Thursday, May 6, 2010

More on shared governance

So if you are like me when I receive multiple messages about book orders, I quickly delete or destroy the message because I choose not to employ the university book store and do not appreciate the hard sell approach employed by the administration. Of course I would expect some criticism from those who do not use the book store or teach those who do. We call them administrators. And the administration is at it again. The university is currently negotiating the bookstore contract and to my knowledge no faculty or students have been involved in the negotiations of this contract. It is troubling that the new regime still hasn't demonstrated any understanding of or inclination to practice shared governance. Those of us on the faculty who understand shared governance know that it isn't making decisions for administration. Rather it is being invited to provide a much broader and deeper knowledge of events, activities and history of the institution. This is done to empower decision makers to make more informed and ostensibly better decisions. Without a viable practice, not discussion, of shared governance the university will continue to limp along being sub-par and subject to the criticism we seem to have grown accustomed to. Until administrators acknowledge that faculty, the people who spend the most amount of time with the students, probably know better what our students need than they do, we will not have an environment where our students are served in the best way possible. Is the new regime learned anything since they have been here or is this the old CSU with a new face???

1 comment:

  1. Should we be surprised at the lack of communication between administration and our students? If so, I'm not surprised. This is an example of the same old dance tune but different instructors leading the class.

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