Letters

After the Sorcery
I read with interest the exhortation to concentrate on undergraduate education in order to increase enrollment and implicitly, to save our jobs. I also read it with the weary feeling that I'd heard it all before.

I've heard it in universities and from friends in corporations.

Step 1. When we see a storm on the horizon, we ignore the signs, deny them or assure ourselves that things will soon return to normal or at least that every cloud has a silver lining. That's not always unrealistic; sometimes Chicken Little is wrong, sometimes a President promises two free years of college to every high school student.

But if Chicken Little is right, we always seem to follow a three-step process, a kind of fantastic quest; sorcery.

Step 2. When we feel the first rain drops, we huddle together and tell each other that it's our fault, that we can increase our enrollment or find more customers if only we do things differently, that we can teach more with less, lower the qualifications, maintain quality results and that we can avoid substantial change if we sharpen our people skills and recruit more energetically.

Professor Goodman says that we must do "a better job of taking care of these young people." Professor Malone says that our students need their attitude adjusted, that it's all a perception problem, that they don't need the "draconian solution" of English-speaking instructors for example. He says that students at other schools tell him that they hear that we are "big, and impersonal." So what. Berkeley, Penn State, Illinois are also big and impersonal. Can we make ourselves small and cozy? Can we convince prospective students that we're not a big, impersonal bureaucracy, just tiny comfy courses within our large, friendly, academic family. Would it make any difference?

Step 2a. Bring in the sorcerers, consultants for sensitizing workshops and toss a little more money at the recruiting magicians. Or, if we're a corporation, bring in the consultants and start a new ad campaign. See Dilbert.

Professor Harwitz agrees with Professor Malone. He wants a new "corporate culture" achieved through "quality circles and change circles."

Not good enough, guys. Naive.

Professor Meacham says that his faculty "will just laugh at me" if he asks them to emphasize undergraduate education over research. He knows as do we all that our reputation depends on what we do other than teaching, and that our wages depend upon our reputation. That's realism. And we need a lot of that now.

It's also realism to wonder if the Governor's minions want a state university or even educated citizens. They're having their way with us now and parents don't seem to care. Given the state of our contract I imagine that our best people are looking for jobs. What of our school's reputation if they leave? What of recruiting then. The answer to these questions must be part of the mix if we want a realistic approach to change.

Step 3. The final step. The most painful step. When sorcery doesn't work, change the product. Get new products. Support and promote solid products. Get rid of irrelevant, unprofitable products.

Are we ready yet?

If we are, we need a solid marketing study, maybe several marketing studies. We must know why students don't come. We need accurate answers from prospective students and from the best people in all our disciplines. And we must ask the parents why they have so little regard for higher education? How can we change our program to interest them? Which of our programs are obsolete or simply wrong-headed? We need answers to fundamental questions like, Do parents want us to change the world or teach their children to live and succeed in the world that exists? And finally, what new programs must we invent in order to present ourselves truthfully as an outstanding university? How do we change? We need credible plans for implementation, complete with timetables.

We have an opportunity to re-think and radically re-shape our university. Maybe it's time. It would certainly be fun.

But, let's find the facts before we scurry around, proposing our futile little How-to-hold-up-the-sky fantasies, then let's hear some ideas. Let's see those new products. Let's test them and implement a few. Then we can recruit because we can promise something unique and valuable. Then I suspect that we'll find all that sorcery irrelevant.

Of course, we could do nothing, and hope that the storms will blow over and they will, of course, leaving fewer superb teachers, less impressive research, a few more unqualified students in each classroom. Until the next storm. But, at least we'll still have our jobs, metaphorically speaking.

Bill Kinser
Associate Professor, Head, Communication Design, Art Department