Diversity in Silence: A Look Back To Diversity Reform Now Forgotten at Penn State University

I have not commented on the recent, and potentially quite profoundly transformative, movements to center diversity generally, and the African American experience in particular, in the American University. Penn State University, like many other similarly situated university institutions, has now sought to intensely engage with the issues that have become once again passionately current in the United States.  On 10 June 2020, "Penn State President Eric Barron issued a statement . . . outlining steps the university will take to address instances of racism, bias, and religious intolerance within its community." (President Barron Outlines Penn State’s Actions Against Racism, Hate Speech).

Given the nature of events, and the very short time cohorts of students have an intense engagement with the university, for many this may seem new and long overdue.  For faculty, many of whom have been insulated from events increasingly shunted behind the closed doors of "leadership teams" and the closed cultures of emerging university bureaucratic practices, the extent of university efforts to confront issues of inclusion may well seem somewhat removed fro their lives--and certainly from the center of their shared governance experiences.  

For the ever growing administrative superstructure, and its increasingly distinct and remote operational ideologues, the issue of diversity has been treated as one of many on a large platter of issues , the importance of which might have been measured by the risk it poses.  The reason for that, of course, is that at the heart of emerging ideologies of university governance is the framing principle of risk avoidance, implemented through the application of the secondary principles of prevention, mitigation, and remedy. Every challenge to the university (that is to the stability of the governance of the institution, and the avoidance of threats as those are understood by university administrators) is understood only within the parameters of risk, and the riskiness of choices among prevention, mitigation, or remedial measures. Diversity issues--like campus drinking, the registration system, the allocation of student fees, and the smooth running of dormitories, parking spaces, and events--are conceptualized first as a normative challenge (goal) but one that must be assessed for the risk it poses and the value of adopting policies that focus on prevention, rather tan on mitigation and remedy.  It has been, in that sense, nothing special.

And yet, it would be a mistake to believe that there have not been efforts to change the way that senior officials approached the application of these governance parameters, even within the logic of what they perceive their operational function to be. 

One such effort to bring greater focus on diversity started in January 2013  under my leadership of the Penn State University Faculty Senate when at my invitation students addressed the Penn State University Faculty Senate about the issue. (Diversity Awareness Task Force: Statement to the University Faculty Senate January 29, 2013). Following that intervention a Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force was constituted including elements from the major stakeholders of the University. Its charge included:

· Bring a diverse group of administrators, faculty and students together to work collaboratively to engage in dialogue and provide recommendations to the University Faculty Senate and Administration to enhance diversity awareness in the University Community.
· Thoroughly investigate practices that will be most effective to increase diversity understanding among the student body.
· Provide recommendations to the Faculty Senate Committee charged with reforming the general education curriculum as a whole.

This post chronicles both the achievement of that remarkable committee over the course of several years--and the ultimate marginalization of its work--now so long forgotten that it is not even a memory within the administrative organs of the university, much less among its stakeholders. Those efforts are worth remembering if only as a cautionary take for the current group of individuals and institutional representatives now bent on a similar task. The principal lesson was one that I pointed out in 2014, even before the full set of Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force Reports was produced:

This response provides an excellent illustration of the approach to diversity at many institutions--engagement and oblivion.  This is all the more important because of it collateral result--Marginalization.  Even as the University devotes a tremendous amount of resources to its reconstruction of General Education, even as it focuses substantial public time to experiential learning and other important elements of a public education--the education and practice of diversity is buried and marginalized. . . . The expectations appear simple enough--provide a formally responsive forum for meeting, produce a report well received but avoid robust interconnection to the vital life of the university, and then move on with a sense of satisfaction of having engaged with diversity. (Diversity in Silence--The Joint Diversity Task Force Report at Penn State University Becomes Less Visible).

That chronicling was set out in a series of Reports produced by the JDATF over the course of several years.  Now long forgotten (and effectively inaccessible except by university faculty senators "For agendas or records prior to 2016-2017, please contact the Senate office. Faculty Senators may access Agendas and Records through the Senate Archives.") they are reproduced below.

COVID-19 and the University: If you Run the University Like a Commercial Enterprise Don't Be Surprised When Your Customers Sue You for Lack of Service--Brandmeyer v. Regents

Students Sue CSU, UC Systems Over Refunds Of Campus Fees

University propaganda departments have for years nurtured the myth that they can at once be hard headed businesses and at the same time the champions and protectors of some sort of ideal non-commercial Elysian space in which students and faculty might romp in the glorious fields of knowledge creaiton and dissemination undisturbed by the machinery that keeps that enterprise running.

It was both a grand illusion and one increasingly belied by the ways in which university administrators from middle mangers (deans and the equivalent) to high level central administration officials began, like cannibal mice, to gnaw away at the foundations of an institution that for a time  held that dual vision together. In the name of hard headedness a generation of administrators (many though not all of them once academics (though to call them that after a few years in administration is to stretch the concept beyond recognition, especially as they began to see themselves as a distinct social element in the ecology of the university, see, e.g., here) have engaged, among other things,  (1) in the deprofessionalization of the faculty and the substitution of technology enhanced (cheaper and higher profit) learning for increasingly creaky traditional methods of delivery and engagement, (2) in the expansion of the business of the university to include a number of different profit centers (dorms, parking, summer camps, etc,); (3) move from a learning centered to a compliance and risk mitigating fundamental operating mode in which administrators became more valuable (and less fungible) than faculty; and (4) like banks and airlines (two other hard headed businesses in their retail operations)  in the fracturing of pricing models so that students were faced a number of fees beyond tuition, room and board for "value added" services. 

