Category Archives: higher education

back at it

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Progress Missouri has posted a new report on the activities of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Missouri. As of March 2013, 45 corporations and six non-profits — for a total of 51 private sector members — have publicly announced that they are cutting ties with ALEC, according to a report from ALEC Exposed. But the organization continues to make inroads into the politics of states like ours. The Progress Missouri report makes quite a read. What’s most disturbing about it, from my perespective, is that the ability of this organization of corporations to affect legislation is roughly parallel to the ability of huge pharmaceutical and agribusiness corporations to control and corrupt research about, and increasingly the production, and distribution of, food and drugs. If ALEC’s influence is waning, the influence of pharma and international agribusiness continues. And it is interesting, to say the least, to read a defense of ignorance such as this one at a blog whose subtitle is “free minds and free markets.”

Meanwhile, SLU Students for No Confidence are reporting a disturbing incident at last evening’s meeting of the SLU Student Government Association. Apparently two faculty members were ejected from the meeting. I’ll quote the rather lengthy anonymous eyewitness report posted just a short while ago:

I arrived at approximately 5:02pm. The opening prayer was being given when I arrived, and I did not enter the room until after the prayer had ended. I stood outside with a small number of people who had also arrived during the prayer. As I stood outside, I noticed a uniformed officer standing in the vicinity of the Senate Chambers. I noted this as odd at the time, but did not think much of it after that (I did not look over this individual closely, but I assume is was a DPS Officer). I entered the Senate Chambers shortly before Vice President Alberty began taking attendance. Prior to my arrival, one faculty member I recognized was already present in a corner of the Senate Chambers. Shortly after I arrived, a second faculty member joined the first in that same corner. After attendance was taken, there was some discussion about adjusting the night’s agenda due to Fr. Biondi’s presentation.

At around 5:20pm, Fr. Biondi arrived in the company of Fr. Stark. He and SGA President Blake Exline began speaking shortly following his introduction by President Exline. The conversation occurred in hushed tones, but was clearly audible. He was requesting that the two previously mentioned faculty members be removed from the meeting, citing their presence as “inappropriate” because the SGA was a meeting of “student representatives.” The two faculty members had not caused any sort of a disruption. They were sitting quietly in a corner. Following Fr. Biondi’s request, President Exline immediately turned toward the two faculty members and asked them to leave. No protest was made by President Exline, by the SGA Executive Committee, by the SGA Advisors, or by the SGA Senators. The faculty members left willingly and without protest. The entire situation lasted less than 20 seconds from Fr. Biondi speaking with President Exline, to the two faculty members exiting the Senate Chambers. It happened so quickly I believe most people in the room did not even initially realize what had happened. My own initial reaction was to walk out of the room in protest, but I believed at the time that I would be better off remaining in the room. I admit my own regrets in not standing up and protesting the removal of two faculty members from a meeting which is open to the public, as I believe that I failed to live up to my own expectations.

Following the removal of the two faculty members, the presentation by Fr. Biondi progressed smoothly. There were no interruptions of any sort. Fr. Biondi was presented with questions which had been submitted to the Executive Committee the week before by SGA Senators. I will not provide a play-by-play of the presentation, as that would be far too long and I did not have anything with me to use for taking notes.

I will, however, mention one particularly prominent portion of Fr. Biondi’s response to the second question presented to him, which asked him why he believed the No Confidence movement had started and why it grew the way it did. The majority of his answer was slanted against the faculty of SLU, and intended to make the faculty appear irrational and vengeful. Eventually, he reached the point in the No Confidence narrative when the first major protest took place in the Quad. It was at this point that he referred to the students who were participating as being manipulated by the faculty who were taking part in the movement, and even went so far as to say that students were going because their professors (who controlled their grades) were taking part in the movement. His clear and obvious inference was that students were participating in the No Confidence protest because they hoped to get a good grade from their professor.

This week’s University News is just out. I was hoping for more information about the SGA meeting, particularly with regard to what else President Biondi may have said—but see nothing. Perhaps the online edition will provide some details in due course.

CORRECTION: This week’s University News is not out yet. I was looking at last week’s edition. Perhaps by the end of the day.

Two cheers for SLU faculty

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A few weeks ago I posted about events at Saint Louis University. Since then we have been told that the executive committees of the Faculty Senate and the Trustees are talking to one another; but the discussions (if indeed there are such) are being kept secret on the advice of Fleishman-Hillard, a high-priced PR firm the Trustees have retained to help them manage the crisis on campus. Reasonably good summaries of recent events at SLU may be found here and here.

