Summary
Notes on "IN IT TOGETHER: Faculties, Administrations, and
Shared Governance," [1. "In It Together," by E.
Schrecker, p. 2; 2. "Conditions of Collaboration: A Dean's
List of Dos and Don'ts," by P. A. Glotzbach, pp. 16-21; 3.
"Inextricably Linked: Shared Governance and Academic Freedom,"
by L. G. Gerber, pp. 22-24; 4. "Why Committees Don't Work:
Creating a Structure for Change," by W. G. Tierney, pp. 25-29;
5. "Faculty Governance, The University of California, and
the Future of Academe," by D. A. Hollinger, pp. 30-33; 6.
"The Well-Tempered Search," by P. T. van der Vorm, pp.
34-36; 7. "Tough Choices at Radford University," by
S. Bernard, and A. Ferren, pp. 37-42] Academe, AAUP, May-June
2001, pp. 2, 16-42.
Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 8/6/01
1.
"In It Together," by E. Schrecker
(From the Editor), Academe, AAUP, May-June 2001, p. 2.
"… Cooperation is essential if the
two groups most concerned about American higher education are
to have any say over its future. Recognizing that exigency, the
AAUP and the American Conference of Academic Deans cosponsored
a conference last October to explore the problems of shared governance.
This issue of Academe
grew out of that event."
"Shared governance is easier to advocate
than to implement. Goodwill often exists on both sides... so obstacles
to effective collaboration are more often the product of systemic
defects and cultural barriers than any explicit desire to undermine
the relationship. Recognizing that reality, the proceedings avoided
both platitudes and recriminations, allowing Academe's
contributors and other participants to concentrate on real-life
nuts-and-bolts issues."
"Ultimately, however, building the structures
that encourage meaningful collaboration between faculty and administration
can occur only if the culture supports that kind of collaboration.
… I've already been photocopying its article and circulating
them to my colleagues and administrators. I only hope that they
read them."
2.
"Conditions of Collaboration: A Dean's
List of Dos and Don'ts," by P. A. Glotzback (VP for Academic
Affairs, University of Redlands, and former Chair of the Executive
Board of the American Conference of Academic Deans), Academe,
AAUP, May-June 2001, pp. 16-21.
"An academic community is a peculiar kind
of possible world that often embodies a similar contradiction:
it is built upon the grandest of ideals that attract the very
people who choose to work in it; yet the reality of life within
the academy can fail to live up to its promise. … Last October,
the AAUP and the American Conference of Academic Deans cosponsored
a conference in Washington, DC, titled 'Collaboration Toward the
Common Good: Faculty and Administrations Working Together.' An
underlying theme of that conference … is that we academics
should constantly reaffirm the ideas and values that shape our
collective mission as a learned profession as well as our individual
institutional missions. … Let me … present the standard
brief against administration from a faculty point of view. At
our worst, we administrators can undercut collaboration by being
high-handed or arbitrary or just too darn busy to consult faculty
on important decisions; unresponsive… impatient with and
distrustful, or even disdainful, of the faculty; out of touch
with the realities of today's students and the day-to-day demands
of faculty life; seduced by distorted or even anti-academic values…
or simply inept: incompetent, lazy, unintelligent, or lacking
in basic administrative skills."
"… These nine 'Commandments of Shared
Governance' represent only a partial list of 'thou shalts' and
'thou shalt nots'; others certainly could be added. …
1.
Honor thy institutional mission above all other
considerations and place no false values before it. …
2.
Place the real agenda before thee-focus on
the real work. …
3.
Do the work. …
4.
Refuse to play zero-sum games. …
5.
Cultivate a flexible, Socratic spirit. …
6.
Trust but verify. …
7.
Learn how to fight well - that is, learn how
to disagree vigorously while preserving a working relationship.
…
8.
Thou shalt not bash. …
9.
Understand that power takes various forms and
that the most important power in a college or university should
be - and usually is - the power to persuade. …
These rules highlight familiar values and habits
we routinely attempt to express in our teaching and disciplinary
lives and to cultivate in our students. We need to foster these
same values in ourselves when we do the shared work of governing
an academic institution. …"
"… Let me suggest five such organizational
principles that systematically encourage collaboration.
1.
Clarify the roles of the players. …
2.
Keep the process as simple
and straightforward as possible (but not simpler). …
3.
Assign (elect or appoint)
people to participate in the work based on what they can contribute,
not on who they are or which group they 'represent.' …
4.
Prefer a 'matrix management'
model of decision making wherever possible. …
5.
