One Campus, One Book

I sat down this week with Dean David Ray of the Honors College to discuss Chapter 1 of Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. Dean Ray helped set the stage for the issues that will be discussed, and why they’re important. Please consider the following discussion questions as you’re watching and reading this week:

• Why is it important for students like us to discuss these issues?
• Do you have any direct or indirect experience with the issues that Putnam introduces?
• If equality of opportunity doesn’t exist in the U.S. right now, should making it a reality be one of our country’s highest goals?
• How do you think this lack of equality of opportunity has already changed the landscape of the economy many of us will be entering in the next few years?

Wow!!!! This was probably my favorite interview of the bunch, as I was close to leaving with big wad of $20 bills. OU College of Law professor, Joseph Thai, took some time to talk to us about campaign finance. Thai, a former clerk of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, discusses whether campaign contributions should be protected by the first amendment. Here are some questions to consider.

1. Should campaign spending be protected by the first amendment?
2. Is a constitutional amendment the only solution to this problem?
3. Have our politicians become too focused on raising money that they forget their constituents?

We talked with the chair of the political science department, Dr. Keith Gaddie, about the current government gridlock. Read the chapter, listen to what he has to say and leave a comment.

1. Will recent midterm results help or hurt this problem?
2. What role has the Tea-Party played?
3. What impact will changing demographics have?
4. Do we need to make changes to our political process
5. Is there any hope?

I meant to post this earlier. If you follow us on Twitter at blogs.ou.edu/onebook you would have seen it. I hope you can come out!

OneBookDiscussionPoster (PDF)

Just like education, innovation is an issue that crosses into each of the other chapters in Luce’s book. Innovation has always been considered America’s get out of jail free card, but this is now not so certain. We talked to Dean Daniel Pullin of the Price College of Business to find out what he thought about Luce’s chapter and to see whether he had some solutions for the issue.

Discussion Questions:

1. Does America still have its economic advantage?
2. How can our schools create innovators? Are our struggles in innovation connected to struggles in education?
3. How can public policy create innovators?
4. What innovations at OU do you think have been most impactful to your OU experience?
5. Can we change our focus from the short-term to the long-term to help facilitate innovation?

Let us know what you think. We want to create a conversation with your input.

We apologize for the technical problems. You don’t get to see Patrick this week, but Dean Pullin is there for you.

To discuss education we sat down with Dean Gregg Garn from the College of Education. This is an issue we can all relate to so we would love to hear what you think. Here are some questions to consider. If you have anything you would like to write about the subject, send it to us and we can publish it on the blog.

Is our focus on testing and data hurting teachers?
How can we better utilize data to improve education?
How can we teach soft skills in schools?
What is your education experience? Based off that, what do you think needs to be fixed?
Luce doesn’t talk about traditional higher education, how could higher ed be fixed?

Let us know if there are any other questions we should ask. tweet them to @OUOneBook or email them to pmcsweeney@ou.edu. Enjoy!