DOCSLIB.ORG

Governing Boards: Raising Consciousness

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Governing Boards: Raising Consciousness Acad. Quest. (2007) 20:356–365 DOI 10.1007/s12129-007-9032-8 SYMPOSIUM SYMPOSIUM: Governing Boards: Raising Consciousness Editor’s Note: “What Works in Higher Education Reform: A Report from the Front,” the twelfth annual national conference of the National Association of Scholars, took place November 17–19, 2006, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One panel, “Governing Boards: Raising Consciousness,” examined the role governing boards do and can play in raising awareness on campus and among the public of the critical issues facing the academy today. Panelist Thomas J. Lucero discusses the lessons he’s learned as a regent of the University of Colorado about his responsibility to ensure the quality and value of the education of students, forge relationships with faculty, and make informed, effective budgetary and curricular decisions. Candace de Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York, examines the options governing boards have in addressing the critical decay in academic standards and disintegration of institutional financial discipline. Castles Unguarded Candace de Russy My friends, as you here know well, our formerly lustrous ivory towers—which John Fund of the Wall Street Journal has dubbed “dark castles”—urgently need quality control and financial discipline. Yet for the most part the keepers of the towers cannot or will not take action. What passes for higher education governance remains, as former university president George Dennis O’Brien writes in All the Essential Half-Truths about Higher Education,an“amiable muddle…between [faculty] educational jurisdiction and [administrative] janitorial services.” Although there are a growing number of reform-minded trustees—thanks largely to the efforts of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni—most trustees continue to bow to the forces-that-be. The long list of reasons for their inaction include: ignorance of higher education and boards’ statutory duties; cowardice in the face of powerful administrators, faculty unions, governors, lawmakers, and others who often benefit from the status quo; a misguided sense of institutional loyalty leading to avoidance and denial of even well-deserved criticism of their campuses; an uncritical understanding of academic freedom used as an excuse for the wholesale transfer of major decision-making to campus factions; manipulation by campus apparatchiks who Candace de Russy has been a member of the board of trustees of the State University of New York since 1995. She serves on its Executive Committee, chairs its Academic Standards Committee, and is a member of its Ad Hoc Committee on Charter Schools. A former college professor, Dr. de Russy is a nationally recognized writer and lecturer on education and cultural issues; [email protected]. This address was originally presented on 17 November 2006 during the panel “Governing Boards: Raising Consciousness,” at “What Works in Higher Education Reform: A Report from the Front,” the twelfth annual national conference of the National Association of Scholars, held 17–19 November 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Acad. Quest. (2007) 20:356–365 357 control the information that is meter out to boards; and much overlooked out-and-out conflict of interest in an environment that is designed to coddle and flatter—as well as to honor and reward—pliant board members (that is, “team-players”). But the failure of many trustees to serve as responsible guardians (Plato’s word) for the commongoodshouldcomeasnosurprise.Afterall,trustee“culture” abides within the larger culture. In, or perhaps toward the end of, long periods of peace and plenty like the current one, trustees—like various other social groups—display what Gibbon called the “inexhaustible…desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society.” They also display what the contemporary philosopher John Haldane has described as a pervasive “insecurity,” which is a byproduct of the “seeping relativism” that has long filtered down from the towers and into the public mind. This insecurity consists in a loss of belief and confidence in “a common universal human nature by reference to which practices and policies may be judged good or bad.” Many board members today are so steeped in this general soup of relativism that they accept as par for the course the scandalous double-standards and injustices involving traditionalist students and faculty. Mindless even of self-preservation, many have joined those elites that dismiss their own culture as unexceptional. Many are confused or indifferent to the need for passing on to future generations the astounding American story. As an example, certain trustees recently dismissed one such excellent history endeavor as “a right-wing project.” For these reasons, one cannot say with confidence that a necessary critical mass of trustees still have the capacity to rise to the historic challenge of restoring the towers, despite the array of reformist policies and procedures at their disposal. Principal among these reforms are: & strategic planning based on institutional performance; & hiring and holding to account reform-minded campus CEOs; & eliminating inferior academic programs and redirecting the resources they waste into high quality education; & formally acknowledging, in the words of NAS president Stephen Balch, the importance of competing viewpoints “in adversarial fields” and increasing “the institutional sites in which [they] can flourish”; & assessing for “value-added” student learning; & adopting