Create systems and procedures
… that maximize consultation and minimize surprises. …"
"So our task is to construct simple but
tastefully elegant governance systems that foster collaboration,
and then actively cultivate habits or heart, mind, and action
that build community and enable us to work together effectively
in the service of a shared mission. More simply, our challenge is to live up to our own academic
ideals, not just our pedagogical and disciplinary lives but in
governance as well. …"
3.
"Inextricably Linked:
Shared Governance and Academic Freedom," by L. G. Gerber
(Associate Professor of History, Auburn University), Academe,
AAUP, May-June 2001, pp. 22-24.
"Critics of shared governance argue that
changing conditions in higher education and increasing demands
from the public for accountability require substantially new approaches
to institutional governance. … I would argue that just the
opposite is true. … Now … the practice of shared governance
deserves to be supported not as a means of serving the particular
interests of faculty, but rather because shared governance ultimately
serves the needs of society. …"
"Few people today would directly challenge
the idea that academic freedom is necessary for the proper functioning
of colleges and universities. … The constitution, by itself,
does not adequately safeguard faculty engaged in teaching and
research from various forms of intimidation, including the threat
losing their jobs, if they challenge conventional beliefs or existing
authorities. … The individual faculty member's right to pursue
research and to teach without interference is… not absolute.
… When colleges and universities make decisions relating
to teaching and research, it is essential that they make them
on the basis of academic criteria and not on the basis of external
political pressures or arbitrary administrative fiat. …"
"… A college or university is not strictly
speaking a democratic polity. … The principle of shared governance
may be historically grounded in notions of expertise and professionalism,
rather than in the concept of democracy. … For a democratic
society to flourish, its citizens must be able to think critically,
be independent minded, and have a sense of history and an understanding
of the world in which they live. These have long been the goals
of a liberal education. … Advocates of a top-down management
style who want to transform faculty from professionals into 'employees'
and students into 'consumers' tend to see liberal education as
a waste of time and resources, because they fail to see the immediate
'payoff' of the liberal and fine arts and because they are willing
to allow the 'market' to determine what should and should not
be taught. …"
"… Faculty should not oppose any and
all attempts at assessment. … The research arises when those
not actually involved in teaching or research assume control over
the assessment process and insist on standards that are more appropriate
for evaluating the production and marketing of consumer products
in the business world that for evaluating the quality of education
teachers should be providing to their students. … If sales
and marketing becomes the driving forces in our colleges and universities,
then students preferences to avoid courses with heavy reading
assignments and strict grading standards my well result in administrative
pressures on faculty to lower standards in order to maintain enrollments."
"Faculty control over curricular matters…
will not completely insulate our colleges and universities from
many of the broad social pressures that challenge high academic
standards and question the value of learning for its own sake.
… If faculty do not retain primary responsibility for academic
matters within a system of shared governance, liberal education,
with its emphasis on the development of critical thinking and
humane values, may eventually become an arcane concept. …"
4.
" Why Committees Don't Work: Creating
a Structure for Change," by W. G. Tierney (Wilbur Kieffer
Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Center for Higher
Education Policy Analysis, University of Southern California),
Academe, AAUP, May-June 2001, pp. 25-29.
"For at least a decade, colleges and universities
have been under intense pressure to change. … Deans and provosts…
have often asked whether there might be a better way to organize
a variety of academic undertakings, including some of those traditionally
decided through mechanisms of shared governance. … My argument
is that we can create decision-making structures that are more
creative, flexible, and responsive to the times in which we work.
… Often, the failure to reform leads to a sense of stasis
and cynicism precisely at a time when ways to enact improvements
and innovations. …"
"Over the past four years, I have interviewed
over two hundred faculty members, deans, and senior administrators
on fifteen four-year campuses about the processes of change. …
The problems are often not so much about what
to do, but how to do it. I have seen more failures
of reform efforts than successes. … Reforms usually fail
for structural reasons: many colleges and universities do not
have clear procedures for making decisions. … In institutions
that have a genuine … shared governance…, the failure
to reform is not an intractable problem but a structural problem
that can be remedied."
"The idea of shared governance assumes that
a mix of people will participate in structures that encourage
joint decision making. In loosely coupled organizations like universities,
where no clear or systematic process for reaching decisions exists,
the possibility for misunderstanding is significant. … It
would be as if we decided to apply the rules of basketball because
we objected the length of baseball games. Instead, we need to
think about how to improve decision-making processes within a
loosely coupled system. …"
"Below I outline what I see as barriers
to change, after which I offer suggestions for overcoming these
barriers and enacting reform. …
1.
People can't agree on the problem to be solved.
…
2.
Time frames and structures
are not clear. …
3.
