Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Moving on

As most readers of this blog will know by now, I have been elected to serve as department chair by my colleagues in Foreign Languages and Literatures. It's this, mainly, that has led me to decide it's about time for me to stop blogging. Here I'll try to explain that utterly momentous decision--and also another decision I made, to stay on the Faculty Senate. A third change to my status didn't require any decision: I will no longer eligible for "active membership" in the Faculty Association, as chairs have been classified as AP ("administrative professional") staff who are no longer members of the FA bargaining unit.

I'm not explaining myself because many will care about why Dave is doing what he's doing (though some anonymous comments of late have reflected an unhealthy interest in my nefarious motives, and should have fun commenting on this). Rather, the issues I'm dealing with here may be of more general interest than the trivial question of how I'm going to spend my time. So there's room for discussion here that goes beyond the charge that Dave is selling out, never had anything worth selling, etc. In a few additional posts I'll try to pull together some things I've learned from blogging and the rest since Namdar and I started this blog back in March of 2011. Then it will be lights out--though I suppose I'll leave the blog floating forevermore on blogger, comments turned off, adding to the electronic detritus of the internet age.  

Department chairs don't lose their free speech rights. Indeed, there is a campus blog run by a rather prominent administrator on this campus, Walter Wendler, director of the School of Architecture.  Wendler's "On Higher Education" is unfailingly couched in general terms, but his harsh criticism of university leaders is obviously directed in some large part at our current president, who fired Wendler from his post as Chancellor. He seems to be getting away with it: good for him.

I suppose there are basically two reasons I think blogging while chair wouldn't be the right call for me.

The first is that by accepting an administrative position I will gain a certain level of access to the levels at which administrative decisions are made. I expect to speak rather freely there. I think, though, that there is a certain natural trade-off one makes once one gains this access. I can freely tell my administrative superiors what I think of their proposed policies; but once those policies are adopted--policies I may well have to implement as chair--further criticism of them becomes problematic. Of course there is usually some room at lower levels for interpretation of policies; and many policies and proposals are vague enough that some chairs will do rather more toward meeting them than others. But when push comes to shove, if you are a chair and are told to do something, you need to do it, for If you claim that you are doing X while publicly attacking X, you probably aren't doing X very well. Should you be asked to do something so unethical or idiotic that you cannot in good conscience carry through on it, resign--a là Gary Minish.

The second reason comes when I try to think of things from the perspective of the faculty of my department. While chairs "serve at the pleasure of" their deans (who in turn increasingly serve at the pleasure of, and beck and call of, the Chancellor), they are, with rare and unfortunate exceptions, elected by their faculty. And my faculty colleagues are the people I am supposed to represent and support. Would I, were I in their shoes, want my department chair blogging several times a week, usually in criticism of the very administration from which he needs to seek support for my department? Probably not. I would of course want him to speak up on issues of great importance, certainly in internal deliberations and, for particularly pressing and crucial issues, publicly as well. And where administrative decisions run contrary to the interests and values of my department, I'd want him to speak up forcefully on my department's behalf. But routine criticism of this or that initiative, especially initiatives irrelevant to my department--say, the student services building? Probably not a smart idea.

I have in fact been told that the Chancellor and Provost do not like this blog. Imagine my surprise! Good for them--I haven't liked many of their decisions. Perhaps their dislike is simply disagreement with my point of view--something that would be healthy enough; indeed it would actually be more worrisome if they agreed with the general thrust of my criticism of their stewardship of the university. If they instead don't like open debate and open dissent, that is more troubling. I do not deny that one can have too much public dissent, and that reasonable people can disagree about where to draw the line. I have criticized Glenn Poshard and Roger Herrin on precisely this ground, and I welcomed Ken Anderson's attempt to make a similar argument regarding this blog back in the first months of its existence. I also rejected his argument, of course. There is a difference between a blogger criticizing the administration and a university president holding a press conference to criticize the chair of the BOT and the governor.

