The dark side? Not so much...

This is a fascinating post and speaks to something that I found incredibly frustrating as a faculty member, but now understand as an adminstrator. Over the past 6 years, I’ve moved from “just a faculty member” to Chair of my Faculty Assembly, to Associate Dean to Full Professor (still an Associate Dean). I’ve stayed active as a productive researcher during this time, so I’ve not gone completely to the “dark side” as my colleagues on the faculty say when someone goes into adminstration. I distinctly recall a conversation I had with our University’s Chief of Staff at the time I became FA Chair, in which I was lamenting the fact that Upper Adminstration did not want to share real responsibility for big decisions with faculty governance. His response stunned me: Faculty are eager to share the responsibility for coming up with ideas and analyzing possibilities, but when it comes to actually doing the extra work it takes to do something new, they expect the adminstration to make it happen without adding anything to the faculty plate. In addition, he reminded me, sharing responsibility means sharing the burden when something goes wrong- something else faculty are loathe to do. When it goes wrong, it’s the adminstration’s fault.

I was shocked and offended.

Now, as an adminstrator, I get it. For better or worse, he was right. As a faculty member and even as FA Chair, I had no idea how contstrained University adminstration is (at least at a poorly-funded state university such as mine) in terms of budget, what they can and cannot spend money on, the degree fo compliance and regulation they face, and the amount of time administrators spend dealing with angry faculty who lack the information and experience to understand the larger picture beyond their own research programs or departments.

I agree with the previous poster that finding another way to train our faculty to bridge this gap (without dallying with “the dark side” personally) is necessary. We’ve discussed having faculty shadow one of the ADs in our college to see what our days are like and to ask questions about how the system works, but I’d love to hear other ideas. One way or the other, I hope there is a day when faculty can stop calling adminstration “the dark side” and can appreciate that many of us in it are still faculty and do remember (because we are still doing it) the challenges faculty face- we face a few of our own.

Dr. MCR, Professor and Associate Dean, at 8:25 am EDT on August 4, 2008

Administrators who have been on campus two years tend to think they know more than faculty two have been on campus 20 years. They are wrong more often than not.A major change in universities in the half century I hae been involved with them is the influx of administrative carpetbaggers who take a job because it is a stepping stone to some othr job and who have no intention of making their career at the campus they have just come to. They have no sense of institutinal history and are slow to learn.

guido stempel, distingushed professor emeritus at ohio university, at 10:35 am EDT on August 4, 2008

There is very little discussion regarding the intellectual qualities required to be a good administrator and too often faculty are unwilling to recognize the disciplinary roots of individuals serving in an administrative capacity as an applied practice. And while it is true that many individuals take positions on a campus with the intention of moving on, much of that is driven by the fact that unlike faculty, many administrative positions do not include tenure. In addition to academic leadership appointments (which likely do provide the individual a departmental home to return to if things don’t work out) there are many other administrative positions that are not anchored in an academic appt — largely because they require some expertise that extends beyond the teaching and research competencies of trained academics — and is exactly the kind of work that faculty expect NOT to do given their own career choices. Yet good administrative work requires reflection, analysis, synthesis, communication, and focus — the same skills needed for good academic work. But it also requires a willingness to adhere to the routine and mundane expectations of others and lacks the autonomy often appreciated by faculty.

A.K, at 11:35 am EDT on August 4, 2008

Opening the books and improving relations

> I suspect at least part of the source of these problems derives from lack of transparency on the part of the administration regarding how the institution is run, particularly budgeting and resource distribution decisions

A lack of transparency can easily lead to suspicion, and increased transparency can improve relations (as well as expose any genuine mismanagement that may exist). One way to improve transparency is with an open-book accounting system, as reported right here at IHE not long ago:

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/07/financial

R.J. O’Hara, at 12:35 pm EDT on August 4, 2008

Admin, Faculty, Etc. can govern together

There is a way to include a multifunctional, cross-disciplinary constituency in the governance of primary, secondary and post-secondary organizations (PSP). It is called an “organizational excellence model.”

Since these PSP organizations face a never-ending struggle to deliver valuable educational and research services, while maintaining a viable financial position, all PSP leaders (administrators, faculty, teachers and staff) are challenged daily to create value for their customers, shareholders and employees, and are closely measured on performance.

The stakeholders of PSP Organizations are demanding more value for their investments, and are holding PSP leaders more accountable for performance. These PSP leaders must meet quality, delivery, service, technology and competitive pricing requirements, while maintaining a viable financial position.

The answer lies in an “organizational excellence model” to successfully compete in the 21ST Century, and the implementation of performance measurement and performance management. The secret of performance measurement and management is to scientifically design the appropriate set of metrics, and use them to drive performances of the employees, on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year basis, so that the PSP Organization is transformed, and its vision of becoming “Best In Class,” is realized and sustained.

J.J.

J.J., at 4:15 pm EDT on August 4, 2008

“Mr President, Tear Down That Wall!”

“Ignorance, inability to see the big picture, self-serving and a lack of appreciation” sound exactly like traits that administrators admonish faculty to remedy in their students. In this article we find that those who likely failed to remedy such problems with their students get to continue to now to blame another constituency— other faculty. With this comes an escape from the labor to prepare classes, grade papers, not be accountable and a doubling of salaries to do so. No wonder it appears failure is rewarded.

This is a good article, and this issue of a common “divide” needs addressing in many more such articles. In fact, the qualifications to be a good college administrator need to be examined in many more such articles and made known widely to faculty. There is not nearly the framework of understanding established about what practices constitute good college administration as there is about what practices constitute good teaching. The lack of progress in the former actually stymies the ability to enact the latter.

As soon as a group can barricade themselves up into an administration building and develop an attitude that what they now know by privilege of admission to the castle is somehow beyond faculty understanding, you have a “castle” of people too pompous and arrogant to learn or really manage anything.

One university addressed this well by getting rid of their administration building and distributing administrators out to site their offices in halls with faculty whom they must see and talk with on a daily basis. At that place, the pomposity and arrogance has been replaced by respect, understanding and productivity. There is no comparison—the latter administrators can beat the pants off ANY competitors with a “castle” mentality, and they do so every day.

Few college presidents have the guts to enact such decentralization, but one path toward good working relationships with faculty is to get rid of the administration building.

Prof Ed, at 6:55 pm EDT on August 4, 2008

Coordinatorism

Most comments here seem to me symptomatic. Societies keep setting up workplace organizations run top-down with a group of mid-level administrators or coordinators supposedly having more decision-making power, more prestige, more salary and so on. (This, by the way, was just as demoralizingly true in the Soviet Union.) Yet people also seem to resent the set-up. It works, more or less,from the point of view of the topmost, but people, it seems to me, often don’t feel good about it. It’s as though they have a deeper itch suggesting that a less hierarchical arrangement might be better all around, promoting solidarity among workers rather than division and class resentment. Surely, this last is counterproductive?

1) Make your peace with it and follow orders.

2) Accept that hierarchies best get things done, accept your place on that hierarchy, internalize its values so that you, too, may be chosen from above to climb the latter, and if you are, accept that it will likely elicit resentment among the ranks from which you ascended);

3) Forge other, more democratic arrangements, accepting and sharing the trade-offs and new responsibilities.

Man Singing at Inquirer Party, at 6:55 am EDT on August 7, 2008