Hire Lernin’

An Idealist’s Quest Through the Realm of for-Profit Education

by Victor D. López

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© 2021, 2023 Victor D. López

No portion of this copyrighted work may be reproduced, transmitted, or posted in any form for any purpose without the express written consent of the author

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With love always for some of the as yet unacknowledged friends and family who have seen me at my best, at my worst, and have always loved me through it all, being there when it counted:

Manuel Zapata

Robert Zapata

Thomas and Maricarmen Gonzalez

Louis and Valentina Gonzalez

Gabriel F. Gonzalez

Elizabeth Gonzalez

Maria Olga Naveira Ambrosio

(And Michelle, Frank, Melissa and Pedro)

William Raynor

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With special thanks to my friend, trusted colleague, and co-author

of several law-related articles, Eugene T. Maccarrone,

who was the first to read and comment on the first draft of this book.

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Author’s Note

This novel is a work of fiction. Although it was born out of my slightly more than one-year experience as the dean of a proprietary, for-profit business school in my first academic posting early in my career in a manner and circumstances similar to the protagonist, the characters, locations, and situations are not based on nor intended to represent any actual persons or places. Alas the issues raised directly and indirectly about the failings of both for-profit education and increasingly traditional higher education are far from fictional. Indeed, for-profit education has grown exponentially since the 1980s and is no longer limited to small, closely-held corporate entities. And some segments of traditional higher education today—both public and private—have come to mirror the same bottom-line-driven ethos of the proprietary, for-profit market with its primary emphasis on maximizing tuition revenue, minimizing cost, and imposing ever-increasing burdens on faculty with a constant call to “do more with less” until they are expected to do practically everything with nothing and forced to work in an environment where academic standards take a back seat to student retention providing students with an education of questionable worth. But that is a matter for another novel—one I also hope to eventually write.

I should make it clear that all proprietary, for-profit education is not necessarily bad. There are and have always been good and bad players in this arena just as in any other. The one I served in my first posting was not as good as some and much better than others. I will always be grateful for lessons learned there—and for some of the wonderful people I got to work with. It was there, not in any classroom, that I learned to lead by example, to effectively manage professionals through honest, open communication and consensus building, and to use entrepreneurial leadership to successfully attain goals others said were unreachable. These skills served me well throughout my life as both an administrator and twice-tenured full professor in the public and private colleges and universities I have been privileged to serve. They serve me well still, for which I am grateful beyond words.