, the Legislature makes law, the White House sets policy and direction, and the Supreme Court interprets law and policy by the Constitution. But in reality, there are areas where each wants to increase its power, and in politics that means at the expense of the other.
Bankruptcies are handled by the courts. Period. That’s how it works, only President All-About-Me wasn’t about the trust Chrysler’s fate to the courts, so he took a page out of the Godfather movies and went thuggy on everyone involved. Turns out that stepped on some toes belonging to people in the black robes. And today’s halt could be a shot across the bow to warn Obama off, or it could be targeting for a salvo if he tries to force the issue.
This could get very interesting.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Designing the Case Competition
There is a risk in being trendy, to do something simply because others are doing it. In the matter of business schools, case competitions have become trendy, which means that in some cases the school does it without fully understanding the purpose or how to get the best results. The first order of business for any school whether they are considering creating a case competition or already run a competition, is to decide why you are doing it and what goals you want to achieve. The majority of schools performing case competitions seem to be doing a sloppy job of it.
After looking through the available information on case competitions, there appear to be three main types of competitions – intramural competitions between teams finishing their MBA studies, league competitions between schools, and open tournaments with sponsors and press events. The goals for each type of tournament are different, although it should be noted that there is no rule that a school cannot work to have all three types of competition.
The intramural competition is generally done as a capstone course for the BBA or MBA candidates, and as such focuses on grading their accumulated knowledge, skills and work on a project level. The key stakeholders for this level of tournament are the students, the faculty, judges, and the school’s dean and trustees. The optimal organization structure would plan for participant and judge orientation, along with modest logistical requirements. Goals and objectives for each group would be planned and published in advance, as well as the method for publishing results and feedback. In the ideal situation, the following sample schedule might be used:
December: Guidelines for the competition are published on the school website, focusing on real-world conditions and objectives rather than superficial. Judges are invited and given orientation reports, students sign up for the classes, the focus company is advised of the competition and invited to participate with observers.
January: Capstone classes begin, requirements and rubrics for the competition are included in the syllabus.
March: Individual work completes in each class, teams form up and begin
late April: non-tournament grading is completed, teams submit final documents for project
May, week of competition: Judges meet and are refreshed about company orientation and tournament objectives, and are presented with the project documents for the teams they will be judging. Company is forwarded recommended project papers through its observers or by mail if no observers.
Competition day: Teams present their cases as scheduled, to teams of judges familiar with both the focus company’s objectives and requirements, and the specific analysis and recommendations from the teams’ reports. Judging can take place, therefore, on the basis of how well the team has done its analysis, made effective recommendations, and sells the recommendations to the judges. Scoring on the basis of the rubrics published in December.
May, post-competition: Class grades, written evaluations and feedback from judges and awards, including individual honors, are formally presented. Participants are also asked for feedback about their experience and suggestions for improving the process. This feedback is reviewed twice, at the time of submission and again in planning for the next competition.
I leave it to the reader to decide how well this format would serve, and how well present competitions are planned and managed.
The interschool and sponsored competitions would be similar in form to the intramural event, except that the focus is on school competition as well as the teams. Also, given the higher profile a press element is to be expected, and this should be encouraged so as to produce goodwill and prestige for the schools involved. This is the academic equivalent of varsity sports, with direct and significant effect on the businesses which will hire these BBA and MBA candidates when they graduate. Again, I leave it to the reader to consider the potential for case competitions between schools and tournaments with corporate sponsors, and to consider the success of present efforts. I merely submit here that the process is new and undeveloped enough, that those schools which best plan and promote such competitions will make a name for themselves as stand-out schools with commensurate gains in reputation and enrollment. Despite calling this part 4 of 4, I will have more to say on case competitions.
After looking through the available information on case competitions, there appear to be three main types of competitions – intramural competitions between teams finishing their MBA studies, league competitions between schools, and open tournaments with sponsors and press events. The goals for each type of tournament are different, although it should be noted that there is no rule that a school cannot work to have all three types of competition.
