"A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts." - Colette

I'm watching Barrett-Jackson live on TV, streaming Russo-Steele live on my computer and writing a blog post. Sometimes ADD is a very good thing.
One of Pat's cars, a '57 BelAir convertible, white over white, went for $78k. I'm pretty sure that's more than they expected.

Busy day! I was up and working by 4 a.m. on a variety of little tasks for church tomorrow and doing laundry. Had four loads done by Car Talk (10 a.m.) and went out to the garage to listen while I worked on the trailer. Got the front shelf installed and the first of the ceiling supports in place.

After lunch I drove in to pick up Pam's "new" Craig's List bicycle from the shop where it got a tune up and replacement for a broken shifter. On the way home I stopped at Safeway and got some Biz powdered bleach. The dining area, kitchen, hallway and bathrooms of our house are tiled with white grout. Some of it is VERY dirty. I did a bunch of research and learned the key is an extra oxygen molecule.
This is a case of knowing more than I understand, but some - not all - powdered bleaches contain sodium carbonate and/or sodium percolate, each of which carry that extra oxygen molecule. No chlorine! Make a solution, put it on the grout and let it sit for 15-30 minutes and then scrub lightly with a stiff bristle brush. Lightly is all it takes! Looks brand new. From then on add a little to the mop water and it will stay that way.
Oh, and don't buy cheap powdered bleach. The two key compounds in those low-priced products comes from China and is not up to par. In other words, don't buy it from Walmart.

The internet is a wonderful thing indeed. I've also been learning all about Ford straight-six engines and the improvements they made during the early 60's.

Look back at Thursday night's auction pics. That red DeSoto prototype sold for $1.3 million. Glad I passed on it.

Tomorrow's going to be challenging. Matt is out of town which means I will also be leading the music. My brain will be fried by the time I get home, so if you don't hear from me tomorrow night just figure I'm catatonic.

(cont'd from earlier posts)
Attending faculty meetings involved learning the terminology unique to higher education. One key term I learned early on is FTE - Full Time Equivalent.

All colleges & universities are businesses in the sense that the bottom line is powerful and ultimately determinative. Even the state school can only drink so much from the well of public funding before that well runs dry. The for-profit institution needs black ink and the non-profit needs at least a zero, and ongoing deficits will ultimately shut them all down.

A portion of an institution's income - the percentage can vary significantly - comes from student fees. Tuition, room & board, bookstore markups and other fees are, even at well-endowed schools, a critical part of the balance sheet. With regard to the tuition portion of student fees, the term FTE represents the amount of tuition that a full-time student pays. Each school defines "full time" for themselves but it's usually in the neighborhood of 12-14 credit hours per semester. To illustrate with the ridiculous, if the school charges $200 per credit hour and a fulltime student takes 14 hours, that student pays $2,800 in tuition - and represents one FTE. Two students taking 7 hours each represent one FTE. And so on. A school takes the total number of credit hours being taken by all students, full and part time, divides it by the number that is a full time load, and arrives at their FTE number.

Accordingly, schools track their FTE very closely. So does their accrediting agency! For both it's a key indicator of financial viability.
At the first faculty meeting of the school year the administration announces the opening day FTE number. It will go up or down slightly as homesick freshmen leave or late enrollees arrive, but a big deal is made of that FTE number. If it's bigger than last year, good! If it's lower, expect belt tightening coming to a department near you.

During spring and summer the pressure is on the recruiting department to get commitments from High School seniors. They have a white board, a thermometer, a cardboard gauge or something that shows how many incoming freshmen have been accepted and plan to attend. The staff in the recruiting office makes phone calls, writes letters, shepherds applicants through all the form filing and eats cheap pizza all the while. OK, they don't do that at Stanford or Yale, but everywhere in between that's the way it works.

Once classes start the emphasis (pressure) shifts to the faculty and it changes from recruitment to retention. Faculty should do whatever it takes to ensure this semester's students return for next semester. We need to keep that FTE high. Because there are always students who begin attending mid-year the possibility exists that second semester FTE will be higher than first, but retention is the key!

I naively thought higher education was objective. I assumed I taught the material, graded the exams and assignments, and those that couldn't perform to standards washed out. Academic Darwinianism. Ooops. I failed to reckon with FTE.
I'm sure the margin is much thinner at a small college than a large university, just as it is in small businesses vis a' vis large corporations. But I'm guessing even at bigger schools the FTE dynamic is a key part of the faculty/admin. discussions.

Do parents and students understand FTE? Do they want strict and brutal academic darwinianism? Would they rather the student wash out or be carried to the next semester through all manner of special programs and enablements? I'm sure the answer varies from one family to the next. I just think they should all understand that higher education isn't so pure as to be only about educating students who can handle the work. To some extent it's about the income they bring to the institution and academic allowances are often made for the sake of the FTE - tutors, special study sessions, alternative exams, etc. I'm not saying it's wrong; that's not for me to judge. I just think the consumer should understand.
(to be cont'd)