Enrollment and The Hail Mary Pass (As Seen in the Houghton Star October 31, 2014)

A Vanderbilt University study concluded colleges that had recently closed had enrollments of fewer than one thousand students and endowments of under $50 million. Many were religious institutions such as Bethany University in California. First year student enrollment drastically dropped – by 10% or more –  at more than a quarter of U.S. private four-year colleges over the past two years, according to the Wall Street Journal. Higher education experts foresee a death spiral for small private schools due to an overreliance on tuition revenue and a scarcity of large endowments.

Houghton College has been affected by low enrollment over the past several years. Last year, Houghton missed their enrollment target and the administration enacted austerity measures such as staff layoffs, closing of floors in dorms, and cutbacks to underperforming academic and sports programs. Houghton has survived more than a century of wars, depressions, and social changes. The problems faced today are found within rapidly changing local and national demographics. As Western New York loses 1% of its population every two years and families move south, the possibility of a vibrant local enrollment diminishes. In addition, our winters make Houghton a tough sell to out-of-state students.

The national numbers are even more implacable. As high school graduating class size declines, those who graduate are deciding in larger numbers not to attend college. Private liberal arts schools continue to be dominated by white, female students. At open access colleges, which accept at least 80% of applicants, enrollment for African-Americans and Hispanics doubled in the past decade.

Religion in America is also changing, according to Pew Research. In 1955, our country was composed of 70% mainline Protestant faiths. Today, Protestants account for 50%. Catholics and non-denominational Christians are now up to 36%.  Houghton College and Dean Michael Jordan have been very accepting of all Christian faiths, but Houghton should include our Christian diversity more when promoting the school.

The dawn of online education also hurts enrollment. According to a Babson College survey, 32% of students nationally had enrolled in an online course. To add fuel to the fire, many liberal arts schools have simply priced themselves out of the market. Tuition costs have risen beyond the inflation rate and the ability to find a job to pay off debt has severely diminished due to a poor job environment.

Every problem has solutions and Houghton has responded with many positive initiatives to assist in this year’s enrollment, which is up 10%, or about thirty students, from last year’s numbers.  The increase can be attributed to an agreement with Indiana Wesleyan to launch Houghton education online, a newly opened associate’s degree program in Buffalo, the Loan Repayment Assistance Program, and an increased effort to attract foreign students in Hong Kong. These endeavors have moved the football down the field a few yards, but more students can be added at a low cost. Houghton would score a touchdown by using its best asset.

Through a generous gift by the Kerr-Pegula family, we have trumped nearly every college in the Northeast with our athletic facilities. Houghton has also spent a lot of money to complete the project. There has been a growing population of students who play sports at Houghton. According to Skip Lord, Houghton’s Athletic Director, 25% of students participate in athletics, with a goal of a 33%. The ratio is excellent, but consider elite academic schools such as Haverford College and Williams College with nearly 40% of their students playing varsity sports. Athletics attract students to come to campus, stay on campus, take up residence, and buy Houghton sports themed apparel. Our teams recruit players at camps and give Houghton visibility. Houghton athletes establish recruiting pipelines from their former high schools. Coaches have a distinct advantage of selling the college over an admissions officer as athletes and their parents are easily swayed by the opportunity to play at the next level.

Recently, the addition of several new sports has helped enrollment. Of those additions, baseball has been the biggest success adding more than 30 students. Coach Brian Reitnour has recruited students from Colorado, Washington, New Jersey, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Canada and British Guyana. We could add more students by relaunching low-cost, official JV teams. Sports like soccer and baseball are ripe for JV programs and could add 50 students. Houghton is well known for its equestrian studies and runs one of best equestrian summer camps. Could not Houghton mirror the program and competition schedule of Centenary College of New Jersey, which packs ninety students on the equestrian team?

