A crisis of confidence, Vol. 3

When I arrived at this institution, times were flush and everyone was living (comparatively) high, thanks to all kinds of money in the state coffers.  Perks were doled out relatively liberally.  And of course, everyone acted as if the good times would last forever.  And then the state budget collapsed.

Tough times make for tough choices, and the state contributions to this institution have shrunk from year to year.  This has caused some of my colleagues to act angrily--especially after the 2010 election put the GOP in charge of the state legislature for the first time in roughly forever.  Seeing a plot to systemically gut higher ed, they have tended to refer to state legislators as slope-browed homunculi incapable of seeing what is self-evidently true:  what we do here is super duper important and should be funded to the hilt.

As a result, I have heard many assertions about the value of higher education to the taxpayers of this state, but few arguments.  I recall a special faculty senate subcommittee that was formed a couple of years ago to do the typical things:  convene a conference, gather stories of people with hardship, demonstrate at the state capitol, etc.  And, as is usual for ad-hoc groups of this nature, the effort collapsed within a year because its goals were neither clear nor actually possible.  That was okay by me, because I saw in the confrontational approach a fatal strategic flaw.

Things have not gotten better.  In fact, the challenges are greater now than they were before, especially for an institution such as this one, which has no particular prestige attached to it and is not likely to generate a significant endowment to help manage its own affairs.  If this place is to be successful over the medium to long term, those of us who work here are going to have to be able to articulate--in non-condescending ways--arguments for why the work we do here is valuable.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind, in response to the current situation (I should probably revisit these in later installments):

a.  The "jobs" angle has been overplayed and overpromised, especially in fields like the humanities and fine arts, and even the hard sciences.  Quit pitching an education in the liberal arts & sciences as a sure pathway to employment--this just isn't true anymore, and these kinds of claims end up looking more like broken promises.

b.  The money isn't there like it used to be, and university faculty members should remember that there are plenty of constituencies fighting for the remainders.  We are not entitled to any of it, especially if we do not want the oversight that comes with using someone else's money.

c.  The advances in computer technology and connectivity are in fact going to change the way we do our work.  We need to be prepared for a pretty significant shakeout and embrace rather than fight the outcome.