Ignoring my previous decision not to respond to posts by Dr. Hake...
This issue seems to tie into something I've noticed more and more
around campus here at Texas State. For many years (and perhaps as far
back as the history of the university), there has been an approach of
faculty governance. An approach whereby faculty are responsible for
establishing the policies and procedures that guide the university.
In essence, it has been a bottom-up approach to management of the
university. Department chairs have been viewed as faculty members
first and administrators second. As our University has grown in size
though, there is a subtle shift away from this approach and more to a
top-down approach to management of the university. This migration has
been in part out of necessity. As the size of the campus has grown,
faculty in individual departments are less and less aware of
university wide issues and the challenges faced by other
departments/colleges on campus. In some sense, it appears that
faculty are loosing sight of the larger picture and finding
themselves at odds with the administration on the day to day
operation of the university. As the size of departments has
increased, chairs are finding themselves needing to be administrators
first and faculty second. And the administration is in turn finding
it harder to implement needed changes across the university.
One area in which this has become an issue for Texas State is a
recent push for university wide assessment of learning outcomes. This
push has raised the question of what we are teaching the students.
Many faculty resent the implication that they must now find ways of
proving they are teaching students. There is a sense that faculty are
no longer being trusted with assessment of the learning in their own
classrooms and that an outside process has to be put in place to make
sure they are doing their job.
I'm curious if others have noticed a shift on their campuses away
from the bottom-up approach of faculty governance to more of a
top-down approach of management of the university by the administration.
- Marc
=============================================
G. Marc Turner, PhD, MEd, Network+, MCP
Lecturer & Technology Coordinator
Department of Psychology
Texas State University-San Marcos
San Marcos, TX 78666
phone: (512)245-2526
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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