coffman

Tenure denials. Budget cuts. Research misconduct. Sex harassment. Higher education has many potential flash points for conflict – some that arise at any major entity that has significant numbers of people, and others that are unique to the kind of work that goes on at institutions built on ideas.

In more than 30 years as a college faculty member and administrator, culminating in 17 years as provost at Kansas State University, James R. Coffman encountered clashes and conflicts of all kinds, and saw situations handled well and not so well. In Work & Peace in Academe: Leveraging Time, Money, and Intellectual Energy Through Managing Conflict (Anker Publishing, 2005), he looks at the nature of conflict in higher education and offers advice about how institutions can benefit from “productive” conflict and minimize and manage the “unproductive” kind. 

Using case studies and finely drawn examples, Coffman, who retired as Kansas State’s provost last year and is now a professor of clinical sciences at the veterinary college there, offers a prescription for how colleges can develop a successful system of dispute prevent, resolution and management, covering a full range of tactics and techniques from informal coaching and counseling to grievance procedures to litigation defense.

In an e-mail interview, Coffman shared some of his thoughts:

Q: Of all the subjects you might have written about after several decades in higher education, why did you decide to focus on conflict?

A: Over time, I began to realize in more definitive terms, the cost of unproductive conflict and the tendency in higher education not to recognize (or acknowledge) the difference between productive and unproductive disputes. This has two major effects. One is a matter of money and other resources. Time spent fretting, gossiping, adjudicating and litigating has the exact same effect on the institution as a budget cut, because all the institution has to sell is the time and talent of its faculty and those that support them.

The second is that unproductive conflict can come to have a toxic effect on the institution and its collective psyche. People should be able to enjoy their work. It is much more humane to have an effective, understood approach to preventing, resolving and managing painful and difficult issues in the work place. So, to make a long story short, I chose this topic because i found it interesting, because conflict can be a major barrier to institutional progress and because I felt I had accumulated a significant body of first- hand experience in this area.

Q: You reject as "dead wrong" the oft-repeated maxim that the politics in academe are so fierce because the stakes are so low. Why? 

A: I do not dispute the assertion that politics are fierce in academe, but I do dispute the notion that the stakes are low. The most important reason for this is that at any given point in time, the future leaders of the country, at every level , are in our colleges and universities. Their impact on the culture, economy and value system in the United States and its international relationships will be completely decisive in the future. If they fail to acquire a basic body of information and knowledge, along with a sense of how to set priorities and budget their time and a serviceable ethical framework, the future will look pretty shaky. I call those pretty big stakes. A second reason is that research universities do much of the research that is not economically feasible for the private sector. For the most part, this is done in an even-handed, unbiased manner and this is a major asset for the future economy and standard of living in this country.

Unproductive bickering without a coherent means of addressing it does not set a good example for students.

Q: The book's subtitle talks about the need to manage conflict, but you make clear that there is good conflict and bad -- "productive" and "unproductive." Can you explain the difference and where the line is?

A: The easy answer, and probably the best, is that conflict moves from productive (good) to unproductive (bad) when behavior moves from attacking ideas to attacking the person(s) behind the ideas. Sometimes this is done to further an agenda that has nothing at all to do with the idea under debate (bad interpersonal chemistry, old grudges, a real conflict over a different issue). It should be noted that this point applies to ideas of all kinds, not just discipline-based academic ones. In fact, disputes over institutional policy or its application in individual instances are among the most common examples of unproductive conflict.

Q: What are the flash points for conflict within higher education institutions? Are there kinds of conflict that occur more at colleges and universities than at other institutions or organizations in our society?

A: Broadly put, there are two most common flash points: individual people and their performance, and distribution of resources. The clearest difference from other institutions or organizations (other than federal judges) has to do with tenure, which has a direct relationship to performance. Most commonly, non-reappointment of tenure track faculty and denial of tenure create the most intense flash points, because they threaten the career, livelihood and self-worth of individual people.

Post-tenure review, especially when it has the potential to lead to dismissal, has added a new dimension to this constellation of issues in recent years. All issues that involve tenure (granting of, denial of, removal of) involve many people in the conflict because of concern about the institution of tenure generally.

Distribution of resources, whether to individuals in annual salary adjustment or to units as part of priority setting in the budgeting process has more in common with other institutions and organizations.

Q: You present a long list of "players" who have a role in ensuring that an institution manages conflict well, from the governing board to department chairs to, of course, the lawyers. Is there one such player that is particularly crucial?

A: The one individual player with the most crucial role is the person with overall responsibility. Ordinarily this is the chief academic officer. It is all too easy to say the ombuds officer(s) by whatever name is the most crucial. However, it must be evident that effective conflict management is an institutional priority and there must be institution-wide coordination, and these converge at the top.

One might be concerned that this individual does not have time to assume this kind of oversight. However, it is in that person's specific best interest. Time spent creating an effective system where these issues get handled more often at a lower level, eventually saves the chief academic officer much more time than it costs.

On the other hand, the category of players with the most crucial role is department heads/chairs. This is because most disputes start at the level of the academic unit and this person has the best opportunity to nip the problem in the bud. However department chairs often need help and many need training. This is why they need to be able to work with conflict within a larger systemic context.

Q: One of the trickiest challenges that seems to emerge from your book is balancing the desirability for all parties of dealing with issues informally while still making sure that procedures and policies are followed in case the situation devolves. Are there guidelines about when a department chair or other person trying to resolve a conflict should go the informal "coaching and counseling" route and when not to?

A: Except for racial and gender harassment (discrimination) and breaches of academic integrity, most disputes addressed by department chairs are best handled informally when possible. The trick, in my view, is to recognize that there is nothing mutually exclusive about handling a dispute informally, accessing help when you need it, and following policy. It's a little like walking and chewing gum at the same time. Informality, seeking help and advice, and following policy can be synergistic in many instances.

Q: As a general rule, how well do colleges and universities manage conflict, especially compared to other employers and organizations?

A: I think colleges and universities do a pretty good job on average, given the nature of postsecondary institutions. Like other organizations, they vary all over the chart. The biggest difference between higher education and other institutions and organizations is the impact of tenure because it limits options that (e.g.) the private sector has and uses. However, it is a limitation worth working for -- in my view. Dismissing someone over conflict, even recurrent conflict, can be a little like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Tenure prevents that except in very serious, recurrent situations, but it also creates a much different dynamic in terms of how conflict management systems apply.