Advisment to the faculty?

The DE reported the other day on a change in the works to shift some advising responsibilities from academic advisors to faculty.  The Provost quickly enough shot down the story in an email sent to deans (and pasted below). The story has arisen thanks to a report on campus advising by an outside consultant (embedded below).  This report is highly critical--critical of what it termed a "chaos model" of campus advising, with a particular weakness in advising for pre-major students. The report (which I've just skimmed) does briefly discuss the advisory role of faculty, but only as a very secondary matter, as something warranting further study.  Money quote:  "This report does not focus on the role of faculty advisors or the potential for further development of faculty advising at SIU" (p. 11).

So unless there are internal plans afoot that I'm not privy to, I don't think there's any real problem here from a faculty perspective. And while the report was critical of advising on campus, it was careful not to be critical of advisors, who are by and large doing all they can in what the report characterizes as very poor conditions. Advisors have to spend far too much of their time negotiating paperwork and arbitrary and unclear campus requirements and policies.

Examgate in the DE

Today's DE has a story on examgate.

This is the sort of squabble this place excels in. Both sides agree on the basic goal of the Provost's memo: final exams should be given, as scheduled, during finals week. There would never have been any debate if the Provost had simply written a memo telling chairs to remind faculty of this university policy. Not every university policy requires a cumbersome and intrusive enforcement mechanism. If faculty giving early finals are and continue to be a problem, that problem will come to light from student complaints--especially if not only faculty but students are informed of the university policy. Most faculty offenders, if there are such, would be sensible enough to clean up their acts.

Instead the Provost intervened in a heavy-handed manner, by attempting to impose a whole new level of administrative scrutiny of syllabi, scrutiny which would extend not only to the timing of final exams (where there is no disagreement), but to an individual faculty member's decision about whether or not to give a final exam (where there may well be disagreement). Vague language about "final unit exams" also interfered with a faculty member's ability to do any evaluative work during the last week of the semester. It didn't help matters that the Provost sent out his memo on January 3rd, during a break and just two weeks before the spring semester began, and tried to establish an enforcement mechanism that would begin during the first two weeks of the semester. The result was predictable--especially predictable had anyone remembered the similar brouhaha when Provost Dunn attempted to require "final cumulative experiences" (vel sim.) on scheduled final exam dates. Chaos and dissension: Happy New Year.

New finals week policy

The Provost has sent out a memo requiring faculty to give final exams or "final unit examinations" only during exam week (the full memo is embedded below). The expressed purpose is "to ensure that students have the time to do their very best work" by not overburdening students during the last week of classes. If you aren't giving a final exam in your class on the regularly scheduled date (including if you are not planning to give any such exam at all) you are now "expected to provide an explanation" to your Chair, and the Chair will report you to the Dean, save in cases of "seminars, internships, studio classes, and independent work, where exceptions make pedagogical sense".  The Dean then submits a list to the Provost by the tenth day of the semester. So Chairs are being asked to gather syllabi, and if you're not giving a final as scheduled, your chair has to decide whether that makes pedagogical sense, and if the Chair decides it doesn't, you're getting reported to your Dean and the Provost. Just what they will do with such reports is not said.

Me and Mr. Baggott

The office of the Chancellor attempted to disrupt the informational meeting the IEA unions held for students in Lawson Hall on campus today. They did not succeed; at least 250 students came to the meeting, and most questions and comments from those in attendance were quite supportive of the unions.

I was in the middle of the abortive attempt to disrupt this meeting, and I don't come out of it unscathed, but I'm going to give you the straight scoop, as there will be rumors about this and the story may get reported in the DE (which interviewed me about it). The moral of the story is as I report it in the lead, but like many such stories, there's something of a twist.

BOT Meeting Coverage, 7/14

You should get your BOT coverage from someone more in the loop than I, Kristi Brownfield of at Unions United, who read a statement on GA health coverage (or the lack thereof) at the meeting, and now has a post summarizing the statements by Poshard and Cheng to the board.  My guess is that this is an event where pictures say more than words--Cheng and Poshard seemingly had little new to say, and the letter from the Union presidents didn't offer much new (though it did nicely combine the phrase "strike watch" with an appeal for returning to a more collaborative attitude).

The major official event during the meeting I can mark at this distance was the two no votes for a package of pay raises for various administrative types (details on those raises here: the largest by far was for Nicklow's promotion to provost). The Southern notes that this move was roundly supported by the union members in attendance.  This *could* be an important sign that two BOT members, Don Lowery and Donna Manering, aren't in lock-step with the administration's hard line toward unions.  Manering taught elementary school, was a school principal, and was active in the IEA.  Lowery, who seems to have led the opposition to this move, is a retired circuit judge, so is used to making up his own mind.  (Bios of the BOT are available here.)

The 40 people who appeared in black with their signs must have made a big impact on the board and administrators.  Here's a neat photo I've stolen from the Southern.

Thursday pickings

A few items presented in the classic parasitic link-heavy blogging style for any straying this way over break.

Our new provost, John Nicklow, is profiled in the Southern, which attempts to hook readers by noting that he originally only wanted to stay at Southern for two years. This attitude, right out of Straight Man, isn't perhaps the ideal lede from the perspective of campus morale (though of course the lede is probably the responsibility of the reporter, not Nicklow). Perhaps one way to judge Nicklow would be this: will faculty coming to SIUC in the future also plan/hope for a short stay? Promoting SIUC's reputation for academics is part of his/the plan, after all.

In the story Nicklow manages both to say that Gary Minish's sudden departure from the provost's office, after a week on the job, "has not impacted me or the job in the least" and also to praise Minish. Well, saying Minish's amazingly brief tenure has had no impact is disingenuous at best and ridiculously naive at worst, but give the guy a break.  The Southern also provides a three minute video link to what appears to be the peroration of Nicklow's presentation when applying for the job.  Not exactly stirring, but he comes across as genuine (I do not know him at all, by the way, and what little I've heard about him has been good). Good luck to him.

Jonathan Bean has an update on Health Alliance for those worried about the state's plan to remove that HMO from our health care options.

Kristi Brownfield, the indefatigable chief blogger for the SIUC Unions United blog (and GA United communications person) has been following various local and national stories on higher education.

• She's got a link to an Amy Goodman interview about the attacks on pro-union faculty at UMSL.  (Goodman just received an honorary degree from MCMA).
• Another piece covers the recent move by various faculty to get involved in shaping the burgeoning trend of outcome assessment. I don't know about you, but there's nothing that makes me happier than learning that politicians have replaced their interest in funding public education with an interest in looking over our shoulders to make sure we are producing 'outcomes' meeting some corporate model of success.  (This is an excellent opportunity to catch up on your reading by reading Ryan Netzley's earlier piece on this theme.) Here as elsewhere it is important to have unions working for us at the national and state level to try to minimize the damage, I think. Assessment isn't all bad (I for my part have learned something from assessing my core classes), but it can obviously do much harm for reasons Ryan explains.
• Finally, she's got an update today on a variety of stories about funding for higher ed and the unionization battle at UIC.  

Long story short: if you've enjoyed reading this blog, heaven help you--er, you'll want to bookmark Kristi's Unions United blog, especially as she seems dedicated to keeping things active during these summer months, when others are, ahem, eager to flee from campus and campus worries.