Axios reports college education is moving away from job training to problem-solving — right down Guilford College’s alley

Axios is reporting that “seismic shifts created by frontier technologies are challenging a centuries-old model of higher education.”

When it’s hard to predict what the jobs of the next 10 years will be — much less the next 50 years — acquiring the skills necessary to acquire skills is more important than the specifics of any given discipline.

* * * *
For those jobs that will exist, experts say, the uniquely human skill of problem-solving is essential, rather than a specific major.

The old model of studying one thing is giving way to a need for broadly trained workers.

MidLaw is not yet ready to concede that job preparation is the ultimate objective of a liberal education. (Life preparation is.) But – MidLaw must not let the dimming perspectives of age and wisdom, blind it to what is happening now. The world turns. Seismic shifts shake the frontiers. Wisdom grows.

Who doesn’t want problem solvers? Who doesn’t want to be one?

Axios failed to mention The Guilford Edge. It should have. Guilford College is on target.

Guilford has designed new structures to ensure that students can identify learning pursuits that excite them. As they work on what interests them, the Edge ensures that students will acquire skills – the skills they need to pursue immediate interests, which are also skills that they will need to solve new problems in the future.

Guilford has put in place new kinds of teachers, advisors, guides, and coaches. They supplement traditional academic advisors. These include the innovative Guilford Guides (every student is paired with a specially trained personal “guide” who has an advanced degree in counseling) and teams of on- and off- campus advisors, employers, alumni, who will give structure and grounding to students’ experiences.

The Guilford Edge aligns uniquely with the programs of Guilford’s signature Center for Principled Problem Solving.

Advertisements

Treated well at Veterans Administration Kernersville Healthcare Center

I was back at the Veterans Administration Kernersville Healthcare Center last week.

I don’t have acute issues. I’m pretty routine. A couple of hearing aids, a few shots, some admonitions to lose weight.

But the VA is a great benefit to me.

I understand there is a national debate about restructuring the VA. I am not following it closely. I sense that it is about ideology and political influence.

I don’t trust ideology or political influence – no matter which way they go.

I know one small, irrefutable fact: I have consistently had great service at the Kernersville center. I hope they don’t change that. It is not broke.

Guilford College gearing up for ground-breaking program

Guilford College is rethinking what it takes to transform 21st Century high school graduates into skilled, grounded 21st Century human beings.

Famously, one-hundred-and-seventy years ago Nereus Mendenhall said that the business of Guilford College is to

produce men and women with well-trained minds and good hearts; people who can think for themselves and not be blown about by every wind of doctrine.

Pretty old-fashioned, what? NOT. But some renovation is in order.

The new student experience at Guilford, called “the Guilford Edge” brings 21st Century thinking to the old mission. It’s re-gearing the College to bring to students new personal and developmental resources that match and support Guilford’s traditional academic strengths. In keeping with Guilford’s 175-year tradition, the student experience at Guilford will be tailored to each student, personally and one-by-one.

New facilities, new curriculum, new student engagement-and-support programs, are coming. First is re-imagining the buildings and grounds to hold and advance the new student experience. Already, new facilities are generating new energy.

Between now and Fall of 2019 the rest is coming.

Humpty Dumpty back on the wall

MidLaw has been all over eggs. Recommends them with hummus.

As early as 2015, MidLaw lifted up CNN’s report: Eggs Are Legal Again; Breakfast Is Back.

Two months ago, MidLaw linked to the Cleveland Clinic’s egg-affirming encomium: Eggs are good for you. “Eggs are fine. They’re actually a very healthy food.”)

I hope you ate them when they were good for you.

The Journal of the American Medical Association is reporting now that some new study concludes that eggs kill. Harvard’s School of Public Health and others are all “on the one hand, on the other hand.”

Humpty Dumpty is back on the wall. Coffee is an endangered species. Orange juice is a sugar bomb. Bacon: nitrates, nitrites.