The intramural competition is generally done as a capstone course for the BBA or MBA candidates, and as such focuses on grading their accumulated knowledge, skills and work on a project level. The key stakeholders for this level of tournament are the students, the faculty, judges, and the school’s dean and trustees. The optimal organization structure would plan for participant and judge orientation, along with modest logistical requirements. Goals and objectives for each group would be planned and published in advance, as well as the method for publishing results and feedback. In the ideal situation, the following sample schedule might be used:
December: Guidelines for the competition are published on the school website, focusing on real-world conditions and objectives rather than superficial. Judges are invited and given orientation reports, students sign up for the classes, the focus company is advised of the competition and invited to participate with observers.
January: Capstone classes begin, requirements and rubrics for the competition are included in the syllabus.
March: Individual work completes in each class, teams form up and begin
late April: non-tournament grading is completed, teams submit final documents for project
May, week of competition: Judges meet and are refreshed about company orientation and tournament objectives, and are presented with the project documents for the teams they will be judging. Company is forwarded recommended project papers through its observers or by mail if no observers.
Competition day: Teams present their cases as scheduled, to teams of judges familiar with both the focus company’s objectives and requirements, and the specific analysis and recommendations from the teams’ reports. Judging can take place, therefore, on the basis of how well the team has done its analysis, made effective recommendations, and sells the recommendations to the judges. Scoring on the basis of the rubrics published in December.
May, post-competition: Class grades, written evaluations and feedback from judges and awards, including individual honors, are formally presented. Participants are also asked for feedback about their experience and suggestions for improving the process. This feedback is reviewed twice, at the time of submission and again in planning for the next competition.
I leave it to the reader to decide how well this format would serve, and how well present competitions are planned and managed.
The interschool and sponsored competitions would be similar in form to the intramural event, except that the focus is on school competition as well as the teams. Also, given the higher profile a press element is to be expected, and this should be encouraged so as to produce goodwill and prestige for the schools involved. This is the academic equivalent of varsity sports, with direct and significant effect on the businesses which will hire these BBA and MBA candidates when they graduate. Again, I leave it to the reader to consider the potential for case competitions between schools and tournaments with corporate sponsors, and to consider the success of present efforts. I merely submit here that the process is new and undeveloped enough, that those schools which best plan and promote such competitions will make a name for themselves as stand-out schools with commensurate gains in reputation and enrollment. Despite calling this part 4 of 4, I will have more to say on case competitions.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
What A Case Competition Should Be – Part 3 of 4
The case competition is the flagship of a business school’s curriculum, where if the candidates live up to their promise and ability, and if the program is properly administered, the school, students, and the business world in general all gain from the experience. Unfortunately, there is a real risk that the competition will fail in at least one major respect, and miss the accomplishment of its potential. Strategic and tactical planning and execution are paramount, not only for the competing teams but also for the school and even the judges.
Let’s stop here and consider what the case competition means to each stakeholder. For the students competing, at one level it represents a grade in a capstone course, a chance at some personal glory and just maybe the right kind of attention from a potential employer. It certainly never hurts to be able to boast on your resume that you beat out other teams for a tournament win. But the tournament is also important for the school, and properly done for business as well. While some business schools make their name on the strength of their alumni and the renown of the overall school, case competitions have allowed some schools to demonstrate excellence in comparison with other schools in head-to-head academic tournaments. Developing a top-notch case competition format, therefore, is a way for even a small school of modest resources to set itself apart and above its rivals. As for business, consider if you were a CEO of one of the companies chosen for a competition focus. You might very well take interest in the recommendations of several teams of MBA candidates, especially given that the advice is free and thorough. One obvious step I would recommend for any school sponsoring a case competition, is to submit the winning cases to the focus company. There would be no obligation, and the potential for goodwill and a future sponsorship is well worth the effort.