However, the enrollment touchdown pass for a small college is to add a football team with a promise of over one hundred new, paying students. Since 2009, over 40 new college football programs have been added. Many programs have helped small private schools such as Hendrix College reverse the enrollment death spiral. Seton Hill also found enrollment in football. The school’s president noted to The New York Times, “I could have started a spiffy new major of study, spent a lot of money on lab equipment and hired a few new high-powered professors; I might have gotten 25 more students for that. Instead, I started a football team, brought in hundreds of paying students, added a vibrant piece to our campus life and broadened our recognition factor.” College football is a game changer for small schools. Besides just boosting enrollment it can eliminate low male ratios and attract new Christian minorities and ethnic, Catholic students that might not consider Houghton. Football can also add a 25 person cheerleader squad and a 60 student marching band to our vibrant music community.

In sum, Houghton doesn’t have to be a small school casualty. We must acknowledge that demographic shifts and technological changes are moving rapidly and are beyond our control. With our athletic facilities, Houghton College has distinct advantage to reverse a national trend. How we react and adapt to those trends will be how our future is determined.

Minimum Wage: Tilting at Windmills (Published in the Houghton Star September 19, 2014 and winner of the 2015 AEI Journalism Award)

A growing number of Americans, academics, and politicians herald a rise in minimum wage as a solution to fight poverty. The concept seems simple, politicians agree what is a livable minimum wage and it becomes the law of the land. However, government solutions to economics typically resemble Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

While politicians may concoct a faux pas minimum or living wage, real wages are determined by a marketplace, not the government. As economist Paul Krugman once remarked, “Wages are a market price—determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal.” In capitalist societies, corporations will pay dearly for specific skills or if labor is in short supply. Just ask Wal-Mart workers in Wilston, North Dakota who start at $17.40 an hour.

Now that government sets the minimum wage, employers must decide if the wage, benefits, taxes and training are worth the value of the task at hand. People with no experience or no diploma find it hard to enter the workforce. They are impeded from opportunity of economic mobility into future, better jobs. You won’t move up the ladder if you can’t get on the ladder.

Minimum wage not only shrinks job market perspectives, but also has a weak correlation to low wage workers and poverty, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Economist Joseph Sabia found minimum wage increases on both the state and federal level between 2003 and 2007 “had no effect on state poverty rates.” According to Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, “Less than 3% of hourly wage earners over the age of 24 earn at or below the federal minimum.” Most minimum wage earners are teenagers who are seeking work experience. These same teens face a 24% unemployment rate.  It could be argued that high school and college workers with the need for experience should forgo any minimum wage. In the past, college students voluntarily traded labor for the experience gained from internship.

I discovered how differently fast food restaurants were operated while travelling around Europe playing baseball this summer. At a McDonald’s in La Rochelle, France, there was no counter person taking orders, instead it was a computer. Why would an American corporation be more technologically advanced in France than in their domestic franchises? I asked a French worker, who said McDonald’s found it more economically feasible to buy an expensive computer system rather than pay France’s minimum wage of $12.09 plus a multitude of benefits and payroll taxes gifted by French politicians.

When labor is costly and can be replaced by machines, most businesses invest in capital intensive systems. Even in the US, we are now witnessing technology replace the demand for workers. Check out your local bank with half the amount of tellers as it had ten years ago. Home Depot has automated cashiers. At Applebee’s, your “Neighborhood Grill and Bar,” don’t expect Flo, your favorite, neighborly waitress, to take your nachos order in the future. “Presto”—the tablet computer—has secretly been added to your table, next to the salt and pepper shakers.  Since Presto works for free, should we tip Presto more than the customary 15%?

Small businesses are the engine of our economy. There should be little or no regulation on them, so long as it does not affect the safety of their employees or the public. Small businesses are typically underfunded and unable to immediately buy systems to replace people.  In fact, these businesses can thrive by giving a human-touch experience versus their larger counterparts. However, the more we increase and mandate minimum wages and fringe benefits, once negotiated privately by consenting adults, the more we increase the problems we see in France. George W. Bush once quipped, “The trouble with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.” If we keep on passing minimum wage laws, this country might not have a word for enterprise.

