zorakzoran (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} zorakzoran) wrote,@ 2007-03-11 19:47:00 |
|
Why Iraq holds nothing on Academia
This is an angry and bitter post rather than a darkly humorous one. Now, 'ere I go farther, don't get me wrong. Civil wars are grim, and the threat of death or dismemberment for both US forces in Iraqi, civilians, and enemy combatants is a pretty stark thing. But you know, I *still* feel more optimism for events there than I do for my academic job.
I come to this realization after watching the news media natter on and on about Iraq -- particularly the penchant for stressing the complexity and negativities of events there.
Now, stipulated things in Iraq are a horror, but frankly when it comes to secterian disagreement, short-sightedness, pig-headed mistakes and outright stupidity, my university can trump it.
Much like the American adventure in Iraq, I teach at a university that was established abroad to "revolutionize" education around an American model. As a bastion of American values, it would lead the local country (and then surround areas) to reform and better themselves.
Now, if this sounds arrogant, it is. But truth be told, local education at the university level could use some improvement, and I figured it was a project worth standing behind and commiting myself to. Although I was far from happy about the venal attitude of many of the Americans involved, and reserved about the project's isolation from the local area, there was good to be done.
Several years in to my tour of academia, however, I've finally realized: I'm not sure it's going to make it. So what's my rundown on the dilemma? Unfortunately, it's that American ademica has some problems -- and running a university with second- (or even third-) strings on a limited budget isn't going to work. Here's some of the key problems:
* PROBLEMS IN PLANNING.
With a very small competant "leadership" cadre, there's simply never enough time to get anything done. Necessary reforms take forever to undertake, and are constantly late or met only half-way. Even worse, there's a lack of interest and will to enforce reform -- or to punish those who actively undermine or resist them. Anyone trying to play by the rules quickly discovers that it's much easier (and more profitable) to simply cadge, dodge or avoid the rules as much as possible. Even worse, it's often more effective, which leads to many turning to "stop-gap" measures to affect _some_ possible good even to the detriment of the system. This said, few in the university community are willing to accept the (limited) delegation of power that these figures might be willing to make in some cases.
* TURNOVER.
Generally, expatriate staff tend to last only 2 or 3 years. While there's a long-term cadre, it's been burnt out over time. This deepens problems in planning, since every year anywhere from a quarter to a third of the expatriate staff turns over -- and the new people have to be brought up to speed, and their own contributions and ideas have to be assimilated. In a given academic year, September and October are essentially lost to this. So even more time and effort are spent "rebuilding" and training new faculty every year, in a seeingly never-ending cycle. There's not only not enough faculty, but not enough faculty "on the ground" to affect the kinds of changes needed.
* SECTARIAN DIVISIONS.
The university is deeply riven by long-term divisions between faculty (as well as staff and adminsitration). Some of these are normal in an American academic setting -- humanities and business faculty often clash, or the faculty and the administration. Other elements are unique and discouraging. An increasing number of faculty are expatriates, hired because they're willing to commit to stay longer and because the university can pay at local market rates (about a third of an expat's going salary). Unfortunately, this often results (or leads) to a local faculty cadre with absolutely no training in liberal arts, with no real interest in the core functions of the university, and/or deep dissatisfaciton with the disparity in pay. To give you an idea of the problem with this, about 50 percent of those teaching the basic "liberal arts" core program did not attend a liberal arts program; most of them have not taught in a liberal arts program previously. You can imagine what kind of core program is the result.
Ergo, as the university "localizes" its faculty to save on resources, problems emerge. Naturally, the end result is that expats turn on the locals, or divide into factions. Worse, many senior faculty are among the most egregious offenders -- not in terms of empire-building (which would be natural in the US) but in terms of not participating actively in university life outside of their empires. This means that functions such as faculty governance and committee leadership fall to junior faculty -- which are not always the most adept to run these positions, which
* TRIUMPH OF THE LACK OF WILL.
Few people care, and often they care about their own slice of the empire. This becomes most readily apparent in faculty committees, which are wildly inefficient and rarely achieve any concrete results. It also becomes a problem when it comes to problem solving. At least one in five of the major programs are in need of dire reform, but neither they nor the university's leaders are intrested in addressing the problem -- it's cheaper and easier every year to ignore them. Yet, of course, the end result is to fritter away money and resources that could be better spent elsewhere, or used where they are far more effectively. Inefficient or uneffective faculty are kept on since the evaluation process is ludicrous.
* LOSING HEARTS AND MINDS
In theory, the ace in the hole should be the student body. The problem is, in the US as where I teach, that the mentality has changed. Instead of members of an academic community, students are now consumers in an "educational experience." As such, they have little motivation to join in. Those that do usually fight to either preserve their own preferences (favorite faculty, etc.) or focus on costs to the exclusion of anything else. The better students, with a real interest in academia, tend to burn out early and "turtle up," refusing to commit to academic reform unless it's a personal favor to a faculty member. The result, frequently, is attempts by individual faculty to address a specific issue -- whether we speak of sexual harassment of students, quality of education, unfair marks, etc. -- result in a faculty member running ahead of their student support, being cut off in the resulting internal disputes, and failing spectacularly. As a result, faculty quickly learn to keep their own heads down.
