by Joe Allen
In a previous post, CCRI President: College or Corporate President In Training?, it was noted that “restructuring higher education from the top down is misguided and doomed to fail.” Among the concerns stated, a solicitation for a consultant to coordinate “internal dialogue among students, faculty, staff and the administration” demonstrated the inexperience of the new administration in the higher education industry.
Let’s look at the existing higher education business model that has been in place for a long time.
By definition, this is a service industry. It provides educational services across a broad spectrum of academic and technical disciplines. The primary service providers are faculty. They are hired as experts in their academic discipline. Their customers, the students, provide the raw material for industry output, a well-educated person.
The educational process is structured within an organization composed of faculty, staff and administrators. Each group provides internal services and products that are expected to maximize output and minimize cost. Ideally, these groups communicate continuously and coordinate their activities to ensure organizational success.
But if we take a moment to focus on the internal structure, will we see the ideal in action? Is everyone focused on the education mission of the organization? Do administrators and faculty actively engage in the governance of the institution? Or is there a power struggle to control the institution?
In 1982, Out of Crisis by W. Edwards Deming captured the attention of American businesses. From it, the TQM (Total Quality Management) movement swept across American industry. The book contained 14 Points for Management that provide a guide for transforming a business from status quo mediocrity to long term success.
Of the 14 Points, let’s start with a couple that impact the ideal of the educational organization:
- Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company
- Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
Fear is the deadliest threat to dialogue. Fear of restructuring. Fear of dismissal. Fear of retaliation for not embracing the status quo. Fear of political reprisal for not implementing a legislative agenda.
And what does this fear communicate to administrators? To faculty? To staff? Ultimately, what does it say to students?
Barriers are usually the products of fear. Fear of dismissal generates apathy. The “not my job”– or “ignorance is bliss”– attitude prevents any discussion of problems. “They’re supposed to fix it” becomes the standard reply. Similarly for the other sources of fear.
The irony is that the traditional Governance structure in higher education is supposed to eliminate these fears and barriers. The rights and responsibilities of faculty, staff, and administrators should be detailed in the governance documentation. If the governance structure is not providing opportunities for professional dialogue, it’s critical to find out why.
Are small groups of administrators, faculty, and staff controlling the governance activities? Are departments functioning outside the governance structure? Are exclusive bargaining representatives undermining the governance structure? Until these, and any other, issues are resolved, dialogue is impossible.
With respect to faculty, Academic Freedom is a two-edged sword. There are professional rights that must be embedded in the governance documentation. But there are professional responsibilities that each faculty member must embrace if they want to exercise those rights. Transferring responsibilities to a small group of faculty, who are expected to function like mommy and daddy, undermines the governance structure. It also threatens the faculty right to exercise Academic Freedom.
In the next post, another concern noted in CCRI President: College or Corporate President In Training? will be examined: the use of metrics to motivate production. The basis for this examination is contained in Deming’s tenth management point,
- Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.
Until then in the words of Edward R. Murrow,
Joe Allen, Ph.D. was a faculty member at CCRI. He retired in December 2015 and currently resides in California.
Underground Scholar Association