The Test of Education:Knowing the Right Questions to Ask

How does any organization, industry or community assess the quality of its educational programs?  Is it basic organizational  skills learned? Applying technology to recurring management issues?  Analyzing financials and other business oriented courses and strategic theories?

Education evolves.  Curriculum is never static.  However the strength of a credit union based course should be a the ability to understand  more about the unique cooperative model.  And how its evolution for over 100 years has created the current $2.6 trillion depository based non-profit financial system.

Enhanced skills are beneficial but often insufficient to fully appreciate the cooperative legacy that has been paid forward by prior generations to today’s aspiring leaders.

For the next two weeks I will periodically pose questions or topics that I believe would stimulate important discussion about the state of the industry today.

History Matters Because Credit Union Design Is Perpetual

This month’s CUSO Magazine is presenting various aspects of credit union founding events.   A recent article in the series documents the loss of contemporary printed publications created by the leagues, industry newsletters and even regulators.  (link).  There appears to be no central repository for personal, organizational or public records for future research.

Without an examined knowledge of the movement’s several eras, it is more difficult to understand and present future cooperative contributions.  The default strategy can just become adopting  competitor’s tactics, a surefire way to lose cooperative purpose.

The Final Exam Questions for WCMS Graduation

Because history can inform both present and future potential, the following would be my first questions for WCMS’s final exam.  It assess one’s knowledge of credit union history and its relevance for today in three brief essay answers.

1. When Filene set out to form credit unions in the US having seen examples elsewhere,  what was his “theory of change” for American society?  Why did he believe a cooperative, credit union approach, was the best option among a number of new consumer focused financial experiments at the time?  

2. Why did Filene hire Roy Bergengren?  What did he feel the nascent movement needed in  Bergengren’s skill set?  Did the two founders  have  disagreements about how to proceed?  

3. Do these founding events have echoes in today’s credit union movement?  (Theory of change, strategies/tactic for movement success, leadership skills)

When History Changed a Critical  Understanding

These questions may appear to be more liberal arts versus business skill sets.  However this is the kind of discernment students will need when encountering practical challenges today and how simlar events were addressed in the past.

For example in 1982 when NCUA Chair Ed Callahan and Bucky Sebastian were seeking to understand the history of the field of membership in the Federal Credit UnionAct, they went to Massachusetts to learn about the movement’s founding practices.  They wanted to know the background of the concept. Was it about more than a legal interoperation of the word groups.

In Filene’s home state, a cradle for the early movement, they learned that most  initial state charters included local communities along with a sponsor.  The field of membership  was meant to fit individual circumstances not force prescribed boundaries or limits  on who could become a member.

That was the basis for their bringing greater regulatory flexibility to the FOM interpretation of the FCU Act.

More exam questions later this week.