Faculty are under enormous pressure today. Most professions are probably being asked to do more with less. Yet, I contend the working environment for faculty has changed dramatically—and not for the better—in recent years. The 3rd annual Times Higher Education (THE) University Workplace Survey includes troubling data that faculty complaints aren’t just a U.S. problem. There is substantial concern about a lack of faculty voice in decision making. Faculty don’t feel like they are heard or have a say in setting institutional strategy and priorities. This is a failure of university leadership.
The THE survey asked 3,000 faculty and staff from 150 U.K. Universities about the status of their work. They found a troubling pattern of faculty concerns regarding job security, workload, academic standards, accountability measures, and faculty input on decisions.
Clearly, many of these issues are significant and warrant attention by institutional leaders.
However, I am most troubled by the finding of a lack of faculty voice in decision making.
There are vehicles for consultation with faculty, but many administrators don’t take the consulting process seriously.
I remember once being in a meeting of the faculty university finance committee. A senior administrator walked the committee through various variables in the funding model such as tuition, class size, and new faculty positions. For each variable, she would ask for our input. After hearing a few suggestions, she threw out a number as if it was generated by our committee.
After we completed this exercise, she passed out a print out of the recommendation to the trustees regarding the universities finances. The numbers that she selected and were supposedly generated by the committee were already printed out before the meeting started. The entire exercise was a sham and there was no serious attempt made to solicit our views.
I stopped attending the meetings after this. I didn’t want to waste my time.
Faculty know when they are seriously consulted and when the process is a waste of time. Too often, the consultation is part of process, but not an actual part of decision making.
And, of course, the result is too often decisions that show little understanding of the teaching, research, and service work of the university.
My current institution just went through a review process with Bain to find efficiencies, structural changes, and administrative savings. Without a doubt, some of the changes were needed and will make us a better institution.
However, a lack of consultation with faculty led to many decisions that defy logic and show an ignorance or naivety toward teaching and research.
In many ways, the changes implemented served to transfer administrative work from staff to faculty. In addition to concerns about a lack of faculty voice in decision making, these kinds of changes just escalate faculty workload. More than increasing workload, the changes escalate work that is largely insignificant to the major teaching and research initiatives that faculty should focus their time. At the same time, staff bear the brunt of these changes as well with new processes, reduced capacity, and a diminished ability to support the important work of the institution.
In the end, the THE survey confirms the concerns that many of us that champion shared governance have feared. The findings show significant problems with how colleges and universities are being managed today.
At the core, there is a breakdown of trust in university leaders. Many faculty believe that administrators are more concerned about performance metrics, institutional prestige and marketing, and the bottom line. And many administrative behaviors and decisions support these perceptions.
This kind of environment is not conducive to creativity and innovation that we want to encourage in faculty.
Many senior university leaders espouse rhetoric in support of creativity and innovation, but their actions undermine the environmental conditions that support such work.
A lack of faculty voice in decisions making is a failure of university administration.
University leaders aren’t leading if faculty aren’t following.
This is the leader’s responsibility–not the faculty’s.
We must do better.
