CSU & Trends in Higher Education

Given the excellent discussion of Benjamin Ginsberg’s recent book in the previous blog post from Nov. 8, I thought I would offer some further food for thought to put the changes that are going on at CSU in broader context. In discussing changes within universities in the U.S., one writer noted that people frequently discuss “the high necessity of a businesslike organization and control of the university, its equipment, personnel and routine. What is had in mind in this insistence on an efficient system is that these corporations of learning shall set their affairs in order after the pattern of a well-conducted business concern. In this view the university is conceived as a business house dealing in merchantable knowledge, placed under the governing hand of a captain of erudition, whose office it is to turn the means in hand to account in the largest feasible output. … Under this rule the academic staff becomes a body of graded subalterns, who share confidence of the chief in varying degrees, but who no decisive voice in the policy or the conduct of affairs of the concern in whose pay they are held. The faculty is conceived as a body of employees, hired to render certain services and turn out certain scheduled vendible results.”

When reading this passage, I was struck by how closely it fit with the emphasis on the “business/corporate model” that seems to have been adopted at CSU – we certainly hear references to creating a more “efficient system” when many of the recent changes at CSU are discussed (such as the attempts to reorganize the College of Arts & Sciences, etc.). Many faculty at CSU can also likely relate to the experience of being “a body of graded subalterns.”

What struck me even more, though, was that the observation of this trend was not remotely new, unlike the newer trends discussed by Ginsberg in his book. The above passage is from Thorstein Veblen’s book The Higher Learning In America: A Memorandum On the Conduct of Universities By Business Men, which he wrote in 1918. That Veblen noticed this trend in 1918 and developed a strong critique of it is pretty remarkable, I though. It suggests that many of the problems we are seeing at CSU are not at all unique to CSU and are not anything particularly new.

I suppose that the question this raises is if the attempts to transform universities to follow a “business/corporate model” are nothing new, then what does that suggest to those of us who want to resist these changes right now? For this, I don’t have any answers, but perhaps it starts by affirming what we, as faculty, think that the purpose of a university is and CSU’s purpose in particular.

Veblen certainly had an idea about this in 1918. He starts his book with a discussion of “The Place of the University in Modern Life.” His argument is the following: “The conservation and advancement of the higher learning involves two lines of work, distinct but closely bound together: (a) scientific and scholarly inquiry, and (b) the instruction of students. The former of these is primary and indispensable. It is this work of intellectual enterprise that gives its character to the university and marks it off from the lower schools. … University teaching, having a particular and special purpose -- the pursuit of knowledge -- it has also a particular and special character, such as to differentiate it from other teaching and at the same time leave it relatively ineffective for other purposes. Its aim is to equip the student for the work of inquiry, not to give him facility in that conduct of affairs that turns such knowledge to ‘practical account.’”

Perhaps these ideas are worth thinking about in preparation for President Watson’s “Faculty Forum” that will be held tomorrow in the Breakey Theatre at 12:30.

Seek wise counsel

So when I hear about personnel changes on the academic side of the university, my ears always perk up. Whether it is the ill-conceived and inept reorganization of the College of Arts & Sciences, the double secret probation in the College of Education, the micro-managing selection of the English Department Chairperson, the elimination of the Graduate College and its Dean, or the hiring and then non-hiring of the Nursing Department Chairperson, it seems that the regime is managing like a decapitated chicken, stumbling in all directions with no sense of what is best for a university rapidly approaching accreditation.
The Nursing Department situation is very interesting. Apparently the former chair was not retained by the normal June 30th deadline of contract renewal. The CEO recruited and was prepared to hire a nursing administrator from another local, public institution until said administrator saw more negative press about CSU and opted not to take the position. With no one willing to assume the duties and responsibilities of the chair, a non-academic administrator was placed in the role some months later. There are some problems with this.
First, internally, having someone with no experience in academic administration does the faculty and the department a dis-service especially in the area of personnel matters. If your humble narrator were a faculty member in that department I would have grave concerns about the ability to be properly and competently evaluated by someone who has not worked with the collective bargaining agreement at this institution or supervised faculty. If, for example, the interim chair were to pass someone along with an positive recommendation who didn’t deserve it and that faculty member was denied retention, promotion or tenure later, she could be placing others at undue risk because of her inexperience administering the faculty contract. If she provides some negative report about a faculty member during the personnel process that is unjustified it creates the same sort of problem.  Placing an inexperienced non-faculty member in a position of supervision of faculty could create a situation with significant unintended consequences. Managing a nursing unit at a hospital or similar locale is very different from an academic institution. I would have hoped that wise counsel was sought before this decision was made and yet it feels like yet another decision was made in desperation by a directionless CEO.
Secondly, the accreditation of the Nursing Department was placed at risk because there was no chairperson and one of the conditions for their continued accreditation is no gap in departmental leadership. If the Nursing Department’s accrediting body, the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission, Inc (NLNAC), wished to make an example of an institution by withdrawing accreditation because of administrative incompetence, this regime gave them more than enough justification to do so. An examination of the NLNAC Standards and Criteria Baccalaureate indicates the university could have been out of compliance with the 2008 Standards.  Standard 1.5 of the NLNAC Accreditation Manual states “ The nursing education unit is administered by a doctorally prepared nurse.” If no one was serving in that capacity, it could place the department out of compliance. Additionally, Standard 1.2 states “The governing organization and nursing education unit ensure representation of students, faculty, and administrators in ongoing governance activities.” That sure sounds like shared governance language to me and indicates an expectation on the NLNAC’s part that shared governance will be practiced. Without notification to even the Dean of the College of Health Sciences of the change in department chair, faculty were obviously not given a vote, even advisory, on the selection of an interim chair. This loyal readers, provides yet another example of the administration’s refusal to honor basic principles of shared governance.
The question is what becomes of our students who just took the last state examination and those who will take the next state examination as to whether they will be licensed or not since they would be coming from a potentially unaccredited program.
I suppose this is what the university gets when a non-academic administrator and by that I mean one who was never a tenured faculty member, college dean, or provost and one who has never published in a peer reviewed journal, is given license to manage this institution.
I am curious if the Board of Trustees is even aware of the impending self-inflicted wounds the university could suffer. And if they aren’t we really are in trouble.