All of these results presuppose, however, that the final product of the teams, especially the winners, will be something the school and the MBA candidates are proud to stand behind. To that end, style must be reduced significantly in importance, and the actual substance of the analysis and recommendations must be much more strongly emphasized, taught, and rewarded. The teams, faculty, and sponsors must be clear about what is desired, how it will be judged, and feedback during case preparation and after the presentations must be clear, ongoing, and complete.
Let’s stop here and consider what the case competition means to each stakeholder. For the students competing, at one level it represents a grade in a capstone course, a chance at some personal glory and just maybe the right kind of attention from a potential employer. It certainly never hurts to be able to boast on your resume that you beat out other teams for a tournament win. But the tournament is also important for the school, and properly done for business as well. While some business schools make their name on the strength of their alumni and the renown of the overall school, case competitions have allowed some schools to demonstrate excellence in comparison with other schools in head-to-head academic tournaments. Developing a top-notch case competition format, therefore, is a way for even a small school of modest resources to set itself apart and above its rivals. As for business, consider if you were a CEO of one of the companies chosen for a competition focus. You might very well take interest in the recommendations of several teams of MBA candidates, especially given that the advice is free and thorough. One obvious step I would recommend for any school sponsoring a case competition, is to submit the winning cases to the focus company. There would be no obligation, and the potential for goodwill and a future sponsorship is well worth the effort.
All of these results presuppose, however, that the final product of the teams, especially the winners, will be something the school and the MBA candidates are proud to stand behind. To that end, style must be reduced significantly in importance, and the actual substance of the analysis and recommendations must be much more strongly emphasized, taught, and rewarded. The teams, faculty, and sponsors must be clear about what is desired, how it will be judged, and feedback during case preparation and after the presentations must be clear, ongoing, and complete.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Problems in Case Competition – Part 2 of 4
In my first post, I noted that the case competition was developed as a practical test of the skills expected from MBA candidates, which is why the competition is so often used in capstone courses at the end of a course regimen for the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Business Administration. I also noted, however, that the common practice in such competitions is to give too much weight to style and far too little attention to the actual research, analysis, and recommendations.
To show what I mean, below is a sample of the presentation rubric used this Spring in the UHV MBA Case Competition:
Presentation Rubric
Organization:
1. Audience cannot understand presentation because there is no logical sequence of information.
2. Audience has difficulty following presentation because some of the information is not in logical sequence.
3. Team presents information in logical sequence which audience can follow.
4. Material is presented in logical interesting sequence the audience can easily follow.
Subject Knowledge
1. Team does not have grasp of case and cannot answer questions.
2. Team is uncomfortable with case and can only answer simple questions.
3. Team is at ease with case and can answer all questions, but fails to provide elaboration.
4. Team demonstrates knowledge of an array of business models, answering all questions completely.
Issue(s) Clearly Defined
1. No issues are clearly defined or do not fit the analysis.
2. The issue(s) discussed are poorly defined and insignificant.
3. The issue(s) discussed are either poorly defined or not clearly significant.
4. Team has identified strategically significant and well defined issue(s).
Recommendation Quality
1. Recommendations are weak or vague and do not address the issue defined.
2. Recommendations are fair or not clearly explained or do not thoroughly address the issue defined.
3. Recommendations are good but may not be clearly explained or may not thoroughly address the issue defined.
4. The recommendations presented are logical well presented, thoroughly explained and fit the strategic issue(s) well.
Business Analysis
1. The quality of analysis is poor, incomplete and may apply the wrong models.
2. The quality of analysis is fair, may be incomplete or may misapply the models.
3. The quality of analysis is good, the models applied well, but one or more unit of analysis may detract.
4. The quality of the analysis is excellent. The industry, firm and its issues are well articulated
Audience Interaction
1. Team members just stand in one spot and read presentation with no eye contact or use of appropriate gestures.
2. Team members primarily read presentation and occasionally move around, use eye contact, and use appropriate gestures.
3. Team members maintain eye contact, move around, and use appropriate gestures while often referring to notes.
4. Team members maintain eye contact and seldom refer to notes.
At first glance, this rubric appears to be a solid way to evaluate a case performance. It’s divided into Organization, Subject Knowledge, Issues Definition, Quality of Recommendation, Business Analysis, and Audience Interaction in equal measures. When examined more closely, however, flaws become evident.
