This morning, as I sipped my coffee and scanned the headlines of Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle, I found myself reading a lot of non-news or news irrelevant to leaders of public, regional comprehensives. Another admissions scandal–not my problem. Those are always targeted at elite schools. More quarantine orders and teams excluded from basketball tournaments? I care, of course, but it isn’t news; it is our daily reality. Yes, there were important articles about equity, articles I continuously scour for new ideas, but, well I didn’t see any new ideas this morning. Then I came across a provocative essay by Janae Cohn, entitled, “Faculty and Staff Often Don’t Trust One Another. How Do We Fix That?” This one woke me up.
Cohn is an instructional designer, and much of this essay reflects the difficult position of this role on most college and university campuses. Although highly trained in pedagogy in general and continuously engaged in learning new strategies for integrating great teaching practices into online environments, her role is one of support, not partner or leader. In the most recent crisis, we might have seen this shift, but we didn’t, at least not on my campus. Cohn goes on to suggest that there are many members of our campus community that have valuable insights and skills that are regularly kept from true engagement in the decisions about the future of the university. She is so right.
When I started at WCSU I was duly impressed with the governance structure. To start, we have University Senate, not a Faculty Senate. Membership includes faculty representatives from the academic departments and the library, student affairs, enrollment services, the student government association, and administration. Everyone has a vote and a voice in the issues under discussion. The standing committees also have a blend of these constituencies, at least to some extent. This governance structure is a powerful signal that our ideal version of ourselves is an un-siloed, collaborative campus. Unfortunately, the signal isn’t the reality.
The truth of the matter is that in nearly nine years on this campus, almost no initiatives that did not come from teaching faculty have come forward. The balance of representation on our committees makes it very clear that the faculty representatives hold the final authority. The message is clear enough that little has been offered for consideration by committee members who are not teaching faculty. While they offer feedback and commentary on proposals, they rarely offer proposals on their own. Since I converse with people from all parts of our campus community, I am quite certain that those who are not teaching faculty have ideas that we might want to consider. But they bring them to me, not to the elected committee structure. I think we might have a problem.
Now, I never raise these issues without considering my own part in creating them. So, let me start by noting that most of my attention does go to the concerns of the teaching faculty. After all, they are the experts on the academic programs we offer, with advanced degrees and research programs to support that ongoing expertise. They bring valuable insights into the teaching and learning environment because they are in the classrooms (virtual or otherwise) with our students. They know the realities of student engagement and attendance. They understand the core skills and habits of mind that any student should master, and ultimately, they define (and should define) what our graduates should know and be able to do. This is normal and indeed what we hire our teaching faculty to do. As the overseer of the quality of our academic programs, it is also normal that this is where most of my attention goes.
Nevertheless, I have learned to listen to other members of our community. For example, it was our coaching staff that really raised the alarms about how our first-year students were faring in our online asynchronous courses. As they worked hard to boost the morale of our athletes who were unable to compete this season, they had a first-hand look at who was thriving and who was not. Their input helped me support more remote instruction as opposed to the online-asynchronous courses appropriate for more mature learners. I should add that this group frequently tries to clue me in about some academic programs that we should consider adding. While they claim no expertise in the content of those programs, they are part of our recruiting team and they hear things from our future students. I’m listening.
It was both the IT help desk and the academic advising group that pointed out that the path to our online classes was unclear. Now, it was a pandemic and our transition to a mostly online campus was abrupt to say the least. We did not really have time for the thoughtful planning that an “online strategy” might entail. Faculty were doing their best, but our students were lost, and we were not fully considering their needs. Allowing for multiple content “classroom” locations (Blackboard, TEAMS, Zoom, WebEx) was a nightmare for our already traumatized students. In normal times, I might want to encourage a controlled testing of these many platforms, but when everything is online, well some uniformity would have been helpful. As IT and academic advising fielded the troubled calls for help, they encouraged me to nudge faculty toward a uniform location to log in, even if they wanted to move to other platforms from there. These groups have direct and frequent contact with our students with a perspective that transcends the department view. Their voices should be heard.
And what about those with expertise in academic support (tutoring, advising, orientation, etc.)? Well, they have lots to contribute as they routinely interact with students as they thrive and as they struggle. Perhaps their insights into how we have organized our services might be meaningful? Indeed, these folks have degrees and continued professional development in the areas of student support. We might want to listen to their ideas.
The same goes for our instructional designers. We have them on committees, but they continue to be relegated to the support rather than leadership roles. The Career Success Center is noticing gaps in our students’ abilities to articulate the value of their degrees. Perhaps we should listen and find a way to bolster the relationship between the academic and the career experience for our students. Our police department might have insights we should hear. Our facilities team might see bottlenecks in our planning. The registrar’s team has a critical point of view. And so on.
Cohn gave me a lot to think about this morning. It is clear that the authors of our governance structures understood that we should learn from all parts of the university. They must have recognized the value of shared ideas and diverse perspectives. It was an incredibly powerful and optimistic impulse. But we haven’t fully realized that vision. So, today, I am considering what I can do to help us fully engage our community to make that vision real. I am thinking about how to reorganize what I do to help us engage the full range of talents and views available to us as we define our path forward, both post-pandemic and thereafter. We need some fresh ideas and new strategies and I’m guessing they are all around us if we just learn to listen.