Thus the venue, and the role of the debaters, does matter. It is this that has led me to another decision about my role in university debate, my decision to continue in the Faculty Senate. This position is also at tension with my position as department chair, and for similar reasons. In fact I believe I said somewhere, on this blog, that I believed that department chairs ought not to serve on the Faculty Senate. And I would support a move to amend the operating paper of the Senate to remove chairs and anyone else on an administrative appointment from the Senate and the electorate for the Senate.* The reason for this is the conflict of interest, as chairs serve at the pleasure of the administrators whom they are presumably supposed to be questioning, freely, as senators. Bill Recktenwald, in his closing statement as Senate President, spoke eloquently of the importance of free and open questioning in the Faculty Senate; while I disagreed with some other things he said, and believe the Faculty Senate should have a role beyond asking questions, he's absolutely correct about the importance of open discussion in that body. 

The argument made in defense of the current scheme is that the administration welcomes free comment and criticism from chairs as well as from other senators, and that such criticism would have no affect on the departments represented by such chairs. This argument is based on a rather rosy estimate of human nature, and the nature of human power relations. As a matter of fact, I have indeed been told that the Chancellor and Provost also do not like some of the things I've said in the Senate. Again, I do not know whether this means merely that they disagree with some of the things I've said (which is only natural) or believe that my occasional criticisms are somehow problematic solely because they have been critical. The latter would be deeply troubling. 

But as things stand, chairs are eligible, and frequently serve, as have others in administrative posts. My thinking is that the Senate, whose deliberations are not private but aren't exactly blog entries, either, is more akin to those venues in which I plan to share my vast wisdom, openly, with administrators (and any senators or others who may be listening), than it is to blogging. It thus seems to me consistent with my role as chair--at least for as long as the rules defining who can serve on the Senate remain what they are.

Okay, enough for now.  I plan now a few additional posts, on the following topics:

1.  Lessons learned from blogging.
2.  Lessons learned--or lessons that should have been learned--from the union-administration conflict of the last two years.
3.  Wise ruminations on the state of SIUC and how it could be bettered.

------

*Even better would be an effort to redefine chairs as part of the FA bargaining unit, as members of the faculty rather than the administration; chairs are classified that way in some other universities. But I don't see that happening.

25 comments:

  1. Thanks, and good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I echo beezer: Thank you and please keep advocating for a true, sensible, responsible university.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I support the previous posters and fully understand your reasons. Thanks for providing this critical forum for those of us opposed to what the administration is doing to this university.

    ReplyDelete
  4. it was obvious this was coming. Dave has caved in! For the very reasons outlined, Dave should also step down from the faculty senate. Who will he be representing? the faculty or the administration? isn't there a conflict here?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey--wasn't Namdar also one of the people who created this blog? NOt just Dave! What does Namdar have to say about taking down this blog?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've informed Namdar and all others who posted of my decision to step down and invited them to take the thing over if they'd like. I am open to others taking it over as well, though if it is to be a continuation of this blog there should be some continuity in point of view. No takers so far. Other folks can of course easily start their own blogs from scratch--and are welcome to do so, as we could use more discussion about campus issues.

      Delete
    2. I suggest that you persuade Janet or some such person to take over the blog. Just So you can ensure continuity in point of view.

      Delete
    3. Who is Janet?

      Delete
    4. Perhaps 9:45 is referring to my ex, presumably without knowing that she's been promoted to that status. There's a continuity problem for ya . . .

      Delete
  6. On the faculty senate, Dave isn't just representing his department. He is representing the faculty in his entire college. There is a double or triple conflict with Dave being chair of the department of foreign languages and at the same time a member of the faculty senate. What or who is he going to push for? His own department? His college? or the administration?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All members of the FS are also members of departments and colleges, so I don't think you've identified any new conflicts particular to me, though the department chair conflict is real enough, as I granted above. My experience is that members of the FS tend to view themselves as representatives of the faculty as a whole, which is how it should be. On the other hand, your premise that senate members have enough power to push things (and hence enough power to abuse) is, shall we say, questionable. What power the FS has, as far as I can tell, is to slow or stop things that look like poor ideas, and sometimes to modify things.

