SwampFox

What makes for a successful independently funded academic center?

Submitted by: John Warner on Apr 13, 2010 at 6:38 am Tagged with: Academia, Innovation Source: Swamp Fox

Recently I met with a leader of the SC Legislature, who said the state budget for fiscal 2011 will be as draconian as any since the War Between the States. That's an apt analogy, because the current education institutions we have from K-12 public schools to our research universities were invented in the decades after the war for the 19th century industrial revolution. Navigating the current economic crisis requires leadership to reinvent our educational institutions for the creative, global, 21st century economy by becoming more entrepreneurial and market focused than they are today.

At the recent town hall meeting, Jim Barker discussed Clemson becoming an more "independently funded public university." All of South Carolina's colleges and universities will invent what this is in the coming months, but for sure an "independently funded public university" is made up of "independently funded academic centers."

A great example of an "independently funded academic center", appropriately enough, is the The Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism". The founding executive director of the Institute is Brad Thompson. The elements that make Brad and the Institute successful as a independently funded academic center are similar to what makes almost any other entrepreneur successful.

• The Institute's champion, Brad, is passionate and tenacious. His enthusiasm is infectious, and he never gives up.

• The Institute addresses a real problem. Brad frames the problem that business people are almost always portrayed as evil. He recently turned that on the senior advisory board of the Clemson College of Business and Behavioral Science by asking if the business people on the advisory board were evil? One board member agreed to help Brad with a fundraiser on the spot.
• The Institute has a big, distinctive vision. Brad said, "There are lots of other free market think tanks in the country, but they address capitalism from a pragmatic perspective. Capitalism is good because it works. No other institute makes a moral defense of capitalism."
• The Institute has a clear mission that is easy to communicate: "to examine and to increase public awareness of the moral foundations of capitalism."
• The Institute creates sparks from people who think Brad and his colleagues are wrong. If an idea doesn't attract naysayers, it is not truly transformational. Brad is unapologetic that there is an edge to the Institute's work that cuts across the grain, especially of academia. In fact he relishes being edgy, which most entrepreneurs do.
• The Institute had a patron early on with credibility in the university to protect it from the antibodies of the existing culture forming to kill the Institute before it got traction. That patron was Bruce Yandle, who is now dean emeritus of the College of Business and Behavioral Science.
• Brad knows the milestones and resources necessary to achieve his vision. The resources development officer for the College said, "Brad can tell a prospective donor specifically what he needs."
• Institute has attracted colleagues inside and outside the University who see it in their enlightened self-interest to help provide the expertise and resources for the Institute to be successful. John Allison, formerly CEO of BB&T, writes big checks.
• Brad has a sense of urgency because, "I raise my own salary." Every entrepreneur understands that experience. The game is over when the cash runs out.

Others in colleges and universities who are reinventing themselves in this new environment can replicate elements of Brad's success.