Many of you know Dr. Don Mathews. Don, excuse me. Dr. Mathews is a professor of economics at the College, a beloved teacher, the comedian at the UGA/Terry School of Business economic forecast given every January at the Jekyll Island Convention Center, and our faithful leader of ‘From the Murphy Center’ columns. However, I think he has a mean streak. Don, oops…Dr. Mathews, told me that my column today is number 200 from all the Murphy Center associates. After telling me this he said, in his loving tone, “So, don’t mess up.” So, here it goes.
Classes begin at the College next week on Monday the 16th. In partial preparation, we have been holding new student orientations over the summer. Here, we talk about procedural things like financial aid, dorm residency, grants, loans, bookstore hours, etc. We also begin to talk about the ‘Mariner way’ —– the culture of our learning environment and campus life.
As Dean of the School of Business and Public Management, I have some time to talk with our future students during orientation. I think it is important to ask our incoming scholars, “Why are you here?” I hear many things: ‘to prepare for a job’, ‘a step toward law school’, ‘I was told to come’, ‘I don’t know’, and ‘I want better.’ All are right in some way, for each student has their own unique situation at that moment in time.
I ask them to consider another reason. They are here to prepare to receive a gift, a gift of a new path for their lives that offers them more choices compared to the number of choices offered on the path they are now on. They come to college to prepare for a world with more choices.
Choices, alternatives, are good things. The ability to pick one from many is cool. What is cooler is to have the ability to say no to a choice when you think that there is no other way. Choices are basic to our freedom and to our control over our lives. Choices force others to stop thinking of themselves and start thinking of others. Back in the day, under the regime of the Soviet Union, Russian women had many choices for shoes so long as they liked black T-straps. That is the only style that shoe manufacturers made. The Russian shoe manufacturer only had to think of themselves and the payout the government offered if the manufacturer was efficient in making black T-Straps. However, with the opening of the Russian economy, more than black T-straps were available. Shoemakers had to start to think of their female customers and stop thinking of themselves. Choice changed the focus of what matters.
Choice is also the key to the civil rights issue of our time —— the quality of the education offered in public schools. To me, a quality school focuses on students and their futures. They think of more than just themselves. Choice gives families the right to walk away or to stay. Milton Friedman said that ‘choice gives an individual the ability to vote with their feet’. Choice can take many forms and one can see its local impact in many positive ways. Yet, one just needs to look at Baltimore-City schools to see where limiting choice can lead and the failure that it produces.
We also talk about entrepreneurs and choice. Entrepreneurs create choices for us as we face the problems of day-to-day life. Successful entrepreneurs think of others and rarely think of themselves. A world of choices is the goal of an entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Another way to say all this, is that we are preparing our students for the competitive marketplace where choice thrives. They will lead, they will follow, they will create, and they will live with the freedom to choose.
So, this brings #200 to an end. Don, are you good?
Thank you Buff for the space every Wednesday. Thank you Buddy for the freedom to write about ideas and for correcting my bad spelling. And thank you, Golden Isles, for all you do for us at the College of Coastal Georgia.
Dr. Skip Mounts is the Dean of the School of Business and Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia, a Professor of Economics, and an associate of the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies.
Reg Murphy Center