      Delete
    2. Let us see if the faculty senate can stop or slow down the axing of departments and faculty lines across this campus--including Dave's own. Ultimately, even the faculty senate will be done away with. all we will be left with is a "university college" minus the "university". The way things have been going so far! This is a very sad state of affairs.

      Delete
  7. As you note, a department chair serving on the FS is not without precedent. While the FS is an important deliberative body with (arguably) more influence than a blog, the discussions there are somewhat less visible. And of course, they are buried in administrivia and Byzantine bureaucracy. But at least the debaters there have names and speak from identifiable positions (subject and otherwise).

    Good luck, Dave, and good run on DV. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What debaters? there are no debates in the Faculty Sentate. Most senators have their lips tightly sealed. The bow down their heads and pay their respects to the upper echleons of the university community. There are no positions on anything. Instead there is generally acqueisance on all matters.

      Delete
    2. Why you don't run for senate? Your statement ``Most senators have their lips tightly sealed. The bow down their heads and pay their respects to the upper echleons of the university community.'' is an insulted statement. Note senators are elected by faculty, not by Admin. Your statement means that faculty at SIUC are silly because they elected these senator?

      If you don't like the current way how to elect the senators, please give your suggestions but not just simply attack people.

      Delete
    3. How many faculty vote? Look at the number of faculty who have actually voted for their senators!
      Very insignificant number of votes are cast and these senators on the faculty senate are therefore not truly representative of their colleges. Hardly anyone cares to vote! The senators should do a study of voting trends and practices in each college!

      Delete
    4. The Faculty Senate isn’t filled with silent, acquiescent administrative worshipers. At Faculty Senate meetings, even Ken Anderson and Kim Asner-Self at times have expressed concern about or disagreement with administrative decisions.

      On the other hand, Dave writes, “What power the FS has, as far as I can tell, is to slow or stop things that look like poor ideas, and sometimes to modify things.” He overestimates the power of the Faculty Senate.

      When it comes to the mother of bad ideas at SIU in the last decade, Saluki Way, widespread concerns from multiple constituency bodies, including the Faculty Senate, barely slowed that administrative steamroller. To paraphrase the attitude from the chancellor (directed at students) at the time, “I don’t need your approval.”

      Changes under the current chancellor have been to centralize power in the chancellor’s control. I assume her attitude toward shared governance to be the same as that previous chancellor, or more likely, that there has been too much of it around here.

      Voting for a disempowered body is irrelevant to action. I can vote for a fiery rhetorician. That person can make eloquent statements to be documented in the Faculty Senate minutes, but that’s the extent of what I get for my vote. The university administration will pat the senators on the head, thank them for their attention to the matter, and go on to do what the administrators planned to do before they talked to the senators.

      Delete
    5. Paranoid, you are largely right both about willingness of senators to speak up and about the faculty senate's inability to stop (or perhaps even slow down) major administrative initiatives. On the former, it's important to note that just because the FSN folk and other critics of the FA aren't necessarily fans of the administration. One can dislike the FA for many reasons other than a desire to suck up to the administration.

      Re the FS's power, I suppose I was thinking of smaller matters, like the sorts of program changes that go through the undergraduate education committee I serve on. When we find something half-baked, we suggest changes to more fully bake it, and the changes get made--at least that was my experience during the last year. For the most part.

      Our experience regarding the Program Review process is instructive here. The undergraduate education committee basically said that the draft report that reached us failed to spell out a clear policy to review; and we raised a number of objections to strands in the report that we found ill-considered. In response to our comments (and those of many others), the administration revised the report, improving it; but they did not, as we expected, resubmit a report with a real process to us to review.

      So was the FS powerless? Not quite: the administration did take our criticisms into account. Was this a rigorous example of shared governance? No: by eliciting comments on a draft report, and only on a draft report, rather than by submitting a detailed process for review, the administration effectively avoided scrutiny of the detailed process under which programs will be reviewed next year.

      Delete
  8. Thanks for all your good work, Dave. I would really like to see the blog continue, because it provides a counterpoint to the usual spin. At minimum, leave the blog contents online so there is a record of the past two years.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Guess there is nothing left to say except ...

