Governance at Suffolk University

OpEd in MetroWest Daily News

Suffolk University

SAT errors

March 9th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

It is good thing that the College Board is issuing revised scores to the students and colleges affected by their errors (Colleges scramble amid SAT glitch, Globe, March 8th, page A1). The intent is that College Admissions Officers will be able to re-evaluate the affected students and give them a better chance of admission.

There is one small psychological problem that makes an unbiased re-evaluation difficult. We all use the "anchoring heuristic." The first piece of information sets a baseline with which additional information is compared. The evidence is that when new information comes in such as new and better SAT scores, we make an insufficient adjustment; the old score drags down our new evaluation, so that in the students' cases, they will still be slightly downgraded even though the admissions officer is working with the new score.

There is a solution. Have a different admissions officer review the file, together with other new files, and make sure that only the new SAT score is included in the file.

University Presidency

March 6th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the Boston Globe

John Silber and Robert Putnam provide disparate views on the ideal university president (Ideas, March 5th, 2006).

Silber views the ideal as a corporate CEO operating with the faculty in a command and control mode and, as long as he/she has the support of the Board of Trustees, riding rough-shod over the views of the faculty to impose a vision on the university.

On the other hand, Putnam views the President as a persuader; as someone who, in the common phrase,  is a "herder of cats" -- not an impossible task but a difficult one.  He views the president as one who establishes the vision through gaining the input of the faculty and then works with the faculty to implement that vision. Silber will have none of that. He claims that the average professors  "maybe well-informed in their specializations but they have little knowledge and experience -- and no responsibility-- with regards to the needs and goals of the university as a whole." But the President too, though having the responsibility, is a captive of her/his own discipline and background and training. The President too is ill equipped to understand the needs of the whole University with its disparate and conflicting parts. The President has to learn from the faculty, the President has to negotiate with the faculty, and the president has to earn the support of the faculty.

The University is not a like a business corporation, however much John Silber wishes that it were. It is, in Henry Mintzberg's words, a professional organization. In such organizations, the goals and vision have to be hammered out by the professionals. In the University, the role of department chairs, Deans, Provosts and Presidents is to facilitate the work of the teachers and researchers who make up the core of the university. They are NOT there to direct that work.

John Silber did much good for Boston University, but he also did some harm -- look at the debacle of finding his successor. Robert Putnam is correct: in the University, excellence cannot be coerced.

University Governance

March 4th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

Dear Editor:
Once again John Tierney (in his March 4th Column NYT, page A25) has it completely wrong. Despite his assertions, the Faculty is the University.
The University, like a law firm, an accounting firm, a high tech start-up, and a medical practice, is a professional organization. It is not like a business corporation with a command and control hierarchy. The goals, mission and direction of a professional organization are set by the professional members of the organization. The President is one among many.
The non-professionals and the administrative professionals (President, Provosts, Deans, and Department Chairs) are there to facilitate the productivity of the faculty in teaching and research (at least in this column, unlike that of February 25th., Tierney acknowledges the existence, though not the importance, of research). They are not there to compel the adherence to a new vision, however attractive that new vision may be.
If the vision is compelling, Presidents can persuade their colleagues to adopt it; but it is a question of persuasion rather than a question of the giving of orders.
Despite Tierney's assertions, tenured faculty can be removed for cause. None of us want to be surrounded by colleagues who are not pulling their weight in terms of teaching and research.

Two Roles of the University

February 25th. 2006
Sent to but not published in the New York Times

John Tierney (Op-Ed, The Faculty Club,February 25th, 2006, page A29), despite his family connections with academia, falls into the trap of equating the mission of the University with teaching. In reality, the University has two missions: the transmission of knowledge and the creation of knowledge.
In a pluralistic system, different universities put different emphases on the teaching and research roles. That is as it should be. Potential students can then make informed decisions about whether they want a truly memorable undergraduate experience or whether they want to attend a research powerhouse where they may get useful research experience in some of their upper level courses.
And, yes I did teach undergraduate survey courses at Toronto.