It has taken me several days to gather my thoughts on my meeting with President Andrews concerning faculty morale. In fact, it will probably take me a couple of postings to cover all of my thoughts on the current situation. But let me give you the basics.
While I'm not sure that Dr. Andrews and I see the current state of affairs in precisely the same way, his reaction to the meeting was largely positive. In short, he listened and he agreed to take some actions.
First, he agreed that we need to step back a bit and prioritize the many initiatives that we have under way at the present time. His top two priorities--the curriculum audit and general education reform--are probably the top two priorities of the faculty as well. He also expressed a general willingness to be flexible with deadlines if necessary.
Second, he agreed that we need to get a handle on all of the various work groups and ad hoc committees exploring policies that directly affect faculty. He agreed with my suggestion that a meeting needs to take place between the leadership of the Faculty Senate and the Provost and members of her staff to sort out where we stand on these various initiatives. The exact relationships between the work groups and ad hoc committees and the Faculty Senate committees should be clarified at such a meeting.
Third, he agreed with my suggestion to host a forum for faculty to express their views and ask questions. Both he and I agree that his open forums last summer had a very positive effect, and, if his schedule permits, he would like to hold such a forum before the end of this semester. Regardless of when such a forum takes place, please participate and encourage others in your unit to participate as well.
There is probably more to say about where we go from here, but I think that is enough for now. Stay tuned for more posts in the near future. As always, please let me know what you're thinking.
Ron
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4 comments:
It's good to hear that the President remains reasonable and willing to listen.
Thank you for helping get the faculty forums that occurred last week. One of the things that stood out was that the President told faculty that due to the economic situation that we should not expect a raise. While I am not happy about this expected decision I do understand the situation. What I would ask though is whether the Board of Regents will be providing Dr. Andrews a salary increase and whether he would accept it. I, and I am assuming many others would agree with me, believe that if we do not have enough money to provide salary increases for our faculty and staff that he should not be offered an increase by the BOR and if he was offered he should refuse it. This would send a strong message to the faculty that he stands with us in the same situation.
President Andrews mentioned in both of the last two forums that student numbers are declining while faculty numbers are increasing. He hinted to us that he wasn't sure why. Let's examine a couple of MSU's high faculty and low student programs. MSU's latest adventure into academic roulette is the Space Science center. We are building a multimillion dollar center for a program that has so few students nobody can accurately identify exactly how few. On top of that, the word is that mission control in the Space Science program is trying to wrestle the honored “Program of Distinction” title away from our other magic kingdom called IRAPP. Between the two programs they probably have enough majors to fill one classroom.
This “build it and they will come” mentality may work with a baseball diamond in a Hollywood movie but it doesn’t seem to be working at MSU. These Programs of Distinction either need to energize the university and gain the campus-wide acceptance and support that is deserving of the title or they need to become audited like the rest of the academic units on campus. After all these years of low student numbers, IRAPP has either a bad PR problem or President Andrews needs another forum to explain the Program of Distinction status to the public.
Don't dump the issue of declining student numbers and increasing faculty numbers in our laps at a public forum about budget cuts without addressing these programs. The president's suggestion that we have too many faculty and not enough students places a big bull's eye on these two programs, both of which seemed to get a free pass in the audit process.
If the administration is serious about turning over every rock to audit every program to improve this university but leaves these sacred cows off the table then this whole routine about being honest and straight with us in public forums is just a waste of time. If President Andrews doesn't believe that there is a morale problem on this campus then he isn't dealing with these issues. His bringing up increasing faculty numbers and declining student numbers without an explanation can only add to the low morale aspect of the current conditions around campus.
That last message made me ponder on this issue. I would take this subject a couple of steps further.
What is with this “Program of Distinction” label anyway? Is there some big secret nobody ever told us about? Are there really millions squirreled away in the funding that we are just not being enlightened over; enough to build a great big multi-million dollar rocket science center with no students? Maybe they can help with the MSU budget problems. These two programs are as isolated and secretive in their operations as Oprah's Book-of-the-Month Club or SPECTRE in a James Bond movie. We know more about the Illuminati than these two programs. This is like our own Di Vinci Code mystery right here on the MSU campus. What secret mystical powers are held in the keeper of the keys of the Program of Distinction?
All I can imagine in the Space Science Center is a few faculty members sitting behind closed doors in some dark hidden lab with gizmos and gadgets connected to machines and monitors that control half of NATO or the UN with the movie Dr. Strangelove playing on flat screens in every corner of the room. And the rest of MSU is supposed to know enough to herald these two outfits as our Programs of Distinction? I actually had a student ask me how to sign up for Space Science classes. We couldn’t find any Space Science courses listed. I guess I didn’t have high enough security clearance or that special tin foil hat. I’m also badly in need of a course reduction.
Look, if every professor on campus only taught one or two classes and had tons of grant money and a couple assistants to help with research we all would want to keep this thing a secret. MSU would be the best kept secret in the South and I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone either. As far as this Program of Distinction label goes, if these two Disney Empires are fighting over it, it must not be much of a prize or there is a whole lot more than the tip of the iceberg that they are not telling us.
Rumor has it that each program has enough money to bail out a Wall Street bank but they are still letting our President go on the stump informing us of budget shortfalls and cutbacks in our operation with his hand out to the state. If this is not the case and they are as bankrupt as General Motors then this really bites. We continually hear about being the best college in the South and yet why aren’t our students flocking to these flagships of academic excellence?
Think about it, that big NASA satellite dish above campus receiving alien messages with coded signals and then transmitting them straight into Howell McDowell on a special frequency. I have always been suspicious of what Al Baldwin was really doing down there in the basement of that building. Is MSU getting its marching orders from outer space and the Program of Distinction is the only way to crack to code?
We've got two expensive programs with few students that both want the honored title of "Program of Distinction". These two programs are like the two towers in Tolkien's Middle Earth and both of them want the infamous Ring! The great eye will be fixed upon the MSU campus from the top of the new Space Science center. Isengard (IRAPP) on one side and Mordor (Space Science) on the other. Their armies are specially hired to fulfill their missions. No professor, chair, dean or elf can penetrate their operations. Our only hope rests in one small hobbit named Karla Hughes! I wish I was back in the Shire.
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