Darth Vader and Princess Leia?

Last week the private equity firm Bain Capital announced that it had won a bit to buy half of Toms an “ethical” shoe maker which is known for donating a pair of shoes to children in need for every pair of shoes purchased.  According to the Financial Times, Tom’s has captured 3% of the women’s casual footwear market and has given away 25 million pairs of shoes since its 2006 founding.  Tom’s is one of a number of companies that have practiced “doing well by doing good” a central premise in a socially responsible business philosophy. Tom’s is thought of as a “social enterprise” a classification of business where a business model is used to create improvements in the human condition. Bain on the other hand is the financial firm that American’s love to hate, because of its close association with Mitt Romney and his unsuccessful run for the Presidency in 2012.  Romney was one of the founding partners of Bain Capital and in his campaign he repeatedly touted his and Bain’s role in creating jobs and wealth and the media took great pleasure in uncovering tales which seem to indicate the opposite was true.  Less reported on at the time was the sheer number of public pension funds and colleges and universities that invested money with Bain. I found it ironic that labor unions were bashing Romney while their pensioners were collecting checks comprised in part from Bain earnings.  But perhaps the pensioners donated this portion to charity?

Why do I find the Bain/Toms transaction interesting?  First was that Bain was the winner in an “auction” process, meaning that Tom’s had rationally conducted a sale process.  Blake Mycoskie the founder of Tom’s will keep half of the shares but has also stated publicly that he intends to take half the profits from the shares he sold to Bain and use them to fund charitable endeavors perhaps a fund to finance other social enterprises.  The enterprise value (which includes debt) of the deal is reported to be $625 million which means that Mr. Mycoskie likely has a considerable amount of cash to fund his charitable activities.  In an interesting footnote for Vermonters, one of the reported losers in the Tom’s auction was Apax, one of the funds that owned a stake in Dealer.com before it was sold to Dealertrack late last year. 

Second, the reports of the Tom’s transactions note that Bain now owns 50% of the company and founder Mr. Mycoskie owns the other 50%. I did a quick web search to figure out if anyone had delved into just how the company would be governed going forward but did not find anything definitive. As students of business know if a company is split 50/50 and all the stock carries equal rights and preferences then no shareholder actually controls the company.  I have trouble believing that either Bain or Mycoskie would get into a relationship where future governance is not clearly spelled out.  It remains to be seen who will control the board in the future and whether the Bain stock carries certain preferences and rights that may give it actual control.  For now Bain and principal Ryan Cotton who is acting as spokesperson for the deal are certainly saying all the right things to assuage any concern that stakeholders should be worried about the future social mission of the company.  We can watch how reality unfolds over time.  It will be an interesting case study not unlike Unilever and Ben and Jerry’s and Danone and Stoneyfield Farms.

Third if you are a budding social enterprise entrepreneur you might be heartened to discover that you can indeed build a mission driven company that can attract the interest of more than one outside buyer.  Mr. Mycoskie has created great wealth for himself and seems to intend to use a considerable portion of this wealth to do further good.  This is not necessarily a bad thing particularly if encourages an entrepreneur to create a social venture rather than a venture that simply builds the next version of angry birds.

Fourth is there any subtle signal being given off by this transaction?  For instance in Vermont you can’t spit without spraying a money manager that fancies himself or herself to be socially responsible.  But in the wider world it’s much harder to find socially responsible money managers.  If you are an institutional investor such as a pension fund or college endowment investing billions of dollars it is almost impossible to fund such an investment manager.  For instance one of the reasons that pension funds and college endowments resist the call for divestment in oil and gas stocks is that it is not particularly simple to find managers who can manage large sums of money in a socially responsible fashion.  Although this is but one small transaction, might Bain be sending a subtle signal here that by purchasing a significant stake in a very high profile social enterprise, it is a large ($75 billion at a recent count) money manager that sees the future and is willing to move in that direction? I would bet that the upcoming pitch decks that Bain uses to pitch its next fund offering might highlight this transaction as emblematic of a new direction. Or perhaps this is simply an opportunistic one off transaction.  

Cairn Cross

Primarily Entertaining—A Write-In for Scott, the D

I am not a party person, depending on your definition of party. With respect to politics, at least, I have always found parties more useful for dividing people than uniting them. And, most of the time, I believe we go further building bridges than by blowing them up. It is with a bit of amusement then, I admit, that I observe the ongoing rancor and discontent among party people and those vying to wear their respective party hats, as it were.

