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Whatever
Happened to
Department Heads?
The traditional organization for the university is an institution
divided into colleges comprised of departments. Universities
are headed by a President supported by an administrative staff
including a Provost for academic affairs. College operations
are the responsibility of Deans. Department Heads assume leadership
for individual educational programs within colleges. The entire
university is overseen by a board of trustees, regents or
governors.
Since
the early 1970s, there has been extensive expansion of academic
offices at the upper levels of the university through the
addition of Vice-presidents, Assistant Provosts, Associate
Deans School Directors and Associate Directors. At the same
time, the position of Department Head in the visual arts has
been disappearing.
Art
and design programs at most state universities now operate
under severe and unrealistic conditions for faculty members
resulting from current administrative practices and policies
for institutional and academic management. Administrative
actions of recent years have steadily eroded faculty commitment,
and there is no relief in sight. The impact of organization
and organizational definitions on faculty productivity generally
is ignored by administrators.
Perhaps
management goals have been given a higher priority than educational
goals. A shift in priorities has seeped down from the top
creating new administrative policies, practices and objectives
which are quite different from those in existence immediately
after World War 11. By and large, change has occurred because
of directives from Boards of Trustees, Governors or state
legislators. Change with time is to be expected, but it is
anticipated that it would be directed toward improving the
institutional mission of education more so than its operation.
Of
the many events since World War II that have shaped higher
education, two stand out as having most influenced the management
of educational institutions. These were student activism during
the 1960s and the sudden reduction of government educational
subsidies during 1970s. While there were additional social/economic
factors which affected educational management, these two were
at the root of most change.
The
period of student activism when administration lost control
of students accompanied by destruction of institutional property
clearly demonstrated that academic governance was unable to
control institutions under extreme circumstances. The response
of boards and legislators was to expand administrative offices,
increase administrative control, and to hire more professional
administrative personnel. Within a relatively short time,
administrators and staffs proliferated to a point where eventually
they outnumbered faculty, and institutional resources such
as budget and space have been diverted from academic use to
administrative expansion. Universities today are over-managed
with administrations being badly out of balance with the other
segments of the university, and this imbalance is detrimental
to faculty and student interests because the managerial values
of the majority tend to dominate academic values of the minority.
During
the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a sudden shift in the
national economic base from manufacturing into service and
technology. During the same years, the federal government
reduced title and other grant programs to a trickle of what
they had been previously. Reduced funding was an outgrowth
of the Viet Nam war and inflationary trends. During the 1970s,
educational costs skyrocketed with tuitions increasing dramatically
and enrollments went into decline. At first, educational institutions
believed the situation to be a temporary retrenchment, and
that when the economy recovered, federal funding would resume
at its previous levels. It did not.
American
industry was in dire need of research because of rapidly developing
technologies and a new world economy. American universities
were in great need of new sources for funding to fill the
vacuum created by the withdrawal of government support.
Business
Changes Education
University faculties held the potential for research and development
so desperately needed by industry. To meet competition for
research grants, universities cranked up the faculties through
reinstatement of the old Publish or Perish policies from the
1930s. Incredible pressures were put on new and senior faculty
members for research, publications or professional practice.
Retention, promotion and salary are often dependent on research
or obtaining project funding rather than teaching. The strength
of educational programs are frequently judged by how much
institutional funding they generate rather than by academic
standards. The pressures continue to this day as universities
have become increasingly dependent on research grants. Government
and industry are interlocked with universities in research
at many levels. While this does enrich the educational environment
for students and provide operating funds for the institution,
it need not be as oppressive for faculty as it is now.
Problems
connected to the combination of over-management, emphasis
on research and pressuring faculty were extended by an infusion
of MBA business values during the period of financial stress
in the 1970s. Efficiency, bottom line, cost effectiveness
and other such notions injected into both operational and
academic aspects of the university have distorted traditional
academic definitions. Education as a service with faculty
as employees and students as customers is perhaps the most
devastating. Applying business practices to organizational
responsibilities and redefining academic positions according
to managerial values have been debilitating for faculty members.
Over a longer period of time, some business practices and
values might prove detrimental to the institution itself.
An
additional factor is the presumption that everyone and anyone
can be a manager or a leader. This has resulted in considerable
ineptness at both administrative and academic positions, and
incompetence is neither recognized nor is it being promptly
dealt with as it should be. In some instances, what traditionally
have been leadership positions now have more emphasis placed
on managerial functions. There is no question but what many
traditional positions or roles have changed or been eliminated.
The one of most interest to me is that which formerly was
a Department Head.
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