Minimum Wage: Tilting At Windmills

Two Views: Is free-market capitalism good and just? (Published by the Houghton Star Newspaper and The American Enterprise Institute December 2013)

Each day we participate in the most just and free market system in the world. The iPhone we bought to talk to friends, the Pepsi we drank to keep us awake to study, the paycheck from work, are an integrative part of the free market.  Dinesh D’Souza, former President of The King’s College noted free market “capitalism satisfied the Christian demand for an institution that channels selfish human desire toward the betterment of society.”

Author Michael Novak documents the origin of free enterprise to the Catholic’s creation of Canon Law, which led to a common market and law system by establishing “jurisdictions of empire, nation, chartered city, guild [for] merchants, and entrepreneurs. It also provided local and regional arbitrators, jurists, negotiators, and judges.  Now gears for windmills, harnesses for beasts of burden, ocean-going ship rudders, eyeglasses, and ironwork” were invented with the free flow of trade and ideas.  Later the “Protestant Work Ethic” would bring ferocity for free markets documented in Max Weber’s 1905 book, The Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism.  Book critic Tom Butler-Bowdon states Weber makes a compelling argument that Protestants made free markets worthy and morally just because “of the spirit of progress; the love of hard work for its own sake; the orderliness, punctuality and honesty; and the belief in a higher calling.”

As history tells us, the free enterprise system has been the catalyst for the greatest strides in innovation, social mobility, and the standard of living.  In a free enterprise system, allocation of goods through trade is not an exploitation of buyers by sellers, rather a mutual agreement of value between two consenting parties.  However, many of today’s liberal-progressives argue free enterprise is unethical resulting in a mal-distribution of wealth.  They claim markets cause the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.  However, history has shown societies prospered from free market expansion which created a better standard of living for all income classes. When President Kennedy cut taxes for the upper class the economy blossomed.  Kennedy remarked, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”   According to economist Arthur Laffer, the US’s “purchasing power of the median income family rose to $54,061 in 2004, an $8,228 real increase since 1980.  The middle class is not disappearing…it is getting richer.”  The poor have also benefited from these booms.  A Treasury study on income mobility in the US from 1996 to 2004 found the bottom 20% of wage earners experienced a 109% (inflation adjusted) increase in income.

Critics of free enterprise often cite Sweden as a model of how socialism can work.  Having a mother from Sweden and having visited many times, I know Sweden is a lovely country, but if Sweden is socialism’s best argument, then the cases against socialism are many.  It is true Sweden has relatively no poverty.  On the other hand, economist Milton Friedman noted, “That is interesting because in America, among Scandinavians, we have no poverty either.”  Likewise less than 7% of Swedes and Swedish Americans live in poverty.  However, the similarities end there considering how wealthy American Swedes are compared to their Swedish counterparts.  A Swede’s average income per year is $36,600 while an American Swede’s average income per year is $56,900 according to author Kevin Williamson.  A typical Swedish family would live in an 800 square foot apartment and own one car, while a typical Swedish-American family would own a 3000 square foot home and own two cars.

In addition, according to Socialism by Williamson, Sweden’s GDP per capita was 20% higher than that of the US in 1980, but in 2001 not only was the US’s GDP per capita higher, it was higher by an overwhelming 56%.  Sweden also has more social rigidity than the US.  Ironically, America is more egalitarian than Sweden.  While income may be more equally distributed in Sweden, the US has distributed wealth more equally.  Income and wealth are correlated in the US by high paying careers or entrepreneurship.  In Sweden you are more likely wealthy because you inherited it.

The free enterprise system has benefited all economic classes and mankind’s leap in innovation, social mobility, and our standard of living.  On the other hand, collectivist societies have stifled innovation, while creating a rigid social mobility, driving down a lower standard of living.  President Ronald Reagan once said, “Socialists ignore the side of man that is the spirit. They can provide you shelter, fill your belly with bacon and beans, treat you when you’re ill, all the things guaranteed to a prisoner or a slave. They don’t understand that we also dream.” Similarly, Timothy 1:7 states, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”  The choice is clear.  We must continue to dream.

