Deans' Weblog: Dalhousie Graduate Studies

The Janus Moment

One of the challenges of the English language is that some of the idioms don't work in key circumstances. Take for example the phrase "two-faced" which we use to communicate a sense of deceitfulness. But the Roman god Janus has two faces and he is not at all about being deceitful. Janus, namesake of January of course, looks forward and backward at the same time, but the intent is insight, not trickery.

Any discussion about Janus involves talk about beginnings and endings, a natural thing to consider at the end of one year and the beginning of the next. I prefer to think of Janus as the god who is skilled enough to use his ability to look back to the past and into the future whenever it is useful during the year, and not just at New Year's.

Reflecting on the past and anticipating the future (or better yet, shaping it) is the heart and soul of the first two phases of strategic planning - 1) strategic assessment and 2) strategic options. But the act of looking to the past and to the future is not just for planning. The act is a fundamental practice of the examined life, whether the life we are talking about is institutional, personal, or both.

It is a good thing to pause, to take stock, and to re-envision the future as we approach the New Year. But limiting our embrace of the spirit of Janus to January is a lost opportunity. It may be the single biggest lost opportunity in post-secondary education - letting students pass through the system without them developing the habit of mind for multi-directional reflective thinking beyond New Year's Day.

 

Sunny

Twas The Day Before Christmas

 

‘Twas the day before Christmas, and up at Grad Studies,

They were late bringing theses, some guys and their buddies.
The doc’ments they plopped on the counter with flair,
In hopes that our Stephanie soon would be there.

The staffers were nestled all snug in their cubes,

Hoping ‘gainst hope for the last of such boobs.

And Dieter with his window, and I who had none,
Were sipping sweet coffee and chewing on buns.

Then out at the desk there arose such a clatter,
I peeked from my door and to see what was the matter.
Away to reception I flew like a flash,

Tripped over my waste can, and fell with a crash.

The glare of the light on the fresh dissertations
Gave a glow of green-pink, like some half-cooked crustaceans.

Then what to my watering eyes did appear,
But a man with sore feet in some worn pilgrim’s gear.

‘Twere a moustached old fellow but, spouting jokes funny,

I knew in a moment it must be Dean Sunny.
Like a clutch of chihuahuas, his staffers they came,

And he whistled, and giggled, and called them by name!

“Now Marsha! now, ‘Lizbeth! now, Nicole and Wendy!

On, Judy! On, Heather! on Danielle the friendly!
To the front of the counter! to the end of the hall!

Put the cash away! Cash away! Cash away all!”

Students stood at the counter; they lean’d on the wall,

Congested the lobby, spilt into the hall,

They played with the stapler, they ate the free candy,

They stuffed in their pockets whatever was handy.

Our Deanna stood steadfast, dismayed at the view,

“You’ve all the wrong formats, your lines are askew!

There’s no list of figures, no proper summations.
I’m telling you people, you’re trying my patience!”

The students were frenzied the students turned blue,

“We don’t like Adobe, we’ve paper times two!
We don’t read our email, we don’t take advice,
And further, we notice you seem to have mice!”

As small cats that before the wild coyote fly,

Running straight for the nearest tree, mount to the sky,

So up to the counter all staffers they flew,

With piles of releases and copyrights too.

They spoke not a word, but went straight to their work,

Those wise program off’cers, those keen thesis clerks.

They calmed submission worries, they soothed thesis malaise;

They converted the postscripts to PDF/A’s.

Dean Sunny stood laughing, that jolly old elf,

And picked at some donuts left stale on the shelf.

“So, this elf and a reindeer go into a bar...”
“That’s enough!” I cried vainly, and left for my car.

In the nick they were finished, with wise and with nerdy,
The lobby was empty; the clock said 4:30.

The windows were dark; the snow had come howling;

The hallways stood empty, even cleaners weren’t prowling.

Sunny sprang to the door, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew, without need of dismissal.

But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he joined in the flight,

“Happy Christmas to all! Hey! Who turned out the light?”

 

Happy holidays to all from everyone at FGS!

—Mike

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

After a year of ups and downs in higher education in particular and in the global economy in general, Christmas time is here again. Time to relax and to recharge with family and friends. As my friend Sarah Ramer did, "I'm not planning on sending any Christmas cards this year... don't think it's just you... nobody is getting one. This is your Christmas card, in fact! Have a Merry Christmas! There, one more thing to check off of my 'to do' list."