The SLU faculty have now produced a report detailing grievances against the University President and Vice President for Academic Affairs. It reveals the dark side of Saint Louis University with which inslders have always been familiar but which has until recently been hidden from the public at large. It’s good to see this excellent report, produced by many hands, some of whom have chosen to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal. That discretion is well-advised, as we have it on good authority that enemies lists are presently being drawn up and punishments prepared. But the SLU faculty seem to have united after years of abuse during which the careers of those who have opposed the tyranny have been wrecked, their salaries frozen or lowered, their requests for earned leaves denied, their travel funds withheld—and that’s only the surface. By far the worst part of being punished at Saint Louis University is that one becomes a pariah, marginalized in one’s own department, shunned by colleagues and former friends. This excellent faculty report is most welcome—it’s just a good many years too late, perhaps permanently too late with respect to collegial relationships that have been destroyed.

Post Dispatch columnist, Bill McClellan, has referred to Fleishman-Hillard as “mess Busters” in a recent column, not failing to note that the firm is also consulting for the embattled Missouri HIstory Museum in the midst of scandal over a dubious land purchase. The cases are similar in that both involve secretive executives, captive boards, and official stonewalling in the face of public criticism. But there’s been no suggestion of graft at SLU, at least so far, though some prominent trustees regularly do business with the university. And McClellan, himself, points to another difference: “Unlike the History Museum, SLU is a private institution. [Trustee President Thomas H.] Brouster does not have to communicate with the public.”

But SLU does have to communicate with accrediting agencies. The SLU law school is presently out of compliance with a number of accreditation standards relating to President Biondi’s high-handed appointment of interim law dean, Thomas Keefe. And on another front an instructive parallel might be drawn with the University of Virginia, whose board’s high-handed firing of President Teresa Sullivan six months ago has now occasioned a warning from the Southern Association, citing the board for “compromising the university’s integrity, not having a formal policy for involving faculty in making decisions and not following its governance requirements, which forbid a small number of members from controlling the board”—ethical and governance violations that are only too familiar to members of the academic community at Saint Louis University.

The SLU Trustees meet this Saturday, December 15. SLU Students for No Confidence are sponsoring a march. We’ll see what happens.

Kudos to SLU students

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Today, my hat’s off to Saint Louis University students.

To SLU Students for No Confidence, to the SLU Student Government Association: In supporting the regular faculty’s demand for an end to the tyranny of President Biondi and his clients in the SLU administration, you have acted with integrity, intelligence, and courage. And to The University News: your reporting of campus developments since the resignation of Dean Annette Clark has reflected, as always, a high degree of journalistic excellence and acumen.

The combined letters to the SLU trustees cite a wealth of administrative overreach, domination, and mismanagement as reasons for the votes of no confidence. The Faculty Senate’s letter cites particularly a “ubiquitous climate of fear engendered by the President among the faculty of retribution for voicing grievances” and the “unexplained dismissal of highly respected deans and department chairs who publicly challenged [Vice President for Academic Affairs, Manoj Patankar].” In this regard I read with sympathetic interest the words of former University Librarian, Gail Staines, who has also written in support of your efforts. Many of us who have witnessed the savaging of friends, colleagues, and loved ones at Saint Louis University over the past three to five years, can tell stories very similar to that of Dr. Staines.

More about at-will

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In the aftermath of Labor Day I’m also thinking of my former staff colleagues at the University of North Texas who are now subject to an employment-at-will policy instituted last summer after a sham consultation period in which staff concerns were largely ignored. UNT President Lane Rawlins has claimed that the new policy contains “checks and balances” that “will protect employees from arbitrary and unwarranted actions,” but his own description of the policy belies his claim.

I wrote about this last year, before the policy went into effect. UNT (which I still think of with some affection as North Texas) is operating under a new corporate structure headed by a chancellor, Lee Jackson, who is a political appointee, a structure very like that at the University of Virginia which recently led to abuses of authority widely aired in the national press. (I wrote several blog posts about events at UVA. You can find them listed under “Recent Posts” in the sidebar.) Here is what Chancellor Jackson said about at-will employment at UNT when he first announced that the new policy was in the works.

I am revising our employment policies because I believe improvement is needed. With enhanced training and by working together, I believe we can place a higher priority on the quality of our workforce and support for employees.

This is bureaucratic doublespeak. UNT officials never explained to staff why the change was needed or what “improvement” was being sought. Indeed, if reports are true, the meetings that were held to allow for staff “input” were exercises in administrative stonewalling and more doublespeak.

Of course the real meaning of the change is that UNT is simply following suit. At-will policies are now in effect throughout the Texas system of higher education as that system bends to the determination of Republican governor Rick Perry “to re-engineer Texas’s leading public universities to become more like businesses, driven by efficiency and profitability,” as reported in The Washington Post. The Post also reports that

Texas A&M University, ha[s] compiled a spreadsheet ranking faculty members according to whether they were earning their keep or costing the school money. The university already had rankled professors with a program that paid bonuses based on anonymous student evaluations.