Two Views: Is free-market capitalism good and just?

 

So it Goes (Published in the Houghton Star Newspaper May 2014 in Letter’s to the Editor)

In reference to: “So, is abortion murder? Who cares? The truth is, abortion does not matter. It doesn’t. If the main bone you have to pick is simply a question of the beginning and end of life, you need to broaden your focus to include any kind of death—death from war, death from starvation, death disease. All of these deaths, including death from abortion, grow out of the same causes—poverty, power and control, lack of education, terrible situations.”

 I read the last paragraph of the Houghton Star’s previous opinion piece and I found it tragic.  This article reminds me of the book Slaughterhouse V where the protagonist Billy Pilgrim and other soldiers in captivity in Dresden lose their sensitivity to care about death thus uttering the phrase “so it goes.”  The author—Kurt Vonnegut—was using this phrase reflecting the tragedy of war and the amount of deaths that occur from it.  The message of Vonnegut’s book is to demonstrate an anti-war message that no life should be in vain nor be sacrificed.  This Houghton Star article seems to give the message “so it goes” and we should accept abortion because humans seem to overlook death by war, disease, and starvation.  The argument suggest that since these  moral equivalent issues take a back seat to abortion then abortion should not be brought up.  It’s an argument that works only in a culture of death.  I agree all culture of death issues should have a forum; but  it does not take away validity from the abortion debate.  However, there is one difference between abortion and the other tragic deaths that the author fails to look at which is the benefits of life.  Yes man is merely a mortal, but they get to experience life and God’s creation.   Ronald Reagan once said “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”  I am very happy my parents chose life and gave me the opportunity to live on God’s green earth.

China: A Falling Star (Published in the Houghton Star Newspaper March 2014)

The Commissar from the State went out to a collective farm, grabbed the first worker he saw and said, “Comrade, how are the crops this season?” The worker said, “Oh, the crops have never been better, just wonderful.”  The Commissar smiled and asked “And the Potatoes?” The worker replied, “Oh, Comrade Commissar, if we could put the potatoes in one pile, they would reach the foot of God,” the Commissar angrily said, “We are Communists. There is no God!” “Well,” said the worker, “That’s all right, there are no potatoes.”

This joke, often recited by President Reagan, poked fun at the great gap between Soviet Union Communist Party data versus the plain truth about the Soviet Economy.   State manipulation only works for a time until the lie becomes impossible to live. The Soviet’s economic demise is well documented. Now data from China also gives the world a “potato pile to the sky” picture of its economic strength.  The plain truth is the Chinese government data shows inconsistencies in exports, colossal corporate and local debt, an imminent collapse in its shadow financial sector, and the Chinese government’s misunderstanding of the Chinese citizens’ desire to purchase gold.

Last month, according to Chinese government figures, total exports grew a whopping 10.6% compared to analysts moderate forecast of just 2% as reported by the Wall Street Journal.  How can analysts underestimate by 8.6% when they are normally off by only a fraction of a percent?  Many Chinese experts such as Shao Xiaoyi warn that “the figures may be inflated by fake trade transactions, where traders forge deals to sneak cash into the country past capital controls.”   At the same time of the reported tremendous growth, Chinese manufacturer’s reported “overall orders and new export orders fell, while inventory [of unsold goods] rose” according to JP Morgan economist Haibin Zhu.  The Purchasing Managers’ Index of Chinese economic activity is below 50 points which signals a contraction in the economy.  International corporations have been forecasting little to no growth in China.  Two consumer goods companies—Nestle SA and Pernod Ricard SA—said their sales last year were hurt by a continuing slowdown in China’s consumer demand, which dropped as much as 18%.

More disturbing news is the rise in China’s corporate debt to $12.1 trillion. Standard and Poor’s estimates that China’s corporate debt will exceed the US’s corporate debt this year, making China’s corporate debt the largest in the world.  As a result, according to Shen Hong from the Wall Street Journal, “Borrowing costs for Chinese companies are raising strongly, a shift that could herald weaker corporate profits, slower economic growth and even the first defaults by indebted corporations on the mainland.”