The university was at its best in its rationalization of these revolutionary transformations.  Most successful was their ability to convince everyone that there was no transformation at all--the university was no different than it was in the 1960s, except perhaps that its appointments were more luxurious and its techniques more "up to date." Yet these transformations were not inexpensive (except of course for faculty whose existence constantly depressed the ability to use university income for other, and perhaps, higher, purposes. 

Faculty has been particularly slow in learning the lessons of the modern university and obtuse about the way in which it has transformed their position within this business.

Customers, especially students, however, have learned these lessons much better.  Now COVID-19 has made that lesson learning much more visible.  While the university can shift the "cost" of operations to its faculty and staff, it will find it harder to do so with its students.

Students filed class-action lawsuits against the University of California and California State University systems Monday, demanding refunds of student fees in light of campus closures. The students are suing for a reduction of on-campus services because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but will not sue for the cost of tuition or housing. “University of California’s decision to transition to online classes and to instruct students to leave campus were responsible decisions to make, but it is unfair and unlawful for University of California to retain fees and costs and to pass the losses on to the students and/or their families,” the lawsuit states. The suit was filed on behalf of Claire Brandmeyer, a UC Davis student who left campus in mid-March. The students are suing for refunds of student fees such as the $1,128 UC-wide Student Services Fee paid by UC students, as well as other campus-specific fees. (Students sue UC and CSU systems, demand refunds amid COVID-19 campus closures).

Universities had been more willing to prorate dorm and related costs; but not activities fees. "The universities have been more receptive to refunding or discounting campus dorms, residences and dining plans. UC System President Janet Napolitano outlined in a letter to the legislature, that, “UC is providing students prorated refunds on their housing and dining services agreements in the event they choose to leave on-campus housing" (Students sue California universities over fees lost amid pandemic).

The Complaint in Brandmeyer v. Regents follows below. This is not the only action filed. "To date, higher education institutions the likes of Drexel, the University of Miami, Cornell, Pace, Columbia, Liberty University, Arizona’s state colleges, Vanderbilt and Fordham University have been hit with potential class action litigation over their apparent failure to issue refunds for the COVID-19-shortened Spring 2020 semester." (California Universities Owe Fee Refunds for Pandemic-Shortened Semester, Class Action Suits Say [UPDATE]).

The Power of Charity and the University--A Pleasured Patron and Obliging Nomenklatura Model of University Governance

(Pix credit: Corporate Wolves in Academic Sheepskins, or, a Billionaire’s Raid on the University of Tulsa, published June 18 in The Nation )

I had observing the quite emotional battle at the University of Tulsa that appears to pit the old ideals of a university against the realities of universities as businesses. That battle is raging across American academia and touches all aspects of its operation.  I have noted its particular effects in the way that universities consume their graduate students and student athletes (See, e.g., Consequences of the Growing Divide Between the Ideal of the University and its Reality: Thoughts on the Unionization of Student Labor (Graduate Students and Athletes) in this Age of the Learning Factory). Universities cling to the ancient ideals long after it has faded from living memory because its consumers and sponsors find value in the ideal detached from whatever reality is then offered by way of "application." That universities engage in this behavior ought not to surprise, especially as these institutions have been urged to adopt the outlooks and ideologies--the practices--of those businesses into which they mean to project their graduates. Like a "White Christmas" in Miami, the ideal can be consciously embraced even as the reality around it makes even the pretense of attainment laughable. 

The real issue has now shifted from even this ridiculous attempt to market the past as present to a more important one--if the university is no longer to be itself, the question becomes what ought it to be.  There have been two models competing for status as orthodox institutional form. The first s the model of the for profit business corporation. That model is appealing if only because it s ends are all bent to making money--and money is what university administrators are now trained to chase--if only for the best things that it can buy for those from whom fees and tuition (and donations later) are extracted.  The problem is that the university does not resemble a business enterprise culturally or in its operation. While it produces things (degrees,for example) it is better understood as managing people toward objectives and then placing them. The model, then, is one that is more like an administrative agency in a state bureaucracy, than of a business in a purely (of course there is no such thing as pure anything anymore) markets based environment.

The successful university administrator is one that is both fungible and anonymous.  They are cogs in a bureaucratic machine the logic of which must be furthered.They are risk averse and exercise their discretion to minimize risk and manage compliance with those rules and cultures that conform to benchmark.  They become a closed circle in which innovation is the ability to better mimic everyone else (that everyone, of course is hierarchically arranged as universities adhere to a caste culture every bit as rigid as those of ancient societies). With university administrators as a modern Western version of the old nomenklaturas, then it appears that the model most compatible with a university that no longer can afford to be itself(the old ideal),must be that of the charitable foundation. It follows that charitable foundations--institutionalized patrons, would also dominate their stakeholding classes and serve not just as a source of imitation but as the institution most likely to have influence over university administrative (and ultimately substantive) cultures.  One has seen the effects of this in other contexts (e.g., here, and here).  But the control of the ethos of a university is indeed something quite new and remarkable. Thus it is not the corporatization of the university that ought to be feared--it is the conversion of the university into a foundation overseen by a private sector regulatory apparatus in which the core administrative values of ability, risk aversion, compliance and conformity to orthodox views and institutional objectives, narrowly drawn, become the lodestars of academic culture. 

