I’m doing some writing in a volunteer capacity for the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site here in Indy. For the upcoming September edition of its newsletter ("The Statesman"), I wrote an article about Union Station — which was built the same year Harrison was elected. I’m reposting the article here with permission (and please consider visiting or volunteering at the Harrison Home; it’s a wonderful standing tribute to a past president and Indiana resident):

The image and landscape of Indianapolis was changing in 1888. The population had boomed in the middle of the century, and its place in a nation still on the mend – just a quarter of a century after the Civil War – was evolving. The year saw many developments in the city, in fact. U.S. Senator Benjamin Harrison thwarted incumbent President Grover Cleveland’s bid for re-election. Indiana limestone and oak provided the foundation for Indiana’s new Statehouse – and at the heart of it all for residents and visitors alike was a new Union Station. While Harrison traveled out of the old Union Station en route to his posts during the Civil War, as well as his later duties in Washington, D.C., his grand departure to the White House was out of the new station in 1889.

To understand why the new station was necessary, one must turn back the clock even further to 1860. Just a decade after rail first came to Indianapolis, the city’s population had more than doubled in size to 18,611. This is not only when it became the state’s largest city, but when it became the state’s central hub (as Madison and New Albany had been the most critical conduits before that time due to their locations along the Ohio River). Soon, five railroad trunk lines and about 40 smaller operations were running trains through the Hoosier State. Though one of the first belt railroads in America was built for the Union Stockyards in 1877 (and the Indianapolis Union Railway Company leased it for the staggering duration of 999 years), owners of the five main lines knew a new building would soon be in order to accommodate the increased traffic.

The man cited by many as the chief visionary for the new facility was James McCrea, president of the Indianapolis Union Railway Company (and later president of the Pennsylvania Railroad). In an 1886 article, The Indianapolis Journal credited McCrea’s persistence as being the driving force in the development of the new facility. Once legislative approval came in 1885 and the real estate was acquired, the wheels were in motion, so to speak, to erect the new station between Illinois and Meridian Streets – just north of where the existing facility stood.

The new station opened in September 1888. The Indianapolis Journal reported:

The station proper is 150 feet square, three stories high, with basement and attic rooms. The tower is 185 feet high, and besides this structure there are two baggage rooms, one at the west and the other at the east end of the train sheds. The baggage rooms are each 150 feet long by twenty-five feet wide.

The train sheds are 741 feet long by 200 feet wide, constructed of iron with a tin roof. The station proper rests on a granite foundation, the stone coming from Iron Mountain, Missouri. The walls above are constructed of pressed brick, with brown-stone trimmings, which were shipped from Pennsylvania… Under cover of the sheds are ten long tracks, 741 feet long, and two short tracks…

Furthermore, The Indianapolis Sentinel explained:

Ticket-agent [Daniel] Donough is much pleased with his quarters. “It is absolutely,” he says, “the finest ticket office in the United States.” Tom Taggart’s lunchrooms are open this morning, fully prepared for the multitude who are already coming for the fair. The rooms on the upper floors, with the exception of the telegraph room, are not ready for occupancy.”

While most publicity was positive, this admonishing note was published in the September 22 edition of The Indianapolis Journal, although it likely seems comical to today’s reader:

There is a good deal of complaint among the male population who are not admitted to the ladies’ [waiting] room in the new Union Station. This is a rule at all large railway stations in this country and will doubtless be enforced until men have better habits. There should be one room at a large railway station, in fact, at a small one as well, where a lady can move about without her skirts dragging in tobacco spit.

As it pertains to Harrison, the station played a major role in his campaign. Oddly enough, it wasn’t because he travelled a great deal – but because he opted not to. In choosing to run a locally-based – or “front porch” – campaign from his home in Indianapolis, reporters, delegates and celebrities instead came to the city to see him, thus bringing more traffic through Union Station. His exposure proved to be just enough as he lost the popular vote, but was victorious in the all-important Electoral College.

Though he triumphantly left the station en route to his new accommodations in the White House in 1889, he would soon make a very forlorn return to the facility, coming back for his wife Caroline’s funeral in October 1892. (She died in the White House following a yearlong battle with tuberculosis.) Her death occurred just two weeks before the 1892 election, which he lost to Cleveland.

For more on the history of Union Station, read Indianapolis Union Station: Trains, Travelers and Changing Times, by James R. Hetherington.

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BONUS FUN FACT: An energetic, inquisitive 17-year-old Thomas Edison worked at the old Union Station as a Western Union telegraph operator for a few months in 1864.

For those paying attention in Indiana, you know that "education reform" has been one of the most popular phrases of 2011. But the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is apparently not sure if Hoosier K-12 changes rank as the best in the Midwest.

