Saturday, December 16, 2017

Natasha Zaretsky comments before the Dec BOT meeting

My name is Natasha Zaretsky, and I am a member of the History Department. I want to begin by thanking the Board of Trustees for all of your hard work on behalf of SIU. I am not only a professor. I also sit on a board myself—for Carbondale Elementary School District 95—and I know how demanding the work can be. So I truly appreciate all of your efforts.

In recent weeks, the public has voiced concerns about Chancellor Montemagno’s restructuring proposal for our campus. I imagine that there might be a temptation to dismiss those concerns as coming from a small band of disgruntled faculty or from those who have their heads in the sand or who are simply resistant to change or who don’t understand the direness of the situation facing our campus. But nothing could be further from the truth. Our deeply committed faculty and staff know that adaptation is necessary for the survival of our institution, which I happily have called my home for almost twenty years. We all recognize that SIUC is confronting what can only be described as an existential crisis. As a faculty member, I am afraid for my job. But even more, I am afraid for the future of my university, my town, and for the Southern Illinois region. And I need to add that it pains me deeply to hear the Chancellor compare SIUC to a junk car. That is such a disservice to me and my fellow educators, as well as to all of the wonderful students I have taught over the years, including Joel Sambursky (hi Joel!).

At times of acute crisis, thinking critically and collaboratively becomes more vital. The Chancellor’s restructuring proposal raises a number of elemental questions: What are the models for this restructuring? Where has this model been implemented, and has it been successful? What evidence is there that the dissolution of forty-two departments and the creation of schools will address—and indeed not exacerbate--our enrollment crisis? And what evidence do we have that a lack of synergy in our current programs is the factor that is preventing students from coming here? These are not complex questions. Anyone who cares about the future of the institution should be asking them. The problem is that, at least to date, the Chancellor has not been able to answer these questions. He has provided no data, no evidence, no models, and no best practices that he can cite to back up his plan. Yesterday, when asked about the USG’s opposition to his plan to dissolve all departments, the Chancellor answered that “students don’t understand.” Yet he is banking on future students being so attracted to his vision of synergy that they come here in droves. Both of these things cannot be true at the same time.

In light of the considerable confusion, we are trying to answer these questions for ourselves. A group of us has launched a Coordinating Committee for Change, which aims to gather data, exchange information, and promote an inclusive community dialogue about the best ways to bring constructive change to our campus. We’ve launched a website where we can compile relevant research, and we’re conducting our own survey to assess the level of support for the proposal and to find out whether various constituency groups are being included in the restructuring process. We are doing this because we care deeply about SIUC. We are eager for change, but we want change to be thoughtful and deliberative. At the level of national politics, we have all seen the complete catastrophe that can ensue when a radical disruption and upending of the status quo is celebrated for its own sake. We do not want to see that happen here.

Friday, December 15, 2017

BOT Meeting article in Southern Illinoisan (LINK)


BOT Meeting article in Southern Illinoisan

Dr Tilley on a "School of Homeland Security": why its not a good one

 Dr Tilley presented this to the Board of Trustees meeting on December 13

From:     Professor Virginia Tilley, Department of Political Science
Re:           Proposal to create a School of Homeland Security

Note: the following comments are my own views and, although developed in consultation with other faculty, do not necessarily represent the views of anyone else at SIU.

Homeland security may seem like a good thing. No one here argues against the mission of keeping American citizens safe from terrorism or natural disasters. Then why are so many people at SIU not only opposed to this proposal but alarmed by it? The Political Science faculty voted unanimously to reject it. Our national organization, the American Political Science Association – which leans right on the political spectrum – wrote the Chancellor a special letter expressing worry about it. The whole campus is discussing it with concern.
We agree that a BA degree program in Homeland Security could be of value and we’d be glad to discuss this. But no other university in the country has done what the Chancellor proposes to do: that is, create a school and transfer whole departments into it, placing them all under its rubric. Blaming this on other universities’ being unimaginative, or stuck in nineteenth-century thinking, misses the real reasons this hasn’t been done..

I’ll touch briefly on just three of several reasons why.