In the public sector Chinese local government debt has risen 67% to $3 trillion. According to Robert Samuelson, “local debt now equals about 33 percent of China’s economy up from 10 percent in 2008 and almost nothing in 1997.”  Most of the local debt is from financing new infrastructure such as roads and bridges and from building new cities notoriously known as “ghost cities” constructed of commercial buildings that sit empty and uninhabited apartments.  Tao Wang of UBS believes “dependence on this investment spending poses a dilemma for China.”  If localities cut spending, the economy would be severely weakened.  If localities keep spending at the same rate, localities could face default.

Problems in China’s financial sector stem from a practice known as “shadow banking.” Shadow bankers, operating without regulation, borrow from regulated banks to lend at higher interest rates to businesses and local governments. According to Time Magazine’s Michael Schuman, “An expansion of risky and complicated financial practices in the world’s second-largest economy has the potential to explode into a major economic crisis.” Now these shadow banks are in trouble and are being bailed out.   Aaron Back of the Wall Street Journal predicts that these shadow bankers will cause a domino effect and that “more distressed trust situations are inevitable and will test Beijing’s resolve.”

This month China became the biggest buyer of gold.  Chinese officials believe this demonstrates the strength of Chinese wealth in the private sector.  Gold, however, is often used as a hedge against inflation or a slowdown in the economy. As economist Kimberly Amadeo notes, “investors flock to gold when they are protecting their investments from either a crisis or inflation.” According to Laura Clarke of the Wall Street Journal, “Fears about the slowing Chinese economy, a potential property bubble and fragile financial system have spurred buying, especially as retail gold buyers in China have few other appealing options.”

As we all know, each fortune cookie comes with words of wisdom or a vague prophecy. Chinese government officials should heed the warning of this old Chinese Proverb, “To tell only half the truth is to give life to a new lie.” China must stop giving the world half-truths if it wants to become a real world economic super power. If it fails to do so, it too will be doomed to the ash heap of history.

China: A Falling Star

FDR vs. The Small Businessman’s Revolution

FDR’s belief in experimentation scared business away.  FDR’s broad rules provided ambiguity of regulatory uncertainty through what Kiplinger’s “Why Businessmen Fear Washington” states as “a great state of indefiniteness and confusion ” (378) , the possibility of more laws struck down on them, and his mistake of mistaking macroeconomic problems with microeconomic problems through alphabet agencies such as the NRA all “frightened away capital, and they discouraged employers from hiring workers…businesses decided to wait Roosevelt out, hold on to their cash, and invest in future years” (Shlaes8).   The New Deal, on contrary belief, was actually accepted by many businessmen in open arms, but it disappointed many businessmen through its favoritism to big business and its favoritism to labor.  Under FDR, the US saw the rapid consolidation of power from local governments to federal governments, the power and wealth from local businesses to national corporations, and the wealth of small farmers and tenants to a farming elite.

FDR though had mixed sentiment amongst businessmen.  Favored rent seekers loved FDR while the majority of businessmen detested him such as “Hanna Coal executive George Humphrey always spelt Roosevelt with a lowercase ‘r’; dinner guests of banker J.P Morgan were forbidden to mention the ‘R’ word at all” (389). FDR provided a rent seeking atmosphere and favoritism that has never been as prominent in any other time period in the United States.  Gordon provides examples through JP Morgan and George Humphrey that big industry did not like him, but the reason was primarily that both of them were not favorited by the FDR administration and would have provided exultation if they were favorited.  Even the left leaning Gordon writes that “New Deal programs benefited some interests at the expense of others, and left the price of organization to be paid by regional or marginal competitors” (391).  These regional competitors are the small businessmen who were the true forgotten men of the 1930’s.

Most businessmen saw the New Deal as a failure because it failed consistently, provided a cartel for each industry led by the big elites in each, and higher labor costs due to the NRA.  The NRA “created innumerable problems, including increased prices, contradictory jurisdiction, and inconsistent interpretation” coupled with elitist big business favorites running each industry cartel and higher labor costs which led the NRA to be painful towards small business (391).

