REPORT TO THE FACULTY, PART ONE

December 17, 2002

Noel Byrne, Chair of the Faculty

As is known to all, we are confronted by the prospect of major budgetary crises that promise to prevail through the 2003-2004 fiscal year.  It is clear that, to successfully weather this difficult period, the faculty and the administration must work together. 1 In this report, I wish to address institutional traditions and practices that can offer hope for success in this regard.  I wish also to communicate concerns about threats to the spirit of these traditions and practices.

SONOMA STATE’S CONSULTATIVE/COLLABORATIVE TRADITION

From the time of Sonoma State’s origins (from the San Francisco State Off-Campus Center) in 1961, a culture of consultation and collaboration 2 within the faculty and between the administration and the faculty was among this institution’s foremost attributes.  Among the expressions of this culture has been the tradition of faculty governance since 1961, exemplified institutionally by the academic senate 3 and by such processes as the faculty election of academic department chairs. 

Notable expressions of the culture of consultation between faculty and administration and of shared governance have included the participation by our university president, the provost, and the CFO/vice president of administration and finance on the Academic Senate;  in addition, all three administrators participate actively on the Academic Senate’s Executive Committee.  Conversely, the shared governance tradition of administrative/faculty consultation has included the participation of elected faculty leaders on such important university administrative committees 4 as the President’s Budget Advisory Committee, the Vice President’s Budget Advisory Committee, the Campus Reengineering Committee, and the Campus Planning Committee.  Further, from the beginning of this institution, the chairs of search committees for school deans and the academic affairs provost have been elected by the search committee members. 5

All of these elements of a long-established culture of administrative consultation, shared governance and faculty self-governance offer the promise of a cohesive campus community and effective institutional functioning.  However, threats to this culture demand attention.

CONSULTATIVE LACUNAE AND PARADIGMATIC DISJOINTS: SOURCES OF CONCERN

During my service in faculty governance over the course of the last three semesters, several events have increased my concern about the view of consultation and of shared governance held by the highest level of administration at this institution.  Four of these deserve specification.

A Troubling Report

Early in my service as Chair-elect and during a meeting with an administrator near the pinnacle of the administrative hierarchy of this university, I discussed my hope for improved relations between the faculty and the university president, since these have been troubled for some years now.  I noted my belief that a very large part of the difficulties in those relations would be ameliorated if the president were to adopt a more consultative approach with the faculty in the making of decisions that have the largest impact on this institution. 6   This highly placed administrator expressed his agreement with my points, and said that he would discuss this with the president.

At our next meeting, the administrator announced that he had spoken to the president about this, who had responded, “Impossible!”

A Disturbing Revelation

Some time later (October 30, 2001) as this university faced significantly dire budgetary difficulties, 7 the Vice President’s Budgetary Advisory Committee (VPBAC) considered a proposal to allocate $100,000 to the search for a new Vice President of Development. 8   All five of the elected faculty representatives to this committee, as well as the student representative (President of Associated Students, Remy Heng) unanimously spoke against such a large expenditure for this search at this time of budgetary emergency.

Provost Bernie Goldstein informed the committee that he would report the VPBAC deliberations to President Arminana, who would make the final decision.  Subsequently, President Arminana chose to fully expend the proposed allocation of $100,000 toward this search.

I was substantially surprised that the views held by the faculty and student representatives to the VPBAC received so little consideration by the president.  In a subsequent e-mail communication to me, President Arminana clarified this by revealing his view of such representatives.  He wrote that he did not take account of the views held by faculty representatives on the VPBAC according to their “employment category”. 

In other words, in the president’s view, elected faculty representatives are only individuals representing the views and interests of themselves as individuals.

Unsettling Enlightenment

Further clarification of the president’s view of representative processes was provided during a later discussion within the Executive Committee.  In this, members expressed concern that he did not appear to display much regard for the positions taken by elected faculty representatives.  The president responded that putatively representative processes were actually the expression of contending parties, each of which was guided only by the narrow concerns of small subsets of interest groups.  In effect, he argued that the representation of general constituencies is only an illusion and therefore undeserving of significant recognition or attention in the making of important decisions.

