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Dark side of organizational culture

Organizational culture can help build a shared sense of values and support a consensus among organizational members. Indeed, much of the research explores the positive aspects of culture. Yet, as I discussed in my post on the sorority recruitment videos at the University of Alabama, culture can prove damaging and destructive as well. In today’s post, I want to share an excerpt from my article Witch-hunting at Crucible University:  The power and peril of competing organizational ideologies that appeared in the Journal of Higher Education in 2011.

Photo credit: Flickr Josh

Competing perspectives of organizational culture highlight the role of subcultures which can have quite divergent values and interests (Martin, 2002; Sackmann, 1992).

Subcultures may form around hierarchical rank or occupational position. In universities, the disparate histories and epistemological assumptions of various academic disciplines cause them to operate as independent “tribes” (Becher, 1989).

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Understanding the negative implications of subcultures in higher education

The University of Alabama’s sorority system is again in the news. Just a couple of years after a controversy regarding the inclusion of minorities into the almost exclusively white organizations, the values, beliefs, and norms of Alabama sororities are coming under fire. The issue this time is a recruitment video produced by Alpha Phi and called out in a column in the Birmingham News. While Alpha Phi may be taking the heat, a quick google search shows many sororities at UA have a similar video and some are arguably worse than Alpha Phi’s. Although there are clearly many issues one can and should consider when confronting the issues raised by the sorority culture generally and these videos specifically, I argue that the primary focus should be on understanding the negative implications of subcultures in higher education.

Photo credit: Crimson White

When we talk about culture in higher education, the discussion is often framed around the positive benefits of culture. Moreover, we tend to focus on the culture of the entire institution rather than on the smaller subcultures at work within a campus.

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Have we gone too far with freedom of information in higher education?

Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” This mantra has led to many states and the federal government instituting freedom of information and sunshine laws to open up government and public institutions.  Recent controversies have brought this subject to the forefront of public conversation from Hillary Clinton’s personal email server to University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall‘s requests to University of Illinois officials using private email addresses for public business.  I do believe there is a larger question that we should be considering here. Should the public have access to all information from public university administrators and faculty? Should there be complete transparency regarding decisions and correspondence conducted by public university employees? Ultimately, have we gone too far with freedom of information in higher education?

Photo credit: Dawn Ellner

Clearly, public officials including public university administrators and faculty should not be trying to intentionally circumvent freedom of information laws.  I suspect many do this and it is wrong.

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The problem with honors colleges

In Sunday’s New York Times, op-ed columnist Frank Bruni highlights the story of Ronald Nelson who spurned the Ivy League in favor of the University of Alabama’s Honors College. The title of Bruni’s piece, A Prudent College Path, sums up his argument that students and parents should consider the more cost effective and still high quality path of Nelson. While pursuing public university honors programs may make sense for individual students, the problem with honors colleges is the impact of the trend on our higher education system more generally.

Photo credit: University of Alabama

I taught two classes in the Honors College during my time on the faculty at UA. I found the students quite capable and I appreciated the small class size (class sections were limited to 15 students). 

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What Jon Stewart’s run on the Daily Show can teach us about teaching

Jon Stewart is signing off as the host of the Daily Show after an impressive 16 year run. The fake news show has become a cultural marker and gave voice to many concerned about media, politics, and the future of the country. Having watched the show for much of Stewart’s tenure, it has been fun to look back at some of the old clips of the show’s early days. It doesn’t get much better than Stewart, Colbert, and Carrell doing a comedy bit. What struck me most in looking at old clips was the evolution of the show and Stewart. I think Stewart’s transition can be instructive in thinking about teaching and how we develop our instructional personas in the classroom.

It is so funny to see how Jon Stewart looked and acted in the early days of the Daily Show.  His suits didn’t quite fit right.  He was clearly not very comfortable.  Even the jokes didn’t flow very easily.