the statement by ACE and similar organizations on ensuring intellectual diversity and tolerance on campuses; & strengthening accountability in hiring and tenure procedures to ensure that quality of teaching and research, as opposed to political conformity and cronyism, is the standard for faculty employment; & lending their voices to the drive to end the present corrupt accreditation system; & stopping out-of-control grade inflation by banding together with other boards to require that college transcripts include a student’s grades along with the percentage of classmates awarded the same grade in a particular class. In face of boards’ dithering about instituting such reforms, some of us have come to believe that trustees should face consequences when they fail to act in the common good. No less a figure than federal judge José Cabranes, for instance, has suggested that “potential board member liability [that is, possible “legal actions 358 Acad. Quest. (2007) 20:356–365 enforcing the duties of university fiduciaries”] will help ensure board members’ diligent performance of their duties.” In addition, it would help if reformist trustees more forcefully challenge their complacent peers. To gain a hearing, reformers will often need to have recourse to the media, however reluctantly. I have repeatedly felt bound to do so, as have the three Dartmouth trustees who recently waged a successful campaign to defend certain democratic procedures by which petition candidates can stand for board vacancies. Moreover, we should ask why boards should be immune from expert and external performance evaluation. They lavishly dispense the public’s hard-earned money, and the public deserves to be apprised of their achievements and failures. So why not rate boards on such criteria as “success in instituting strong core curriculum requirements” and “success in measuring and rewarding quality of undergraduate teaching”? Why not issue regular “consumer-friendly” reports (Brooklyn College professor Mitchell Langbert’s phrase) on trustees’ performance—reports modeled, for example, on those of politicians’ performance provided by the American Conservative Union and Americans for Democratic Action? Yet even if means were found to better hold trustees to account, it is possible that the moment for extensive internally-generated, so to speak “conventional,” reforms may have come and gone. As a trustee of another major public system recently remarked to me, much of the present higher education structures may “fall of their own weight,” due mainly to unsustainable financial trends. Other, more radical approaches to higher education may be in the offing. I refer to free-market and other structural reforms that would bypass the encrusted educational bureaucracies and transform our colleges and universities (for instance, diminish their individual size) but likely better serve the nation as a whole. These solutions, which are problematic in varying ways, include the public provision of higher education vouchers and more scholarships and tax-credits—assuming that greater student choice would facilitate the demand for better education and that competition will lower costs. Another possibility is the creation of for-profit institutions dedicated to offering high-quality, student-focused, outcomes-oriented liberal arts education, like Founder’s College. (In this category, “Axis,” the University of Phoenix’s announced online program in the liberal arts, bears monitoring.) There is also the “EMO,” or Education Maintenance Organization, created in the image of the HMO because of “rage over the failure [of higher education] to cut costs.” (Here, I cite Charles Miller, chairman of the Department of Education’s recently established Commission on the Future of Higher Education.) Another solution, proposed recently by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, is to establish a powerful tax-deduction policy for private university contributions to ensure that 90 percent of U.S. residents, by the time they are twenty
Load more

Recommended publications
  • An Analysis of Social Justice in Teacher Education Using W. B. Gallie's Framework Patricia Banta
    University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 4-5-2016 An Analysis of Social Justice in Teacher Education Using W. B. Gallie's Framework Patricia Banta Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Higher Education and Teaching Commons Scholar Commons Citation Banta, Patricia, "An Analysis of Social Justice in Teacher Education Using W. B. Gallie's Framework" (2016). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6064 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Analysis of Social Justice in Teacher Education Using W. B. Gallie’s Framework by Patricia Banta A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Interdisciplinary Education College of Education University of South Florida Major Professor: Barbara Shircliffe, Ph.D. Jeffery Kromrey, Ph.D. Sarah Kiefer, Ph.D. Zorka Karanxha, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 30, 2016 Keywords: recognition, social change, equality, critical consciousness Copyright © 2016, Patricia Banta DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to three very important people in my life. First to my parents Kenneth D. Naumann and M. Mary Naumann who both made untold sacrifices to educate and raise their six children. They instilled in each of their children a love of learning, the drive to persevere through hardship, and the ability to see the good in the world.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Narcissism – Curricular Challenges for the Postmodernist University