  1. First, while some SIU students may indeed want to major in Homeland Security, the Chancellor has provided no survey data indicating how many. In our early reports, we’ve found that our Political Science majors not only dislike the idea of being associated with a Homeland Security school but are upset about it. Particularly African American students, a growing and crucial constituency whom we are bound to serve, are scandalized because Homeland Security is associated in their perception – and their communities’ perception -- with policing and surveillance they do not trust. I’ve been alarmed to hear my students tell me that they would leave Political Science and even SIU if it created such a school. (By the way, contrary to the Chancellor’s suggestion on WSIU, there is no national accreditation program for Homeland Security degrees.)
  2. Second, moving whole departments into a School of Homeland Security would suggest to our students that we are actually experts in this field. The faculties that are now supposed to join the School of Homeland Security mostly have no experience whatever in this subject. Placing unqualified faculty in charge of a degree program would manifest very badly to IBHE and would certainly fail our students, who rightly expect qualified teaching at SIU.
  1. Third, the same misfit of training and expertise would damage SIU’s research networks, because the school faculty’s research would be viewed very differently by our research communities if it is perceived as having been designed to serve the Federal Government's Homeland Security agenda. I cannot overstate the seriousness of this factor for our faculty’s scholarly image on the national and international stages, a factor vital also to student recruitment, particularly graduate recruitment.
Based on these and other serious factors, I hope the Board will reconsider whether creating a School of Homeland Security is in the best interests of SIU. We do have alternative proposals that we consider exciting and would be glad to share.

Thank you.

what we need: Horizontal Communication: send your from-the-ground originated proposals to us

What we need is to be able to communicate better across the university. If you have been sending any counter proposals, faculty or student originated proposals or ideas to the Chancellors portal, please consider sending them to us too. They can be sent to cccsiuc@gmail.com We will them publish them here

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Board of Trustee Meetings

How to attend the December BOT meetings
The full BOT meeting Thursday at 10:00 a.m. in Ballroom C; and/or
The BOT EC meeting Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. in the Iroquois Room

Monday, December 11, 2017

Take the CCC survey!

The Coordinating Committee for Change was formed in the Fall of 2017  to gather data, exchange information, and promote an inclusive community dialogue about the best ways to bring positive and constructive change to the SIU Carbondale campus. 

The purpose of this survey is to determine how SIU Carbondale stakeholders feel about the Chancellor’s reorganization plan and planning process. Completing the survey will only take 5 minutes. All responses are anonymous, and you may choose to exit the survey at any time.


If you have any questions or concerns about this survey, please email cccsiuc@gmail.com
Results of the survey will be made publicly available. 

Click here to participate. 

The deadline for the survey will be February 11, 2018


Sunday, December 10, 2017

Why Departments are Vital to Universities

From Duke University:

...it was clear that departments -- the foundation of disciplinary scholarship and university structure for centuries -- aren't going away. They still serve a useful purpose, but their role is changing." https://today.duke.edu/2013/01/acconversation (LINK)

From The Chronicle:

What to consider when Closing an Academic Program (LINK)
NOVEMBER 12, 2017

Read the whole article via link above or check out the points below, which are entirely relevant to the situation at SIUC:

For 20 years, I’ve worked with administrative and faculty leaders, and more recently with boards of trustees, as they position their institutions for the future. Here are some lessons to consider when it comes to program closure.