Jacob Howland has stepped into this battlefield with a great deal of vigor and much to say.  His focus ison the University of Tulsa as the great exemplar of change--and in his view not for the better. His passionate original essay, Storm Clouds Over Tulsa, was published in City Journal and appeared 17 April 2019.  It was reproduced along with my own brief comments  here (A Report From the Front Lines of the Transformation of the American University: Jacob Howland, "Storm Clouds Over Tulsa"). is reproduced (without the embedded pictures) below. 

Professor Howland continues his archeology of the university necropolis.  His current essay, Corporate Wolves in Academic Sheepskins, or, a Billionaire’s Raid on the University of Tulsa, published June 18 in The Nation magazine, delves deeper into the case study that is the University of Tulsa.  Whether one agrees or not, the story he tells must be necessarily considered.  It follows below. 

Thoughts on Lucía Marttínez Valdivia: "Professors Like Me Can't Stay Silent About this Extremist Movement on Campuses."

The culture wars (although better understood as political battles deploying culture as an instrument) that have brought the West to crisis, and imperiled the great Enlightenment project of liberal governance--and in the name of liberal governance or its successor stage--has been playing out with some ferocity on the campuses of Western universities. Perhaps it is just as well.  In the hands of students, ideas half absorbed and reconstituted to suit the times and objectives of the rising demographic cohort has been the staple of university education at least since the end of the Second World War.  It exploded famously in the 1960s among students, many of whom, are the targets of this next wave of student agitation.  

There is nothing particularly odd, then, about student agitation. Perhaps, it is the best way the university can gauge whether anyone has been paying attention in class.  More importantly, it might provide a good marker about just what it is that students with the will and skills to agitate, are absorbing. Yet beyond the violence, whether in 1968 in European Universities, or during the 1960s and thereafter in the United States and elsewhere, which, if the state has the countervailing will, is always subject to criminal process, there is the always more insidious effects of such agitation on the fundamental ordering norms of society. 

For those who view this as a good then, then the cultivation of violence and agitation can produce results, even if it requires the sacrifice of those students (and others) induced to serve as the shock troops of agitation. But individuals have always gladly served as the instruments of vanguard groups.  They are the collateral damage (and cause collateral damage among the "enemy") necessarily incurred to produce martyrs and the instability necessary to force the fundamental changes at the core of the vanguard's agenda. . . . unless of course societal forces can meet the threat and suppress it.  In the process the values protected might also suffer collaterally.   

And that is the great pity.  For in the process it is the university itself that will be destabilized.  That institution is already subject to the profound transformational pressure of serving more directly as the conduit for wage labor markets which has been challenging and supplanting the old narratives of the university (see, e.g., here) from those in control of its institutions and its finances.  Now, it seems, that its stakeholder students have sought to pressure the university from the other end--enforcing an orthodoxy that is as deadening as the corporatization and deprofessionalization trends from the managers. 

All of these people mean well--at least in their own minds  And each is fighting the good fight for a marvelous cause--at least as it appears to them.  But like Martin Luther faced with the unwillingness of the Jews to convert to Christianity in light of his reforms of the Christian faith (e.g., here), both these zealots (on either end of the destabilization and transformation agendas) have sought to enforce change among the unwilling and now seek to police their respective orthodoxies.  And oddly enough, student agitators and university managers appear to be each other's best allies against an autonomous and vigorous professional faculty.  That unspoken alliance--consisting of administrative acquiescence in agitation and aided by allies on the faculties--continues to erode the role of the faculty and reshape the university. In the face of that alliance, faculty, and those still committed to older notions of a free university, will find their cause much imperiled and unlikely to endure.

These are the thoughts that came to mind as I read Lucía Marttínez Valdivia: "Professors Like Me Can't Stay Silent About this Extremist Movement on Campuses," Washington Post 27 Oct. 2017. Her essay follows.

In the Battle for Control of the Contested Spaces of Speech Within the Business of the Academy: The Trinity College AAUP Chapter Statement on the Suspension of Prof Williams

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2017)

As is well known by now, the contests over control of the "spaces" for "speech" have become much more heated over the course of the last several years. There have been any number of high profile (and by that I mean cases where national media have deemed the events of sufficient interest to report) events in which the social media statements of faculty, as well as the efforts of faculty to speak at academic institutions, have been the subject of agitation and threats.  The events have targeted people of all political views and appear to suggest the intensification of campaigns not just for control of the borderlands of "acceptable" speech but also to regulate not its contents (directly) but the consequences of its use.  To that end the conflation of the ideal of the university as a place for discourse of all sorts is increasingly bumping up against the realities of markets for educational services (and the business of education) with respect to which speech is part of the production of income for institutions. But also changing are the frameworks of academic speech culture that once served to discipline the scope and manner of faculty speech within a common culture of academic speech that has long been shattered  and whose shards increasingly sting their targets. Universities have responded to these increasingly conflicting demands in quite distinct ways (see, e.g., here, here, here, here).  The academy has finally come face to face with the end product of the revolution in academia that began in the second half of the 20th century to the three strands of academic life--the university as an institution, the ideal of the university and the role and place of faculty within both. 