On August 11, Fordham is hosting Education Reform Idol: The Reformiest State 2011. Indiana will be vying against neighbors Ohio and Illinois, nearby Wisconsin and oft-cited reform leader Florida. The 90-minute Washington, D.C. event will have a representative from each state (Tony Bennett does the honors for Indiana) making its case, with a prestigious three-person panel selecting the "winner."

Fordham is billing it as the "education policy event of the summer." Interested persons can watch a live webcast.

Having interviewed Bennett several times and heard him speak on numerous other occasions, the other panelists best beware. The superintendent of public instruction’s passion seems made for this type of event.

In case you missed it, it was announced yesterday that Indiana is one of 10 states to receive a $1 million grant from Complete College America. As the name suggests, the goal is to improve college completion rates — in Indiana and across the nation.

You can check out the governor’s press release. Seeing it prompted me to recall some of the interesting higher education stories I have had the privilege to write in recent years. I’ll share a few below — most relating in one form or another to the truly important college completion topic.

• In early 2007, the article "Graduation Evaluation" revealed just how poor timely college completion rates are at many schools
• The Indiana Commission for Higher Education’s grant proposal focused on redesigning remedial coursework at Ivy Tech (we updated the community college’s tremendous surge in "Growing Gains" in 2009) and supporting student success at regional campuses ("Breaking Down Walls" in March-April 2010 recently earned a national award for education reporting)
• In addition, this year’s education issue featured a profile of Lumina Foundation President Jamie Merisotis. Read "Working to Educate America"
• And, the person presenting the $1 million as the leader of Complete College America was none other than Stan Jones, Indiana’s longtime higher ed commissioner and the Indiana Chamber’s 2009 Government Leader of the Year

There is no underestimating the importance of education, no matter the level. It’s all about the young people of today, who will comprise our workforce and our leadership of tomorrow. The Chamber will continue its focus in its policy efforts, as will BizVoice through its reporting and analysis. 

The headline, subhead and opening sentence of this item found on the Governing magazine web site are wrong, wrong, wrong. Check them out and then I’ll share why and the fact that what is taking place is a very, very good thing.

Creating Competition for Charter Schools
Massachusetts is opening more “innovation schools” this fall to keep kids from transferring to charter schools and taking education dollars with them.

Every time a student is accepted into a publicly funded but independently-run charter school, the traditional public school he or she leaves loses money. To stay competitive with charter schools, Massachusetts enacted a law last year to allow for the creation of "innovation schools," a hybrid between charter and public schools, reports the Boston Globe. Like charters, a committee at each innovation school has control over all curriculum, staffing and budget decisions, allowing for the needs of the individual students and school to be taken into account. Unlike charters, though, the hybrid-model schools have to negotiate their freedom with the superintendent and abide by all contract provisions from the unions, which support the new schools. About a dozen innovation schools are expected to open this fall, following another dozen next year. They can be created from scratch or converted from existing ones (if two-thirds of the teachers agree). This past year, three districts tested the idea by launching schools with unique focuses: one caters to the emotional and social well-being of students in poverty, another operates almost entirely in cyberspace, while another focuses on college prep. Similar schools have also been seen in Baltimore, Colorado and Cleveland.

So what are the problems?

• I hope traditional school districts aren’t trying to best serve their students with a variety of strong education options simply to "compete with charter schools"
• Pretty much the same reasoning applies for the subhead. Sure, the district doesn’t want to lose students, but would it really embrace innovation solely for that reason?
• Finally, the subhead and first sentence both state that a student goes to a charter school and the home district loses money. That fight has been played out endlessly in Indiana in recent years during debates on charter school caps, school funding and related legislation. The simple response: Are taxpayers funding schools or are they funding students? Why shouldn’t the money follow the child?

Despite my qualms with the beginning of the story, what’s taking place in Massachusetts (and other cities cited in the story and I’m sure a few other places) is exactly what should be happening in school districts across the country. It’s what charter school supporters have said would happen — the education establishment embracing innovation.

Are they doing it because of the competition, because of the serious shortcomings for students with the "we’ll do it this way because we’ve always done it this way" mentality or because it’s simply the right thing to do? I would like to assume it’s the latter reason, but maybe the best answer is that the reason doesn’t matter as long as innovation is embraced and our young people benefit.

Manchester College students and two recent graduates will create an economic index to help Wabash County woo business and industry. The start-up project – underwritten by a $16,000 grant from Ball Brothers Foundation Venture Fund – will serve as a model for other rural areas, said John Deal, chair of the College’s economics program. A release from Manchester explains:

“This analysis will show the industrial strengths that will hopefully draw employers to the area,” said Deal, who is guiding the project with Matt Hendryx, visiting associate professor of economics. The goal is to generate three or four economic reports annually, beginning in April 2012.