Felciano, a Libertarian, who wants to be a Republican. Corren, a Progressive, who wants to be a Democrat. And, then Scott, a Republican, who wants to be a … well, who knows, but it would seems a lot of Democrats want Scott to be one of them for at least this campaign. With all the write-in campaigns on the upcoming primary ballots, surely, someone, maybe Shumlin, will encourage the idea of a write-in campaign for Scott for Lt. Governor in the D Primary.  Wait, he already endorsed Corren. Or did he? But didn’t he support Scott in the last election, but that was as a Republican, you say? Regardless, with all the public posturing among stalwart, prominent D’s on behalf of Scott, isn’t anyone going to invite him to the party?

All this partying, and yet, I expect more than a few are going to be left feeling all alone after Primary Day. Losers are welcome to join us for beers at Camp 802 or in the Rabbit Hole. No party hats, required, but feel free to wear whatever suits your fancy, as long as it includes trousers.  We prefer to chase our bears without the hassle of puckerbrush getting stuck in awkward places. Just one of the ways we non-party folks like to maintain our dignity.

- James Ehlers

Why Militarizing the Police Might be a Good Idea (no, really...)

Just bear with me.

The events in Ferguson have generated a nationwide debate on the "militarization" of police forces. The issue was echoed home recently in the images from the police stand off in Duxbury, if not from the actual incident.
In the context of the debate, "militarization" has referred to gear, equipment, or even clothing, given the absurdly out of place jungle camouflage sported by Ferguson SWAT teams performing (what they characterize as) "riot control."

But let's consider that camo for a moment. Would the military be so clueless as to send out combatants into an urban context dressed like that? Of course not. The haphazard waving of assault rifles, daily reports of threats or harassment, parading of over-the-top, inappropriate hardware... this is not a "militarization" of a police force, so much as it is a "soldier-of-fortunization" (or perhaps a "painballization," if it all weren't so violent and tragic).

The thing is, it might be time for a more serious look at militarizing police in a sense less skin deep than giving them surplus APCs on the cheap.

Consider the difference between police and military. We're always hearing (from the military side, at least) that ground troops are not police, and in fact that problems arise when we expect them to act as police in occupied territory (or during the US's attempts to build democratic institutions from the ground up in countries like Iraq or Afghanistan). And that's absolutely correct - it really doesn't work so well.

That's because soldiering, despite the superficial commonalities, is fundamentally different from policing. Profoundly so. The difference has been poetically expressed this way; the military is there to take territory, to attack, while the police exist to protect.

But that's not very specific, so consider the following distinctions.

Military forces and operations are large-scale and goal-driven. Over the centuries, militaries have evolved to be more effective and efficient by acting as machines. Recruits learn to be useful by suppressing the self and acting instead as a well-oiled part of a unit. Proper procedures, regulations, and a rigid hierarchy make up the nervous system of an effective military. Individual combatants do not get to make up the rules of war for themselves as they go.

In diametric contrast, consider what historically makes a good police officer, who is tasked with an ongoing process-driven mission (protect), rather than a project, or goal-driven one (win). That the police officer needs to be responsive to the community and adaptive to different situations has made subjectivity and autonomy a fundamental part of policing since the beginning of the last century. This is not to say that police don't have their own procedures and regulations, but the mission and nature of the job creates an understandable resistance to the creation of procedures and regulations that minimize individual autonomy. I have no doubt that many police academy instructors would bristle at this suggestion, but that doesn't make it less true. Given this, it's no wonder why police departments push back so hard at reformers' attempts to impose civilian oversight, or regulatory regimes on things like tasers, or whatever.

In Vermont, comprehensive taser use legislation was watered down into feelgood mush from pressure by statewide police groups, and its because it goes so much against their grain.

So where military combatants are expected to submerge their individual autonomy in service of the mission, police officers see individual autonomy as fundamental to their mission.

And that latter model simply isn't working anymore.

There are four basic reasons for this. The first three reflect the basic qualities of modern culture; increased population density, our communication/information culture, and the easy circulation of people between different communities. All three of those factors increase the need for a uniformity of expectations of police, by the public, across the country. Increased population means more people are going to be bumping into each other, which means more conflicts. And if citizens are to have a reasonable sense of what to expect from those tasked with protecting and serving, nationwide communication and the movement of people between communities necessitate a new level of procedural uniformity between police forces.

The fourth reason is perhaps more obvious, and it is this soldier-of-fortunizing of many departmental cultures. Population pressures have for decades required police forces to grow, and that growth has encouraged insular subcultures (that often feel embattled) in larger communities. In smaller communities, the communication culture can create resentment of the expectations of "outsiders," so this subcultural siege mentality is almost inevitable from both directions.

