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Tuesday, May 16, 2006
CONGA!!! “The recent string of events at American University,” begins Drew Miller, a university trustee, in this morning’s Inside Higher Ed -- and you just know something nasty’s coming, but he’s far, far too diplomatic to be adequate to the nastiness of what he‘s got hold of -- for that, you’d need Tom Wolfe -- “involving a president who needed a strong board to protect him from himself – has, for better or for worse, drawn attention to the challenges of higher education trusteeship. And Congress’s continuing interest underscores the pressing need for college and university boards to get their house in order – before someone does it for them.” House in order isn’t quite the metaphor. Lampshade off the head‘s better. Because you get Ben Ladner, and others like him, when “the prevailing culture on university boards is one of routinely succumbing to administration demands.” And why do you get that prevailing culture? Parties, darling. Parties. “Administrators often favor minimal board meetings and a maximum of socializing. [As a university trustee, I’ve been] amazed at the number of parties, dinners and social functions that board members attend. The benefit of these events from the university administrator’s perspective is very clear: a trustee who becomes friends with administrators is going to be more likely to cheerlead than to challenge policies and practices… [V]oting against programs that are recommended by administrators or government officials who are your personal friends is very hard for an elected or appointed governing board member to do…If you are spending more time attending the athletic events, parties, and dinners with administrators rather than researching and questioning, then you are not serving as a responsible trustee….As I delved into my work with my fellow regents, I was amazed at how willing regents were to let administrators make all the decisions. …[For instance, the board I’m on] approved $3 million for a ‘hydraulically banked indoor running track system’ so that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln’s sports center could boast a state-of-the-art, world-class indoor track. This at a time when the university was increasing tuition and student fees and lobbying the legislature for more money claiming we do not have enough to pay faculty…. [We have to] limit the amount of time lost to unimportant university ‘show’ presentations [PowerPoint, baby!] and social events.” This is a very short piece in Inside Higher Ed. Most of it's taken up with this point. Yet “I soon realized that the 'social side' of trustee life was only part of the problem,” Miller continues. There’s also the Association of Governing Boards, the official national trustee party planner, whose “overwhelming message is for trustees to cheerlead for the campus administration. It has been my experience that AGB too often adopts the proposition that any disagreement with the administration is micromanaging or intolerable failure to support the president. If there were any doubt, recent problems at American University, where the board essentially gave a blank check to the president, should surely settle the matter: American University has been a member of the AGB for decades.” Miller provides a useful list of reforms, none of which will happen until the first trustee squeezes out of the conga line; but among them, UD was most intrigued by this one, with implications not just for trustees, of course: It would be great for students and taxpayers if public universities required all graduates to complete the GRE or some other relevant professional exam as a condition for graduation. We need this kind of national standard and outcome measure to enable us to judge how well we do in educating our students and compare the value added by our school relative to other schools. This is ye olde college exit exam idea again - an idea UD likes very much, but which most university people loathe. Nice to find an ally. |