Before you can get out the door in the morning.

Hummus for breakfast is not a bad idea. The Way.

 

 

Cardinal principle of law firm management, the inverted yield curve, Heaven’s Way

Demographics are key to midsized law firms. And as Baby Boom lawyers enter their 70s, the yield curve demands deft management.

Mandatory retirement policies don’t work well in midsized firms. Nobody likes them, and they do a poor job of realizing the value of senior lawyers. Experience, judgment, and client relationships last, but at some point, the yield curve inverts. At some point, diminished stamina, the potential for disabilities, and cussedness kick in.

How to maximize the former and minimize the latter?

The Sixth Century Chinese sage Laozi gave thought to the problem. He observed:

“Stretch a bow to the very full,
And you will wish you had stopped in time;
Temper a sword-edge to its very sharpest,
And you will find it soon grows dull.
When bronze and jade fill your hall.
It can no longer be guarded.
Wealth and place breed insolence.
That brings ruin in its train.
When your work is done,
then withdraw! Such is Heaven’s Way.”

-Laozi, Dao De Jing

The principle goes beyond midsized law firms.

From Tarboro to the Transvaal in search of treasure

Bridgers School in Tarboro was named for the sisters Mary Horne Bridgers and Lola Bridgers, who made their careers teaching in what was known as Central School until it was renamed Bridgers School in 1943. They were legendary teachers.

Miss Mary and Miss Loulie had an errant brother, an adventurer named Marcus.

He lit out from Tarboro for Africa in 1897, searching for gold in the Transvaal.

In 1903, Marcus left South Africa and traveled up Africa’s east coast to Egypt. Along the way, he sent postcards home to Mary and Lola.

Those postcards and artifacts he brought back from Africa are now on display at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

Postcards from Africa to Tarboro a hundred years ago. Something to see. Exhibit runs until December.

Albeit

Todd Gurley and Kelvin Bryant. We played for the same team, albeit at different times.

Cam Reddish, Mo Bamba, Daniel Ochefu. We played for the same team, albeit at different times.

Steph Curry. We played for the same team, albeit at different times and in different sports.

You see where I’m going with this. I was on a roll until I got to SE Asia.

North Carolina lawyer John McMillan

Word has come of the death of North Carolina lawyer John B. McMillan.

John embodied the finest attributes and traditions of North Carolina lawyers. Among those was service to the profession and to the justice system. He combined humility and forcefulness with unique grace – proving indeed that humility and force can be combined gracefully.

Ten years ago, John wrote a very fine article, The Long Road to Founding the North Carolina State Bar. While the subject matter of that article is not directly relevant at this moment, it is a valuable, engaging piece and John’s voice is in it. I commented on the article some time back, and have thought of it since I learned that he has died.

A very, very fine lawyer and man.

Coffee

I’m not addicted to coffee. I never drank it until the Army. You have to drink it there, or at least you used to.

And coffee is a big thing if you are a lawyer.

Then, they started saying that coffee is bad for you. Blood pressure.

But now they say drinking coffee is good for you. Makes you live longer. I am serious. 

Well, fine. Drink it.

So now they are saying it’s an endangered species. Climate change. I am serious. 

No question about climate change here.

If we’ve got to fix climate change to get coffee pinned down, then get busy.

The uncertainty is killing me.

Tarboro produces best running back in NFL, undefeated high school football champions — place is sans pareil

The Washington Post brands Tarboro’s Todd Gurley “the ideal modern NFL running back.” Says he “may be the most dynamic offensive weapon in football.” 

The Raleigh News and Observer credits Tarboro high school as a “football dynasty” as it rolls up another state championship and a second, consecutive undefeated season.

Both papers affirm Tarboro coach Jeff Craddock and a unique culture in Tarboro. 

Nothing said about what’s in the water. MidLaw has been saying. Everybody there drinks it. Do they put it in the beer at Tarboro Brewing Company?