EDITOR'S NOTE:
The following is a longer version of story that appears in the print version of this week's Reporter. The story in the print version, while still comprehensive, had to be edited due to space limitations.

Provost, Faculty of Social Sciences discuss academic plan

Questions and concerns about the proposed reorganization of the arts and sciences‹and whether a structural change is needed to improve undergraduate education‹surfaced again last week as Provost Thomas Headrick met with members of the Faculty of Social Sciences to discuss his academic planning document.

Some faculty members also expressed concern about what they said was Headrick's perception that they do not care about their students or the future of the university, and that the faculty is being left out of the decision-making process.

At the same time, others agreed with his assessment of student unhappiness with the undergraduate experience at UB, which one department chair described as "the terrific level of discontent and unhappiness at the undergraduate level."

Headrick opened the meeting on April 3 by reading a prepared statement responding to an open letter he had received the previous day from the Faculty of Social Sciences Policy Committee, a group of elected representatives from every department in the faculty.

The letter endorsed specific criticisms of the planning document made in a letter to the editor published in the Reporter on March 27.

It also maintained that Headrick's reaction to criticisms of his plan so far indicates his "unwillingness to engage in a real dialogue," which is producing "a hardening of the lines between faculty and administration." (The letter is published on page 5).

Headrick said he agreed with the letter's assertion that meeting the challenges faced by the university depends upon the faculty, adding: "My conception of what I've written fits precisely with those sentiments," Headrick said.

The report, he said, emphasizes the need to provide high-quality undergraduate education and recognizes that the current structure and resources won't achieve that.

Building strong undergraduate education within the present and projected resources is going to require "an enormous amount of faculty insight, foresight and imagination," he said.

Moreover, the report invites faculty, departments and schools to think creatively about what this level of instruction should entail in the 21st century, and suggests ways of enhancing programs through imaginative tapping of faculty talent, he said.

And in most instances, he added, it invites departments to make plans, rather than dictating directions.

No programs anywhere within university are "flush with resources," he said. "Fixing problems can't be done by shuffling sizable chunks of money from one school or faculty to another in the short term, nor by cutting administration in order to appoint faculty.

"In short, the report the policy committee read is not the report I wrote. My report is by intention long on what UB should do and short on how we should do it."

The report is not beyond criticism, he said, but "criticism ought to accomplish realistic alternatives that will make this university better and not based on "distorted or inaccurate accounts of what I have recommended."

When Headrick opened the floor for comments, William Allen, professor of history, noted that the building of a university is a long, slow process, but a good university can be destroyed very rapidly.

"I think your plan threatens to undo generations of effort virtually overnight," Allen said.

The only real asset of a university is its faculty, he added, noting that the basic feature of the planning document is "the assumption that the top administration is much more important than the faculty and should be the source of change."

As a historian, he predicted that in 30 years, other historians will say "that a good university was destroyed by Tom Headrick."

He asked Headrick to reflect "on whether or not you really want that to be said."

Headrick declined to respond.

Barry Smith, professor of philosophy, then asked the provost to "commit yourself to not acting on this plan until there is a consensus among the faculty of the university that the plan is a good thing; in other words, no behind-the-scene machinations."

Vince Ebert, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Geography, used an analogy about growing a healthy tree to express his concerns.

In order to grow a healthy tree, it has to have the proper location, time to grow and it has to be pruned, he said, adding that the same process applies to building a sound university.

"Why is it that we must make all these changes at one time, in a massive reorganization, instead of pinpointing the very problems that you have correctly identified and then creating the methodology and the limited amount of money or the activity that will remedy maybe one or two or three of these problems, but not change the whole scenery, the whole scenario?" he asked.

"Are we really solving these problems by following all the points that you suggest? Can we really solve our problems when these decisions are made from the top instead of from the ground?"

"I don't see these things as radical transformations of this institution," Headrick said. "I see them as ways of dealing with some of our problems and finding some creative solutions for working through them."

William Baumer, professor of philosophy, began his remarks by noting that he wanted to start with the "basic issue of distrust, which needs to get out on the table."

He referred to a meeting a year ago between Headrick and social sciences faculty members in which he said the faculty "almost uniformly opposed" the merger of the three arts and sciences faculties into a College of Arts and Sciences.

Baumer said faculty have heard reports‹"whether accurate or not, nonetheless accepted by many, I believe"‹that Headrick thought he had been "set up" at that meeting and that those who attended did so only to oppose that particular amalgamation of the arts and sciences.

Yet, Baumer said, he and others have heard rumblings that that particular configuration will be implemented over the next three months "willy nilly."

Faculty have "concluded from that several of the concerns that were expressed in the Policy Committee statement, and that is thatŠthe fifth floor of Capen doesn't care where the faculty areŠdoesn't care what they (the faculty) have to say; the fifth floor of Capen will go ahead and do whatever the hell it wants to do.

"Now, that's a very blunt and nasty thing to say and I say it not to be blunt and nasty, but becauseŠI think the topic needs to get on the table," he said.