The line drawing between speech, faculty speech cultures, and the business of education have become more risky as individuals (students, other faculty, administrators, and outsider stakeholders among others) have intensified the nature of their responses to speech.  Where once speech was countered by (more) speech, today the most effective (in terms of getting results including drawing media attention) now speech tends to be countered by physical acts and threats. The most powerful speakers today wrap themselves within the emotive and physical power of the mob and of the threat of the use of physical force. These trends ought to be greatly lamented.  And one ought to be troubled by the increasing propensity to back counterspeech with physical acts is likely to dramatically change the shape of the dynamics of discussion about the speech of academics (and others int he academy) in years to come. Yet, perhaps, as culture itself becomes a political objective, it might well be expected that the issues around speech of these sorts no longer are mere matters internal to the university but are now important aspects of larger political battles affecting society. And that also substantially changes both the context in which speech debates may be had.  This is not new--recall earlier periods of substantial political instability in the United States and elsewhere where academic speech became more sensitive as a political matter.  But historical resonance does not necessarily suggest either response or outcome in the peculiar contemporary context.  

One already gets a sense of this, as well as of the increasing irrelevance of traditional patterns of discussion of speech and speech rights within the academy in the latest manifestation of the new emerging pattern of the battle over speech and the power to control it. And it is not clear that the traditionally based responses of academics (see, e.g., “Targeted Online Harassment of Faculty,”) are sufficient in the face of substantial changes in the nature and context in which these issues now arise.  Hank Reichman, posted on the AAUP's Academe Blog posted:

The following statement on the suspension of Professor Johnny Williams was issued by the Executive Committee of the Trinity College AAUP chapter. This morning Inside Higher Ed reports that “Williams said he was told by a dean that he was taking leave whether he wanted to or not, and that Trinity made its decision in ‘the best interest of the college, not for my family and me.’ It’s ‘not in the interest of safeguarding academic freedom and free speech,’ he added. ‘It is my hope the administration corrects its course’.’”

To read the statement click here and see below along with the brief statement of the University suspending Professor Williams.

For an update as of July 14, 2017--HERE.

"Insulting or Defaming Religion" and the University--A Story of Christus Ranae

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

One of the more interesting trends in the management by universities of the spaces within which discourse and engagement is supposed to occur, are issues revolving around religion.  That management, of course, is always subject to whatever is fashionable among the managerial classes at the university and those they serve.  Yet universities also serve, when it suits, the ideals they are constantly invoking in their efforts to compete effectively in the market for student (as input commodities to generate revenue) and output markets (enterprises willing to hire the commodities produced. In the U.K. many universities appear to have moved the line of management from expression to the protection not just of sensibilities but of the integrity of the belief systems of religious institutions themselves. (See, e.g., here "London South Bank University's Code of Practice for Freedom of Speech, which warns students that one definition of an 'unlawful meeting' is one "at which there is a likelihood that the speaker(s) may… commit blasphemy"").  How might that be approached in the United States (e.g., here and here)?

This post provides a brief discussion that frames the issue and an example of the sort of mundane events that may trigger more profound discussion.

Reflections on Human Rights Day: The University, Its Human Rights Obligations, and the U.N. "Stand Up for Someone's Rights! Campaign

(Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, (United States) holding a Declaration of Human Rights Pix © U.N. Photo Library)

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To mark that anniversary, in 1950 the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 423 (V) (4 December 1950), inviting all States and interested organizations to observe 10 December of each year as Human Rights Day. To observe this celebration, President Obama proclaimed "December 10, 2016, as Human Rights Day and the week beginning December 10, 2016, as Human Rights Week. I call upon the people of the United States to mark these observances with appropriate ceremonies and activities." (Presidential Proclamation 9 Dec. 2016).

As has been the recent practice, for this year the United Nations adopted a specific theme and initiated a campaign: "Stand Up For Someone's Rights!" The Campaign is structured around the power of individual agency in protecting the human rights of others against individuals and institutions. The Campaign explains:

The time for this is now. “We the peoples” can take a stand for rights. And together, we can take a stand for more humanity. It starts with each of us. Step forward and defend the rights of a refugee or migrant, a person with disabilities, an LGBT person, a woman, a child, indigenous peoples, a minority group, or anyone else at risk of discrimination or violence. (Campaign website HERE). 

My observations about the 2016 Human Rights Day observation in the context of this campaign can be accessed HERE.

While it is fairly common to think about human rights in terms of the normative rights embedded in and forming part of the autonomous human person, and perhaps also of the resulting obligations of institutional actors--states, enterprises, religious institutions, and others to protect them,  one rarely thinks of the university in this regard.  Yet universities, like other institutions, have duties and responsibilities to protect and respect human rights to the same extent as other institutions--and perhaps more so in cases where the university is itself an instrumentality of the state. To fail to embed human rights within university administration violates not just law but likely the ethical and corporate responsibility that many universities have loudly proclaimed for their own.