The small businessman’s revolt finally gained traction in 1938 during the midterm elections where the pro-small business Republicans gained 72 seats in the House and 7 seats in the Senate. In 1940, FDR would have lost the election if not for the threat of war. FDR himself said “You know, if the war should be over before the election and I am running against Willkie, he would be elected.” On August 3^rd 1940, “George Gallop, the pollster, reported that Willkie would have the edge over Roosevelt if the election were held that day” (Shlaes374). On Election Day though, FDR defeated Willkie because as Europe was slipping into war, FDR seemed like the better choice since he had more credentials through being the President for eight years and also being the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for seven years.

All Quiet on FDR’s Left Wing Front…

FDR’s New Deal was under siege not only by a conservative front, but also a more extreme liberal front.  Huey Long and Father Coughlin were the strongest leaders on the liberal front to disdain the New Deal.  Their rise to prominence was not only the factor of the New Deal’s failure to bring America out of the deep depths of Depression, but also in part by their charming charisma, flamboyancy, and excellent use of the radio.  They provided simple answers with a message of real meaning. Long and Coughlin brought reminiscence of a time of old American values and the thriving community of small business, local banks, and small merchants. They also provided a scapegoat to whom they put the burden of blame upon for the destabilization of these old values.

Both Huey Long and Father Coughlin romanticized of the view of man’s ability to control his own destiny, but man has been shackled by “large faceless institutions” (382).  Both men asked for a “redefinition of the concept of property ownership” because extreme wealth is not beneficial to the collective community by impeding on other community member’s chances at property ownership (383).  Both portrayed local socioeconomic problems such as the destruction of the local merchant and the arrival of chain stores to which wealthy Eastern bankers and Eastern industrialists were to blame for these trends.  This appealed to the heart of small town America and even urban America because

“in agricultural communities, the small merchant had traditionally been more than a           supplier of goods.  He had served, too, as a crucial instrument of credit, a banker, a     purchaser of farm produce;…a gathering place, at times a community’s only social center.  In larger towns or cities, neighborhood shops often catered to the tastes of particular racial or ethnic groups, to members of certain occupations” (384).

Long and Coughlin  especially attacked FDR for his centralization and transfer of power from local and state governments to the federal governments and beaurocrats, coupled with FDR’s failure of wealth distribution and to fight poverty.  They saw FDR as part of the old system.  Huey Long in his Share our Wealth Society proclaims that Americans are being enslaved internationalist bankers and that it is “better to make this fight [against the current system] and lose than to be a party to a system that strangles humanity” (375).  Similarly Father Coughlin in a lecture on social justice portrays the current America run by bankers who create the labor policy and as a result there are 12 million men unemployed (378).

History tends to especially forget that dissidents among the liberals were gaining power and popularity amongst constituents a little after FDR’s first midterm election. It would have been a major factor in the 1936 election and onward, but these liberal dissidents were dealt two fatal blows.  The assassination of Huey Long gave FDR no major opponent in the 1936 Democratic Primaries.  Also by 1938, the threat of war in Europe tamed the extreme liberal front especially the Communists—who didn’t want to go down the road of fascism—and also weakened Father Coughlin’s power whose views of extreme anti-Semitist and supported of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s policies led to a smaller viewer base and later the forceful cancellation of his radio show by FDR in 1941.

James S. Luckey Community Impact (December 2012)

In 1982, my mother at the age of twenty immigrated to America from Sweden. The one thing that fascinated her was this country’s vibrant civic culture, characterized by volunteers involving themselves in the affairs of their communities. French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville observed in 1862, “I must say that I have seen Americans make a great deal of real sacrifices to the public welfare; and have noticed a hundred instances in which they hardly ever failed to lend faithful support to one another.” However, the situation in America’s communities in 2013 is different from 1862 and even 1982. This has subsequently led many scholars such as Robert Putnam to focus on this issue. One of Putnam’s concerns is a decline in voting in spite of new voters added with the Voting and Civil Rights acts. Putnam believes voters are “more interested in politics, to give to charity, to volunteer, to serve on juries, and to cooperate with their follow citizens on community affairs.” Putnam’s theory, “Evidence suggests that the act of voting itself encourages volunteering and other forms of good citizenship.” This essay will explore the reasons why there has been a decline in community involvement and give proposals to revive our community.