All of this is to say that the model of the autonomous police officer is becoming obsolete, if it isn't already. Until it changes, we are likely to hear more Ferguson stories - and the way to modernize the profession is to consciously move away from the old-school frontier sheriff archetype and more towards the well-oiled machine model. That means more regulations, procedures, expectations of strict adherence, and severe consequences when those expectations are not met.

In other words, militarize.

Now before anyone says anything, of course I realize that there are examples of members of the military also acting in inappropriate, even horrific ways. This is not to say that the military is perfect, and our police challenges would be magically solved if they just act like the military.

I mean, I'm not an idiot (or at least not a complete one).

But as a template... a platform from which the 21st century police paradigm should start, its something to consider.

- John Odum

What will it take to clean up Lake Champlain (or the rest of our lakes, for that matter)?

For how long we will stare into the reflection of a beautiful Lake Champlain before we realize it is but an image?

The death of two family pets that dared splash in its waters was not enough.

Lake Champlain’s listing by the CBS News travel editor and New York Times bestselling author Peter Greenberg in a book on horrific travel destinations, “Don’t Go There!: The Travel Detective’s Essential Guide to the Must-Miss Places of the World” evoked anger at the messenger, but not enough concern about the message to prompt meaningful action by regulators and elected officials.

The pleas of some property and business owners and the exodus of others were not enough. State and federal officials still went so far as to fight public health advocates in court about the need for devising and implementing effective pollution control plans for a lake turning green before our own eyes.

The illnesses of some three dozen beachgoers at a popular state park were not sufficient.

The acknowledgement of state health officials in its “Cyanobacteria Guidance for Vermont Communities” of the higher risk posed to children, the absence of known antidotes to the toxins now hidden in the clear waters following a bloom collapse, and the likely underreporting of algae-induced sickness still has not prompted sufficient concern to move us to tangible, meaningful action.

Will it be the new research released recently by our friends in Quebec that documents the illnesses of those coming in contact with and depending on public drinking water supplies of Missisquoi Bay that motivates us to invest in the protection of our public water supplies and our recreational waters?

It has not been enough, neither, that Environmental Health Perspectives published the findings of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center neurologist Elijah Stommel and his colleagues: “They found that people living within a half-mile of cyanobacterially contaminated lakes had a 2.32-times greater risk of developing ALS than the rest of the population; people around New Hampshire’s Lake Mascoma had up to a 25 times greater risk of ALS than the expected incidence. Nevertheless, says Stommel, ‘Our GIS mapping is clearly showing clusters in proximity to [harmful algal blooms].’”

Perhaps it will be the peer-reviewed work of Australian and U.S. researchers recently published in PLOS ONE showing the link between a neurotoxic amino acid produced by cyanobacteria and neurodegenerative illnesses — Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s, among them — that have us move from excuses to action.

If the state of our waters is beyond hope, then we are beyond hope, and we have not only failed ourselves but all future generations who must rely on our integrity and our prudence.

Perhaps it will be reading this piece that joins you with me and others to effectively mobilize public and private resources to once and for all move beyond our fixation with the image we have of ourselves. All of our poor decisions regarding land use — be it for residential or commercial development, food production or energy production — are reflected in our waters. Bad public policy always rolls downhill, and we should not be so skeptical as to believe that it is the low per capita income or lack of college degrees of the most impacted communities that permits the use of certain parts of our lake as our cesspool.

It cannot be ignored, however, that it is going to take money and lots of it to protect the economic viability of our tourism industry and to not put further unnecessary demands on the unsustainable health care situation facing our businesses and governments. Church Street and those slopeside would be wise to realize that as our pollution-plagued communities go so do the economic opportunities.

For those of us in the business of public policy, we have long been met by those of all political persuasions with explanations of how we cannot afford to mitigate and remediate the effects of past and current poor land-use and water policies. How can we afford not to?

Why would we not want to invest in the most fundamental of human health and economic pillars — safe water and sanitation?

Why would we not want to create Vermont jobs protecting and improving our own communities?
Why would we not want to be true to our own self-made image of placing concern for children and neighbors and the environment foremost among our values?

For how long will we avoid the mirror?

It has often been noted that in great crisis lies great opportunity. The conditions in several areas of our drinking water supplies, our personal recreation destinations, and our hospitality industry properties have reached great crisis proportions. We are not so foolish as to wait for yet one more study to tell us we are slowly poisoning ourselves and our children, when we have the scientific and engineering tools now to turn pollution-plagued communities around as other communities around this country and the globe are doing. The difference – the people of those communities made it their own priority.