Distress at the Executive Committee

At the most recent (12/12/02) meeting of the Executive Committee, Robert McNamara 9 expressed surprised distress at the president’s observation that he would reject without further consideration a resolution being brought before the next meeting (12/19/02) of the Academic Senate. 10   Referring to the implied view of shared  governance at Sonoma State University held by the president (in light of the president’s expressed disdain for the possibility that the Academic Senate might support the resolution), Robert McNamara asked with some emotion, “Why then do we give up our Thursday afternoons” in serving on the Academic Senate?? 

The president’s reply was succinct, expressive, and dismissive:  “That’s a good question,” he responded.

IN CONCLUSION: SHORT TERM TRAUMAS, LONG TERM PROSPECTS

I bring this report to the faculty not in the spirit of resigned concern, but as a matter of important illumination.  Faculty representatives will work with the administration to protect and preserve the university’s ability to achieve its educational mission, and to cope with the very difficult budgetary contingencies that we face.  At the same time, I urge that we continue to sustain and promote the traditions of collaboration, consultation, representative processes, and shared governance that are central to the culture of this institution.  I also urge that we not ratify efforts to deny, reject or dismantle these. 

The difficulties that we face will be of limited duration, fated to endure only as memories of a darker time.  Established cultures, such as that of this university, resist both manifest efforts to undo them and implicit efforts to deny them.  However, it is regretful that the full range of benefits provided by a culture of consultation, collaboration, participative decision making and shared governance are not fully realized in light of such efforts.

1. In this discussion, I intend the term, “successfully weather”, to refer to outcomes that effectively preserve and protect the central instructional mission of this university, as well as the university’s vital functions.  Instructional faculty achieves the former; aside from instruction, line staff typically executes the latter.

2. Extensive research on decision making reveals a number of benefits of consultation, collaboration and democratic decision making in organizations (in contrast to individual decision making and problem solving).  These include:  1)  Higher quality solutions to important problems;  of course, this can be regarded as a “bottom line” issue;  2)  Improved morale among organizational members;  3)  Acceptance of difficult decisions even by those for whom the outcomes are not to their advantage.  This latter feature is especially relevant to the issue of “hard choices in difficult times”.

3. Of course, associated elements of faculty governance include a number of standing committees and related subcommittees.

4. Also of course, while the Academic Senate and the Executive Committee are structural elements of faculty governance, the administrative committees noted here are structural elements of university administration.  The inclusion of both administrative leaders and faculty leaders as participants in both sets of structural elements provides systematized and routinized channels of consultation between administration and faculty and is an expression of shared governance.

5. The significance of this established practice at Sonoma State was acknowledged, communicated and affirmed by then-dean Robert Karlsrud during the provost search process that selected Don Farish (Bernie Goldstein’s predecessor) as Provost of Academic Affairs.  That is, at one of the first meetings of the search committee the election of the committee’s chair was marked by some hesitation by members new to process.  (The student member of this committee volunteered to serve as chair --- a strikingly notable proposal, but one that failed to prompt an affirmative response.)  The search committee included among its members an administrator new to this campus and unaware of relative established practice and tradition at this institution.  Expressing admirable initiative, this administrator announced a readiness to rise to the occasion and serve as chair of the search committee. Dean Karlsrud (also a member of the search committee) responded to this suggestion with an air of urgent surprise tempered by considered diplomacy.  That is, he informed all members that established practice at Sonoma State was that committee members of such search committees elected their chairs;  further, he noted that a faculty member was typically elected to be chair of the given search committee.  This provost search committee then elected its chair (a faculty member) in accordance with Dean Karlsrud’s reminder.

6. As an example, I cited the decision to establish the technology high school on campus.  Faculty were brought into the process only in relation to the implementation of a directive.  The establishment of the Green Music Center by directive serves as a more recent example.

7. These difficulties included the Governor’s mid-year budget reduction of the fiscal year 01-02 budget, amounting to a loss for SSU of $737,820.  They also included the added burden of $6,100,000 in increased costs for the renovation of Salazar Hall.

8. Of this $100,000, $60,000 was devoted to the services of a “headhunter” firm, with the balance of $40,000 to be expended for meals, travel, lodging, and other search expenses.  Providing a point of comparison:  the typical budget for a nation-wide search for a new tenure-track faculty member is $3400, again for meals, travel, lodging and other search expenses.

9. Member of the Executive Committee and elected faculty representative on the Academic Senate.

10. This is a resolution addressing the president’s abandonment of an established practice at Sonoma State whereby committee members in searches for academic deans and provosts of Academic Affairs have typically elected the respective chairs of their committees.

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