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President's Column
The Age of the Unthinkable
Our mission is to inspire and educate the scholar and
leader in each student, building on a strong foundation
in the liberal arts and sciences and a commitment
to the best of human values, fostering a commitment
to a lifetime of service and learning.
One of the books that I read last summer wasThe Age of the Unthinkable by Joshua Cooper Ramo.
His subtitle nicely summarizes the book’s thesis:“Why the new world disorder constantly surprises
us and what we can do about it.” Ramo argues that
in these revolutionary times “the real dynamics of
the world make prediction nearly impossible and
demand a different way of thinking.”
Although Ramo’s focus is geopolitics, his use of our familiar mantra—“a different way of thinking”—
got me thinking about our own situation here
at Albright, where the uncertainties and anxieties of
our times have unsettled us all.
We have seen a dramatic decline in our national
economy with the worst recession in memory and
the failure of corporate powerhouses once thought
too large to fail, including General Motors. We have
seen layoffs and rising unemployment, mandatory
furloughs, hiring and salary freezes, and reductions
in force, along with other painful measures designed
to forestall disasters.
Meanwhile, the uncertainties of war abroad
and the continuing threat of global terrorism, the
animated and sometimes acrimonious debates over
our health care system, and the looming fear of a flu
pandemic add to our anxieties.
Higher education has not been insulated from
these challenges. A recent survey of private colleges
found that two-thirds are freezing salaries and 53
percent are cutting benefits. Of those freezing base
pay, 80 percent are doing so across the institution.
About 9 percent of colleges surveyed have reduced
pay, with 64 percent of those doing so for all employees.
The most common cuts in benefits are reducing
or eliminating contributions to retirement funds,
increasing the employee share of health care costs,
and reducing the number of plans offered.
In preparing our operating budget for the
current year, we planned very conservatively and
were guided by two key principles: protect our most
valuable asset—the people who are the heart of our
community—and do our best to cut costs without
adversely affecting the educational experience of
our students. We did freeze wages and hiring, and
we increased health care costs to employees.
We were delighted, therefore, as the first day of
classes approached to see that our cautious enrollment
projections were proving to be spectacularly
wrong. Indeed, we have the largest freshman class in
our history selected from the largest pool of applicants
ever—a 26 percent increase over the previous year!
To say we are feeling blessed is an understatement.
One of Ramo’s arguments is that the complexities
of our “new world disorder” require new
measures of innovation, creativity, adaptability
and resilience. His prescriptions give me hope,
for we are innovative, we are creative, we are
adaptable and we are resilient. We’ve proven it
through wars, panics, schisms, relocations and
financial challenges for well over 150 years. We
have survived. And, indeed, in many times, we
have flourished. I remain confident that we will
weather the current storms and that our measured
strategies will position us well for further progress
in this “age of the unthinkable.”
Lex O. McMillan III, Ph.D.
President
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