It is not going to be the Environmental Protection Agency of Boston or Washington, D.C., that cleans up St. Albans Bay. It is not going to be Montpelier and its downtrodden bureaucrats that clean up Missisquoi Bay. As it is now, Montpelier has data that concludes it will take decades to clean up Missisquoi Bay once we reduce the nutrient pollution by 75 percent. Seventy-five percent!

Some even question whether that part of Lake Champlain is beyond hope. It likely is if we continue to rely on answers from those who created the problems initially. The astute among us are aware that by federal law the EPA and its delegated proxy, the State of Vermont, were to have eliminated all pollutant discharges into our waters by 1985 with waters safe for fish, wildlife and people by July 1, 1983. Thirty years past deadline and still no plan other than to offer rationalizations why nothing is possible for another generation. At a meeting recently, a public official suggested a miracle was in order. I disagree. What we need is leadership. I will concede that true leadership — the selfless call to place the needs of others ahead of oneself in the attainment of a greater good — may seem like a miracle in today’s world, but I believe when good people get together to achieve a common goal great things happen.

If the state of our waters is beyond hope, then we are beyond hope, and we have not only failed ourselves but all future generations who must rely on our integrity and our prudence. We cannot bow to the derisions of itinerant appointed officials nor the Pecksniffian missives of chamber employees when we call for directly and openly addressing our pollution problems. They are afraid. We understand that. Fear must be transformed into positive action, however, and not expended as wasted energy on denial and blame. We must heed the likes of Walter Bradley, an ALS expert and former chairman of neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Bradley is quoted in Environmental Health Perspectives as stating, “I don’t think there’s any question that the scientific basis of BMAA [beta-Methylamino-L-alanine] and its neurotoxicity is moving along at a very satisfying pace, and it is all concordant with the hypothesis [the link between environmental toxicants and motor neuron diseases].” Alarming for certain.

We must resolve ourselves to set about the paramount task of living on our landscape without poisoning ourselves and our children. Money has long been the excuse and justification for passing our pollution onto our neighbors and our progeny. We have the money; it is just a matter of our priorities. For the last generation, protecting the drinking and recreational waters of the next generation clearly has not been one of those priorities.

Let us change that today — together — at every town meeting, at every church gathering, at every Rotary lunch, at every family gathering. Let us reach out and embrace the needs of those downstream — downstream in our riverbeds and downstream in our history pages. Let us resolve to stop polluting our rivers and lakes. Let us rebuild communities where rivers are no longer extensions of our sewer pipes and our barnyards, but pathways to safe drinking waters and healthy fisheries. Let us. We can do it. We must do it. Our future depends on it, and that future is staring us in the face today. And what we see, be it ugly or beautiful, and be it death or life, depends on whom we embrace.

(This piece previously appeared in the Burlington Free Press and VT Digger. You may contact James at 802-879-2016 or write him at james@mychamplain.net with your ideas, comments or criticisms.)

- James Ehlers 

Black and White

I have been following the news from Ferguson, Missouri during the past week.  Vermont is one of the whitest states in the union and it’s easy if you are white to dismiss race relations in the rest of the country becauase you live here and can be somewhat blissfully ignorant of reality.  I also have had great respect for the law over the years.  But let me tell you a story that took place in February of 1981 in Sheboygan Falls Wisconsin.  Admittedly it has been 33 year so my memory is probably not completely correct.  Bear with me as I will get to the point at the end of the story.

I got hired by the U.S. Ski Association (which was headquartered in Brattleboro back then) right out of college to work as a mobile ski Nordic ski coach.  Bill Koch had won a silver medal at the Innsbruck Olympics in 1976 and the Travelers Insurance Company had sponsored the nationwide rollout of the Bill Koch Ski League and they funded a team of traveling coaches to crisscross the country and put on ski clinics.  I was paired with another coach, Rob, and we set out in November of 1980 and headed out on a circuitous route that took us to Washington, Oregon and California before Christmas then back through the Rockies (Utah, Idaho, Colorado and Montana) and then in February through Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Our typical day consisted of visit to an elementary school in a small town somewhere in ski country where if there was adequate snow we would pull 80 pairs of skis out of our white Ford van emblazoned with cross country skiers and the U.S. Ski Association logo and the Travelers Insurance logo and we would teach the physical education classes at elementary schools how to cross country ski.  We were usually hosted by a local ski club and if we were lucky we would get a spare bed or a couch in somebody’s house to sleep on and we could bank our meager per diem.

