One of the most visible sustainability efforts that we have undertaken relates to buildings.  As part of our commitment to the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), we have pledged to build all new construction to at least US Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Silver standards.  Our new 45,000-square-foot Academic Center, built on a brownfields site, is currently in the LEED certification process and we hope to achieve a Gold designation.  There are many green features in that building which we completed and occupied in late 2010.  The HVAC system is highly efficient and operates through multiple zones, for example.  In addition, the building is outfitted with energy efficient windows which are covered with sunshades to assist in further regulating indoor temperatures.  Occupancy sensor lighting fixtures and ENERGY STAR appliances can be seen throughout the building.  All materials used in construction and all furniture originated within 500 miles of the building site, decreasing the carbon emissions associated with materials transportation.  Perhaps, the crowning achievement of the Academic Center is 99 solar panels situated on the roof which supply approximately 7 percent of the building’s total energy needs.

On the other end of the building “spectrum,” however, are APUS’ comprehensive adaptive reuse practices.  Rather than utilize existing green space to construct new buildings, we decided to invest in the historic downtown Charles Town community by purchasing and renovating existing structures for our office spaces.  At least 5 of our buildings have great historical significance and we took measures to restore as much of the historic value as possible to those buildings while updating them to create greater energy efficiency (most have energy efficient windows and HVAC systems, low flow toilets, motion sensor lighting, etc.). 

Etter Hall (our main administration building), for example, was built in the early 1800s as the home and office of physician Charles Taylor Richardson.  The building became the area’s first hospital in the early 1900s, a capacity it served for several decades.  By 1950, however, the community had outgrown that hospital and the building became a nursing home.  APUS purchased the building in 2003.  Though we updated many aspects of the building (including the elements previously listed), the elevator car is the original (and, was one of the first in this area, quite a novelty) with upgraded electrical controls and doors.  The wooden floors in Etter Hall are also original to the building. 

Aside from our buildings, APUS has undertaken several other initiatives to minimize the school’s environmental impact.  Our computers, printers, and servers are ENERGY STAR rated as are many of our buildings’ appliances.  Our printers are set to default to print on both sides of the page for multiple page documents.  We have recently expanded our recycling program to make it more comprehensive.  Using The Big Green Box Program, we are now recycling batteries and other electronics.  Though you may take up to a year to fill The Big Green Box before sending it back to be recycled, APUS filled its first box in only 5 weeks, sending nearly 40 pounds of batteries to be recycled.  Earlier this year, APUS introduced a carpooling program to its staff in order to address carbon emissions associated with employee commuting.  The program has seen early success and I suspect that it will continue to be successful, especially given the rising cost of gasoline.  Coupled with our carpooling program is a telecommuting policy that allows many staff employees to work from home at least one day a week; others telecommute every day.  Thanks to several paper reduction initiatives we have seen a 25 percent reduction in paper usage even in the face of tremendous employee growth. 

Thanks to APUS’ online format, our carbon footprint is comparatively lower than many other schools’, particularly since our faculty and students may teach and study from their home, office, or another convenient place.  However, while we do not have to contend with the emission challenges associated with student commuting, the maintenance and operation of dormitories, dining halls, sports facilities, etc., we will continue to work toward reducing our environmental impact even further.  Though Earth Day is a noble effort to call global attention to the state of our environment, at APUS the commitment to sustainability is alive and well throughout the year. 

Next week I will share an article about APUS’ latest green building project, a 1,660 panel solar array that doubles as a covered parking structure.  The array, the largest in the state of West Virginia, will provide approximately 50% of the power necessary for a green building that is currently under construction adjacent to the school’s green Academic Center. 

At the age of 17, only a year after the United States entered World War I, Buckles lied about his age and joined the US Army.  Buckles volunteered as an ambulance driver and was sent to France where he found the suffering of the French people disturbing.  In a 2001 interview for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project, Buckles said, “’The little French children were hungry….To me, that was a pretty sad sight,’” demonstrating his compassion for those living in the midst of the Great War.  During his time in France, he also escorted German prisoners of war back to their homeland after the signing of the Armistice. 

After the war, Buckles held various positions with shipping and steamship companies and was assigned to locations throughout the world.  During World War II, he was working as a civilian in Manila and was captured by the Japanese and held for 39 months in a prisoner of war camp.  In the mid-1950s, Buckles settled in Charles Town, West Virginia where he owned and ran a cattle farm.  Buckles remained quite active until his death.  Aside from maintaining his farm (he continued to drive his tractor until the age of 106), he advocated for a suitable memorial in Washington, DC to commemorate the sacrifices of those with whom he served in World War I.

In March 2008, Buckles visited the nation’s capital and was disturbed by the condition in which he found the World War I memorial.  The monument was dedicated in 1931 as a memorial to the 499 residents of the District of Columbia who gave their lives during World War I.  At the time of Buckles’ visit, no national memorial was in place for all World War I veterans.  Buckles made it his personal mission to change this.  After gaining the support of Senators John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Jim Webb (D-VA), and John Thune (D-SD), Buckles testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks in December 2009 in support of Senate Bill 2097, the Frank Buckles World War I Memorial Act.  The act was passed and work began at a furious rate in hopes of completing the restoration project before Buckles’ death (Buckles was 108 when the bill was passed). 