    Beyond Narcissism – Curricular Challenges for the Postmodernist University By Dr. Anne D. Neal, President, American Council of Trustees and Alumni Modernity: Yearning for the Infinite Conference sponsored by the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture, December 2, 2006 Panel discussion, “The Ambitions of the Modern University” As I was preparing for this panel discussion today, I was inspired – and I use the word advisedly – by two recent developments in modern academe. The first was outlined in an article outlining new trends in the academy that many of you may have seen in the New York Times. Entitled “Big People on Campus,” the lengthy piece by Abby Ellin outlines a new area of study – fat studies. “Nestled within the humanities and social science fields,” writes Ellin, “fat studies is emerging as a new interdisciplinary area … on campuses across the country.” “For most scholars of fat,” she writes, “it is not an objective pursuit. Proponents of fat studies see it as the sister subject – and it is most often women promoting the study, many of whom are lesbian activists – to women’s studies, queer studies, disability studies and ethnic studies. In many of its permutations, it is study of a people its supporters believe are victims of prejudice, stereotypes and oppression by mainstream society.” While the article claims that fat studies is still a “fringe area” of scholarship, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee already offers a class in health sciences entitled “The Social Construction of Obesity.” And at least one graduate student at the University of Southern California is writing a dissertation in the field on the “intersection of queer and fat identities in the 20th century.” The second development occurred just this week at Hamilton College in upstate New York – a small liberal arts college.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report 2014
    The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization Annual Report 2014 Cover Photo Copyright Tom Loughlin Jr., Utica, N.Y. Annual Report 2014 Promoting Civic Literacy The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) seeks to promote excellence in scholarship through the study of freedom, democracy, and capitalism. Founded on Constitution Day, September 17, 2007, the AHI was established as an independent center devoted to the study of American ideals and institutions. The mission of the AHI rests on a traditional understanding of a liberal arts education as a means by which truth is pursued, the responsibilities of freedom are explained, and the dignity of moral beings is cultivated by studying what the best and brightest in the Western tradition have thought and said throughout the ages. 2 • AHI Annual Report Annual Report 2014 Introduction In 2014 the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI), while receiving increasing national recognition, extended its reach to other colleges and universities, expanded its programming to undergraduates and informed citizens, and acknowledged the impressive accomplishments of members of its extended family. In December, for example, Jay Schalin of the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy recognized the AHI in a study, “Renewal in the University: How Academic Centers Help Restore the Spirit of Inquiry,” commissioned by the Thomas W. Smith Foundation. Not only did the publication feature AHI headquarters on its cover, but it applauded the success of AHI programming in creating a nurturing environment for an impressive group of undergraduates. The report expressed concern about the threat to liberty and to the values of Western Civilization itself posed by “dogmatic philosophies” that have infiltrated college campuses to the detriment of a free marketplace of ideas.
    [Show full text]
  • Buying a Movement: Right-Wing Foundations and American Politics
    BUYING A MOVEMENT Right-Wing Foundations and American Politics Executive Summary Each year, conservative foundations pour millions of dollars into a broad range of conservative political organizations. These foundation gifts are remarkable for two principal reasons: first, their sheer size and concentration; second, the willingness of the foundations to promote a highly politicized agenda by funding a broad range of organizations. The following report examines the funding patterns of a number of significant conservative foundations and their grantees. The report demonstrates: • Right-wing foundations have developed a truly comprehensive funding strategy, providing grants to a broad range of groups, each promoting right-wing positions to their specific audiences. The grants have created and nurtured an enormous range of organizations all bent on promoting a far-right-wing agenda. Recipients of foundation largesse include the right-wing media; national “think tanks” and advocacy groups; a budding network of regional and state-based think tanks; conservative university programs; conservative college newspapers; conservative scholars and more. In many of these funding areas, progressive and mainstream foundation giving lags far behind. • Five foundations stand out from the rest: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Koch Family foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Scaife Family foundations and the Adolph Coors Foundation. Each has helped fund a range of far- right programs, including some of the most politically charged work of the last several years. For example, the American Spectator magazine, which led the charge on President Bill Clinton’s state trooper contretemps and launched a slash-and-burn strategy targeting Anita Hill, is a prime recipient of foundation support.