Rob and me leaving VT Nov, 1980

In February we were nearing the end of our five month contract and Rob and I had settled into a routine.  Rob played the banjo and I was a bicycle aficionado so in every small town we had to check to see if there was a local music store and a local bicycle shop.  Rob was constantly trading one banjo for another and often left a small town with a different banjo than the one he entered town with.  I was constantly looking for a deal on bicycles.  I found only one, a Motobecane tandem in Walla Walla that I bought for $450 and have until this day, a purchase that has served me well over the years.

We entered Sheboygan Falls about two hours before dusk on a Thursday night in February.  We stopped at a phone booth and called our local contact but there was no answer.  We drove through the small downtown a couple times and found a parking lot and parked the van.  We got out and walked around town as the sun set.  There was a music shop but no bicycle shop.  Rob checked out the music shop and I went to a drug store and bought post cards. I tried the local contact’s phone number again to no avail.  Rob and I met back at the van around 4:30.  We decided we would wait an hour and call our contact again.  We got in the van.  I used what little light was left to write post cards.  Rob got his banjo out and began playing.  As it got dark I turned on the overhead light in the van to keep writing post cards.  The van windows steamed up.

After about 45 minutes there was a knock on my door of the van.  There was a knock on Rob’s door.  I was in the passenger seat while Rob was in the driver’s seat. I rolled down the window (hand cranks back then) and was startled to see a police officer.  Rob rolled his window down and saw the same thing on his side.  Three or four police cars and at least six officers is how I remember it.  At least one on my side had a drawn weapon.  We were asked to exit the vehicle “slowly” and put our hands up and on the van.  We were frisked. Rob was on one side of the van and I was on the other.  Rob started to protest, the officer essentially told him to shut up, Rob protested again.  I told Rob to shut up.  The officer fished my wallet out of my back pocket and began asking me questions.  Where did we come from? Where were we going? What was in the van? (umm 80 pairs of skis, a sled to pull kids around, some soccer balls, a Traveler’s Insurance umbrella – no kidding really we had a Travelers umbrella and we would set it up at each event because heck they paid for us to travel around- a banjo, a bicycle, etc.).  What seemed like a long time elapsed with both of us spread eagle against each side of the van, probably it was only five minutes?  Then the officers seemed to relax…they gave us our wallets back.  They said we were free to leave.  One of them said something I remember to this day “nobody’s rights were violated here, you can leave now.”  What did “nobody’s rights were violated mean?” At the time we were just glad it was over.  I started shaking a bit later.

Later that night when we were safely ensconced with our local contact (a fine upstanding Sheboygan Falls citizen) he called the chief of police (in small towns everyone knows everyone) and found out that once per month for the past several months there had been an armed robbery in Sheboygan Falls.  The M.O was always the same.  A white van with out of state plates would arrive a bit before dusk and drive back and forth around town.  The occupants would leave the van and case a location and then with a sawed off shotgun retrieved from the van they would carry out a robbery and leave town quickly.  We were reported soon after hitting town. We were followed as we walked around and when the police saw the banjo Rob was playing as the window’s fogged up all they thought was that it was a sawed off shotgun and they had their perpetrators.  All’s well that ends well and we were amused at the time when we understood the story. The story is mildly amusing now with 33 years between us and the incident.

But in light of the events of the past few weeks I can’t help but think one simple thing:  What might have happened if Rob and I had been black?

Cairn Cross

Suicide.

Anyone else find the irony in those lamentations and missives of self pity pouring forth of late from those whose hero has chosen a length of rope or a pistol cartridge while some of those same mourners would have the government support us common folk getting all the pills we might like to relieve the system of the burden our own existence poses?  Would they have been “beautiful” and “dignified” deaths were the rope or .38 round to have come with a doctor’s note?  

Dignity does not come in a bottle nor at the end of a rope nor barrel. Dignity lives in the human heart and must be shared. Love heals and elevates those hearts beyond the self.  Let us all consider this as our society continues to discuss a system of suicide offerings cloaked in the suggestions of dignity and comfort for the ailing, alienated, and vulnerable.  

Systems don’t love.  People do—when we are living outside of ourselves for others, regardless of their standing in society.