This post considers some of the consequences for universities of undertaking an appropriate level of responsibility for human rights in its operation.  I have little illusion that universities will actually pay attention to their responsibility; like other corporate entities, they tend to respond either to the lash of law or to the preferences of the stakeholders on which they are most dependent (students as consumers of its services; employers as consumers of its product (students); and alumni  as providers of resources to maintain reputation status).   It is perhaps to them, then, that this point is directed.

On the Management of Scandal in the Modern University; Some Lessons and Insights for Times of Crisis

Scandals and litigation can have a substantial effect on the operations of the modern university. The long running efforts of Penn State University to meet and mitigate the effects of the prosecution of a former athletic employee for various acts of gross sexual misconduct provides the model template for the early 21st century large university.As such, the lessons that ought to be drawn should be of importance to university administrators and shared governance partners throughout the nation.

There are a number of lessons that can be drawn:

1. Such disruptions can be long lasting. It is difficult to reduce the "life span" of such events, and the risk of substantial mistakes increases the more strenuously administrators seek to shorten this life span through retrospectively short sighted decisions.

2. Information about events of national and public concern are nearly impossible to control. The harder the university works to control the flow and manufacture of information for distribution internally or externally, the more likely that it will have detrimental effects on moral and on the position of the university. Individuals and organizations, including state officials are likely to draw negative inferences from especially ham handed efforts to control either information flows or discussion.

3. Preserving the illusion of control tends to create unintended consequences.  It is an illusion to believe that scandals of this sort can be managed or controlled, especially by groups of senior administrators who do not have (given institutional cultures and the logic of their positions) a means of grasping rank and file sentiment.  The harder the effort to stage manage thought, to socialize employees, or to limit expression, the more likely that division between senior administrators and rank and file will grow, and that mutual trust will dissipate.  Ordinarily this is of little moment--but the consequences will be felt not in the context of the scandal but in virtually every other administrative program--from benefits reform to conflicts of interest and consulting initiatives. Trust, once lost, is hard to recover. 

4. The university's failure to account transparently for its expenses and objectives in meeting the scandal will also contribute to a reduction of trust  That reduction will focus on faculty and staff--who will view university efforts at cost reduction aimed solely at them much more suspiciously in the face of multiple millions of dollars spent to manage and deal with scandal related accountability issues.  To them, such cost reductions appears to amount to a cram down of the expenses of the scandal form the university to faculty and staff.  In effect, taken as a whole, university cost cutting in the face of a scandal tends to be understood as a faculty-staff subsidy of the costs of the scandal, a cost that appears to be passed through from the (rich) university to the (much less financially endowed) faculty and staff.

5.  That failure of transparency might well affect outside stakeholders as well--from the state in its budgeting processes, to alumni and local leaders who might also begin to worry about trust issues and the nature of their relation to the institution. 

6.  There are always unanticipated surprises in the course of resolving major scandals. In the effort to produce accountability new and sometimes quite burdensome information may come to light that might well complicate efforts at scandal crisis resolution.  

All university administrators must begin to better plan for and meet the likelihood of major crisis.  This is a difficult task, and one for which the university community itself must be prepared to be forgiving and patient as events unfold. Still, there is a need to better prepare for protecting the university community and the functioning of the university as it seeks to deal--ethically, transparently and forthrightly--with scandal.  That requires programs for both vigorous defense of false accusation and humble and forthright acceptance of responsibility.  Indeed, Penn State's Values would appear to mandate these as the basic principles of the university's own operations. And in any case they ought to serve as a baseline against which administrator decision making and conduct generally ought to be judged.

Some of the implications of these insights may be discerned by a reading of the surprising and continuing events revolving around the horrible Sandusky related scandals.  The first is a recent article from the Washington Post (Will Hobson and Cindy Boren, "New Court Documents Suggest Others at Penn State knew of Jerry Sandusky Abuse," Washington Post, July 12, 2016) which may be accessed HERE.  The second is a message from the University President. These are presented without comment in keeping with the request of the Penn State President set forth below.

New Paper Posted: Backer and Haddad "Philanthropy and the Character of the Public Research University—The Intersections of Private Giving, Institutional Autonomy, and Shared Governance"

 

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015)

 

I have been considering issues of shared governance at the university for some time (e.g., here, here, here, and here). With my former student Nabih Haddad (M.I.A. Penn State), now a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University, we have been exploring the issue of the effects of more targeted philanthropy by powerful and ideologically committed donors on universities. Increasingly, powerful donors have sought to use their wealth to increase their influence in the provision of education and the operations of the university. This has caused controversy (e.g., here,here, here and here).

We have posted our examination of some of the issues involved in a just completed manuscript: " Philanthropy and the Character of the Public Research University—The Intersections of Private Giving, Institutional Autonomy, and Shared Governance." We expect that it will appear as chapter 3 in Facilitating Higher Education Growth through Fundraising and Philanthropy (H. C. Alphin Jr., J. Lavine, S. E. Stark & A.Hocke, eds., Hershey, PA: IGI Global, forthcoming 2015).

The abstract may be accessed via SSRN HERE.

The manuscript may be accessed here.

Comments and discussion welcome.

