From the issue dated June 4, 2004
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Assistant Directors of the Underclass, Unite!
You may have noticed me at an academic conference or meeting sometime in the past -- standing by myself at the periphery of the gathering, trying to look aloof or somewhat unfriendly, exuding an aura warning others that I did not wish to be approached. I successfully cultivated that standoffish attitude because of a terrible secret that I was trying to conceal: The title of the academic position that I held at the time was preposterous. Occasionally, though, I would be cornered. Often it happened when my good judgment was compromised by my appetite. Instead of clinging to a corner of the room, I'd make a foray to the buffet table in search of a piece of cheese. There, much like the cheese, I would be speared. A colleague, stabbing the air with a toothpick, would want to make pleasant conversation and almost immediately would ask what I did at my college. So I'd have to confess that I was the dean of business, mathematics, and social sciences. After I'd say my title, the other person inevitably would look puzzled and force me to explain it. A new president had arrived at my community college some years before with the idea of reorganizing the campus's academic structure. She left its design to a faculty committee, but insisted on one parameter: Instead of five academic deans, there were to be only three. The faculty committee decided first, quite appropriately, that one academic division would combine arts and humanities. Second, they wisely put together the natural sciences and the health sciences. Third, they decreed that the remaining division would consist of everything else. What choice did they have? I was fond of referring to myself on campus as the "dean of everything else." Perhaps I was so sensitive to my unconventional title because this was not the first time that my title had made me wince. I had spent more than five years at another community college that, unfortunately, also had undergone reorganization at the hands of a new president. Rather than relying on a committee, that president basically did all the restructuring himself. To show that his arrival marked a radical new era for the college, he not only regrouped academic disciplines, he renamed them. One day we woke up to find that we had "cognate clusters" instead of academic departments. Logically enough, each cluster was headed by a "cognate cluster chair." Imagine being a faculty department head who now had to wear a name badge at a national conference that identified you as a "cognate cluster chair." Two of those clusters reported to me; much to my chagrin, I had become the "dean of applied sciences and professional studies." In recent years, I have observed an increase in ridiculous titles. One sign was the increase in the number of woeful souls who hung out with me in the dark corners and peripheries of academic meetings. I observed them avoiding eye contact, uncommunicative, and often pinning their name badges in such a way that their titles were obscured by oversized lapels or strategically placed scarves or brooches. (A rule of thumb: The larger the brooch, the more unusual the title it obscures.) An upsurge in unconventional titles also is apparent in the pages of this newspaper -- names that cry out for clarification, editing, or exorcism. Silly titles that appear in The Chronicle seem to fall into four categories: * Products of Downsizing. Apparently new college presidents gain both the immediate fealty of business-minded trustees and the approval of faculty members by performing a single act -- slashing the ranks of the administration. Presidents promote the belief that one person can do two administrative jobs, even if the two jobs are clearly unrelated. For example: Dean of Natural and Social Sciences and Professional Studies. It's a dead give-away that downsizing has occurred when you find a title like that one, which contains the word "and" more than once. Division Chair for Engineering-Related Technologies, Health, Mathematics, Nursing, and Sciences. Would you have liked to have been there for the discussion of whether nursing could be subsumed under "health"? Dean of Matriculation/Assessment. Note the slash. Chair, Department of General Studies/Director, Center for Faculty Development. Congratulations to the new chair/director for taking command of the department/center. Dean of Student Development and Marketing. Which job do you suppose gets priority? * Products of an Egotistical Attitude. There are egotists among us who believe that the titles of positions at their institutions should be unique, much the way that a socialite wants her outfit to stand out at a party. Such titles use terminology in capricious combinations that are reminiscent of what one might find in a parallel universe. One thinks of Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks. For example: Assistant Director of the Underclass. No doubt working somewhere in the underbelly of the university. Scholarship Steward. Sounds like a job on the Love Boat. Assistant Professor of Nonformal Educational Processes. How many meetings did it take before the champions of "nonformal" won out over the supporters of "informal"? Coordinator of Student Involvement. The job is daunting when one recalls that students are involved with members of the opposite sex, members of the same sex, blogs, Star Wars memorabilia, fashion accessories, and quantum physics. Residence Education Coordinator for Leadership. Does it help to know that the person who holds this job reports to the campus's department of housing and judicial programs? * Products of Muddled Political Correctness. These titles rest on the beguiling principle that it is better to be obscure and inoffensive than communicate what a job really entails. Such titles join a long, distinguished history of academic euphemisms, like academic affairs, institutional development or advancement, enrollment management, wellness, and outreach. One can almost feel the hot breath of university attorneys as titles shift from "minority recruiter" to "affirmative-action officer" to "diversity specialist." For example: Director of the Inclusive Elementary Education Program. Begs the question of what's being included now that was excluded before. Gender Faculty Specialist. I am not sure what that title means. But if this specialist is somehow responsible for determining the gender of faculty members, I would urge extreme caution. Director of Social Equity. The weight of the world seems to rest on this administrator's shoulders. Community Prevention Coordinator. So what is being prevented? Community? The coordinator is listed as part of the Juvenile Center Prevention Center. * Products of Adjectival Impairment. These titles are wordy. Adjectivally prone or adjectivally impaired individuals operate on the principle that if one adjective is good, two or three must be better. Too much emphasis is placed on modifiers in place of more concrete parts of speech, like nouns. It may be that these types of titles sprout on campuses that lack English departments, whose members might suggest a little editing. For example: Director of the Office of Academic Student Instructional Support. A criminal case of overkill. Coordinator of Liberal/General/Interdisciplinary Studies. A mad slasher has discovered adjectives. Coordinator of Student Development in the Student Volunteer and Community-Service Learning Programs. Was all that really necessary? Coordinator of Organized Research. OK, it's only one adjective. But what are they trying to accomplish -- to distinguish organized research from disorganized research? How do we stamp out abominable titles? I do not have much confidence in Big Brother. Given government's propensity to invent assistant secretaries and special assistants to undersecretaries, I do not expect Congressional action to halt the production of academic howlers when campus titles are being created. Rather than Big Brother, we will need to depend on "Oh, brother!" Whenever the majority of sensible folks in academe spot an ad, business card, name badge, office directory, letterhead, or obituary where an egregious title appears, we need to hit ourselves on the forehead with an open palm and shout either "Oh, brother!" or an earthier equivalent. We need to browbeat the perpetrators of intemperate titling. We need to ask things like "What were you thinking?," "Where was your brain when you thought up that one?" -- and, of course, my favorite: "Have you no shame?" Robert M. Kahn is a former vice president for academic affairs at Queensborough Community College of City University of New York. http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 50, Issue 39, Page B5 |
Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education