Do understand if such a change is ­really necessary. Program closure, while a viable option, can also seem like a solution in search of a problem. It is too easy for boards with a corporate mind-set and culture to consider the possibility of closing programs. Business leaders close lines of work in their corporations, and so it can seem reasonable to them to ask administrators to do the same. Pressed administrators can jump to such solutions without a deep understanding of why. They also should understand the possible costs — other than bad press — of such an effort: the uncertainty it generates on campus and among potential students who wonder whether they want to attend an institution that is struggling; the hunker-down ethos created at a time when the institution might need creative and divergent thinking; and the resistance from alumni and other program supporters.
Don’t close programs as a single response to financial constraints. Program closure can (and should be) a difficult decision to carry out and will generate resistance. Such an effort is more acceptable to the institution when it has taken other serious steps to address its challenges. Closing a program may not yield much in short-term savings unless faculty positions are terminated, so it is best coupled with other cost-savings steps.
Do make a clear and compelling case for why you are closing programs. When explaining things to the college community, leaders need to work concurrently on the "what of change" (the decisions), the "how of change" (the process), and the "why of change" (the case). Of these three, the one that tends to get shortchanged is "why." Administrative leaders need to communicate the case for change consistently throughout the process.
Don’t skirt shared-governance processes. While the culture of shared governance can range from one that is more administration-led to one that is firmly faculty-led, institutions are well-served to tap their current governance processes. Faculty involvement provides information into the process and helps avoid potential mistakes. Further, administrators who don’t follow established processes open up debates regarding the legitimacy of their decisions and actions.
Do acknowledge that closure processes are also about asking and answering other key questions. Program closure raises a series of fundamental questions that leaders should acknowledge explicitly and create processes to deal with: What do we value and why do we value it (and what do we no longer value as much)? Who have we been as an institution and who are we going to be? An example of one question asked by leaders of a research university was, "What does it mean to be top-tier research university in a state with constrained resources?"
Don’t forget that this is a political process. Such decisions will have detractors who do not agree with the directions being pursued. Understand how those stakeholders can create coalitions, advocate for their positions, and advance their perspectives. In today’s world of social media, dissent will come through many channels.
Do listen. Administrative leaders often have information that others do not. At the same time, they have to remember that others at the college have information that they do not. Through engagement, assumptions can become revisited, initial ideas overturned, and preferences clarified. While there are very few truths of academic leadership, a longstanding one is that effective leaders listen and are open to wise counsel and influence. Twenty-five years ago, Robert Birnbaum’s research warned leaders of becoming "jaded, self-centered, distant and sure of their judgement." The same holds true today.
Don’t overlook the point that making decisions and carrying them out are two different things. Leaders rightly focus on rendering decisions about which programs and why. But they then must develop and attend to the process of bringing those decisions to action. The reality is that the best decisions are those that can be implemented, not those held up against a set of predetermined criteria.
Do attend to the people involved. Program closure can be a difficult and painful process for those immediately affected. Paying attention to the human element and the emotions of such an undertaking is important.
Peter D. Eckel is a senior fellow and director of leadership programs in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.
website of the author (LINK)

Disciplines & Interdisciplinarity


The central pillar of the chancellor's restructuring proposal is the argument that disciplines are a poor way to structure a university.



Jerry Jacobs, a sociologist at Penn, has written an entire book on the topic, "In Defense of Disciplines." 

Here are some more relevant links, the first an article on Jacob's book, the second two pieces in Chronicle of Higher Education by Jacobs himself. 


Arizona State 
The chancellor has noted that his plan resembles that put in place at Arizona State. The president of ASU, Michael Crow, has written a book explaining his plan for a "New American University." Here's a link to a nuanced, substantial review of that book by Christopher Newfield, professor of English and author of important books on higher education, who finds much to praise but criticizes Crow for top-down management and unwillingness to advocate for more resources.

And here is an analysis in Science that highlights some successes at ASU, but also points out that traditional departments and disciplines are still important there, and that by some important measures (particularly qualitative ones) ASU is not out-performing its peers.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

Responses to lowered enrollment due to the budget impasse

Other schools in Illinois are dealing with dropping enrollments that are seen as an effect of the budget impasse. A few articles about this and about how they are adjusting.

Falling public university enrollment shows effects of state budget impasse

Chicago Tribune Sept 12, 2017



Enrollment at many of the state's public universities dropped this year, particularly among new freshmen wrestling with where to commit for their college educations, data released this month show.
--- 
University officials agree that while the budget crisis is over for now, it will take years to neutralize the harm it caused — and only if no other funding crises occur in the near future. Education policy experts say state leaders should heed the signs of falling enrollment as their cue to reinvest in higher education in Illinois.

