Contemporary Article Critique and Presentation

Hello, everyone.

My name is Matthew McClellan,

and I'm gonna go through my contemporary article critique and

see where we went with this.

So for my article,

I chose the chapter from college and university

budgeting introduction for faculty and academic administrators.

Um, Chapter two out of that particular book.

And

so I want to talk about how the author of this particular book walk through

some of the financing ideas and theories that

they had and revenue streams came from.

And And

I guess to start with,

let me just say that the pictures that are in the presentation,

they're just because I like the pictures.

Um, and I needed something up there that was more entertaining than just

bullet points in subtitles. And

I thought this would be a fun way to do it. So these are just

pictures I've taken throughout the years.

But anyway, uh, this one right here just happens to be me and

somewhere in Rocky Mountain National Park back in January.

But anyway, let's get started with this article.

And as I'm reading this article, I'm the first thing that I am struck with is

Well, one day it feels like this is written in a different time,

and I don't mean to throw off on the author or the

or the material that is contained in the in the chapter,

but it felt

just kind of like it was not really current.

In fact,

a lot of the dates that are thrown out there the

most recent date would be in the mid two thousands.

And I got to think about just how much has changed in the world since

this first publication.

I like to book up,

and it was first published in 2000 and five and just how much has changed since then.

And I don't mean just in politics and were, you know, technological advances.

I mean,

just how everything works in the world and things

that we take for granted and assumed is truth.

Back in 2000 and five,

we've completely changed how we think about those things now and and

well,

a lot of the data and the ideas that the author presented in this

chapter are still valid and still perfectly

legitimate way of thinking about things.

I just thought about it.

Would you still come to the same conclusions based on things

like the pandemic or the financial crisis of 2000 and 2009.

It was shortly after this,

uh, this book was written,

so that's kind of where I started out with this was just that fault.

The chapter talks about social programs

and governmental intervention and regulations.

And again, I kept thinking, How would this change?

Based on things that we've seen in our country since this was written.

If you go back in time, when this was written in 2000 and 5, 2006,

that timeframe that's prior to the housing prices.

That's

prior to, um

yeah,

it's prior to We were still, you know, at war in Iraq.

And that's prior to lots of things that we take the social and

rest and social Justice push that we saw in the 2016 2017 2020

right through the pandemic and just how much life has changed since then.

I found that to be very, uh,

that's for my mind that when I when I read this this article right away and

yeah,

as we move

as I move into sort of laying out what we're gonna do here. So I think I'll go over.

What kind of the highlights of the article were we'll talk about

so we'll do a synopsis of this and go through a critique of

this and and leave you with some of my conclusions at the end.

It's pretty similar approach to what I took in the paper version of this, Um,

only this will be a more clips,

notes version of even the paper that that's up on the

on the land if you'd like to go through that,

All right, so let's begin with a

synopsis of the article,

and the article starts out and again go back in time to 2000 and 5.

2016 Timeframe that was written talked about the national economic environment,

and we're entering into a free time frame at that point

where we are starting to see a downturn in the economy.

We've not reached fully fledged panic like we did and, uh,

late 2000 and eight going into 2000 and nine, even beginning into 2000 and seven.

But it talks about the foul mood in the in the

economic atmosphere in the time that this book was written,

and how that if that book has been written just a few years earlier

that the tone would take on a whole different, uh, a whole different fields.

And I got to thinking about just what that meant and that

correspondent to the time that I was actually an undergraduate Virginia Tech.

And I remember how upbeat the university felt

in the expansion and all the construction that was

taking place on campus and the the expansion

of all the departments and new programs and new

that were coming online and all all of those things. And

I actually took my first appointment Virginia Tech, as an extension

of faculty member in 2000 and five about the time this book was written and how

much it had changed from when I graduated in 2000 and one till 2000 and five,

just how different the university felt.

And at the time I thought maybe it was just because I was on the other side of things,

not a student versus, you know,

a student versus a faculty member and how

I look through everything with Rose-colored glasses student,

and now I'm on the faculty side of things and things a little bit different but, uh,

as we move forward in time,

it wasn't It was actually the underpinnings for some

real financial problems that we're going on and some

changes in the way that financing what's going on

in higher education at that point in time,

uh,

the chapter that goes in and talk about all the

different costs and revenues that go into revenue streams,

and it talks about human resource costs.

And the main cost of higher education, of course, is faculty staff, salaries,

wages, benefits that go along with those things

and

how that's not going to change and that we measure

success differently in higher education than we do and say,

a manufacturing facility where you know you

just increase output are increased speed,

and we get more production in higher education, our production.

Our success is measured differently.

We measure in how much more student population we get,

how our graduation rate looks if we have more demand for educational products.

If we're getting grant dollars awarded to us, if we're getting awards,

it's a different means of defining success.

