In the morning, I usually do a morning surf of the blogosphere to read the latest missives that have been published. One of my regular stops is Glenn Greenwald's column at salon.com. As usual, he has an excellent post on journalism and the Constitution. Here is an excerpt from today's column:

By the design of the Founders, most American political issues are driven by the vicissitudes of political realities, shaped by practicalities and resolved by horse-trading compromises among competing factions. But not all political questions were to be subject to that process. Some were intended to be immunized from those influences. Those were called "principles," or "rights," or "guarantees" -- and what distinguishes them from garden-variety political disputes is precisely that they were intended to be both absolute and adhered to regardless of what Massing calls "the practical considerations policymakers must contend with."

We don't have to guess what those principles are. The Founders created documents -- principally the Constitution -- which had as their purpose enumerating the principles that were to be immunized from such "practical considerations." All one has to do in order to understand their supreme status is to understand the core principle of Constitutional guarantees: no acts of Government can conflict with these principles or violate them for any reason. And all one has to do to appreciate their absolute, unyielding essence is to read how they're written: The President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." "[A]ll Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech." "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." "No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Even policies which enjoy majoritarian support and ample "practical" justification will be invalid -- nullified -- if they violate those guarantees.

He goes on to write:

Those principles are absolute and unyielding by their nature. Garden-variety political questions -- what should be the highest tax rate? what kind of health care policy should the government adopt? to what extent should the government regulate private industry? -- are ones intended to be driven by "the practical considerations policymakers must contend with." But questions about our basic liberties and core premises of our government -- presidential adherence to the law, providing due process before sticking people in cages, spying on Americans only with probable cause search warrants, treating all citizens including high political officials equally under the law -- are supposed to be immune from such "practical" and ephemeral influences. Those principles, by definition, prevail in undiluted form regardless of public opinion and regardless of the "practical" needs of political officials. That should not be controversial; that is the central republican premise for how our political system was designed.

With that in mind, what are the core premises that HR must follow versus the practical considerations must follow? What are the "MUSTS?"

After a week of excess (trip to KC for BBQ and baseball, bachelor party in Chicago, Coldplay at Alpine Valley in WI, Brewers baseball), its back to reality and thinking about fall classes.

One of the things I am pondering adding is a social media component to my intro to HR class. I would like it to be more than having everyone join twitter or start a blog.

What ways should social media be added into a HR curriculum?

I'm often asked "what is my most interesting teaching experience?" Well....

For me, the most interesting student interaction I've experienced was in my early career. I was in the middle of a Thursday morning lecture/discussion when a student started to get up to leave the class.

The student behind her asked, "Are you okay?"

She replied, nonchalantly, "Oh...my water broke."

Needless to say, I was dumbstruck. I do not remember the grad school class that provided any sort of discussion of what to do when a student goes into labor. Do I get some hot water? Towels? Calipers? Somehow, instinct kicked in, and I walked her to the dean's office where an ambulance was called to take her to the hospital.

I managed to amble back to class and finish, half-heartedly, the day's discussion. More surprisingly, the student was back in class Monday morning ready to dig into learning yet again.

Summer is always a good time to catch up on TV shows that I miss during the fall or spring, and haven't found the time to fit into my busy schedule. One of the shows I am catching up on this summer is "Burn Notice." The tag line for the show is "When spies get fired, they don’t get a letter from human resources....they get BURNED."

Michael Westen is a McGyver-esque spy who finds himself without a job, no access to his bank accounts, and no idea for the reason behind his dismissal. In his quest to find out the rationale, he takes on a number of side projects that utilize his intelligence, charm, and spy abilities to earn money.

I am only a few episodes into the first season, and I am sure it will move closer to Michael finding out the answers (though it is now in its 3rd season, which makes me wonder how long they intend to drag it out). However, it makes wonder why someone at his level of competence would get "burned?" Is he simply just another at-will employee? He demonstrates compassion through the first few episodes, he shows excellent performance on the job. What might be the reason?

Like most organizations, colleges and universities want their employees to be as high-performing as possible. The question, like in most organizations, is how do we do it? Unlike other organizations, however, is that the job of professor is one that plateaus. The lowest rank is assistant professor. Tenure and promotion are often tied together and the employee moves to the rank of associate professor. The highest rank a person in this job title can secure is professor.

With such limited mobility, administrators are challenged to motivate professors (aside from one's own intrinsic desire and pride in being a contributing member to his/her own profession) to produce unique, quality research, teach at a high level, serve and contribute on committees, and advise students on a regular basis.

At most research-based institutions, promotion is primarily tied to the quality of their scholarship, with those other factors, while important, are perceived as secondary. Beyond the promotion, however, there are relatively few incentives offered to most professors to exceed in the classroom. Further, mediocre performance is not often punished once a professor reaches tenure status.

In addition, some of the incentives that are offered are often of little value:

• Service awards - they recognize the number of years with the institution, but only recognize longevity, not quality of performance
• Year-end awards for research, teaching or service - While it is nice to be recognized by one's peers for these contributions, the monetary award is often small, and the criteria for achieving the award are often unknown to the recipients.
  

An intriguing proposal was recently made by a contributor to the Planet Money blog at NPR.org where:

What if teachers were paid based on the future income their students make. For example, student A grows up to make 100k a year. We look at the records and find the 20 teachers that taught student A and compensate them based on that. Compensation could be based on number of months spent with student.

That way the students would turn into "investments" for the teachers.

Would this create the necessary effect of improving teaching in the classroom? Would finance/accounting or science faculty have an advantage over those teaching in the humanities or fine arts?

So, compensation professionals, what incentives do you think would motivate professors to improve their quality and productivity?

When I attended the 2008 SHRM Annual Conference in Chicago, I had the opportunity to see Steve Gilliland. Very entertaining speaker with a lot of humorous, applicable anecdotes for the workplace. I decided to see him again at the 2009 SHRM Annual Conference in New Orleans (and I needed something to counteract the negative experience watching Dave Ramsey).

Once again, it was entertaining, but one thing resonated with me - he said to "cut the e-leash." He argued that individuals need to go out and meet people and read more.

On one hand, I agree with Mr. Gilliland. People should be socializing and networking. They should be spending less time on the computer and reading more novels. On the other hand, I have found sites like Facebook and Twitter has expanded the number of people I interact with on a daily basis. I have made a number of new contacts through the medium. Similarly, I probably read more now, reading blogs, web pages, etc., then if I had my computer shut off.
I still read novels, magazines and other non-fiction regularly.

With that in mind, do you agree with Mr. Gilliland? Has Social Media impacted your sociability and reading habits? Do we truly need to cut the e-leash?

Hard as it is to believe, the fall semester for my school begins seven weeks from today. I've already been working on my syllabi for two of my classes. I am also thinking about my advising responsibilities for my SHRM student chapter. Many of my HR colleagues have commented to me that the students they meet and interview have a good understanding of the HR basics and knowledge base. However, they are lacking in those "soft" skills that would help them in the workplace. One of the ideas I thought I would bring to the students is to have the chapter focus on a year-long program on these "soft" skills. Programs would include:

• Developing critical thinking skills
• Developing time management skills
  
• Developing a responsible work ethic
• Communicating effectively
• Using mathematics effectively
• Working cooperatively
• Respecting diversity
• Integrating technology

What other "soft" skills training is needed for today's undergraduate?