When It Means Something
“If you challenge the conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things much better than they are currently done.” ~ Michael Lewis
The Oakland Athletics 2002 season is the most famous in franchise history. Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game chronicles the team’s 20 consecutive game winning-streak. Behind the scenes, Billy Beane focused on building a successful ball club with limited resources. As the book and movie disclose, Beane used sabermetrics to individually evaluate players looking beyond celebrity and gut instincts. He used analytics to make data-based decisions that evaluated overlooked qualities to level the playing field.
As funding sources decline and uncertainty around the coronavirus pandemic continues, higher education institutions are faced with a similar dilemma as the Oakland Athletics. The need to consistently deliver results within budgetary constraints in a competitive field. Ball clubs cannot survive on only signing all-stars. A successful ball club requires a group of individuals who combine their individual talents that, as a whole, make the team stronger.
Technology has paved the way for higher education to promote access and equality; however, traditional perspectives often get in the way. To many people, higher education is still seen as out of reach and inaccessible by a population that is rapidly growing. Political debates and regulatory changes have done little to measurably improve accessibility, affordability, and inclusivity.
Given the resources that the Oakland Athletics had to work with, signing big name ball players was not an option. However, that did not mean the opportunity to play in Oakland was any less sought after depending on who was being scouted. If you were signed to the Oakland Athletics, you were still playing professional baseball. Beane achieved 2002 success by “finding overlooked players who excelled in undervalued facets of the game.”
For too long, higher education’s admissions processes have focused on exclusion. We know this is true because of the shift in many institutions’ focus to seek a more diverse population. Currently, admission applications are cluttered with data like race, gender, grade point average, and rankings. While this may be helpful data, it does not indicate student success or predict achievement or potential. The talk around admissions processes nationwide is changing and with many institutions facing low fall enrollments, more efforts are being made to remain connected with prospective students. The real connection comes through an authentic demonstration and desire to put the needs of all students first.
Students want institutions who see past the numbers and discover the person behind the data. Higher education needs students with goals, drive, self-awareness, creativity, and diversity. Employers are frustrated by the cookie cutter graduates who are unable to think outside-the-box and exhibit the grit necessary to make a long-term impact. Higher education is facing a drought of diverse, talented students in favor of creating an exclusive all-star team. This global pandemic may provide higher education with the very catalyst needed to rethink what has always been done and who has always been served.
Change only matters if it means something. Extraordinary, and even transformational results can be achieved by seeing beyond the limits, mistakes, and traditions to create opportunities to level the playing field.
“Listen, man. I’ve been in this game a long time. I’m not in it for a record, I’ll tell you that. I’m not in it for a ring. That’s when people get hurt. If we don’t win the last game of the series, they’ll dismiss us. I know these guys, I know the way they think, and they will erase us. And everything we’ve done here, none of it will matter. Any other team wins the world series, good for them. They’re drinking champagne, they’ll get a ring. But if we win, on our budget with this team, we’ll change the game. And that’s what I want, I want it to mean something.” ~ Billy Beane, Moneyball