There are no evaluative
criteria. …
4.
Changes are not communicated.
…
5.
The system freezes. …"
"… Below I offer five strategies for
effecting change that worked at institutions I visited.
1.
Foster an atmosphere of agreement. …
2.
Define roles and time frames.
…
3.
Seek comparative data. …
4.
Ensure good communications.
…
5.
Encourage an innovation-friendly
culture. …"
"Moreover, genuine shared governance is
necessary for sustained, successful reform. … At a time when
multiple voices are calling for change in academe, we need to
reinstall or develop a culture of respect and innovation on our
campuses. … As we enter the twenty-first century, the caring
for, and nurturing of, the institution's overarching culture by
all its decision makers will advance a climate for overall change
and invigorate the campus community with a sense of renewed purpose."
5.
"Faculty Governance, The University of California, and the future
of Academe," by D. A. Hollinger (Chancellor's Professor of
History, UC-Berkeley), Academe, AAUP, May-June 2001, pp.
30-33.
"Governance works best when there is some
actual governing going on. … These two large, public universities
are similar institutions, yet the Berkeley senate is one of the
most powerful in American higher education, while the Michigan
senate, playing a more modest role in the governance of its campus,
is more representative of the national norm. … As soon as
I moved from Michigan to Berkeley in 1992, I noticed a difference
in casual hallway conversations about senate committee service
among the most accomplished of my colleagues. … I soon found
that some of the most accomplished scientists and scholars at
Berkeley took their time with senate leadership responsibilities
and expressed annoyance at colleagues who are 'not good citizens.'
… Faculty involved in governance at Michigan do not find
themselves with much to do. … What faculty power there is
at Michigan resides largely within specific schools and colleges…"
"… Michigan has a strong-dean system,
and it works reasonably well. … Berkeley has a weak-dean
system, and it, too, works reasonably well, despite the frustration
that many deans experience with it. The core of the Berkeley system
is the power of the faculty as a corporate, campuswide body to
influence decisions about faculty salaries, as well as appointments
and promotions at all ranks in all schools and colleges. This
power is exercised through the Committee on Budget and Interdepartmental
Relations… an institution in operation since 1919."
"The Budget Committee, on which I served
from 1996 to 1999, including a year as chair, is appointed by
the executive body of the senate… upon nomination of its
Committee on Committees. … The Budget Committee formulates
its recommendation to response to proposals from chairs and deans,
presented in writing with extensive documentation. … In the
event that the chancellor or his or her deputies remain at odds
with the Budget Committee in a given case, they do not act until
they have a face-to-face meeting with the Budget Committee. At
this meeting, the administrators are obliged to explain their
decision, and to offer one last chance for the two parties…
to persuade one another, and thus to achieve consensus."
"A striking indicator of the breakdown of
any notion that faculty are 'in it together' in their capacity
as professors on a campus… is the willingness of universities
to tolerate greater and greater salary differentials by field
for faculty of equal merit as judged by national and international
peer review. … Universities
are generally willing to pay the most money to faculty whose careers
are the least fully defined by the traditional research and teaching
missions of universities, to pay the least money to those faculty
whose careers are the most fully defined by those missions.
… Markets have always been with American universities and
always will be. But on what terms? …"
"The best devices for solidarity may differ
from campus to campus. The Budget Committee is one such device
that helps maintain faculty solidarity on one major American campus.
… The problem of faculty solidarity is now located…
where profit functions like gravity, where knowledge take the
form of property, where human energy is converted into money,
and where values dance to the tune of markets. It is in that dynamic
and multilayered space that faculty will seize or surrender what
solidarity is within their reach."
6.
"The Well-Tempered Search," by P.
T. van der Vorm (Senior Consultant, Academic Search Consultation
Service, Washington, DC), Academe, AAUP, May-June 2001,
pp. 34-36.
"… The institutional mission should
be taken into consideration in every search, but a review of the
mission statements at the unit and divisional levels may be necessary
when hiring a faculty position. … Most committees should
include staff and student representation and should embrace the
diversity of the institution in regard to race, religion, ethnicity,
gender, and sexual preference. Committee members should also be
comfortable with the institution's value."
"… As a search progresses, it is essential
to be clear about who will make final decision on the person hired,
how many candidates… are to be sent forward by the committee,
and how the committee should communicate with the hiring officer
and the rest of the campus along the way. … the committee
will do a paper review of candidate credentials, assessing written
descriptions, of the candidates' knowledge and experience against
clearly agreed upon criteria. Next comes careful checking of references
to determine if the candidates' statements seem accurate and meet
the requisite qualifications. Finally, the committee will interview
selected candidates face to face to confirm that they want the
job and appear to fit the institution. … Once a candidate's
skills and interests have been confirmed… there remains the
most elusive factor. What are the candidate's values, do they
resonate with those of the institution…? A search committee
must be diligent in seeking that information - in the credentials
submitted, in conversation with references, and in face-to-face
conversations with the candidates. …"
7.