- James Ehlers

The Challenge of Building Education's Digital Future

Four years ago I decided I wanted to get into the college classroom and teach.  I queried several college professor colleagues and I ended up teaching small business management and entrepreneurship and finance at several Vermont colleges (Green Mountain College, Community College of Vermont and Champlain College) before landing at UVM in the Spring of 2013 where I was a Lecturer in the school of business teaching Business 138 which is one of UVM’s entrepreneurship classes. I taught 138 again in 2014 and in the spring of 2015 I will teach a class in the new UVM Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA program and I will teach a basic business class for undergraduate non-business majors which is offered through the UVM business school.  Part of my reasoning to step into the classroom was to connect myself to young people interested in starting business ventures.  In my day job I am one of the managing partners of FreshTracks Capital a venture capital firm focused on Vermont investing and it’s been my observation that the college demographic is quite interested in starting a business and there is a significant cohort of young entrepreneurs both in Vermont and across the country.  While I have yet to find an investable opportunity directly because of my teaching I have met some terrific students and fully expect that sooner or later one of them will present our firm with something we can invest in.

Each summer the UVM Honors College holds a faculty seminar in mid-August.  This year the honors college seminar was titled “Big Data: Engaging and Critiquing the Production of Knowledge in the Digital Age.”  This sounded intriguing to me so I applied to attend and was accepted.  FreshTracks has a number of investments in companies that are making use of “big data” and/or “machine learning” to solve a customer problem.  On Monday August 11th at 9:00 AM I found myself back in the classroom as a student of sorts having spent Sunday August 10th cramming my head full of information from the required pre seminar readings.  This last minute cramming is actually not atypical for me as I was at best a lackluster college student at least as an undergraduate. I have never confessed to my children (who are far more diligent students than I am) how poor my undergraduate GPA was.  On Monday morning I found that I was one of the few non tenured or tenure track professors attending the seminar and the only “Lecturer” (UVM’s lowest level of instructor) attending the event. I was also the only one with a “day job” outside the University that immerses me in the real world.  Seminar attendees came from a broad variety of departments and schools (medicine, geography, romance languages, art history, engineering, math, natural resources) and were an engaging and learned bunch.

We spent considerable time as you would expect discussing theoretical concepts and defining terms.  What is big data?  Is X big data while y is just data?  Is there bias in data? Are some data streams more biased than others and why?  Who controls data?  Who should have access to data?  Then we got into some more interesting territory.  One of the readings (Big Data: new epistemologies and paradigm shifts by Rob Kitchin) discussed the changing landscape of scientific inquiry.  In the old paradigm that many of us were taught in junior high science, there is a scientific method and scientists make educated guesses and develop hypothesis and construct a model that can be proven by experimentation.  A social scientist might study the field of early childhood education for instance and develop a hypothesis that pre-kindergarten training improves students’ readiness for elementary school and that if they are ready for school then they are more engaged in their learning and they are less likely to become juvenile delinquents (I am obviously simplifying things here).  The researcher would try to prove this hypothesis by a rigorous examination of available data.  In the modern world however, big data can be mined with powerful computer processing power and this can reveal patterns that can prove effects and make conclusions without the need for hypothesis creation or perhaps without the need for humans at all.  In that world there is no need for making educated guesses or forming hypothesis and no need for rigorous testing and perhaps no need for highly trained researchers.  Simply analyze data enough and the truth will reveal itself.  Machine learning can be as good as the human brain. Perhaps the modern citizen scientist will analyze Twitter streams using powerful processing technology available on their cell phone and find a pattern which proves that the theory: “pre-kindergarten training reduces juvenile delinquency” is valid or perhaps they prove the theory is bunk. Obviously I am being a bit facetious here but there are certainly people who are predicting that “citizen scientists” will drive major discovery and innovation in the not too distant future.

Needless to say it’s this last bit that worries my Honors College Seminar colleagues the most.  If science can be democratized through better and better computer processing power and more availability of open public data sources then “citizen scientists” may be able to make world changing discoveries.  Who needs school, who needs laboratories and who needs funded research (think of the federal tax dollars we would save) and really who needs teachers guiding the way.  We can simply empower the average Joe to harness Twitter data streams and the computing power of the next generation smart phone to find the cure for cancer.  If this comes to pass then the importance of university and perhaps the importance of higher education is vastly diminished.

