In which Piers Observes Institutional Disarray, Part Two

A few weeks ago I reported on a distressing matter of faculty and curriculum governance on my campus — how a specific department was attempting to use a bit of bureaucratic paperwork hocus-pocus to circumvent a decision handed down by the faculty senate on my campus. I won’t repeat all the specifics.

Yesterday I found out that when the matter was brought to the provost for review, he essentially shrugged and said that the department and college in question (the department of Criminal Justice, housed in the College of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences) appeared to have found a loophole that made their request technically valid. Disappointing to say the least, and probably further driving a wedge of distrust between units on this campus.

The ramifications of this request and its implementation are, as I see it:

1. The department in question (the Department of Criminal Justice) now has an official catalog description of its course requirements that it will never actually enforce - and they are deliberately choosing to do so.
2. The chairperson of this department has, in his capacity as chairperson of a department and as president of the faculty senate during the period of this controversy, deliberately circumvented and even ignored the express will of the very governance body over which he has had the executive position. There is also evidence that he personally pressured individuals in his department to “get with the program.”
3. This faculty senate president has circumvented these rules and decisions—-and, I would argue, general professional ethics--with the collusion and assistance of both the chairperson of the Undergraduate Council, i.e., the faculty body with the authority to approve curriculum change requests (a woman who has also served on the UT Board of Trustees and who now also holds an administrative position); the newly elevated dean of the College of Education, Health, and Behavioral Sciences; and the university registrar.
4. Most significantly, this has now set the precedent that any department facing difficulty in meeting basic curricular requirements that the faculty as a whole have agreed upon may point to Criminal Justice as an example of how to secretly change degree requirements without going through the channels of review outlined in the Faculty Handbook.
5. The college in question is aware that its reputation across campus is . . . troubled. This only reinforces the opinions of its critics.

You know an institution has lost its way when most of the alleged professionals involved in a deeply questionable decision both hide the decision from the rest of the institution and then, when questioned, retreat into the language of bureaucratic obfuscation.