Though the restoration continues and Buckles will not be able to see the product of his work to memorialize the efforts of World War I veterans, his efforts will not soon be forgotten by the descendents of those who served in The Great War.  Frank Buckles lived a long and remarkable life.  Even as he approached 100 years old, he continued to make public appearances in an attempt to keep the memory of those who sacrificed everything during World War I alive in the minds of a generation who may otherwise never have a firsthand account of that time.   To read about Frank Buckles’ life in his own words, visit his website.  Frank Buckles was a humble man, typical of many who risked their lives or sacrificed their lives to enhance our freedoms.  We will try to do our part to follow his initiatives to recognize the veterans of World War I. 

I attended a private school, McDonogh School in Baltimore, from seventh through twelfth grades.  There were two deans at the school who kept boxes of Crane & Co. note cards on their desks.  Whenever a student (or an alum) accomplished something notable, one of them would send a handwritten note.  Their penmanship was excellent and their ability to say something gracious and kind about your achievement was remarkable as well.

I don’t recall receiving similar notes when I attended college, but the decade of the 1970’s was a little tumultuous on college campuses.  Later, I remember a partner I worked for at Price Waterhouse who made it his practice to send handwritten notes to associates and clients at appropriate times.

Maybe it was the implementation of email, or perhaps voicemail that sharply curtailed the distribution of handwritten notes.  The dynamics after 9-11-2001 changed the way we correspond with government officials, leaving us with email or fax as the best option instead of a handwritten note that might take two months to go through special screening.  I opted not to contact the kind folks at Crane & Co. or look for confirming research.  That would have seemed too cold and impersonal.

For me, a handwritten note still conveys a personal touch and the implied message that the sender took the time to remember me for something I did.  Oddly enough, most of the notes that I receive these days are from colleagues in the education field.  Critics of our education system might say that this habit reflects the dynamics of an unchanging industry.  I choose to think that it reflects the ingrained nature of an educator to recognize that simple recognition of accomplishments can inspire all of us to achieve our potential and beyond.

As you know, we have no physical classrooms at AMU and APU.  Our campus consists of 15 administrative buildings for our leadership and staff in Charles Town, West Virginia and Manassas, Virginia.  Over 90 percent of our students are not first time freshmen transitioning from high school to college.  Yet, for some reason, many of our adult students choose to come back to college in the fall.  Even though we accommodate the schedules of many working adults with 12 monthly semester starts, the fall is usually a busy time of the year for us.

Hosting a back-to-school picnic or cocktail party is more than a little difficult for a university with students in all 50 states and 100+ countries.  Virtually, I welcome you to our university and hope that you will find our continuing efforts at academic and social integration helpful.  As technology changes and improves, effectively shortening the distance between people, we hope that our abilities to integrate students academically and socially improve as well.

Welcome back and thanks for making us your choice for college.

Meanwhile, students, alumni, and friends who are members of the Coast Guard, please accept my apologies.  Please also accept my sincere thanks for the many efforts that you engage in daily to keep our nation’s ports and waterways safe for all.

Several years ago, I heard about a doctorate program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education that was designed for people who were employed full-time in higher education.  The doctorate was in higher education management.  With an ongoing interest in learning (what else is lifelong learning), I engaged in a dialogue with the Board of Trustees of the American Public University System (APUS) and the Board of Directors of American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) about the merits of enrolling in this program if I were accepted.  Both of the boards were supportive of my interest.  The primary question was related to timing.  I applied and was accepted.  There were several doctoral programs around the country designed for people working full-time, but the program at UPenn was the one that I wanted to attend.

I started the program in August 2008, a member of a cohort of 22.  Part of the uniqueness of the program is that we had to submit five suggestions for dissertation topics at the start of our program.  As the months progressed, we tackled courses with subjects like Qualitative Methods, Public Policy in Higher Education, Quantitative Methods, Institutional Governance in Higher Education, Strategic Management in Higher Education, History of Higher Education, Community Colleges, International Higher Education, Enrollment Management, and Small Colleges.  At the same time, we continued to progress toward our development of a topic and ultimately a proposal for our dissertations.

I successfully defended my dissertation proposal in May.  Courses have continued through the fall and will conclude in February.  Meanwhile, the chapters of my dissertation continue to take shape, along with data collection and analysis.  As those who have gone through this process know, the last few months are the most intense, requiring a lot of writing and rewriting.  Mixing a more casual style of writing into my more structured research writing has been more difficult than I had imagined.

I am not sure how often I will submit articles for the blog.  I may find a guest author or two.  I might even post a few videos of professors and students at APUS; a project that we have been developing over the past few months.

Meanwhile, I can relate to the challenges of going back to school for a degree when you have a full-time job and a family.  My family has been very supportive and I thank them.  I look forward to being able to spend more time with them, but the most important activity in my spare time will be finishing this dissertation and defending it successfully, sometime this spring.  The opportunity to do this has been wonderful.  I have enjoyed the program, the faculty, and my cohort classmates.  I think I know how an American Military University (AMU) or American Public University (APU) student feels when the finish line is in sight.