"Tough Choices at Radford University,"
by S. Bernard (Chair, Department of Interior Design and Fashion,
Radford University), and A. Ferren (VP for Academic Affairs, Radford
University), Academe, AAUP, May-June 2001, pp. 37-42.
"Every campus is faced with rising costs
and limited resources. … This article is a case study on
how Radford University, a public comprehensive institution with
8,800 students in southwest Virginia, responded to an external
mandate to restructure for efficiency. … Because faculty
and administrators have such different perspectives on these matters,
we chose to write this article as a dialogue between the two contrasting
perspectives."
"Bernard:
… In January 1996 the department chair and senior faculty
member decided to retire… Soon thereafter, another professor
in the department took disability retirement, and a junior faculty
member accepted a position at another institution. I suddenly
found myself accepting the dean's appointment as chair and assuming
the challenge of holding things together until new faculty could
be recruited. …"
"Ferren:
My term as vice president for academic affairs began in summer
1996… Many faculty harbored deep suspicion about cost cutting
and resented what they perceived as the state's 'bottom-line approach'
to higher education. … After years of top-down leadership,
however, faculty members were unclear about their role and authority,
especially regarding matters such as program closure and budget.
…"
"Bernard:
When the 1996-97 academic year began, the Department of Interior
Design and the Department of Fashion existed as two separate units
within the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Over the course
of that year, the two were merged into a single department. I
was appointed chair of this new department in which there had
been a combined total of eight tenure line, but now there were
only four. …"
"Ferren:
… To simultaneous strengthen our academic
programs and our financial situation, we invested more in retention
programs, recognizing that spending money could bring a payoff
intuition returns by currently enrolled students. … My goal
was to place decisions about individual programs in the context
of institutional priorities."
"Bernard:
… To our dismay… we were not allowed to advertise for
tenure-track positions. Instead, the positions approved were 'full-time
temporary with the possibility for reappointment for up to three
years.' Although disappointed, we nevertheless found three qualified
applicants willing to accept positions without promise of tenure.
…
"Ferren:
… To their credit, the faculty in interior design and fashion
did not launch a powerplay or issue a whining response aimed at
getting everyone else to fight their battle. … Their role
as campus leaders from 1996 to 2000 in technology, experiential
learning, research, and department-chair development gave them
visibility and credibility. … To aid understanding the process,
department chairs whose programs were coming up for review during
the next year served on the Academic Program Review Committee.
…"
"Bernard:
… We begin by developing a five-year strategic plan during
the fall semester. … Enrollments were up significantly in
fall 2000. … Based on the university's strategic plan and
recommendations arising from the review process, the department
has received approval for re-establishing the eight-member tenure-track
faculty, revising the design curriculum, expanding experiential
learning opportunities, integrating technology, expanding faculty
development, strengthening links to alumni and professionals in
the industry, and ultimately, achieving accreditation."
"Ferren:
… I have had over fifteen years of experience with reviewing
programs, combining departments, and managing budget reallocations
and reductions. … It is also clear no one voluntarily gives
up anything or makes drastic changes without both an impetus and
a belief that things will be better if they do. … Small programs
and departments should be combined because there are savings in
administration, committee work, facilities, staff, equipment,
and more. … An administrator faced with the need to combine
or eliminating a program must gave faculty a chance to help with
the decision. … Finally, when all the decisions are made,
there should be a clear paper trail so that those who come after
will know what happened, why it happened, who was involved in
the decision-making process. …"
"Bernard:
… Clearly, roadblocks… can converge to threaten the
visibility of an academic program or department. … A department
chair tends to perceive the situation in a longitudinal view,
whereas the administration and the state perceive the situation
essentially from a cross-sectional perspective. … What enabled
our department to survive…? I have come to believe that is
only in an atmosphere of honesty, fairness, and candor that the
elements most essential for collaboration - trust - can flourish."
"Ferren
and Bernard: … The only point of agreement overall was
that change in higher education is not likely to come except when
there is pressure. Given that premise, we conclude that if we
wish to achieve shared vision and direction for that change, communication
and collaboration can ease the way."
[Readers who are interested in these articles are
encouraged to read the original paper in its entirety. Other summary
notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet
at http://lohman.tamu.edu
under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]
