More Penn State Wellness Programs in the News and From the Bottom Up

I have been reporting on the coverage of Penn State's newly announced wellness program in the news, and to capture all sides of the debate, one that regrettably did not occur within Penn Staten before the imposition of the program, about the value of eugenics based programs like this in terms of cost savings, the quantification of health benefits and the risks to employees that the university will permit on their behalf.  (Penn State's New "Wellness Program" in the News (UPDATED Through 8 August 2013). 

 (Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

Since this last post Penn State University continues to be very much in the news about its wellness program. This post provides an update not just about recent coverage but also to provide links to experts whose views about the soundness of aspects of the program may broaden the scope of discussion.   It is provided in the interest of analysis and debate, including on the general issues raised by programs of this kind of benefits offered by enterprises in the U.S. It also suggests some of the complications of emerging issues of consultation in shared governance contexts in the face of increasingly large informational asymmetries between administration and faculty.

As a matter of core principle, I continue to emphasize that, like any other institutional organ, an enterprise (like a university) must exercise substantial restraint and sensitivity when it seeks to manage or to appropriate to itself a power to manage or control the personal choices of individuals in ways that touch on the human dignity and personal autonomy of the individual.   In many highly developed Western states, the protection of human dignity and personal autonomy is a matter of constitutional commitment. At its limit, of course, that protection serves as a rationale for the suppression of slavery and the incidents of slavery as a matter of law. But between slavery and complete personal freedom there is a large space within which the state, and the enterprises it permits to operate within its borders, permit some control of autonomy.  That space, of course, is essential for the operation of a free society, and is usually grounded, in the area of human economic activity, on the boundaries within which enterprises may hire labor to meet its specific objectives.  However, the existence of this discretionary space is not meant to produce a place where autonomy and human dignity may be completely disregarded in the drive toward enterprise welfare maximization. To permit that freedom would be to allow slavery by other means--and the state of peonage, the closest model for that sort of society, has also been suppressed in most civilized states.  As a consequence, enterprises ought to be sensitive to the detrimental effects of the instrumental use of their authority over their employees when they seek to that power to manage and control the human beings they employee.  This responsibility to be sensitive to the detrimental effects of employer self interested actions ought to be especially strong where the mechanisms of control and management touch deeply on matters of human dignity and autonomy.  That responsibility to respect the human rights of their employees may not be strictly required by law but is central to the social license of enterprises to claim a right to legitimate operation within the societies in which they operate. This notion reflects emerging consensus at the international level around the responsibilities of enterprises for the human rights effects of their activities. (e.g., United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) These are no less binding on universities where they act as economic actors.  Where enterprises rely principally on their raw power and expand their control of elements of production, especially human beings, for reasons other than to respect their human dignity and autonomy (for example for reasons of cost reduction or productivity gains, both quite respectable in their own right of course), the enterprise ought to bear a special duty to be  sensitive to human dignity concerns in fashioning such programs.  That duty increases as the human dignity and autonomy effects of these actions increase, including potential violations of privacy interests and the effects of the appropriate of the right to exploit employee information by employers. When the enterprise fails to exercise this sensitivity in its imposition of dignity and autonomy affecting projects, it may rely on its coercive power, supported perhaps the discretionary space permitted by law, to impose its will. But it will also act in ways inconsistent with the sort of respect for human dignity and autonomy at the core of our values. Individuals may conform because they must, but trust is lost and the willingness of individuals to cooperate may decrease.  Eugenics programs sit at the very core of human dignity and personal autonomy, and absent substantial and comprehensively explained reasons, these merit substantial sensitivity and engagement before they are either formed or imposed. That an enterprise may impose its will in these matters in this country as a matter of law does not necessarily mean that it is the right thing to do.  

Without Comment: The University Speaks to Its Wellness Program

I have been following the efforts by Penn State University to implement a new kind of em,ployee lifestyle and health management program in an effort to create more productive workers at cheaper cost.  Much of the recent dialogue has emerged from the objects of this management and cost savings; and the effort has appeared to center on engaging in discussion of portions of the plan, some of which, under similar circumstances, were substantially modified at other universities.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

This post provides, without analysis or comment, the response of the university in the form of a communication from its President. The response is rich and deep and merits careful study for its hints of the evolution of the character of the relationship of the university to its stakeholders going forward, and of the management of university policy of direct concern to them.

