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The Challenge of Change

September 15, 2011, 1:43 pm

By David Evans

As I contemplate our large number of potential faculty and administrative hires this year, I have been reflecting on the issue of institutional change and how it happens–or doesn’t–over the course of an academic year and in the longer term.

Change is scary. Even when it’s likely to be for the better, it’s potentially upsetting to at least some people on campus, and may cause a redirection in individual work and alter individuals’ relationships with each other and the institution. Despite all its problems, academe is often a nice place to work, and one of the qualities that makes it so is its predictability. For example, the rhythms of the academic year are accompanied by a series of rituals that have been the same, or at least quite similar, for hundreds of years, and mirror other similar cycles such as the Christian liturgical year or the agricultural procession from planting to harvest to winter dormancy.

So a changing of the guard in the faculty or the administration is potentially difficult. There is always the chance of making a bad hire, in which case something that has been working well can take a turn for the worse. But even a good hire can bring challenges. A good hire will have new ideas, new expertise, and a new range of experiences out of which to contribute to the endless conversation that is life at a college or university, but he or she may encounter entrenched interests, who like things the way they are, even if the way they are is bad. These interests can poison a search, bully or co-opt a promising new hire, or simply refuse to collaborate on whatever new activity is happening on campus at the time. Often such people don’t intend to be malign, but are simply comfortable with “the way things are now” or “the way we’ve always done things,” and cannot imagine a changed future and so resist any change at all.

As someone who has come in as an administrator from the outside three times now, I can say with some authority how difficult such entrenched interests can be. In many cases, a new external hire–especially but not solely at the more senior administrative levels–is made with the hope that the person will bring new energy to a place that has become complacent, stagnant, or worse. However, the forces of complacency and stagnation aren’t simply going to stand aside for a new person, and this predicament can lead to dire outcomes for all involved, and sometimes very quickly.

Still, it’s also true that new people coming in from the outside need to look carefully at the specific situation and try to understand how the institution got there in the first place. Often there’s an abusive or dysfunctional administrator in the relatively recent institutional memory who didn’t listen or who tyrannized the place, leaving damage that takes years to overcome. Or the previous incumbent in a faculty position was weak or otherwise problematic, and left behind a program in difficulty. In either of these cases the new person needs to take some time to learn and understand that history and work with it rather than against it to move ahead.

No matter what, bringing new people to an institution poses the opportunity to make a positive change in its effectiveness and ethos, but also the risk of breaking things that are working well. That’s one of the main reasons why hiring is such a very complicated business.

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  • barbarapiper

    “Low wages” might be parsed a little. There is no question that, historically, academics have accepted lower wages than members of other professions such as law and medicine, in return for a variety of benefits that include summers off, the opportunity to work on one’s own research, etc. Tenure may or may not be a part of this trade-off (it has been noted that partners in law firms have the equivalent of tenure), but most of us feel that tenure is a reasonable part of the quid pro quo for the salaries we make.

    But “low wages” seem to get lower and lower. When I was a kid, college and university faculty members were fairly well paid. My father taught at the University of Maryland, and we could afford a nice house in College Heights Estates, an upscale section of College Park, on his salary alone. When we moved him into a nursing facility several years ago his house sold for over $1 million – a house that he could afford in 1960 as a faculty member was no longer a house that faculty can approach. When brand new lawyers fresh out of law school get full professor salaries, and when the average annual income of specialist physicians is now at about $350,000, it’s not surprising that many faculty members are upset at the erosion of the benefits (see Wisconsin, for example) that keep the job attractive. It sure isn’t the salaries.