Universities pay faculty members? What a novel idea! Nevertheless, at-will employment was once the norm in American law. A contemporary defense of the practice represents a nineteenth-century court’s view of the matter as follows:

May I not refuse to trade with any one? May I not forbid my family to trade with any one? May I not dismiss my domestic servant for dealing, or even visiting, when I forbid? And if my domestic, why not my farm-hand, or my mechanic, or teamster?

There is a gathering effort in our national life to reverse protections for workers and reintroduce older practices affirming master-slave relationships between those who labor and those who own or supervise. In the background of this one should recall how much of this country’s wealth was created by slave labor conscripted from Africa and Asia, as well as the history of repression of (and violence against) workers that accompanied the rise of the labor movement. To indicate how far we have gone towards reinstituting the practices of the bad old days, it is now claimed that worker’s rights enslave owners and managers.

Scarcity is the natural state of mankind. Abundance, on the other hand, only comes about after people have applied their labor to their natural surroundings. In other words, scarcity is held at bay only by productivity or “work.” Therefore to assert that a man’s sustenance—his freedom from scarcity—is a basic right necessarily implies that another man must be forced to provide it whether he wishes to or not. If he does not wish to, then the “individual freedom” of the first man can only be bought at the cost of some degree of freedom from the second, who must be coerced, by threat of force, to provide for the first. Indeed, this is tantamount to slavery.1

The incoherence of this argument is so clear as to need no comment, but it reflects the way in which the politics, say, of Paul Ryan appeals to some popular sentiment. On Labor Day, Eric Cantor tweeted: “Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” Perhaps Cantor would defend his callous disregard for the history of Labor Day by reference to an ideological position such as this one:

Government efforts to hamper an employer’s freedom owe much of their intellectual foundation to the old Marxist assumption that employer and employee interests in a free market are opposed. But this is not true. Employers seek profits; when they find them, they bid laborers and other resources away from other employers. This promotes new opportunities, higher real wages, higher productivity, and improved living standards. Hampering labor markets may have emotional or voter appeal, but it is counterproductive and corrosive to genuine human freedom and prosperity.2

Free-market ideology is falsified by so much empirical evidence that its durability is surprising. Its grassroots appeal ro rugged individualism is not only incoherent but cruel as well. Ask public workers in Wisconsin who have recently lost collective bargaining rights as well as jobs, benefits, and wages. So far Scott Walker’s cynical appeals to greed and selfishness have succeeded in turning many private-sector union workers against public-sector workers and their unions.

That Walker’s scorched earth policies have not produced significant job growth should surprise nobody. Those policies were designed to produce short-term political gains for the Republican party—they were never designed to create jobs. And the at-will policies that have been forced on Texas universities have nothing to do with improving efficiency or productivity. I expect to see large-scale staff cuts in Texas higher education, which will be justified by economic exigency. Faculty rights will be next on the chopping block.

There’s a new Pew Research report entitled “The Future of Higher Education.” It’s a flawed report in some ways. But the guts of it, particularly the contributed statements of academic professionals, are often pretty striking. One of my colleagues at Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms community, Bryan Alexander, describes a future for Higher Education that I think is likely as well. Bryan is a senior fellow at the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education. Here is what he says:

By 2020 we will see: 1) A split between teaching and research faculty. Teaching faculty will largely be part-time, ill-paid, and expected to do no research. Research professors will teach little (perhaps the occasional grad student) and focus on grant-funded research. 2) Distance learning will be normative. A majority of students have taken at least one online class by age 16. The default for learning is online at this point. 3) Number of college campuses will dwindle. Those that survive will emphasize: face-to-face experiences; campus grounds (beauty, history, charm); charismatic teachers; a sense of tradition (meaning mid-20th century, but aiming for an older time).

I don’t think this future will be achieved by 2020, but I think it’s a reasonable expectation, given present trends. The expansion of higher education that took place as the baby boomers went to college isn’t sustainable. On the other hand, the idea that universities should hasten towards this brave new world has the potential to create great economic dislocation and suffering, as well as a lot of silly and shallow academic programs. If Institutions like UNT and others that are following Rick Perry’s lead, continue on their present course of attempting to impose “reform” from the top down instead of following the more prudent example of Teresa Sullivan at The University of Virginia, they could wind up looking a lot like the State of Wisconsin, and like Wisconsin have nothing to show for it.

Notes

1Arthur Foulkes, “In Defense of Employment-at-Will,” Ludwig von Mises Institute.
2Ibid.