Privacy Rights and On Line Health and Fitness Apps

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

I have been writing about important shifts in corporate approaches to the management of their employees, focusing on the use of eugenics programs as a means of achieving cost reduction and employee productivity objectives. Penn State University's efforts--announced in mid summer, the "“Take Care of your Health” Wellness Rewards Initiative" is particularly interesting.  In a move that is notable for an institution with a well earned reputation for administration by benchmarking, this program presents a number of innovations in terms of formulation, scope and implementation that will likely prove influential if successfully imposed. Indeed, given the failure in 2010 of similar approaches at the University of Indiana, where the health survey portion of their eugenics program was dropped (see HERE), this new program is likely to be quite influential if successful and therefore worth careful study.

One of the more interesting feature of this program, and one that has generated substantial concern among the objects of this "cost savings through social engineering" program is the use of Internet based third party providers both as a medical record keeper and as the instrument through which medical data on employees is mined for the benefit of the employer's financial objectives (grounded of course in a concern for the useful health of its employees). (Penn State, Frequently Asked Questions for the “Take Care of Your Health” Initiative, last updated Aug. 5, 2013).  

This post considers both Penn State's official position that such an innovation poses little or at least manageable (as the University understands that term) risk for employees (whose damages, of course, the University may contribute which which the university will not bear) and the recent Report from Privacy Clearinghouse,  Privacy Rights Clearinghouse Releases Study:Mobile Health and Fitness Apps: What Are the Privacy Risks? (July 13, 2013).

The Devil is in the Implementation: Developing a Punch List of Glitches in Penn State's Wellness Program

I have been following the institutionalization of wellness programs at academic institutions.  I have noted its character as eugenics for the benefit of the employer and the incidental benefit of employees, grounded in the fundamental cost cutting premises as the basic objective of such programs.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

What is starting to emerge now are the sorts of traps for the unwary, and other implementation glitches that tend to have a detrimental effect on employee beneficiaries though no real harm to the bottom line of the plan administrators.  For that reason alone, it might be useful to highlight these glitches as they become apparent.  If readers come across additional glitches, and traps for the unwary, please write in and I will post them for the benefit of other participants.

The "Wellness" Program at Penn State: The View From the Bottom Up

I have been considering how (1) the American infatuation with eugenics, (2) the nation's culture of permitting the private sector a vast area of unchecked discretion that affects the individual human dignity of employees, and (3) the natural goals of U.S. enterprises (both for profit and non-profit) to maximize income and minimize expense, have contributed to the move toward the current interest in "wellness" programs being embraced by American industry.  Usually, employees, the object and ostensible beneficiaries of all of these programs, are rarely or adequately consulted.  And the relationship between employee welfare and enterprise cost cutting is less fully addressed than it might be.   It might be useful, though, for enterprises to have a sense of the reaction from the "bottom" as they develop, implement and operate such programs.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

I have also suggested the way these enterprise programs to make a "better" employee--one whose maintenance is "cheaper" and whose availability for greater work at lower unit cost with flat or declining salary--has found a home in the American university.  Penn State's recently announced version of this "wellness" program movement provides one of the more interesting examples of the operationalization of this tendency in the American workplace. This post seeks to provide a small window on some of the reactions from the "bottom" at Penn State. Please feel free to include your own comments, even if they are anonymous.  It may help those who have authority over this plan to think through additional issues of implementation and reform. 

More on Penn State's "Wellness" Program: Letter to the Faculty Senate From the Faculty Executive Committee at Penn State Brandywine

I have been writing about the move by private employers and universities to migrate eugenics notions into their benefits programs for employees, and usually either to make their employees better fit for work (as they see it) or to reduce their costs of offering benefits they deem necessary to retain employees or their reputation in the marketplace. (e.g., The New Eugenics--The Private Sector, the University, and Corporate Health and Wellness Initiatives).