Let’s start with the biggest problem; judges’ familiarity with the material. The Case Competition at UHV used a panel of six judges for each room, three faculty members and three panelists from prior winning teams. It quickly became apparent as the presentation went along, that the judges were not given any special orientation about the target company, PetSmart Inc. This is critical to the judges’ participation in the competition, as our team prepared for questions relevant to to the specific company’s situation. The pet supply and services industry is far different from the nominal retail environment, and PetSmart was genuinely unique in its business strategy, particularly CEO Philip Francis’ repeated insistence that the company sharply reduce capital expenditures. From discussions with other teams after the event, I discovered that the winning teams all proposed actions which involved significant risk and capital commitment, in direct contradiction to PetSmart’s known focus and corporate vision. That is, if any of these teams had tried their recommendations on the real board of directors at PetSmart, they would have been shot down in short order. I don’t mind losing to a better team, but I do have to say it’s annoying to see recommendations win that my team rejected because we knew they were unrealistic, but the judges did not recognize the context of the target company. It also demonstrates a weakness in the competition, if teams are encouraged to produce a flashy but unrealistic presentation. There is no way to effectively judge substance, if the judges are not made aware of what is on or off the mark. If the actual company’s strategy and vision are not incorporated into the competition, the whole thing devolves to no more than a drama contest, the business version of ‘American Idol’. This is supposed to be business school, not show business.
Let’s also look more closely at those scoring categories. The case competition was meant to be loosely connected to the course grading itself, from the description on the school website. Consequently, organization, the issue definition and the business analysis would already have been developed over the course of the semester; it would be a strange team indeed that did not earn most of the possible points in those areas. The only real distinction would come from how well the judges believed your team delivered its message in those areas – on style. The two most important areas of substance, Subject Knowledge and Recommendation Quality, as we have seen, were diluted to purely subjective impact because the judges were unaware of the target company’s actual strategy and parameters.
That’s not to begrudge the winners their prizes, nor dwell too much on the errors in UHV’s competition. The case competition at UH-Victoria is a great way to finish the course to the Strategic MBA, and the winning teams worked hard and deserve their glory. But it illustrates how even a great idea can fail in execution, and the best correction begins with recognizing those errors and discussing alternatives and opportunities. Also, from looking around at the various competitions out there, it occurs to me that a really well-done competition could set a school above the rest for quality.
The most prominent competitions are those which involve multiple schools, have at least one corporate sponsor, and not only recognize teams for excellence but also outstanding individual performance. My next post will present an outline for such a competition, a new addition that will raise the profile of the school which organizes it.
To show what I mean, below is a sample of the presentation rubric used this Spring in the UHV MBA Case Competition:
Presentation Rubric
Organization:
