But isn't it part of the idea of a professional (and especially academics perhaps) that such self-examination is instigated and maintained by oneself? That 'official' prompting and the endless reporting is unnecessary. Isn't it just a bit too much to add some more burden to faculty just so that administrators can feel more in control? Isn't the whole testing and reporting culture gotten just a little bit rediculous--again so that administrators can feel more in control? Isn't all this stuff driven by the 'business model' that students are widgets that are produced and the process should be subject to all the measurements and reporting required of any assembly-line--just so that administrators can feel more in control? Before all this testing and reporting, did universities produce such lousy students that the need for testing and reporting was so overwhelmingly obvious? Or is the simple truth that administrators, being administrators, thrive on forcing control structures where they are not required--just so that they can be (and can feel) more in control of others? Mainly for the enjoyment of exercising power over others? 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. --Mike
--- On Sun, 10/12/08, Louis Schmier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Louis Schmier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [tips] Random Thought: On Post-Tenure Review To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, October 12, 2008, 8:39 AM About fifteen years ago, the Georgia legislature decreed that every tenured professor had to go through a post-tenure review process and would go through such a process every five years henceforth. It was not greeted with hosannas by faculties in the University of Georgia System. "Bravos" and applause didn't echo through the halls of ivy for the second part of that decree which provided a probation period for those who didn't pass muster. This year is my fourth such review. I have to admit that at this stage of my career I initially found the process of putting together my resume, student evaluations, annual evaluations, and personal statement a bit of a pain. A lot of colleagues agreed with me. As someone in another department said in response to my smirking of having to endure this paperwork, "Heck, Louis, It's a laugh. You've been here 42 years. Just slap a few pages together and get it over with. It's no big deal. It doesn't mean anything." I have to admit that I thought likewise when I began the process. But, as I got into it, I stopped laughing. It became less and less tiresome and more and more meaningful. As I went over my resume, highlighting my activities during the past five years, as I stopped to look at recent "official" departmental student evaluations, as I gazed as the additional end-of-semester student evaluations I require, as I glanced at the one or two annual evaluations I had thrown in my desk drawer, as I put down on paper my personal professional statement, I found myself looking more and more at myself in a mirror; I was talking more and more to myself and caring less and less about anyone who might read it. In fact, I found myself reading and re-reading and re-reading ever slower and deeper what I had put together about who I am and what I have been doing. Maybe that is because coincidently I put it all together during the ten day period known as the Days of Awe, when we of the Jewish faith, are subject to the unyielding demand for reflection, admission, articulation, contrition, and self-improvement. Maybe walking the road when I touched the holiest part of myself in synagogue took me to a place to touch the sacredness of my inner academic self. Then again, maybe it wasn't such a coincidence after all. I won't ask. Anyway, though I welcomed the paperwork needed to go through this process as much as I welcomed the appearance of a bothersome gnat or smiled at an attacking South Georgia mosquito, I think I was prepared by and drawn in by the period beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with the solemn Yom Kippur. Slowly I acknowledged how this process of post-tenure review has been perverted as a perceived tool for spying on the faculty. Too many of us academics feel, though few will say it, that it is an assault on our professionalism, a questioning of our integrity, and a distrust of our authenticity. Those feelings are not wholly unwarranted since the original motive of a disparaging Georgia legislature and submissive Board of Regents was based on the myth that we professors went into stasis, stopped dead in our tenured tracks, didn't care how little we did, that moss began immediately gathering on our stone and grass started growing instantly under our feet, once we got tenured. The post-tenure review process was the first shot of answerability and accountability across the academic bow. But, it was fired in the most cynical, intimidating, judgmental, insulting, and threatening terms. It was initially greeted with anger, pessimism, disdain, and a heap of defensive chips on a lot of faculty shoulders. It is, admittedly, an academic distortion based on a "we versus them" chasm of distrust. It is a negative perception that pessimistic legislators, suspicious regents officials, vengeful colleagues, and angry administrators are out to get us, just waiting around the review corner filled with a rage and a sense of "getting even with us." That is not totally hyperbole, but the process has never really has been publically--and believably--pronounced as something other than the sharpening of fearful Sword of Damocles for someone else to arbitrarily and threateningly wield against the faculty. And yet, wasn't it Socrates who talked about the unexamined life is not worth living? He roamed the public places of Athens asking relentless questions of people that challenged assumptions and beliefs. He wasn’t trying to make people feel bad; he was encouraging them to be better. It is the same with the Jewish Days of Awe; it should be the same with the post-tenure review process. We professors shouldn't tremble thinking that wrath and punishment are imminent, that we are judged guilty before a verdict of innocence is handed down, that we have to defend and make the case whether we are to be, to put it in Yom Kippur terms, inscribed in the academic Book of Life or the academic Book of Death for the coming years. To the contrary, we can find in the process, if we wish to look forward rather than backward, an uplifting sense of optimism about our capacity to be better in the coming five years than we were during the last five. This review process, like each annual review, can help us become soul-searchers, struggling to see what goes on inside so we understand what we see on the outside, to take an unflinching look at past conduct, and admitting to thoughts and feelings and actions we would rather not talk about. It is a reflective starting point for deep recognition, awareness, acknowledgement, and action. It's a place that offers space to feel deeply, to think clearly and boldly, and to decide how mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to change. During these Days of Awe, we of the Jewish faith are expected to pause from our daily lives, peer into our hearts and minds, evaluate our conduct during the past year, see that we can reach our deepest goals and achieve our more sincere dreams, and examine the state of our souls so we can hold ourselves accountable for any gaps between the standards we profess and the actions we perform. It should be no different with this post-tenure review, for, be it in a religious or academic context, when we examine our conduct and character, hold ourselves accountable for any gaps between the standards we profess and the actions we perform, acknowledge our faults, and seek to improve and make amends, we reach for our deepest dreams and goals. This is the time of honest, vulnerable, and conscious listening to ourselves. If we can overcome our own egos and let go of self-serving justifications, drop our defensive rationalizations, shed our jaded suspicions, we most certainly can engaged in an academic, intellectual, and spiritual quest for a worthiness that enriches beyond measure our lives and the lives of those around us. Make it a good day. --Louis-- Louis Schmier http://therandomthoughts.edublogs.org/ Department of History http://www.newforums.com/Auth_L_Schmier.asp Valdosta State University www. halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\ ( --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