On the Practice of Town Hall Meetings in Shared Governance--Populist Technocracy and Engagement at Penn State

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2015)

 So-called "town hall meetings" have their origins in efforts to practice direct democracy (but not its binding forms) reflecting the style that echos the informal New England town meetings, generally open to all townspeople (now stakeholders) and held at the town hall (now virtually any venue) and in which the attendees were given an opportunity to present ideas, voice opinions, and ask questions of local public officials. This form of engagement has become an increasingly important feature of governance in both public and private sectors, including universities (see, e.g., here).  Indeed, many organizations now offer "tips" for managing these events (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here).

But town hall meetings are now deployed as much to manage stakeholders to to serve as a means of listening to stakeholder ideas, opinions, criticisms and the like. 

For most large-enterprise organizations, the company all-hands or town hall meeting is one of the most important events in a corporate communications strategy. The company town hall is typically an annual or quarterly meeting, attended by every employee, that allows the CEO and/or management to present company goals, awards and recognition; engage in planning sessions; and provide inspiration for the work ahead. (ON24, Town Hall Meetings)

No longer a means of engagement, they appear to have become a technique of control and socialization of productive sectors of institutional communities, as a means of harvesting data to better achieve those ends, and as a form, of socializing productive forces through interaction with high officials who use the opportunity of a town meeting more to speak than to listen.   

I have suggested how university administrations have sought to weaken traditional structures of faculty representation by embracing a populist-technocratic model of governance. And in that context examined a recent example in the form of the announcement of a town hall meeting at Penn State (Practicing Mass Democracy at Penn State: The New Populist-Technocratic Model of University Governance, Socialization, Stakeholder Management and Benefits). 

The Penn State administrative Town Hall Meeting was held as scheduled.  This post considers the way that such town hall meetings effectively convey a very precise set of optics--messages about the ordering of universities, the hierarchies of authority and the socialization of inferior classes within the new governance orders so that shared governance, in its new more deferential form, may be practiced better among appropriately socialized faculty and staff. This analysis is hardly peculiar to Penn State; it reflects instead a trend that is likely to affect the way in which shared governance is coming to be performed in modern U.S. universities.  And it suggests the way that the current principles of tenure and shared governance are increasingly less relevant to the practice of university governance in this century (e.g., here).  

Practicing Mass Democracy at Penn State: The New Populist-Technocratic Model of University Governance, Socialization, Stakeholder Management and Benefits

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2015)

Few people really like to think about the structural bones of governing an institution.  It is a lot like thinking about structural integrity--foundation, plumbing or wiring--when looking at houses.  Most people prefer to worry about lighting fixtures than the state of the electrical system that is necessary to run the lights. Likewise, most people find the issue of governance  either opaque, arcane or unnecessary for something "simple", like the way a university is managed (it used to be governed, but that is another story). 

One of the most interesting trends in recent years has been the way that university administrations have sought to weaken traditional structures of faculty representation by embracing a populist-technocratic model of governance.  

A good example of the way in which the new populist-technocratic model of university governance operates might be seen in recent efforts at Penn State relating to the long standing and contentious issue of benefits.  What follows is (1) a short description of the characteristics of the new mass democracy models that are generally emerging in university governance, and (2) an excellent example of the deployment of the techniques of the populist-technocratic model of governance in aid of the socialization of faculty directly respecting reforms of benefits at Penn State.  It is clear that as change comes to the university, university administrations in the United States will seek much less engagement and much more control.  Within this new construct there is very little room for an effective institutional organ of faculty representation.

More on Salary Data: The AAUP 2014-2015 Annual Faculty Compensation Survey

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Bacier 2015)

I have been writing about faculty compensation and the underlying ideologies and management strategies (conscious and unconscious) for the presentation of "facts" (harvesting of data) and the extraction of inferences from the data (here, here, and here).  I have also suggested how these exercises do as much to veil "data" and avoid "inference" as it aid in their development and exposure (for a more theoretical discussion HERE).

Now comes the AAUP with its 2014-2015 Annual Faculty Compensation Survey.  This should be added to the constellation of data already harvested and from which inferences may be drawn. 

The AAUP press release with links follows.

The Riskless University and the Bureaucratization of Knowledge: From "Indiana Jones" to Central Planning

 (Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

It is now a commonplace to hear various sectors consider the "corporatization" of the university--especially the Research I institution, once well known for pioneering research in a large variety of fields.  To some extent, these discussions focus on the obvious institutional consequences of moving from a knowledge to a student-income production objective.  Among these are the  sideways attack on tenure through the growth of contract and teaching track faculty, the proliferation of administrative positions that lend to provide the budgetary excuses for the reduction of tenure lines, the metastasizing of monitoring and surveillance regimes by outside stakeholders (principally but not always government) and the need to devote resources to the satisfaction of data production obligations, and the shift in the focus  (in the jargon of the age, the "de-centering") of faculty from the educational/research enterprise (e.g., Engaged Scholarship--De-Centering Faculty From Research and Teaching in a Relentless March Toward a Training Model for Middle Tier Universities?).