Um, and

being is how the major cost to higher education is people that

make those decisions when we end up in bad economic times.

It makes those decisions tougher because

those are those decisions actually impact

people

quickly.

It doesn't take much of an economic downturn before you cut all the things

out of higher education that you can cut without starting to cut staff.

And I hadn't thought about it that way before.

But it makes sense that, you know,

that might make these decisions tough for the next cost.

It really talked about with facilities and maintenance and how

neglect those things can be. Understanding is how

how detrimental that can be to an institution.

We have to maintain those buildings

and neglected those maintenance and facilities expansion

and all those different capital improvements

can actually lead to quicker degradation of

those buildings and facilities and how we're not staying on top of things

and attracting the best and brightest faculty and the best and brightest students.

Because we have these outdated, antiquated facilities. Um,

gone are the days of living in the Gothic ivory tower at the prestigious university,

and I am that still exist.

But it's not the normal any longer,

and it talks about again increased cost of products and goods and services.

And and it actually talked about inflationary, uh,

problems that we're going on at that point in time and it And it says

in the article that those inflationary problems weren't

near as bad as the early eighties,

which is, and that's what really sent me down the road.

I wonder what the author would think about the inflation

today that is being compared to the early eighties,

the same type of rates that we're seeing.

Um, really, the whole

It was just really written for this time when

it started talking about technology cost and the,

uh, how the universities and institutions prepared for white.

Okay, and that was a big deal at the time. I remember that.

But it turned out to be really not that big of a

deal or he didn't seem like that big of a deal.

Maybe it was.

If you want a student, you on the side of things.

But it didn't seem like that big of a deal for for me as a student at that period.

But we did spend

spend an enormous amount of money making sure everything with

a compliant,

and I remember asking those questions about is this why two k compliant and, UM,

anyway, we'll move onto it.

Talks about regulation, federal regulations,

social programs and how participation in those

programs are not participating in those programs

can increase your decrease funding to institutions based on those types of things.

And

it's actually the biggest section that

and revenue streams where money actually comes

from and talked about declining percentages of

federal dollars going into the university.

I know from my time an extension that that was the case back in time.

Extension salaries and budgets were pretty much one third

federal dollars one-third state dollars and one local dollars.

And I know that when I left extension, it was more like

15%

15% federal dollars and

30 to 40% state dollars, and the remaining it had been shifted off into

onto localities and localities.

We're kind of looking at the bucket at those bills that they were getting increased.

They were paying because I saw the value of

the stuff that's happening all across higher education,

and I thought that was pretty pretty interesting to see that.

So what did I think of this?

Let's move into that and again when you take this data and you look at it.

And if you can get by the fact that it was written 15 years ago, nearly 15 years ago, uh,

most of the idea is still held true, most of the conclusions still held.

True, those trends still exist.

They've increased, though,

where the trends may still increase that rate of adoption.

For instance,

it talked about how it was a relatively untapped potential of online learning.

Well, we know now that if you don't have an online program you're not keeping up with

with the times, you're not there.

Whereas in 2000 and five it was it wasn't rare, but it wasn't common.

Now it is the norm. You have to have these online programs. Um, and

I really fell into the whole facilities maintenance.

We're going through the facilities improvement plan on campus,

Walter State and we're actually the building that my department's housing

is going through a complete renovation in the next year.

Super excited about teaching and construction zone. But we'll get through it,

and I thought about just how important that is

to attract the brightest and the best to your institution

and in the paper I use the example of

the University of Origin and how their athletic department,

once they've got this huge influx of cash from feel, not the founder of

a university of origin and how that

completely change the trajectory of the

athletic Department of University Oregon.

Yeah,

fundamentally changed at university, and now

that's kind of the norm. You look at some of the other, uh,

top programs as far as athletics go and what they've done. The arms race is now

facilities.

What can you offer the student athletes that the other places can offer?

And that has played a huge role in the

money that is in college athletics. But it also has

sort of sorted out the have the have-nots.

Those that are attracting the best athletes

and competing for awards and championships are the

ones that are putting the money towards

our facilities and towards their coaching staff.

So again, that balance between

staff and faculty attracting the best and the brightest and facilities you

can see that play out athletics and it's the same thing.

And academics, um, if you really want to attract the best and the brightest,

you have to have the new shiny things for

to attract those people. Um,

now with that, I think that's really the where I would expand out.

The research is just to see how much that

those facilities and that balance between hiring the best faculty and hiring

the best and brightest and getting the best and brightest student's.

How much of that is related to facilities and your faculty salaries.

I think that would be the next step to do is to where that research would go.

Overall, I really enjoyed this this article

and I hope that you've enjoyed my rambling here, uh,

to kind of present it to you quickly.

Um, so thank you.

Have a great day.

Contemporary Article Critique and Presentation

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