    So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dave's own words: "I can freely tell my administrative superiors what I think of their proposed policies; but once those policies are adopted--policies I may well have to implement as chair--further criticism of them becomes problematic."

    Policies are not set in stone. Chairs are supposed to lead by example. If a policy is adopted and it is not really beneficial in the long run, doesn't a chair need to make their voices heard and weild their influence (the position gives them) to facilitate change. One way of doing that is also by making the issues known to others. What is the use of having advanced technology if you will not use that medium to make your views known for the good of all? Chairs don't just need to speak inside closed doors only to their "bosses". After all, most of the people that they see on a regular basis are the faculty in their department. History tells us that there were so many laws and policies that were unfair and unjust. We are lucky that some people were courageous enough to speak up against injustice and bring in the much needed changes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A thoughtful comment. But as you note, making issues known to other people is only one way of using whatever influence a chair has, and the internet only one way of reaching other people. Running a blog requires (by my light, and with my logorhea) sounding off on all major controversies. It's that which I don't think I can handle--for practical as well as principled reasons, though I think the principled reasons are more interesting to discuss here. By principled, by the way, I don't mean that my approach is the only principled one, only that I'm hoping it is one such way. And of course no longer blogging doesn't mean I foreswear all speaking up--and I'm certainly not going to support, privately or publicly, any policy I find to be unjust.

      I can't resist--perhaps unfairly, since your comment is restrained in tone and raises a fair point--noting that you yourself could speak up more courageously than in an anonymous blog comment. Perhaps you have done so and will do so again, of course. We can't all be heroes of free speech all the time: sometimes there are other things worth doing, things which may be more important than, say, sounding off here a couple of times a week.

      Delete
  11. Dear Dave,

    An eminently sensible decision. Good luck! (You are going to need it with the forthcoming cuts and unfilled positions Poshard mentioned in the news today).

    On higher-ups not liking this blog, I'm not sure if it is the criticism of them - surely they better have thick skin and they have multi-year contracts. It may be the really bad light of the comments section on the faculty this blog purports to represent. This is why DE and Southern Illinoisan (pretty decent comment criteria) have put restrictions on ad hominem attacks and the like. In short, it all began well and continued well (for the most part) in the blog section but sometimes I gnashed my teeth at the meanness of some of the comments. Which means I'll probably get same but I recall what Vanderbilt said after a legendary business dispute: "never get in a pissing match with a skunk." (Not that all anons are skunks but the blog air sometimes stunk . . . )

    I look forward to your views on blogging. I've done it nationally and locally and in my subfield. So I wonder how your views of the whole thing have changed over time?

    I have in fact been told that the Chancellor and Provost do not like this blog. Imagine my surprise! Good for them--I haven't liked many of their decisions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jonathan,

      I agree with almost everything you wrote here, save a couple things.

      1) In the time leading up to the strike, the comments in the Southern Illinoisan, primarily because of "Cowboy" and "Smallvoice," were viler than the comments here. It's possible that the comments here have become viler here lately because the Southern tightened their comments policy, effectively banning Cowboy and Smallvoice, and Cowboy and Smallvoice found somewhere else (here) to spew invective.

      2) The Chancellor has a multi-year contract, but the Provost and the deans are on one-year contracts.

      Delete
  12. Jonathan Bean said: "never get in a .....match with a skunk (Not that all anons are skunks but the blog air sometimes stunk...)."

    Jonathan, we know a skunk has been around by the odour it emanates. Drive through the beautiful green campus and you can sense (smell) the perfumoros odor of a skunk that pervades the atmosphere. Do skunks climb trees? Someone told me they saw a few nestled cosily atop the pine trees. If so, skunks sure can climb high.

    ReplyDelete

I will review and post comments as quickly as I can. Comments that are substantive and not vicious will be posted promptly, including critical ones. "Substantive" here means that your comment needs to be more than a simple expression of approval or disapproval. "Vicious" refers to personal attacks, vile rhetoric, and anything else I end up deeming too nasty to post.