The economic reports will help Wabash County forecast area economic potential and outlook, said economics minor Karla Conrad of Pleasant Lake, Ind., who graduated with honors in May. This summer, she is gleaning data from public records with economics and accounting major Jason Elliott, who also graduated in May.

In the fall, they will hand off the project to two current Manchester students with strong grasps of statistics and economic principals. “We are building a foundation for others to work off of,” said Elliott, of Goshen, Ind., who will seek a graduate degree in environmental economics at Duke University. Conrad will seek a graduate degree in economic system design at Chapman University.

The Ball Brothers Foundation grant, administered by Independent Colleges of Indiana, is funding the project startup costs, including those associated with establishing relationships in the local business community, generating data, software and technology.

Elliott and Conrad are working closely with Bill Konyha, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Group of Wabash County Inc., who is connecting them with area banking and industry officials.

After the first year of the project, it is hoped that sustaining support will come from area businesses and relationships, Deal said. In addition to updated reports, the students will create a guide for other communities to replicate the project.

Recipients of grants from the Ball Brothers Foundation Venture Fund share $75,000 in seed funding for their start-up initiatives to stimulate creativity and innovation and foster competition and collaboration among the state’s 31 independent colleges and universities.

Essays are a longstanding tradition as part of the college application/scholarship process. But times are a changin’ in many places, including the University of Iowa.

A tweet, instead of an essay, will help earn a student a valuable business school scholarship.

With its new contest, the University of Iowa is taking electronic communication to a new level.

“The university is asking prospective students to submit a 140-character tweet in place of a second essay,” reports USA Today. “The University of Iowa is joining several others in its attempt to make students get to the point quickly and to improve their social media skills—two qualities that today’s Twitter-savvy marketplace demands.”

The winner will grab a $37,000 scholarship to the university’s business school. The deadline is July 28.

"We want [applicants] to show us more about themselves," Jodi Schafer, the Tippie School of Management’s director of recruiting and admissions told the Iowa Press-Citizen. "This would give us a lot more depth and show us more about a candidate than an essay would show."

Is this a good idea? Critics say the school shouldn’t focus on “a fad.”

Here’s the question posed to participants: "What makes you an exceptional Tippie full-time MBA candidate and future MBA hire?"

Curious thing is this: Iowa’s teams are the Hawkeyes. Hawks don’t tweet; they screech. 

Just passing along an interesting release from our friends at Ball State regarding Indiana’s "brain drain" situation. It appears as though the Hoosier state is a great draw as far as bringing students in for college (good news), but we can have a difficult time keeping them here afterward (not so great news).

Indiana is attracting fewer college-educated people between the ages of 25 and 64 than it needs to build a strong economy, but at the same time, more young people are migrating into the state to attend college, says a new Ball State University report.

Educational Attainment in Indiana from Ball State’s Center for Business and Educational Research (CBER) finds that of the 487,000 working age people that migrated into the state from 2006-09, about 20 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Over the same time period, 73,000 people moved out of Indiana, with 37 percent possessing a bachelor’s degree.

"Migration patterns suggest that the state is attracting less educated people, which has serious ramifications for economic development," said Dagney Faulk, research director for CBER, a division of the Miller College of Business.

"Recent stories in the news media suggest that manufacturing establishments are experiencing shortages in skilled workers," she added. "Workers migrating into the state don’t appear to be helping this situation."

On a positive note, Faulk said Indiana’s reputation for high quality college, and universities may be a factor not only in increasing the number of Hoosiers seeking bachelor’s degrees but also for attracting out-of-state young people.

The study found that in 2008, 74 percent of freshmen on Indiana colleges and universities were state residents. The net migration of students into Indiana that year was 8,382, indicating that more students are coming to attend college than leaving. Indiana is ranked second behind Pennsylvania in net migration. New Jersey ranked last in 2008 with 28,000 migrating out of state to attend college.

"Indiana has a strong reputation for its public and private colleges, and we have lower tuition costs than many surrounding states," Faulk said. "High quality programs draw students from other states and countries. These students contribute to the diversity of the student bodies on campuses across the state."

Indiana has long battled "brain drain" as many well-educated Hoosiers move out of state seeking new opportunities. About 20 percent of Indiana residents have a bachelor’s degree. All the while the state is ranked in the top third of states in the nation in conferring degrees.

Faulk said 15 to 20 percent of Indiana’s recent college graduates have left the state for opportunities elsewhere, with Chicago being the primary destination for many.

She also pointed out that the growing number of Hoosier ninth-graders who go on to college and the increasing share of students who complete a baccalaureate in six years suggest that the proportion of Indiana’s population with a bachelor’s degree is likely to increase over the next few years.

"The modern job market necessitates this change," Faulk said. "If Indiana is to build a strong economy, it must increase the number of people possessing a bachelor’s degree or advanced degrees."