An Educator Turns Entrepreneur | Eastern North Carolina Now

   Publisher's note: The article below appeared in John Hood's daily column in his publication, the Carolina Journal, which, because of Author / Publisher Hood, is inextricably linked to the John Locke Foundation.

    RALEIGH     In my latest "Free & Clear" column for Business North Carolina magazine, I write about the process of unbundling services currently delivered by formal colleges and universities.

    Modern higher education does many different things, not all of them well and most of them at an exorbitant cost. It is a deliverer and certifier of vocational and professional skills, a job-search network, a provider of cultural programming and sports entertainment, a research lab and technology-transfer agent, an economic-development office, and a place where (mostly) young people can find themselves, find a mate, and explore the great questions of life through thoughtful study of the liberal arts and the social sciences.

    Like it or not, a combination of market forces and innovative new technologies will unbundle these services. Students and other clients will be able to obtain what they need from competing providers, without having to pay for what they don't need. State university systems and private colleges will either adjust to this new environment and prosper, or do a belly flop.

    The idea of college-level educators as entrepreneurs isn't new. It is a rediscovery of something tried and true. For example, consider the career of Marcus Monroe Lemmond, a North Carolinian whose academic career included a wide variety of educational settings during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

    Born in 1860, Marcus had to grow up quickly 11 years later when his father, a Civil War veteran, died with massive debts. Marcus was left with an invalid mother and two young sisters on the Lemmond farm in Union County. It was a struggle. The family often had trouble putting food on the table. In 1880, a fire destroyed their home and most of their possessions. Then Marcus's mother passed away.

    In 1881 he took his last few dollars, boarded a train for the first time, and headed to South Carolina to teach school. He specialized in conducting writing and singing classes, including the direction of school choruses. After another teaching stint on the Cherokee reservation of western North Carolina, he enrolled at what was then Trinity College in Randolph County, NC. Shortly after he finished his studies there, tobacco magnate Washington Duke offered $85,000 and 60 acres of land if the college would move to Durham. It did. Duke University was born.

    Marcus Lemmond pursued additional studies at Kentucky University and embarked on a formal academic career. He spent 11 years as a professor at Missouri State Teachers College. But when his wife died in childbirth, and his newborn son died two days later, Marcus left Missouri behind to become a professor and later president of Searcy College in Arkansas. A few years later, however, the ownership and direction of the college changed, and Marcus moved to New York City to teach school and sell insurance on the side.

    In 1908, Marcus Lemmond founded the Columbia Business Institute on Brooklyn's Flatbush Avenue. He ran the school for 23 years, teaching a broad array of subjects. He used both word-of-mouth and clever advertising to drum up business. In a 1921 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, he ran an ad offering classes in "English for wives, mothers and other mature women of the home." The ad pitched it this way:

    Are you one of the many good women whose education was neglected? Many splendid, clever women feel such loss keenly. Our afternoon English club offers an unusual series of lessons - not offered anywhere. Easy, simple drills to meet your needs. NOTHING IN THE METHOD TO EMBARRASS YOU.

    In addition to his education work, Lemmond also made money as a freelance editor, an advertising and public-relations consultant, and a licenser of teachers for the New York City Board of Education. During the early 1930s, he also delivered a series of educational talks on the new NBC Blue radio network, helping to establish its reputation.

    Marcus Lemmond, my great-great uncle, was an education innovator who made a good living by figuring out what professionals, workers, and homemakers wanted to know, and teaching it to them at a reasonable cost. He derived a great deal of personal satisfaction from the students he helped - and wrote movingly about them in his memoir.

    Having tried traditional academia, including a stint as a college president, he opted for the entrepreneurial route. Others will soon be doing the same.

    Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and author of Clear Creek & Rocky River, a newly published volume of North Carolina family history.