    [Show full text]
  • The Politically Correct University : Problems, Scope, and Reforms / Editors Robert Maranto, Richard E
    The Politically Correct University The Politically Correct University Problems, Scope, and Reforms Editors Robert Maranto Richard E. Redding Frederick M. Hess The AEI Press Publisher for the American Enterprise Institute WASHINGTON, D.C. Distributed to the Trade by National Book Network, 15200 NBN Way, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214. To order call toll free 1-800-462-6420 or 1-717-794-3800. For all other inquiries please contact the AEI Press, 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 or call 1-800-862-5801. NATIONAL RESEARCH NRI INITIATIVE This publication is a project of the National Research Initiative, a program of the American Enterprise Institute that is designed to support, publish, and disseminate research by university-based scholars and other independent researchers who are engaged in the exploration of important public policy issues. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The politically correct university : problems, scope, and reforms / editors Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, Frederick M. Hess. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-0-8447-4317-2 ISBN-10: 0-8447-4317-8 1. Education, Higher—Aims and objectives—United States. 2. Education, Higher—Political aspects—United States. 3. Political correctness—United States. I. Maranto, Robert, 1958– II. Redding, Richard E. III. Hess, Frederick M. LA227.4.P66 2009 378'.01—dc22 2009025229 13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 © 2009 by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Wash- ington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or repro- duced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews.
    [Show full text]
  • J
    Chri Sjo f),e,r Ne,.t;J Held D-V'-J ;r6nu.J4 humanities, elicited many thoughtful articles and a pamphlet issued by the Amer­ fro"" : 5 S+r: <..kl/AN'l.J, e.J~. t:!..lll/G#AltA~c.tnG'S". ican Council of Learned Societies. !J.fi:!tr In 1987, when Cheney's first report was published, mass-market books attack­ ) /3/j.A.I<Jer~ bJG~"vJei;J) 14'1S ing liberalized higher education began to appear at the impressive rate of two per year: e.g., E. D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Cultural Literacy (1987), Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind (1987), Charles Sykes'S Profscam (1988) and The Hollow Men (1990), Page Smith's Killing the Spirit (1990), Roger Kimball's Tenured Radicals (1990), and Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education (1991).6 By 1991, the Right had hyped the failings of liberalized higher education in numerous conservative and Manufacturing the Attack on mainstream periodicals. The New Republic, Commentary, and Academic Questions had forums on the subject,7 syndicated columnist George Will fired off columns Liberalized Higher Education for the Washington Post and Newsweek,S and D'Souza published in a half-dozen venues, including the Atlantic Monthly, Forbes, and the American Scholar.9 Progressive academics who responded to the attack made the proverbial mis­ ELLEN MESSER-DAVIDOW takes of too little and too late. By and large, they replied to the conservative argu­ ments, ignoring the issue of how so many of them had suddenly appeared in print. 1O Limited by their training, they came to the attack through texts and fo­ cused on its textual features-the rhetoric, the ideas, the validity of claimsII-not I.
    [Show full text]
  • To Reclaim a Legacy of Diversity: Analyzing the "Political Correctness" Debates in Higher Education
    DOCUMENT AESUME ED 364 170 HE 026 973 AUTHOR Schultz, Debra L.; And Others TITLE To Reclaim a Legacy of Diversity: Analyzing the "Political Correctness" Debates in Higher Education. INSTITUTION National Council for Research on Women,, New York, NY. PUB DATE 93 NOTE 76p. AVAILABLE FROMNational Council for Research on Women, 530 Broadway at Spring Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10012 ($12). PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC04 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS College Curriculum; Conservatism; Curriculpm Development; Ethnic Groups; Ethnic Studies; Financial Support; Higher Education; Liberalism; *Mass Media Role; Minority Groups; *Multicultural Education; Negative Attitudes; Political Influences; Politics of Education; Resistance (Psychology); *Social Action; ( Social Attitudes; Womens Studies IDENTIFIERS *Diversity (Groups); *Political Correctness ABSTRACT "Political correctness" has recently been appropriated by organizations and individual advocates seeking to attack and focus negative media att.ention on reforms in higher education. This report documents both the facts and media distortions that have shaped almost a decade of campus debate on affirmative action, multicultural and feminist curriculum reform, and programs to diversify college campuses. The report also highlights the conditions that have given rise to an unrivaled backlash in academia. Topics addressed include media coverage of political correctness, conservative activism in higher education, liberal responses to the backlash, funding patterns, and campus violence/campus climate issues. Appendices include a chronological list of media coverage that addressed political correctness issues between 1989 and 1993, a list of activist networks of student newspapers on campuses, statistics concerning people of color and women in higher education, the addresses and phone numbers of National Council for Research on Women Member Centers throughout the country, and a list of selected guides and resources concerning integrating women of color into the curriculum.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report 2012 Securing Liberty by Educating America’S Citizens