Much of this has generated some drama--and some attention among media outlets as eager to participate in these changes as to report on them.But the greatest changes invariably come with a "still small voice".  Such is the case with respect to the relationship of institutional risk and the production of knowledge by faculty. One of the most profound changes that is now occurring, as universities transform themselves into a more (and lamentably late 20th century) factory model and abandon its traditional knowledge production-instruction model, is the assertion by universities of greater intrusive authority to manage the risk element of knowledge production.  This is not being done overtly--that is hardly the cultural marker of university action.  Rather it is done sideways, and true to corporatization, in a benign sounding institutional regulation way.  But the effects, both on transfers of authority over the shape and scope of research, and the power to control its production, will be quite dramatic in the "new" factory university emerging in this present century.

This post considers one such measure--the move toward greater control of the travel activities (and thus the research and knowledge production-dissemination) of faculty.  These policies mean to shift authority over that aspect of faculty activities from the individual researcher to the university, and to substitute the mechanical risk management strategies of the institution for the risk-reward balancing required of front line research in a globalized educational and research environment. At its worst, these moves suggest the increasing power of the non-educational sides of the university house and how risk managers, finance officers, compliance and budget officers increasingly intrude on the substantive decisions of research and education in the new factory university.  A typical example is considered.

Working Toward a New Social Media Policy for Penn State--Some Resources for University Owned Social Media

I have been writing about issues of university control of social media and efforts to regulate the use of social media, including those neither owned nor controlled nor used for university purposes, but which are maintained by university employees. See Proposing a Set of Social Media Policy Guidelines For Penn State University and links there.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This post includes links to social media policies for academic libraries.  There is much that might be usefully learned here as universities move forward toward social media policies respectful of their own interests and mission and those of the individual liberty interests of its faculty and staff. 

"Sandusky's Ghost" and the Weaponizing of Scandal--Administrative Disciplining of Faculty at the University of Colorado

The Penn State sex abuse scandal centering on its former coach's abuse of small children on campus has already begun to morph from an important milestone in administrative oversight to a weapon in the hands of administrators looking to undermine academic freedom. Here we begin to move from sex abuse to disciplining faculty teaching courses that administrators dislike. When this weaponization of scandal is undertaken by a state university ought to be even more troubling.

("From left, University of Colorado Provost Russell Moore, Arts and Sciences Dean Steven Leigh and Boulder Faculty Assembly Chair Paul Chinowski hold a news conference Dec. 18 to discuss the controversy around sociology professor Patti Adler s prostitution skit in the Deviance in U.S. Society class. (Cliff Grassmick / Daily Camera)" story at Sarah Kuta, Top 10 local news stories of 2013: No. 10 - Brouhaha over Patti Adler's prostitution skit , Daily Camera, Dec. 21, 2013)

Recently, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) joined its Colorado state conference in condemning the University of Colorado-Boulder's treatment of sociology professor Patricia Adler. The University of Colorado, of course, has chosen silence over disclosure in the hopes of riding out the storm. And they may succeed. Yet, the AAUP has suggested that reports in the media and the testimony of many faculty and students at Boulder make clear that there has been an unwarranted and egregious violation of her academic freedom, specifically her right as a faculty member to select her own instructional methods within the broad parameters of her discipline and university policies.

This post includes brief thoughts on this matter and the text of the "AAUP Statement on the University of Colorado's Treatment of Professor Patricia Adler."

Bad News for Universities With Thin Skin--Harder to Protect Reputation From the Opinions of Others?

Universities, like other great economic, cultural and religious institutions set a certain value to their reputations.  They like individuals everywhere understand that reputation may have important effects in shaping their relationships with their stakeholders and other with whom they deal.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

Some universities, like many businesses, have sought to become quite aggressive recently in the protection of their reputations--aggressive enough, at times it seems, to worry courts about the university's interference with the speech rights of others, and especially with the rights of others to develop opinions about the university that may vary from the line the university would prefer everyone adopt. This mania for control makes economic sense, but it does, at least at its limit, suggest a disrespect for the fundamental ordering principles of this Republic that universities, more than most institutions, ought to be especially careful to avoid.

This is a lesson that the Thomas M. Cooley Law School may be learning at the moment, which has not been able, as yet, to move forward a defamation lawsuit against law firms and bloggers critical of the school's description of its students' employment statistics. Martha Neil, Cooley Law defamation suit against law firm and bloggers critical of its job stats is nixed by judge, ABA Journal, Sept. 30. 2013. This post also includes a description of the press releases issued by the parties.  For all universities now heavily invested in such reporting, the case presents an important lesson in the problems of reporting statistics and the limits of reporting agencies to control the "spin" of its statistical disclosures.  But all of this may change when the appellate court visits these issues in the coming yesr.    

The Faculty Senate and Penn State Administrators Respond to Criticisms of the Penn State Wellness Program With My Analysis of Responses

Today the Penn State University Faculty Senate released the agenda for the first full Senate meeting of the Academic Year (HERE).  

(Pix from Penn State OHR)

As part of the meeting agenda, the University Faculty Senate will facilitate what it calls a "Special Presentation by David Gray, Senior Vice President for Finance and Business/Treasurer, Susan McGarry Basso, Vice President for Human Resources, and Highmark Representatives Take Care of Your Health Initiative" for which 30-40 minutes has been allocated for presentation and discussion (HERE).