 (Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

I have recently noted the reaction to this change among actors at Penn State. (e.g.,Penn State's New "Wellness Program" in the News). As faculty at Penn State begin to consider more carefully the recently announced changes to the university's benefits programs, institutional faculty actors are now beginning to be heard.  With permission, this post includes the text of a Letter to the Faculty Senate From the Faculty Executive Committee at Penn State Brandywine.  They raise important issues that ought to be considered both at Penn State and generally by those considering these sorts of benefits program changes. 

Penn State's New "Wellness Program" in the News (UPDATED Through 8 August 2013)

I wrote some weeks ago about the movement by private sector and business related enterprises, including universities, toward a new eugenics directed to the management of the health and social habits of their employees, one driven by cost containment policies (e.g., The New Eugenics--The Private Sector, the University, and Corporate Health and Wellness Initiatives, July 16, 2013)

 (Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

Since then Penn State University has been very much in the news about a wellness program it announced several weeks ago, one which has generated interest in part because of a curious component penalizing employees who fail to embrace the eugenics program built into the new "wellness" system. This post provides an update.  It is provided in the interest of analysis and debate, including on the general issues raised by programs of this kind of benefits offered by enterprises in the U.S. It also suggests some of the complications of emerging issues of consultation in shared governance contexts in the face of increasingly large informational asymmetries between administration and faculty. 

Medical School Salaries as Fundraising at Publicly Assisted Universities in Pennsylvania

The American Association of University Professors has noted a trend in salaries for medical school faculty.   Officials appear to be embracing a model where the salaries they set for faculty are not the salary medical schools are obligated to pay.  Instead, medical schools now appear to treat salary determinations more like fundraising goals--with the onus on faculty to find their salaries elsewhere, usually through grants that bring in not just faculty salaries but "overhead" payments to universities.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

This post includes a recent discussion by the Pennsylvania AAUP of this practice at the University of Pittsburgh, "The University of Pittsburgh Medical School Abandons Commitments to Salaries Creates a Virulent Form of Post-Tenure Review".    Please let us know about any similar approaches to salary at your institution.

The New Eugenics--The Private Sector, the University, and Corporate Health and Wellness Initiatives

At least since the Enlightenment, people charged with the management of others, and especially those charged with the operation of states and large economic enterprises, have sought to apply the principles of animal husbandry to the perfection of the human herd from which they extract productive work, or using the more traditional if feudal terminology, compulsory service, in return for a wage (if to employer) or the varied benefits of citizenship (if to the state).  

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

A more scientific set of efforts to improve the human condition was organized by public and private elements in the most civilized states of the time, including the United States. The science was crucial, of course, to the legitimacy of the policy decisions extracted therefrom. The idea was to help create a better, healthier and improved human, more fit for the occupations to which he or she appeared to be intended in emerging 20th century industrial society, one in which these individuals were also expected to have a modest role in political governance. Emblematic were three International Eugenics Conferences were organized and took place in Europe and the United States in 1912, 1921 and 1932. To further these scientific pronouncements, so indisputable at the time, it was only necessary for the captains of industry and the leaders of state to turn science into policy for the aggregate welfare of the state and the industries that enriched it and those fortunate enough to work within these forward looking industrial and social complexes. 

MOOCs International Organizations Expand the Supplier Base While MOOC Supplier Competition Goes Global

MOOCs have been understood as the creature of academics and the institutions they serve.  Universities, along with their business partners, or when joint ventures of universities are created to develop and profit from this form, appear to have a lock on the form.  That is useful, especially where MOOCs are viewed as a revenue generating and labor leveraging device.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2013)

Two interesting developments may change the planning horizons of American universities in the  MOOCs market.  Both may represent potentially substantial market competitors to universities.  Yet at least of them offers the possibility of reaching market's for learners beyond those that universities may view as potentially available for revenue harvesting. One shows how international organizations may be turning to MOOCs in their capacity building and knowledge dissemination objectives.  The second suggests that MOOCs (and revenue competition ) may be going global.