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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

time to look forward

i, too, wish the best for dr. lee.
i think he was put in a virtually impossible position as the dean of a college in the cross-hairs of an administration intent on following neo-education pundits who want us to think that university education as it stands is failing our students.
be that as it may, the provost has asked me to put lee's deanship behind us and have a new beginning. i have agreed. now it is time to look to the future.
as part of that forward looking, we as faculty should design our own position for the college in these times, so as to have positive arguments rather than negative responses to administration fiat, if that happens.
brian patrick presented four points of departure in commentary to a posting below. those points are:

(1) improve the capacity of departments to deliver quality university-level service, teaching and research by hiring tenure track faculty that are active and publishing.
(2) instead of controlling departments and appropriating their budgets, allow them to grow towards the light through independent entrepreneurial, creative action.
(3) improve faculty and student governance structures so that the university and college are no longer vulnerable to the half-baked initiatives of the bureaucratically-minded
(4) maintain high standards in faculty hires and curriculum that will prevent this fine and venerable regional University from being turned into a cattle-barn mass model of education.

in addition to those points of departure, the executive committee proposes the following
requests of the administration:

1) make administrative decisions in a logical transparent manner- not as fait-acompli.
2) curriculum decisions belong with the faculty- but we must take that responsibility seriously.
3) the university is not the servant of the corporate world.
4) an audit of administrative spending.
5) a review of the dean hiring process; faculty have to be actively involved.
6) a clear statement of the process for hiring vice-provosts in the future.

consider these points, write commentary, edit, add and/or subtract. discuss them among your colleagues. if you do not want to post to this blog, please write your commentary to me or anyone else on the executive committee. let's get to work for the good of our college. if you think things are fine as is, give your arguments.
thank you all for your support.

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