At any given time there are always one or two or maybe three universities trying to do something big. The something big they're trying to do is move up in the world, climb in the rankings, go major league, make the transition from being an OK institution with pockets of strength to being an institution on the rise, ready and eager to compete with anyone. (I am aware how disagreeable these metaphors, drawn from sports and capitalism, will be to many.)
The route to realizing this ambition is well marked, although, as we shall see, very few if any are able to stay on it. You begin by making a few flashy appointments of a kind not previously associated with your history. This is the stage of "sending a message." The message is, here we come, watch our dust, and -- most important of all -- think of us in a different way. (We're not your father's State U.) If you're lucky or have a good PR office, The Chronicle will pick up on what you've done and alert restless stars and ambitious newcomers to the fact that there is a new player in town and a new stop on the lecture and conference circuit.
The "good news" will be amplified if one or two of your prize recruits arrives with, or is gifted with, a center of some kind or other (having a center is pretty much de rigueur these days), for the announcement of a center is also an announcement that there are more jobs to be filled -- what centers do by nature is expand -- and more opportunities to apply for external support.
Now that you've attracted the academy's attention, you must take care to disarm its natural suspicion that you are a flash in the pan. You do this in Year 2 by recruiting still another crop (it needn't be large) of stars and by casting your net ever wider so that an increasing number of disciplines will have you on their radar screens. (This has an internal benefit: Departments and colleges will not feel that they are being left out.) If you've recruited well and refrained from hiring persons who have retired but are not telling anyone (including themselves), you are on the way to creating "critical mass" and synergy. You know that you are approaching the state of these desirable conditions if your new faculty hires begin finding one another across disciplinary and even college boundaries. So if all has gone well, by the end of Year 2 the outside world is talking about you, and those on the inside (both veterans and newcomers) are talking to one another and telling each other a satisfying, self-congratulatory, and even patriotic story.
Of course, while all of this is going on, there will be resistance. On the faculty side, the resistance will come first from those who have no interest at all in adjusting to an environment more demanding than the one they have grown old in; second from those who perceive quite correctly that the new gang is being hired at salaries astronomically higher than theirs and who assume, quite incorrectly, that what has been given to others has been taken from them (actually the reverse is true; egregious disparities will exert pressure to raise the salaries of those who would have been left to poke along had not the game suddenly changed); and third from those who believe that the star system is morally wrong because it rewards glitter and trendiness and undervalues the hard work performed for decades by those who labor in the trenches.
Resistance from the outside will most likely come from a variety of sources; from members of the public upset with reports of large salaries paid to teachers who rarely teach; from reporters who ask (not from real concern, but from a desire to cause trouble) if the undergraduate mission of the institution is being compromised (faculty members, in their more self-righteous moods, will avail themselves of this one also); from trustees or regents who have heard that some of these high-priced appointees are "controversial" (which means that what they write might actually be of interest to readers outside a tight professional circle); from legislators who recall their own education fondly and say, it was "no frills" but it was good enough for me and it should be good enough for anyone, and, besides, teachers are supposed to be poorly compensated.
You will survive these forms of resistance and criticism if your senior administration does not panic or backpedal and patiently explains at every opportunity how everyone -- professors, students, parents, the state, the economy, the free world -- will ultimately benefit from the new developments and will bask in the reflected glory of great achievements. Indeed, the agility and nerve of the senior administration is key to this whole adventure, and never more so than in the crucial third year, when all that has been gained is at risk.
I return to the point made earlier: When you set out on the road to institutional self-transformation, it is hard to stay the course. The reason is that in the early part of the third year, the realization sets in that the initial flurry of expenditures has not done the job, but merely begun it. In fact, to the extent that you have been wise and fortunate in your recruiting, the demands on the purse will be increasingly, even exponentially, greater as vigorous cutting-edge scholars seek to recruit their vigorous cutting-edge friends, many of whom will require large start-up packages, and all of whom will expect generous travel budgets, research assistants, seed money for big projects, funds for mounting conferences, and so on.
Meanwhile parts of the university that had not yet signed on and may even have been skeptical at first will now want a piece of the pie and will be busily contacting prominent figures in the field so that they can be presented as "targets of opportunity" no self-respecting administration could turn down.
It is at this moment that presidents, chancellors, and chief financial officers will begin to think things like "there's no end to these demands," "this is more than we bargained for," "what have we gotten ourselves into," and "enough is enough," and to say things like "let's take a pause," "let's consolidate," "let's defer further activity until the coffers have been replenished." And there are good reasons to think and say these things; the future is uncertain; the market you've entered is tricky and full of peril (you might become a way station where ever upwardly mobile types sojourn for a short time), you've done all right so far, so why stretch your luck and court the academic equivalent of bankruptcy? And if this very year should happen to be your Year 3, you will have what appears to be a trumping reason for settling back down into ordinary activity: the economy, not very good in August, much worse since September 11. In the face of what has happened in recent months -- huge shortfalls in state revenue, huge losses in the endowments of private universities -- isn't it only prudent to pull back, hunker down, and wait for a better day before starting up again? And, at any rate, it's hardly a matter of choice when each morning's newspaper reports on further budget cuts, hiring freezes, layoffs, and imposed furloughs, right?
The logic may seem strong and the conclusion inevitable, but before reaching it, those in charge might want to consider what will most likely be lost by stopping the train now. First, everything gained so far will be lost in a hurry as the shining lights who signed on board depart, not immediately (though that might happen in a couple of cases), but within two years. Second, those younger scholars whose first books or landmark articles are just now bringing them to prominence and national attention will say yes to the first offer that comes along; for when the call comes, they will have that much less reason to say no. And third, and most grievously, those who remain -- the old hands disappointed yet again -- will surrender to a malaise and cynicism deeper than any they may have been in before they were aroused by the heady promise of a glorious future.
Expectations dashed bring you to a lower level than would have been the case had they not been raised in the first place. When a time out is called in sports, the teams resume in exactly the same position they occupied when the action was stopped; but when an academic initiative is interrupted, everything goes back to square one and even before, the weeds grow up again between the cobblestones, and it will be many years before the memory and sting of disillusionment has faded and people are once more ready to believe that something might actually happen.
This is so because of the five-year rule. It takes at least five years of sustained effort to build a base that will not fall apart because someone leaves or because of a few off years. Established elite universities can withstand a bad patch because everyone assumes that sooner or later they will come back, and given that assumption, scholars and researchers are willing to move to such places even when it is thought that they have slipped badly. But wannabe and never-been institutions have no such luxury; they must create the perception of long-term excellence, and they can only do that if they keep things going until the very mention of their name produces fits of mediated desire, as in yes, that's the place one wants to be.
Once that happens, the turns of fortune's wheel may take this or that from you, but what will survive is the confidence -- shared by those on both the inside and the outside -- that yours is an institution that has done it before and can do it again. But if that doesn't happen -- if you blink just when the prize is in view and within reach -- the mention of your name will produce a knowing sigh and you will be added to the long list of institutions that announced a dream, pursued it for what will be remembered as a few minutes, and then presided over its death.
And you can take that to the bank, the very same bank you declined to open when maybe there was still time.