Baumer said that he and many of his colleagues agree with Headrick's assessment of the quality of undergraduate education at UB. He said he is appalled by the tales some of his students have told him about their treatment in other courses. For instance, students are told that if they miss exams, they will fail the course, "and the instructor does not care what the excuse," he said.

"What is bothersome is that plan does not, for example, with regard to the College of Arts and Sciences, specify how that (structure) is going to solve this problem," he said.

Tamara Thornton, associate professor of history, said she wanted to discuss the report's heavy emphasis on interdisciplinary centers and institutes and what she called Headrick's "assumption" that interdisciplinary work is superior to work done in traditional disciplines.

Work in traditional disciplines‹both teaching and research‹is not old-fashioned, and, conversely, interdisciplinary work is not more efficient or better, Thornton said.

Interdisciplinary work is not always collaborative, she said, noting that it may mean a scholar reading work in other fields. And when it is collaborative, it may not necessarily be with colleagues on this campus, she added.

Thornton criticized the plan's intent to create centers focusing on specific interdisciplinary areas.

"We are the experts on this; we know what the cutting-edge interdisciplinary areas are; we know how to carry on interdisciplinary research," she said. "The planning from above with interdisciplinary research and the assumption that interdisciplinary work is somehow better are problems that run deeply in this report."

Headrick denied that he believes interdisciplinary work is inherently better than work done within traditional disciplines. But, he said, the proposals for centers detailed in the report "come from faculty; I'm reacting to proposals that have come to me."

Donald Henderson, professor of communicative disorders and sciences, told Headrick that the plan "engenders a lot of angst" because it seems to focus on the three faculties that make up the arts and sciences and "doesn't draw on some of the resources that also are part of the university."

For instance, faculty worry that the centers and institutes will be funded "out of the resources from the pie of today." If the development office were to solicit a donor to provide the seed money for these new centers "it would relieve a lot of concern," he said.

Liana Vardi, associate professor of history, said that Headrick seems to think that the faculty is not interested in the future of UB.

"It seems to me we have come togetherŠraising serious questions about the spirit, process and particular aspects of the plan.

"And yet we are made to feel that we are somehow narrow-minded, have no vision, have no stake in the future of this university," she said.

The faculty "seem to be groping for a form of language that will express the view that we are keen (about the university), that we do understand that the university is faced with certain problemsŠwe are really interested in thinking about these questions.

"It seems that the way this is proceeding is creating only greater anxiety and concern and is not satisfying anyone."

Jonathan Dewald, professor and chair of the Department of History, said that the report and Headrick's remarks confirm what Dewald sees as the big problems: "the terrific level of discontent and unhappiness at the undergraduate level" and the declining graduate rankings and overall status of the university.

"The concern I feel, and other people feel, is the disproportion between these problems and the solutions that are being put forward," Dewald said. "I think more serious thought has to go to having the problems and solutions fit together."

Mitchell Harwitz, associate professor of economics, told his colleagues that faculty should sit down together in small groups and ask, "What will improve the real educational experience of the students who come through here so they're prepared to tell others about it?

"If we want to improve undergraduate education, it's not a big structural answer that, it seems to me, we ought to be looking at," he said. "I don't think we've tried to answer the question in a nonstructural way, in a way that avoids excessives of scale and impersonality."

Thornton noted that when she asked students in her classes about the strengths and weaknesses of UB, "I didn't even come close to hearing that the faculty don't care."

Students complained about the "scale of the place" and about such areas as advising and financial aid, she said.

When asked why they come to UB, students cite the prestige of a UB degree and that the faculty are research faculty who write books and make presentations at scholarly meetings, she added.

"They aren't complaining that we're writing books and not spending time on them," she said. "That's what makes their degrees worth it; it comes from a prestigious university with excellent faculty.

"The problems they (students) deal with are very mundane. I don't see them addressed anywhere in this report. They're mundane, but they may be far more important."

Jerry Slater, professor of political science, told Headrick that the provost has identified a dilemma: On the one hand, UB must be enrollment-driven to avoid the budget consequences. But on the other hand, in order to keep the enrollment up, the university may be forced to admit less-qualified students.

"If we have to expand enrollment by lowering the quality of the student bodyŠthen we're going to perpetuate the decline of the university. It will be perceived as worse‹it will be worse‹the perception will be correct," Slater said.

"I don't see the dilemma," Headrick responded. "What you're describing is a static role in which all we do is respond to what happens to us on the outside. I'm saying, 'No, let's create a sense in this institution that this is a mission that we're on and we have a particular reason for pursuing that mission.'

"We've got the quality faculty to deliver and we're going to convince people on the outside that this is important," he said. "We're going to attract really good students because we decided to do that, so we've changed the nature of the way in which people look at the quality of education at this place.

"That's what we've got to do," Headrick stressed. "We can't just say, 'Oh, the world is going to treat us badly and we're adapting to it and we're going to get worse.'

"We can't do it that way! That's what this report is trying to get people to think about it and do," he said, pounding for emphasis on the table on which he was sitting. "That's it! That's how I feel! Finally, I've expressed some emotion."