Being on the wrong side of the 50's, here's my somewhat old-fashioned Christmas greeting for you. The Beatles were young then and so was I. The video originally is of course posted on YouTube.

 

I also wish all of you a Happy New Year with my all-time favorite new year's show from the distant past, "Dinner for One."

 

See you all in good spirits next year. Take care and enjoy the break.

 

Dieter

Tough Decisions Ahead

The British House of Commons yesterday approved a steep increase in undergraduate tuition at English Universities. The tuition fee cap in England is set to rise to £9,000 (or $14,000) well over twice the current levels starting in the fall of 2012, after a close vote accompanied by vast student protests. The increase will transform many English universities into the most expensive public institutions in the world. [The average tuition and fees at public four-year universities in the US for the last academic year, by comparison, was $7,020.] For England, the move marks a radical transformation for a system that did not even charge tuition until 1998. Despite a “soft cap” of £6,000 (or $9,450), most universities will have to charge an average tuition of close to £7,000 to maintain current revenue levels in the face of sweeping government cuts. For better coverage of the tuition increases in Britain, please read the most recent articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed.

"As cuts hit European higher education hard, students and professors take to the streets," The Chronicle of Higher Education also reported yesterday. As expected, the largest demonstrations have been in Britain, "but a similar sort of anger has also manifested itself in Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece, and Italy. The direct spark for student ire in each country has been unique, but the tinderbox of issues that has fed the flames of their anger is the same across much of Europe. With a few notable exceptions, European university systems are being squeezed by the twin pressures of expanded enrollments and budgetary constraints." Because of the latter, many European "universities are finding themselves on the front lines of national austerity measures, as deficit-slashing governments cut education spending."

Closer to home, ineffective and low-enrollment undergraduate and graduate programs at a considerable number of public US universities are in danger of being scaled back or eliminated as these institutions of higher learning seek to save money in the wake of the economic meltdown and the drying up of federal stimulus money (see recent blogs).

So far, Canadian universities in general and Dalhousie University in particular have been more or less sheltered from the worst consequences of the global turmoil in higher education. The question now is whether academe in Canada and especially in Nova Scotia is an oasis sheltered from worldwide financial realities. Likely not. It never was and it never will be, and the implications for Nova Scotia universities may be significant in the not-too-distant future (see the Nova Scotia budget 2010-2011 and the O'Neill report). For Dalhousie University, the pension deficit resulting from the global recession will pose a significant financial challenge. Even with solvency relief, the university has to start payments of approximately $8.4 million on the pension deficit beginning April 2011, and continue for nine years. The uncertainty as to the ultimate $ commitment from the Province of Nova Scotia to its universities in the new MOU, in light of the Province's buget deficit, does not add much to allow Dalhousie University to confront the challenges ahead with greater assurance at present.

How do we best prepare/plan for potentially tough times? Well, there are several options that could be considered alone or in combination to secure resources in a difficult financial climate at the Department, Faculty and University level. The following is my executive summary of 1010-Diagnostic, the October 2010 issue of Higher Ed Impact Monthly Diagnostic, published by Academic Impressions.

• Advance with a defined sense of purpose: Don't strive to be all things to all people, but rather focus resources on missions and programs that can be accomplished with distinction. Use an overarching mission as a guide to prioritization. Set strategic objectives that can be measured.
• Identify academic inefficiencies: Audit your curriculum for unnecessary duplications and under-performing areas. Help students graduate faster. Rely on data such as student learning outcomes and retention rates.
• Prioritize academic and administrative goals: In tough times, a significant source of financial resources will likely not come from tuition increases, provincial funding, or alumni support, but rather from the reallocation of existing resources. Most academic institutions, faculties and units these days are investing in academic and administrative programs that are not critical to their mission or their market position, and that in fact drain their financial resources and limit their ability to generate more resources. Thus, an important step toward strategically reallocating resources is to determine which academically sound courses/programs are most important to the unit's, faculty's and university's mission, market position, and financial health.
• Most importantly, when planning and prioritizing allocation of limited and hotly contested resources, manage the process in a way that generates trust by involving broad participation. Broad participation is critical to the success in building trust and maintaining transparency.

It is my understanding that most of the above is to be achieved by strategic planning. That said, allow me to close with an observation by Bob Dickeson, published in Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services (2nd ed; Jossey Bass, 2010) and to caution against such an approach.