* MORALE, THE HIDDEN KILLER.
All of these problems encouraged the key problem of morale. Doing your job effectively means fighting the system -- or growing to loathe it. The salary inequities poison local faculty attitudes; this, in turn, poisons many expats against them. Bad, even outright malicious faculty are kept on. The student body learned early on not to take sides in the issue, and any attempt to fix problems by well-meaning faculty results in few gains -- so the latter become bitter in turn. While often kept on because they remain good in the classroom, the end result is to diminish the pool of those seeking to maintain a high-quality university. Even worse, the word quickly goes out that anyone with a hint of ambition should avoid the university at all costs. This is unfair, since it has many good qualities for a pre-tenure professor, but it's hard to avoid the bias of bitterness.
* RESOURCE SCARCITY.
In theory, with enough money, all of this could be overcome. The problem is, the original founding of this educational adventure was badly handled. Even leaving aside questions about the situation of the project and the way it was structured, millions were wasted on luxuries for the upper administration or tossed away with little thought ot long-term viability. Now comes belt-tightening -- so faculty salaries have gone from wildly generous to less-than-US-market, classes become too large, and emerging faults and problems receive band-aids instead of effective repair. By now, repairing osme of the problems would essentially involve massive restructing -- something anathema to the distant Board of Trustees, which has proven both unwilling to contribute to solving the problems constructively but also unwilling to allow the university's own "local" authorities to do so either.
What's funny to me, looking back, is how much this seems to parallel Iraq -- another adventure in American arrogance. Alas. For both my university and the US mission in Iraq's flaws, there was some potential good that could have been realized. In both cases, the ultimate question emerges as to what's the exit strategy that causes the least damage?
What's even more amusing to me is, now, hearing my fellow academics natter on about how "the government" is evil, callous and cruel and caused the ongoing problems in Iraq -- and yet regard themselves as an intellectual elite of pure and shining heart and vision. Yet if this group (if perhaps a less than flattering selection from it) can so befoul and weaken a small liberal arts college, the fate of the world should be entrusted to them? Kissinger was right. Take a dozen random names from the phone book before you take a dozen academics to run something.
This is an angry and bitter post rather than a darkly humorous one. Now, 'ere I go farther, don't get me wrong. Civil wars are grim, and the threat of death or dismemberment for both US forces in Iraqi, civilians, and enemy combatants is a pretty stark thing. But you know, I *still* feel more optimism for events there than I do for my academic job.
I come to this realization after watching the news media natter on and on about Iraq -- particularly the penchant for stressing the complexity and negativities of events there.
Now, stipulated things in Iraq are a horror, but frankly when it comes to secterian disagreement, short-sightedness, pig-headed mistakes and outright stupidity, my university can trump it.
Much like the American adventure in Iraq, I teach at a university that was established abroad to "revolutionize" education around an American model. As a bastion of American values, it would lead the local country (and then surround areas) to reform and better themselves.
Now, if this sounds arrogant, it is. But truth be told, local education at the university level could use some improvement, and I figured it was a project worth standing behind and commiting myself to. Although I was far from happy about the venal attitude of many of the Americans involved, and reserved about the project's isolation from the local area, there was good to be done.
Several years in to my tour of academia, however, I've finally realized: I'm not sure it's going to make it. So what's my rundown on the dilemma? Unfortunately, it's that American ademica has some problems -- and running a university with second- (or even third-) strings on a limited budget isn't going to work. Here's some of the key problems:
* PROBLEMS IN PLANNING.
With a very small competant "leadership" cadre, there's simply never enough time to get anything done. Necessary reforms take forever to undertake, and are constantly late or met only half-way. Even worse, there's a lack of interest and will to enforce reform -- or to punish those who actively undermine or resist them. Anyone trying to play by the rules quickly discovers that it's much easier (and more profitable) to simply cadge, dodge or avoid the rules as much as possible. Even worse, it's often more effective, which leads to many turning to "stop-gap" measures to affect _some_ possible good even to the detriment of the system. This said, few in the university community are willing to accept the (limited) delegation of power that these figures might be willing to make in some cases.
* TURNOVER.
Generally, expatriate staff tend to last only 2 or 3 years. While there's a long-term cadre, it's been burnt out over time. This deepens problems in planning, since every year anywhere from a quarter to a third of the expatriate staff turns over -- and the new people have to be brought up to speed, and their own contributions and ideas have to be assimilated. In a given academic year, September and October are essentially lost to this. So even more time and effort are spent "rebuilding" and training new faculty every year, in a seeingly never-ending cycle. There's not only not enough faculty, but not enough faculty "on the ground" to affect the kinds of changes needed.