    The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization Annual Report 2012 Securing Liberty by Educating America’s Citizens The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI) seeks to promote excellence in scholarship through the study of freedom, democracy, and capitalism. Founded on Constitution Day, September 17, 2007, the AHI was established as an independent center devoted to the study of American ideals and institutions. It rests on a traditional understanding of liberal arts curriculum as a means by which truth is pursued, the responsibilities of freedom are explained, and the dignity of moral beings is cultivated by studying what the best and brightest in the Western tradition have thought and said throughout the ages. 2 • AHI Annual Report Security Liberty by Educating America’s Citizens Reach of Student Programming: Participation and Engagement is Strong The AHI offers programs that strive to elevate civic and economic literacy. They include colloquia, courses, lectures, reading groups, internships, and fellowships. During 2012 the AHI engaged hundreds of students on multiple campuses, especially at the University of Rochester, where we have established in 2011 our first affiliate, and at Hamilton College, which is near AHI headquarters. Hundreds of adults from upstate New York attend our events since almost all of them are open to the public. Christopher Dawson Society AHI Charter Fellow Douglas Ambrose and AHI Fellow Sheila O’Connor-Ambrose founded the Christopher Dawson Society for the Study of Faith and Reason to explore the relations between religious belief and intellectual inquiry within the Western intellectual tradition. Named after the first Chauncey Stillman Chair of Roman Catholic Studies at Harvard, the Dawson Society devoted the academic year 2011-2012 to the theme of Christian liberty and held monthly meetings exploring the work of C.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Executive Seminars
    By NANCY OSIUS tutor, has been summoned away to an emer­ and several times to last month's assignment to these members of an Executive Seminar: gency. in which Sophocles' Antigone pitted the in­ "Have you ever wondered what you are It is 8 a.m. on a Tuesday in November. In One student admits with exasperation, "I dividual against the state. There will be doing around this table? Why are we here?" Room 22 McDowell on the Annapolis cam­ expected this to be the greatest book I had those putting forth the notion that the city Self-fulfillment, says one-"Getting be­ pus, 15 men and women seated about the ever opened. But it's very difficult to get to exists essentially for the protection of the yond the daily concerns." seminar table are considering that funda­ what he's driving at." There is sympathetic individual. There is a moment of suspended Another ventures, smiling, "We'll be mental social partnership, the household laughter. assent when one participant says, "The city hoping that the good of all is a part of the ("Aman, a woman, and an ox for plowing") purpose of our being here." and its relation to the larger partnership of Presently this group of adults, who in­ the city. Copies of Aristotle's Politics lie clude a sailmaker, an engineer, a banker, a open around the table as the participants take EXECUTIVE SEMINARS public relations executive, and several busi­ up the topic they will toss about for much of ness men and women among their numbers, the next hour and a half: Does a city primar­ Professionals savor food/or thought close their books, and after a few more pleas­ ily exist for the collective good of the inhab­ antries, file out of the room to head back to itants or for the good of the individual? their Tuesday lives.
    [Show full text]
  • A Crisis of Competence
    A CRISIS OF COMPETENCE 1 AIRPORT PLACE, SUITE 7 | PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY 08540 | 609.683.7878 | WWW.NAS.ORG The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California April 2012 NAS NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS A Report Prepared for the Regents of the University of California A report from the California Association of Scholars and By the California Association of Scholars, the National Association of Scholars’ Center for the Study of the Curriculum A Division of the NationalNAS Association of Scholars NAS NATIONAL NATIONAL ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS OF SCHOLARS A CRISIS OF COMPETENCE The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California April 2012 NAS NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOLARS A Report Prepared for the Regents of the University of California By the California Association of Scholars, A Division of the National Association of Scholars JOHN M. ELLIS, PRESIDENT, CAS CHARLES L. GESHEKTER, CHAIRMAN, CAS PETER W. WOOD, PRESIDENT, NAS STEPHEN H. BALCH, CHAIRMAN, NAS With special thanks to the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation and the Barnes Family Foundation for their generous support © 2012 National Association of Scholars | cover image “Berkeley Glade Afternoon” by Gku, available under a GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License, via Wikimedia Commons TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 1. Why Is It Wrong to Use the University for Political Purposes? 4 1.1 Moral and Legal Objections 4 1.2 The Effect of Politicization on the Quality of Education and Research 5 2. University of California Rules That Prohibit Use of Its Facilities to 9 Advance a Political Ideology 3.
    [Show full text]