"Strategic plans have become purely additive. ... These plans tend to assume several things: (1) the status quo as a given, with all current programs composing the baseline, (2) all programs, goals, and objectives are to be “maintained” or “enhanced,” but rarely diminished or eliminated, (3) if resources are mentioned at all, they are to be enhanced by hiking tuition, increasing enrollment, securing more appropriations or grants, or raising more money, or all of these, and (4) all planning goals are equal in weight and importance and thus lack priority. This is neither planning nor strategic."

In conclusion, academic life was a lot easier for me some time ago, when I indeed believed that academe was an oasis sheltered from financial realities. Today, I (as many of my colleagues, I assume) often feel like a "one-legged Tarzan" (thanks for the idiom and the link Mike), trying to find the best possible way through a jungle of past perceptions and new realities.

 

Dieter

 

Oil and Water / Management and Academics

It's been a long week, what with the return trip from China on university business.

It turns out that 18 hours encased in an aluminum capsule travelling across 12 time zones does not improve the cognition. China is a long way away - virtually on the other side of the globe. And their developing commitment to research and education seemed to be a natural topic for this blog.

And it was. Right up to the point where Dieter came into my office this afternoon with an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

For those of you not interested in wading through the original post and the 40+ comments accompanying the article, the basic argument is straightforward. Universities have to make difficult resource allocation decisions that can (and likely should) involve getting rid of some courses, possibly some programs, and possibly some faculty positions.

The article partly makes the point through a comparison of the fictitious but presumably credible teaching load of the Spanish program in contrast with the teaching load of the Serbian program. The development of the argument then drew an inference between Serbian as a choice and German. Needless to say this logic drew the ire of a number of academics who demonstrated their critical thinking competencies by launching a variety of ad hominem attacks on the author and the institution he represents.

I may regret the following thoughts, but...  Perhaps he should not have made the contrast with a living European language (i.e., German), the language of great philosophers, mathematicians, musicians, etc. Perhaps he should have compared it to the various university courses featuring Klingon. I assume there would have been less vigorous defence; perhaps not.

The point (that there are hard trade-offs to be made) seems clear and totally obvious to me, but then I spent most of my life outside of the academy. The notion of active management does not produce an automatic knee-jerk reaction of horror for me the way it seems to among some of my academic colleagues.They often mistake the noun phrase "expensive unnecessary redundant institutional bureaucracy" with the verb "manage".

Folks at this university once asked me to give a presentation to cancer researchers on management in the research setting. My first question to the assembled multitude - "how many people here signed up to be researchers?"  All of the hands go up.  My second question - "how many of you signed up to be managers?".  None of the hands go up. So great was the horrified look crossing a number of faces, it seemed as if the question had been "do you abuse small animals for amusement?"

My next step was to introduce a working definition of management, my own attempt at the trade off between completeness and succinctness. "Management is the art, craft, and science of acquiring, allocating, integrating, deploying, and sustaining constrained resources to get the best possible outcomes." The next 75 minutes we examined the particulars of the constituent phrases, beginning with "the best possible outcomes".  This phrase necessarily requires someone to have thought about strategic intent, about aims, goals and objective (to use Edward de Bono's construct), about what purposes the institution intends to serve, about what is important compared to what might be interesting.

At the end of 75 minutes comes the last question - "how many of you are managers?"  All of the hands go up.

So it is for every one of us in the academy. We are all managers. We each have an obligation to recognize the limitations of the resources which others will allocate to us, and to consider how to manage those resources as effectively as possible. Whatever the list of competing demands (from a wide variety  of competing stakeholders, including individual faculty members who will have personal intellectual interest to pursue), there will NEVER be enough resources to pursue them all effectively.  At some point if we want to do something new or if we want to do something better, or if we want to do  more of something, we may have to stop doing something else.

The notion we can continue to add to our opportunities and responsibilities incrementally without making hard choices is the thinking we expect from children. So let's make the choices intelligently and act like grown-ups. Getting the best value out of the resources that others give us is a moral obligation, however difficult it might be to measure "value". One other thing deserves careful note. We have an obligation to communicate the value of what we do in an ongoing way in order to get the resources we need to do our work.

And if anyone thinks they might benefit from the the 90 minute articulation of "management in the research setting", let me know. The presentation is ready to go.  In the meantime, wise people will remember that a man will stand on the top of a hill for a long time with his mouth open before a roast duck will fly in.  In the academy, we'd better work hard at demonstrating our value.

 

Sunny