* SECTARIAN DIVISIONS.
The university is deeply riven by long-term divisions between faculty (as well as staff and adminsitration). Some of these are normal in an American academic setting -- humanities and business faculty often clash, or the faculty and the administration. Other elements are unique and discouraging. An increasing number of faculty are expatriates, hired because they're willing to commit to stay longer and because the university can pay at local market rates (about a third of an expat's going salary). Unfortunately, this often results (or leads) to a local faculty cadre with absolutely no training in liberal arts, with no real interest in the core functions of the university, and/or deep dissatisfaciton with the disparity in pay. To give you an idea of the problem with this, about 50 percent of those teaching the basic "liberal arts" core program did not attend a liberal arts program; most of them have not taught in a liberal arts program previously. You can imagine what kind of core program is the result.
Ergo, as the university "localizes" its faculty to save on resources, problems emerge. Naturally, the end result is that expats turn on the locals, or divide into factions. Worse, many senior faculty are among the most egregious offenders -- not in terms of empire-building (which would be natural in the US) but in terms of not participating actively in university life outside of their empires. This means that functions such as faculty governance and committee leadership fall to junior faculty -- which are not always the most adept to run these positions, which
* TRIUMPH OF THE LACK OF WILL.
Few people care, and often they care about their own slice of the empire. This becomes most readily apparent in faculty committees, which are wildly inefficient and rarely achieve any concrete results. It also becomes a problem when it comes to problem solving. At least one in five of the major programs are in need of dire reform, but neither they nor the university's leaders are intrested in addressing the problem -- it's cheaper and easier every year to ignore them. Yet, of course, the end result is to fritter away money and resources that could be better spent elsewhere, or used where they are far more effectively. Inefficient or uneffective faculty are kept on since the evaluation process is ludicrous.
* LOSING HEARTS AND MINDS
In theory, the ace in the hole should be the student body. The problem is, in the US as where I teach, that the mentality has changed. Instead of members of an academic community, students are now consumers in an "educational experience." As such, they have little motivation to join in. Those that do usually fight to either preserve their own preferences (favorite faculty, etc.) or focus on costs to the exclusion of anything else. The better students, with a real interest in academia, tend to burn out early and "turtle up," refusing to commit to academic reform unless it's a personal favor to a faculty member. The result, frequently, is attempts by individual faculty to address a specific issue -- whether we speak of sexual harassment of students, quality of education, unfair marks, etc. -- result in a faculty member running ahead of their student support, being cut off in the resulting internal disputes, and failing spectacularly. As a result, faculty quickly learn to keep their own heads down.
* MORALE, THE HIDDEN KILLER.
All of these problems encouraged the key problem of morale. Doing your job effectively means fighting the system -- or growing to loathe it. The salary inequities poison local faculty attitudes; this, in turn, poisons many expats against them. Bad, even outright malicious faculty are kept on. The student body learned early on not to take sides in the issue, and any attempt to fix problems by well-meaning faculty results in few gains -- so the latter become bitter in turn. While often kept on because they remain good in the classroom, the end result is to diminish the pool of those seeking to maintain a high-quality university. Even worse, the word quickly goes out that anyone with a hint of ambition should avoid the university at all costs. This is unfair, since it has many good qualities for a pre-tenure professor, but it's hard to avoid the bias of bitterness.
* RESOURCE SCARCITY.
In theory, with enough money, all of this could be overcome. The problem is, the original founding of this educational adventure was badly handled. Even leaving aside questions about the situation of the project and the way it was structured, millions were wasted on luxuries for the upper administration or tossed away with little thought ot long-term viability. Now comes belt-tightening -- so faculty salaries have gone from wildly generous to less-than-US-market, classes become too large, and emerging faults and problems receive band-aids instead of effective repair. By now, repairing osme of the problems would essentially involve massive restructing -- something anathema to the distant Board of Trustees, which has proven both unwilling to contribute to solving the problems constructively but also unwilling to allow the university's own "local" authorities to do so either.
What's funny to me, looking back, is how much this seems to parallel Iraq -- another adventure in American arrogance. Alas. For both my university and the US mission in Iraq's flaws, there was some potential good that could have been realized. In both cases, the ultimate question emerges as to what's the exit strategy that causes the least damage?
What's even more amusing to me is, now, hearing my fellow academics natter on about how "the government" is evil, callous and cruel and caused the ongoing problems in Iraq -- and yet regard themselves as an intellectual elite of pure and shining heart and vision. Yet if this group (if perhaps a less than flattering selection from it) can so befoul and weaken a small liberal arts college, the fate of the world should be entrusted to them? Kissinger was right. Take a dozen random names from the phone book before you take a dozen academics to run something.