     

  • sortaretired

    One reason change is difficult is that many administrators have little idea how to manage change. I’ve seen more than one high-level administrator ramrod implementation of a goal or approach carried along from a previous institution. Sometimes the idea is a good one, but the administrator doesn’t  respect the people or activities already in place. Seems to me a good leader would say to those who would be affected by the goal or involved in its implementation, “This is what I want to accomplish and why I think it is important. What obstacles do you foresee? What are you already doing to support this goal? What more could you contribute?  I am able to provide X resources. How could the resources be used most effectively? What approaches might be effective? Here is how we did this at my previous institution(s). How might that approach work here?” Note that you ask people for their ideas before telling them your great approach. Not only does this show respect, it makes it more likely that you’ll learn about your current environment, hear good ideas, and recruit champions for your cause. Of course, you then have to follow through by letting people do their work without micromanaging their steps once you’ve started them in a new direction.

  • jenithkush

     why companies prefers to hires exp. emp. in off-campus recruitment???
    why not fresher….???

  • changing123

    Sortaretired, you are right on target. In 14 years I have worked under 7 deans (4 in the past five years) and 6 provosts, and in that time I have seen individuals push through change without ever getting to know the people and units who are needed to make those changes successful. It really does boil down to respect.

  • cwm4c

    Hiring is not that complicated–we make it so.  We drag it out both through the search process, then the hiring, and finally–the only area we should–once the new person is on-board.  That is where we should spend a year focused on ensuring the transition goes well.  The rest of the process wastes much of our time–we could cut it in half, or by 75% and not notice an effect on quality.

  • 5768

    There are at least five types of imposed change: (1) imposed change on a bad system that makes it better; (2) imposed change on a good system that makes it worse; (3) imposed change on a bad system that makes it worse; and (4) imposed change on a good system that makes it better. And then there’s change for change’s sake where things become neither bad nor better, but are simply reconfigured, whether massively or minimally.

    The assumption/presumption that the change agent always operates in the direction of “better” bespeaks an administrative one-sided arrogance that longer-term history alone can address. Long-term decline can be as much a result of change as the opposite. By the time that decline becomes observable the initiating change agents may be long gone.

  • chronded

    Kudos!!! Change and human beings in the same sentence – dangerous!! 

    In my experiences, many  bosess, lacking proper manners and good old fashion ettiquette, do not know how to manage people, let alone be agents of change or inspire others. I have witnessed many institutions, non-profit, for profit, as well as community centers and assocations, etc., hire senior executives, who many times, have had no idea about administration, particular needs of the unit they run, etc. Yet, new management, more oftern than not, rushes to implement and deploy “new world order” without taking the pulse of the institutional culture nor reaching out to those who address the needs of the unit in what I refer to as “workers in the trenches” possessing deep and realistic knowledge of what works and what does not work via processes, flow of information, etc.

    You have to trust, value, and respect those who possess the knowledge bases and who have worked directly in those areas which you deem need to change. Seek out their feedback and ideas – its’s simple – don’t overcomplicate: go to the source. Someone in that organization originally hired them for their knowledge so why now is that knowledge no longer being listened to or tapped ?? Micomanaging, barking orders, pushing agenda, policy, strategic planning, etc. with no real data, is disrespect, never works, wastes everyones time, and takes focus from work. It takes the same time and energy to be decent and polite and the bonus is - you will earn points as a human being. If you can’t respect them, why are you there?? At least respect yourself and speak up – politely, with respect, and data to support your claims and concerns for your unit.

  • old nassau’67

    Observations:
    1. Lady Gaga’s got real pipes. She’s got  great phrasing and voice. She’s a pro.
    2. I’d like to see the disparity between the SAT’s and GPA’s of these recruited athletes and those of that college’s ‘regular’ students.
    3. I wish Winthrop had researched academic as well as athletic performance. The NCAA is constantly trying to paper over, with this rule and that regulation, the simple fact that many recruits cannot master, or even meet, their college’s scholastic requirements.

  • Brian Abel Ragen

    Geisel/Suess _was_ a doctor. I was on the dais at Princeton when he was awarded the degree. In response the graduating seniors began chanting “I do not like green eggs and ham / I do not like them, Sam-I-AM!” I cannot think of another American poet whose work would be known and loved by all the members of that or any other graduating class.

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