It was with this backdrop that two days after I finished the Honors College Seminar I read with interest the recent Atlantic article (http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/08/the-future-of-college/375071/) which takes a look at Minerva University a radically different approach to education. Minvera uses the theories of Stephen Kosslyn who taught cognitive psychology and neuroscience at Harvard and has published widely the results of his research on the science of learning.  Basically Minerva has built a technology platform that allows a teacher to engage with a class of no more than 19 students in real time and the technology facilitates the teaching based on the science of learning that Kosslyn researched.  This is not a massive online course or MOOC and this is not the last generation online technology platform used by most colleges including all the colleges I have taught at.  The Minerva technology platform is something quite different.  Minerva envisions having dozens of campuses around the world and students would spend their four years rotating among these campuses worldwide so they would get an immersive experience in an international environment but the educational content would be delivered in real time to classes of no more than 19 students via very sophisticated technology and the technology would force the teacher to teach using the best teaching methods. No more boring lectures, no more graduate assistants delivering study sessions, no more inability to measure the outcomes of teachers or determine whether or not learning takes place. Oh and Minerva claims to do all of this for $28,000 including room and board. I note that UVM’s in state tuition, fees and room and board is $29,674 for the upcoming year and its out-of-state tuition (on which it heavily relies), fees and room and board is $51,736.  If technology enabled, radically restructured education can deliver a better product for less money, then as a taxpayer and as a tuition paying parent, I am all ears.  As an investor this sounds to me like the disruption that has hit other industries during the past 20 years and it seems like an “investable” opportunity.

During the final day of the UVM honors college seminar the talk turned to something akin to “inside baseball” for professors, primarily tenured or tenure track professors. This talk is always fascinating to me because I am blissfully ignorant of these problems.  I sign a contract, I teach classes, I get evaluated by my students at the end of the semester and I leave. If my evaluations are decent I might get asked back to teach again.  I have no worries about publishing or research or serving on a faculty committee or any of that.  My tenure track or tenured faculty colleagues seem to universally hate being evaluated by students at the end of the semester.  They don’t agree with the way that universities (not just UVM) determine promotion and pay increases.  The professors must publish, they must teach, they must conduct research they must serve on faculty committees that produce reports that the administration never acts on and they must be evaluated by 18 year olds who are ticked off that they are getting a bad grade because they partied too much most of the semester.  (In a side note I spoke recently to a colleague at Green Mountain College who said that there are studies that reveal that better looking teachers get better evaluations from their students).

It was with this backdrop that I read the following article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Can-Colleges-Use-Data-to-Fix/148307/,which details a software product called Lecture Tools, which serves as a platform between students and teachers to enhance teaching but also to enhance communications between students and teachers. Theoretically this tool engages the students quickly and provides immediate feedback between student and teacher.  A teacher using the tool will more quickly identify problems and be able to take corrective action. On the other hand the proper use of the tool by a teacher should allow the teacher to modify their teaching approach to have the most impact on student learning.  I was intrigued until I visited the Lecture Tools website which noted that the business model is one where the teacher gets to use the software for free while the student must purchase a software license.  From my perspective (as both a tuition paying parent and as a teacher) the idea of saddling a student with a license fee to help a teacher do his or her job better makes me queasy. Isn’t it the teacher’s job to become a better teacher?  Isn’t it the university’s job to properly incent the teacher to become a better teacher?  Why should we make the student’s pay an additional fee to help teachers and colleges do what they should already be doing.   Yes I realize that we assign texts or other course materials that cost money but this seems different somehow.

Lecture Tools may simply be an interesting product in search of the right business model and as an investor I have come to learn that proper business models are incredibly important. A great product with the wrong business model is a recipe for failure.  This brings me to an interesting but largely unknown experiment happening right now in Vermont. It’s called Oplerno (www.oplerno.com) which received approval this spring from the Vermont Department of Education to grant college credits for courses taught through its platform.  To be clear Oplerno is not yet accredited although it intends to become accredited as soon as possible.  Why do I think Oplerno is interesting?  Because it has a business model that makes sense to me.  Oplerno is essentially a platform that allows professors to offer courses to the world but gives the professor complete control over the business model.  Professors can set the price for their courses (it could be $500 or $5,000 for instance to take a three credit course).  Professors will receive up to 90% of the revenue generated from their courses but course enrollment is capped at 25 per class.  Think of Oplerno as the first real multi-sided business platform to hit higher education.  This business model makes complete sense to me.  It seems to me that each Professor is a “brand” unto themselves.  Students if given a chance should seek out gifted professors with domain expertise and with teaching chops.  Yet the best professors today have harnessed themselves to a union governed system which has traded “academic freedom” and tenure and pay caps for job security although to be fair the present system also provides the “distribution channel” for a professor’s teaching product.   Ironically this system seems to produce less accountability than those of us who exist in the real world have to contend with.  As an entrepreneur and investor this makes zero sense to me. A good professor has something to sell.  It’s a product.  They should be paid well for it and more importantly they should want to be paid well for it.  Heck entire college departments should decamp en masse for Oplerno and set up shop there.  There is certainly a problem with the current higher education business model.  Continued tuition increases and increased student and parent borrowing is not the answer.