One of the tangible actions to which APUS committed when I signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in September 2007 was a policy of building all new campus construction projects to LEED Silver standards.  The newest addition to the APUS Charles Town campus will meet or exceed those standards.  Environmentally friendly elements of the building will include solar panels on the roof which should provide some 30 percent of the building’s energy needs, bike racks to encourage employees to cut down on commuting by car, parking spaces for energy-efficient vehicles, highly efficient insulation and windows, a modern variable refrigerant HVAC system, and lighting controls to manage energy use, to name only a few.

As APUS has expanded its campus to house a growing staff tasked with accommodating the needs of our increasing student body, we have remained mindful of our responsibility to our Charles Town neighbors as well as our environment.  The new building will blend old and new, traditional and modern in an attempt to keep it similar in character to the historic nature of Charles Town’s other buildings, most of which were constructed in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. 

Joining me at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony in addition to APUS staff were various members of the local Charles Town community as well as several state representatives.  David Lloyd, Director of the EPA’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization, was also in attendance and expressed his approval of the planned construction and use of the brownfields site for this purpose.

Please see below for a photo gallery of images from the ground breaking event.

[Show as slideshow]

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My time off from the blog occurred because my wife had knee replacement surgery, and I no longer had the luxury of writing a piece or two in the evenings after the evening rush hour in our house had settled down.  I gained an appreciation for the things that my wife did for us when I had to take those over too.

In thinking about the chores that I took over, it really wasn’t the work that I minded at all.  In fact, I never once said to myself that I shouldn’t be doing the additional work because I knew that my wife would have done the same thing for me.  But, I missed the time that I had previously dedicated to either writing pieces for this blog or reading.

Giving up sleep to find more time in the day wasn’t an option.  Taking vacation wasn’t an option, particularly since I promised my wife we would take a family vacation once she had recovered from the surgery.  So, I gave up my writing, and my reading (mostly).  I have a gap in my postings, but I think I emerged much more refreshed.  I haven’t returned to my previous pace of three postings a week, but I hope to reach that milestone soon.

With the advance of technology allowing all of us to be connected through cell phones, blackberries, pda’s, or the internet, the pace has quickened and the separation between professional and personal time has narrowed.  In my case, I created a couple of hours every night to write and read and that kept the gap from narrowing further.  I’m glad to say that I’m working the gap back into my schedule.

My first suggestion is that, in the case of most classifications, the term “for-profit” be removed as a separate distinction. This term refers to corporate structure and institutional governance, neither of which is of particular relevance in describing contemporary American higher education. Also, and unfortunately, the pejorative innuendo and labeling associated with the term are not warranted or representative of the academic quality and educational impact associated with many for-profit institutions; moreover, the term does not provide a meaningful form of differentiation between institutional types.

“Private” refers to non-public institutions, and that term works for me. If someone is looking for a more distinct separation between the private, non-profit and the private, for-profit, I suggest that we use the terms “private, taxpayer subsidized” institution, as differentiated from “private, tax-paying” institution. It is noteworthy that tax-paying institutions increasingly appear more effective at responding to the educational needs of underserved and often overlooked populations than many taxpayer subsidized institutions, particularly when considering that the latter have a competitive edge in that they do not pay taxes on most or all of their operating income, or on income generated from investments in their endowment funds.

The other classification that I would like to propose is “adult-serving institution.” This classification would be applicable regardless of whether an institution is a two year college, a baccalaureate degree granting institution, masters degree granting institution, or a doctoral degree granting institution. The current, standard definition of college students was crafted with the traditional, 18 to 22-year-old individual in mind. As the numbers increase of adults returning to college seeking a first-time degree or additional credentials, the time available to them necessary to complete the degree exceeds traditional norms and expectations. An adult-serving institution should be measured on the percentage of its students who achieve their stated goals, be that certificate completion or degree attainment. How long it takes them to complete their goal is irrelevant compared with the typical expectations of and resources available to traditional, full-time students.

Lastly, open enrollment is an admissions policy that over half of all American colleges embrace. It usually pertains to institutions that accept everyone who meets a certain minimum standard, such as graduation from high school. SAT’s, ACT’s, and GPA’s are usually not considered for admission. Many, but not all, adult-serving institutions have open enrollment policies. There are many studies of student retention in higher education that demonstrate that the more selective a school is in its admissions standards, the higher its graduation rate. These studies also demonstrate the corollary – that is, the lower the selectivity, the lower the graduation rate. Studies typically rely on averages, and not all institutions are the same, just as not all students are the same. Our institution has had an open enrollment policy for all of our undergraduate programs since its founding. We maintain that policy, while at the same time embracing the objective of working with all of our students to achieve their individual goals, whether it be certificate, degree attainment, personal growth, or preparation for transfer to another institution.  Since many adult-serving institutions are open-enrollment, I propose that those with selective admissions policies be labeled as “selective,” thus making it possible to group adult-serving institutions according to their respective missions, and to measure their effectiveness against comparable institutions.