Since last spring, RNU has been undergoing prioritization. How you define that seems to vary by individual, and what we all expected varied as well. Tuesday the first set of reports came out.
First, several of us have decided we're in the wrong profession - we need to be educational consultants. The money spent on this study - just to the consultant - was absurd, given the process and outcomes. Seems Mr Consultant offered a few talks (all on one day, so a one day lecture schedule), some written material that outlined the process (taken from a book, so not customized in any way), and... not much else. Hey, I can take the book, these reports, and repackage them, sell 'em on and cash in!?!
Second, the reports - there are two of them - are very different. The academic programs one is a long list in five sections (quintiles). In that report, the 228 programs on campus are 'ranked' into quintiles. There are no hints or anything as to what the committee/task force suggests, and the recommendations are so vague as to be worthless. The lists are simply Q-5, with no explanation as to what those quintiles mean or imply. Certainly, the recommendations and conclusions are not worth the hours of labor that the TF put into the project. The staff/support report is, by contrast, amazing. It goes through every since 'function' and articulates what needs to happen for that function. Suggests massive reorganization and centralization (it's astonishing how silo-ized our campus is - probably 5 different groups doing the same job), elimination of much of the administrative bloat (yay!), stripping lots of positions and freebies out of the president's office (we had no idea they were doing all of that non-university-related stuff).
Third, our department came out much better than any of us had any right to expect. We made it into Q4, apparently meaning we need to "transform/re-invent" ourselves. Q5 programs, if one cobbles the two reports together and does a bit of Ouija boarding, should be eliminated, cut or deactivated. What I saw of our dept reports, we should have been at the bottom of the Q5 list - cut immediately. Instead, we got Q4. Okay. Dean explained that to me yesterday - every college/university in the region has one of us. (Sorry, but I cannot identify the department itself due to that damned gag order... even referencing the gag order violates the instructions to shut the hell up). Let's call it... Arts & Sciences Basic (hereafter ASB). So everybody who claims to be a college/university has a ASB department/program. So we couldn't be in Q5, no matter how bad we are. And let me assure you, give what the TF had to judge us on, we are really bad.
Where do we - they - go from here? Who knows. The deans have the opportunity to rebut, and then the whole shebang goes off to the president's prioritization group, who will decided what, if any, actions are to be taken.
As far as ASB goes, the people who are left standing are the dinosaurs. Completely out of touch with the field/discipline, in their 70s, they are privileged white men, secure in their privilege and tenure. The one who will be the most active in this process has not done any work in the field - research, writing or even keeping up with the scholarly literature of his own field - for (by his own account) 4 decades. He doesn't know how to turn on a computer, much less do a google search. Online resources and/or research is as remote and important to him as Serengeti insect life. He's going to be the one that frames and re-invents the ASB department. He's a lousy teacher too. He got a teaching award from Sears (!) in 1991, and regards that as proof that he's an outstanding teacher. Eep.
It's both liberating and depressing to know that I'm walking out the door and leaving the students to this mess. It's hard to disengage, after 16 years of caring deeply, trying to make a difference.
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