David Hawpe has written a very interesting article in the Louisville Courier-Journal about NKU's proposed business plan, which promotes NKU's role in facilitating regional economic growth and developing a talented workforce. He cynically comments:

So, NKU wants to be a combination vocational school and economic development office, staffed by PhDs?

The problem, however, is that we're not hiring PhDs to drive these initiatives. Though the plan calls for more tenurable faculty, we're instead paying top salaries to leaders with little or no experience in academia and who operate with little regard for educational mission of the university. Hawpes' fears that we are following a business plan at the expense of the integrity of a good liberal arts education are worth some serious attention. Look at the initiatives and how they are managed and you can see that the "talent-driven workforce" coming out of NKU in the future is unlikely to be either philosophical or poetic.

David Hawpe: Do we want business plans or education plans?

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