Prior to the occurrence of World War 1, there existed many religious and charitable groups concentrated on taking care of the less fortunate. However, the New Deal, Square Deal and Great Society legislation subsequently created an avenue for each successive federal government initiative to seize power from the community. As the social net gained prominence, it destroyed the beliefs and values holding society together. In the past, a man who left his family was shunned and his family fell destitute if not for the help of the church. Today his family would be cared for by government assistance. Citizens with wealth now withdrew from their community voluntarism believing higher taxes that pay for government agencies would administer to the community needs. Ironically, the government policies expected to bring to an end to the challenges affecting society eventually left it more vulnerable to the problems of increased poverty and unacceptable behavior.

It can be asserted the falling voting participation coupled with increasing cases of illegitimate births, and divorces have been indirectly contributed by ineffective government practices. Generally, low levels of volunteerism and religious worship characterize neighborhoods where these problems are most prevalent.  The aspect of bureaucrats being allowed to run communities as opposed to citizens has contributed to the decline in volunteer groups such as Little League, Girl Scouts, and Elks clubs, among others.  Formal and informal interactions that exist among associations, businesses, churches, and town administrators and other key parties of a given social setting are called “Social Capital.” These interactions dictate how people are likely to participate in different societal and national activities. Described below are seven proposals to increase community involvement.

Volunteerism with Rewards

People can learn from high school students who believe by continually getting involved in clubs and community outreach they may enhance their chances of being accepted by a college. This gateway often creates a love for future volunteerism with non-selfish motives.   Joining the DECA business club has opened the doors for me to join other clubs originally not considered. Therefore, private companies and institutions should be encouraged to consider introducing rewards for their members who volunteer.

A Positive Volunteer Culture

Academia, Hollywood, and businesses can all be encouraged to create courses, movies, and commercials highlighting what it is to be a good citizen. An example is Houghton College’s community outreach in the city of Buffalo.   Similarly, I participated in cleaning an impoverished Philadelphia neighborhood organized by President Eisenhower’s People to People Program.

Smaller is Better

Houghton is an example of a small college that facilitates healthy interactions among its members and increases the ease of social connections. After serving as a library volunteer in my community, I managed to ascertain small towns, institutions, and companies tend to make people feel useful in regards to influencing change.

The Role of Fathers

Serving as a youth baseball coach, I noticed the importance of father’s or other adult males participating as coaches. It significantly enhanced children’s learning and playing activities.   Fatherhood has become trivialized in modern society, but the importance of fathers or other strong male role models play a key role within a community.

Community Festivals

I came to learn after volunteering in a few community art shows that organized festivals create a platform for people from different races, religions, and age groups to meet and celebrate what they have in common. These shared experiences strengthen a community.

Religiosity

According to Putnam, half of all volunteering occurs in a religious context and these volunteers develop essential skills such as public speaking, running meetings, managing disagreements and mastering administrative responsibilities. If church outreach programs seek new members there would be a new army of volunteers.   Similarly, I volunteered to play piano for the youth mass and was also recruited for other duties for the church.

Politics: From the Greek, politikos “of, for, or relating to citizens”

We all need to take the initiative of enhancing the level of volunteerism within society through becoming active members of different political parties or groups established to pursue different community courses. I hope to run for student government at Houghton.

Conclusion

We can change our community and our nation just by joining a club, becoming a volunteer emergency responder, or running for town council.   We should reconnect with neighbors, participate on a softball team, join a prayer group, or attend town festivals and parades. In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam notes we should simply go on picnics, “not because it would be good for America-though it will be- but because it will be good for us.”   Finally, God wants us to be a steward of our community and scripture says, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).