As part of that Special Presentation, Mr. Grey and Ms Basso will present a version of their responses to a carefully crafted set of questions sent to both several weeks ago by the Senate leadership. This post  includes both the questions forwarded and the written responses of Mr. Grey and Ms. Basso. I invite you to read and assess thew value of both the questions posed and the answers given both in terms of their relevance to the concerns of faculty, their value in exposing the failures of shared governance and the mistakes in the conception and roll out of the wellness program, if any. An analysis of the answers given follows.

The "Narrative Advantage": The Two Faces of Wellness Programs at Penn State and the Importance of Control Its Master Narrative

One of the most important aspecst of campaigns to win the hearts and minds of target populations is the ability to control the master narrative, the script that is used when we tell stories or understand what is going on around us. Master narratives (Jean-Francois Lyotard, The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press 1984). Despite its political origins, the concept has become important to both business practices and academic understanding of the context in which people understand what is going on around them.  "Our adherence to a master narrative dictates how we frame stories, whom we interview, the questions we ask and ultimately the work we produce, which typically reinforces our belief in the master narrative."  (What is a Master Narrative, Covering Communities) Once an institution or institutional actors can assert substantial control over the master narrative, they can easily manage populations to their point of view. Indeed, public relations companies, including those with a relationship to universities, now rely heavily on the theory of master narrative to refine their own work on behalf of their clients.

(Dan Lochmann, Senior Account Supervisor, Edelman Japan, "Master Narrative: Four Keys to Unlock Your Company's Essence," Blog post July 4, 2013; "Over the years at Edelman, we have worked on a large number of Master Narrative projects together for companies big and small, Japanese and Western. As we approach each Master Narrative project, we are presented with a different set of challenges depending on the client and its objectives. But there are always a number of things that we try to keep in mind throughout the project to ensure the final narrative really captures the essence of the company and makes the most impact possible once it is communicated to stakeholders: 1) Stay focused on your audience, not the company itself; 2) Tell a story, not a corporate message; 3) Find a niche that you can own and build on; and 4) Keep it short and sweet."  It should be noted that "Penn State announced today that it has retained Edelman and La Torre Communications to immediately support the University in corporate communications, media relations and stakeholder engagement."Penn State retains Edelman and La Torre Communications, Penn State News,

April 25, 2012)

Control of the story, then, is essential to managing the interpretation of the "facts" deployed to reinforce a particular perspective and to deepen that perspective as the only "natural" way of seeing things.  That suggests, of course, that challenges to the premises of the master narrative are not merely wrong, they are deviant, anti-social and disruptive--the sort of challenge that might well justify discipline. (Jan M. Broekman and Larry Catá Backer, Lawyers Making Meaning: The Semiotics3of Law in Legal Education (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012).

Currently two narratives are competing to serve as the master narrative of employee benefits and of Penn State as an institutional actor.  One seeks to situate the narrative in the benign and engaging efforts of a caring university in which employees may trust their superiors, the other situates the narrative in adversarial relationships in which a commodified labor pool of faculty and staff are viewed as a factor in the production of cash flow and in which there is little trust between university administrators and employees about each others' motives and objectives. The first suggests a mutually engaged relationship built on trust and deference in which there can be a certain level of trust that employee interests will be valued in administrative decisions focused on other objectives; the second is built on distrust and the need for vigorous outside monitoring to ensure that employee interests are protected. This post highlights the way both variants of competing master narratives are being deployed to win the "hearts and minds" of both employees and the wider communities (some of them important university stakeholders or with the power to affect stakeholder perception) with an interest in this.  

New Name Same Mission: Introducing "Monitoring University Governance"

My year as Chair of the Penn State University Faculty Senate has ended and with it this blog as it was formerly constituted as "The Faculty Voice". 

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

With this post I am pleased to announce the successor blog--"Monitoring University Governance" to which I welcome you today. 

 

On the AAUP Condemnation of Southern University: Lessons for All Universities as They Begin to Panic in the Face of New Education Business Models

Universities are entering an era of uncertainty.  Universities are increasingly unclear about their business model, and to the extent any achieve clarity, it is at the expense of what had once been a solid consensus among the community of universities about the role of universities  and their relationships with their stakeholders.

But much has changed.  Tenure is slowly being eroded, usually excused by the invocation of a market's driven passive aggressiveness on the part of administrators, and a complicity of silence on the part of faculty and students.  Academic freedom is slowly being transformed into the domain of technocrats and budgetary ministers.  Everything from course title selections to course and program choices are driven increasingly either by (1) technical rules in which choices are now made dependent on the constraints  built into the computer programs set up to facilitate these choices or (2) budget models that reverse the traditional notion of faculty and pedagogy driven course and program choices, substituting regimes of student tuition production for value driven production. Made to market education philosophies are revolutionizing the approach to education enforcing a 19th century factory production model on the university in which even deans and chancellors are forced to assume the role of factory floor supervisors whose role is increasingly driven by the need to measure and increase productivity among the productive forces through which university revenue is generated (though when it suits the administration those productive forces are decried for their drain on budgets).

And all of this is clothed in the soothing language of the traditional academic discourse.  It is in this context that the AAUP's recent condemnation of Southern University ought to be considered in some detail.  The AAUP Press release and links to the report are set out below.