As Illinois Budget Impasse Ends, So Does a ‘Nightmare of Total Uncertainty’ for Its Public Colleges

By Sarah Brown JULY 06, 2017
Chronicle of Higher Education

Cutting positions, shuttering doors of programs and departments; an overview of how the impasse is setting a difficult course for public higher education in Illinois. Read the article



Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Resolution to Faculty senate against unilateral elimination of departments

This resolution was pass in the Faculty Senate

1. WHEREAS faculty are committed to change, including structural change, aimed at educating more students at SIUC, and furthering the mission of the university; and

2. WHEREAS faculty are uniquely positioned to shape the academic structures designed to further that academic mission; and

3. WHEREAS departments are based on faculty expertise, devoted to the academic disciplines and majors pursued by students, and designed to provide institutional stability to the diversity of programs suited to a diverse student body; and

4. WHEREAS the elimination of academic departments would produce small savings, while causing disruption across campus; and

5. WHEREAS the dissolution of every department on campus may sow avoidable confusion and worry among both undergraduate and graduate students about the future of their majors and degrees; and

6. WHEREAS potential students and faculty will doubt the stability of programs lacking the institutional status of departments, and question the stability of a university that appears to lack the resources to support departments; and

7. WHEREAS no model for the universal elimination of academic departments at a peer institution has been presented, nor any other evidence that elimination of all departments will further our mission; and

8. WHEREAS a unilateral decision to eliminate all academic departments, regardless of disciplinary differences, and with no opportunity for substantive deliberation or debate, contravenes basic principles of shared governance;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate opposes the universal elimination of all academic departments on campus; and


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Faculty Senate recommends that faculty be encouraged and allowed to pursue all productive proposals for change, including those that retain academic departments.

Thursday, November 9, 2017

Reports on Reoganization


This link contains several reports from institutions regarding their own reorganization.

Most of these are reports from internal taskforces, and two of these documents are recommendations from their faculty governing bodies. While some of these institutions might not be considered our peer or aspirational peer institutions, the documents provided indicate the processes and mechanisms whereby other institutions have engaged in restructuring.

Moreover, many institutions do not maintain public archives of their restructuring: most of these resources are internal to the institution and are made available by request. The documents provided are those that remain publicly available and even these contain dead links.
Preliminary Report on Academic Realignment

Articles on Academic Reorganization

Articles on Academic Reorganization (LINK)

One of the articles, "Synthesis of Scholarship on Change in Higher Education," provides an overview of much of the literature on effective academic reorganization, and another "Prioritizing Community College Missions," is aimed at community colleges but addresses the need for planning to be aligned with missions broadly.

As an aside, a great deal of the research on academic reorganization in the past decade is contained in large volumes, as opposed to articles, as well as several doctoral dissertations, which I do not have the time to comb through.

Looking for volunteers to find examples of Universities without Departments

Contact us if you would like to help research universities that have different structures- without departments- vertically structured, horizontally structured, or mixed. Above in the TABS is the beginning of this research. 

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Notes from Faculty Senate Special Meeting Nov 7, 2017

Notes from Faculty Senate Special Meeting Nov 7, 2017 - compiled by Jon Bean
Summary of conversation gathered by Jon Bean.

Anyone else have notes! Send them in to sacamixta@gmail.com and we will post

Plan to Phase Out 2 Dozen Programs Stuns Faculty at Wisconsin-Superior

Plan to Phase Out 2 Dozen Programs Stuns Faculty at Wisconsin-Superior

NOVEMBER 01, 2017

Faculty members at the University of Wisconsin at Superior said they were "blindsided" by this week’s announcement that the university was suspending more than two dozen academic programs, including majors in political science, sociology, and theater.
The programs were being phased out, the university said, as part of a streamlining process to make it easier for students to graduate on time. First-generation students, who make up 46 percent of the student body, tend to get overwhelmed by too many course offerings, university administrators said. As a result, they added, students often make bad decisions that cause them to take too many credits, incur too much debt and take too long to graduate.
No new students will be admitted into the suspended programs, but students who have already declared majors or minors will be able to finish them, the university’s announcement said. 
Follow LINK to article