1. Audience cannot understand presentation because there is no logical sequence of information.
2. Audience has difficulty following presentation because some of the information is not in logical sequence.
3. Team presents information in logical sequence which audience can follow.
4. Material is presented in logical interesting sequence the audience can easily follow.
Subject Knowledge
1. Team does not have grasp of case and cannot answer questions.
2. Team is uncomfortable with case and can only answer simple questions.
3. Team is at ease with case and can answer all questions, but fails to provide elaboration.
4. Team demonstrates knowledge of an array of business models, answering all questions completely.
Issue(s) Clearly Defined
1. No issues are clearly defined or do not fit the analysis.
2. The issue(s) discussed are poorly defined and insignificant.
3. The issue(s) discussed are either poorly defined or not clearly significant.
4. Team has identified strategically significant and well defined issue(s).
Recommendation Quality
1. Recommendations are weak or vague and do not address the issue defined.
2. Recommendations are fair or not clearly explained or do not thoroughly address the issue defined.
3. Recommendations are good but may not be clearly explained or may not thoroughly address the issue defined.
4. The recommendations presented are logical well presented, thoroughly explained and fit the strategic issue(s) well.
Business Analysis
1. The quality of analysis is poor, incomplete and may apply the wrong models.
2. The quality of analysis is fair, may be incomplete or may misapply the models.
3. The quality of analysis is good, the models applied well, but one or more unit of analysis may detract.
4. The quality of the analysis is excellent. The industry, firm and its issues are well articulated
Audience Interaction
1. Team members just stand in one spot and read presentation with no eye contact or use of appropriate gestures.
2. Team members primarily read presentation and occasionally move around, use eye contact, and use appropriate gestures.
3. Team members maintain eye contact, move around, and use appropriate gestures while often referring to notes.
4. Team members maintain eye contact and seldom refer to notes.
At first glance, this rubric appears to be a solid way to evaluate a case performance. It’s divided into Organization, Subject Knowledge, Issues Definition, Quality of Recommendation, Business Analysis, and Audience Interaction in equal measures. When examined more closely, however, flaws become evident.
Let’s start with the biggest problem; judges’ familiarity with the material. The Case Competition at UHV used a panel of six judges for each room, three faculty members and three panelists from prior winning teams. It quickly became apparent as the presentation went along, that the judges were not given any special orientation about the target company, PetSmart Inc. This is critical to the judges’ participation in the competition, as our team prepared for questions relevant to to the specific company’s situation. The pet supply and services industry is far different from the nominal retail environment, and PetSmart was genuinely unique in its business strategy, particularly CEO Philip Francis’ repeated insistence that the company sharply reduce capital expenditures. From discussions with other teams after the event, I discovered that the winning teams all proposed actions which involved significant risk and capital commitment, in direct contradiction to PetSmart’s known focus and corporate vision. That is, if any of these teams had tried their recommendations on the real board of directors at PetSmart, they would have been shot down in short order. I don’t mind losing to a better team, but I do have to say it’s annoying to see recommendations win that my team rejected because we knew they were unrealistic, but the judges did not recognize the context of the target company. It also demonstrates a weakness in the competition, if teams are encouraged to produce a flashy but unrealistic presentation. There is no way to effectively judge substance, if the judges are not made aware of what is on or off the mark. If the actual company’s strategy and vision are not incorporated into the competition, the whole thing devolves to no more than a drama contest, the business version of ‘American Idol’. This is supposed to be business school, not show business.
Let’s also look more closely at those scoring categories. The case competition was meant to be loosely connected to the course grading itself, from the description on the school website. Consequently, organization, the issue definition and the business analysis would already have been developed over the course of the semester; it would be a strange team indeed that did not earn most of the possible points in those areas. The only real distinction would come from how well the judges believed your team delivered its message in those areas – on style. The two most important areas of substance, Subject Knowledge and Recommendation Quality, as we have seen, were diluted to purely subjective impact because the judges were unaware of the target company’s actual strategy and parameters.
That’s not to begrudge the winners their prizes, nor dwell too much on the errors in UHV’s competition. The case competition at UH-Victoria is a great way to finish the course to the Strategic MBA, and the winning teams worked hard and deserve their glory. But it illustrates how even a great idea can fail in execution, and the best correction begins with recognizing those errors and discussing alternatives and opportunities. Also, from looking around at the various competitions out there, it occurs to me that a really well-done competition could set a school above the rest for quality.
The most prominent competitions are those which involve multiple schools, have at least one corporate sponsor, and not only recognize teams for excellence but also outstanding individual performance. My next post will present an outline for such a competition, a new addition that will raise the profile of the school which organizes it.
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