Perhaps the answer lies in better technologies combined with better business models.

- Cairn Cross

Schroedinger's AHS Secretary

Remember those "choose your own ending" stories for kids? You may have noticed the most recent contribution, entitled "Agency of Human Services Secretary Doug Racine." Here are the ending options:

1. After co-opting his former Democratic Party rival for the 2010 governors race by appointing him Secretary of Human Services, Governor Shumlin axed Mr. Racine ambush-style, and completely out of the blue - despite his solid record on improving the troubled agency's efficiency. In the process, he serves up Racine as a scapegoat for the troubled health care rollout (which Racine didn't even have authority over), and the ongoing public anger over high-profile failures at theDepartment of Children and Families - which Racine has not been given the resources to fully staff. (See here, here and here).

2. Frustrations with Mr. Racine have been running deep, wide, and in broad circulation for years now - virtually since the outset of his appointment. Virtually everyone in and around the agency and in the political world knew he would either be fired or resign anytime, likely right after the Governor's re-election. He was the very definition of an embattled AHS head, who had little support in keeping the position. (See here).

It goes without saying that competing and contradictory narratives surround all institutional dramas. But outside of the playground, only the magical world of politics can produce such unrelentingly irreconcilable storylines for the same event, and a week after the fact, I can't think of a state-level instance that demonstrates that more clearly than this one.

The real story is somewhere in between endings #1 and #2, no doubt, but that "in-between" covers a surreal amount of real estate. Perceptions of the circumstances of the firing are all over the map - and isn't it an axiom in politics (and how could this not slide into the political) that perception is reality?

All of which makes the reality of this story strangely DIY. But humans are storytellers who like to be on the "right" page of the "right" story, so it won't stay muddy forever. One of these narratives is is going to win out over the other, although it will be muted quite a bit, with some acknowledgement that the other version had some merit.

But which one? Which storyline ends up being the retroactive conventional wisdom? Who gets to write the history books inside the Montpelier bubble?

Racine himself won't. Despite his eyebrow-raising breaking of insider protocols by lamenting his firing to the media, he's not the drumbeat type and tends to keep counsel with his confidants in a reserved manner. After providing a heaping amount of grist for the mill with the aforementioned media comments, the final story will be written by others.

As far as others go, it is true that many, many in Montpelier have expressed frustration with Racine for some time. The water-cooler crowd will tend to fertilize the #2 story.

But in the greater liberal-political world, Mr. Racine is still appreciated, if not beloved - and many are at wits end with Mr. Shumlin for a variety of reasons. Interestingly, many of those reasons overlap with criticisms from his opponents on the right (gripes about managerial competence and integrity). Which also opens up a teeny window for possible electoral exploitation from the Governor's opposition in November, and there may be the tiniest hint of that in the comments of Republican Senator Kevin Mullin in the vtdigger piece, and echoed deep down in some of the reader comments as well. If so, it won't amount to anything vote-wise, but could have the effect of allowing the Racine-as-martyr narrative to take hold.

And just to be clear: if you think that giving it a year to provide historical perspective will make the facts less muddy, don't hold your breath, as names, faces, relationships and reputations cycle in and out with abandon in Montpelier. Consider, for example, former House Majority Leader and that-close-to-being-Lieutenant-Gubernatorial-candidate Floyd Nease. Nease left House leadership years back, was brought on as executive director of the Vermont Association for Mental Health, and reportedly drew the outrage of Governor Shumlin after pulling off the largest demonstration anyone can remember against (yup) AHS cuts, putting the Governor in an uncomfortable position right from the get-go. But now? Only five months ago, Nease was brought on board to keep the Governor's health care plan afloat.

While this demonstrates that Mr. Shumlin's long memory does not translate into a tendency to hold political grudges (our Governor is nothing if not pragmatic on the matter of political alliances), what it really shows is that - in state government - whoever goes around, comes around. So Mr. Racine is likely to reemerge somewhere, sometime, locking arms with somebody in state government again eventually (if he wants to), regardless of what version of the story is true, takes hold, and of who may or may not be displeased with him at any given moment (and regardless of how many times he's pulled that trick off already).

And the political axiom that "perception is reality" will be vividly proven true once again (as will the song title "People are Strange").

-John Odum