One advantage of an executive team for making decisions is
that the group is small and therefore nimble.
They can come to a consensus and act.
Even if they don’t agree they can get things done. Decision making in a large group is
painful. It is slow and cumbersome and
problematic.
The executive team at our University has made a lot of
decisions recently. They have decided we
will be having in person classes, at least at the beginning of the year. They have also decided, because of budgetary
uncertainty, to cut our salaries and to institute across the board
savings. They have also offered buy outs
to help reduce the number of faculty and staff to create additional savings.
The faculty and staff assemblies are (I think rightly)
concerned that though the executive team thinks that have collaborated with us
in the spirit of “shared governance” that is intended to be a hallmark of the
university, we have not experienced it as this at all – it feels like we have
been told that we will have to make do with less or leave.
The response of the faculty assembly has been to revisit the
changes that have been rolled out. We
have a more equitable plan for changing the salaries. We want to be reassured that if enrollment
returns our salaries will as well.
I get this desire, but I think our efforts are
misplaced. We should, I believe, be
looking at what is coming up, not at what has already been decided. We can revisit that stuff later. If the imposition of salary changes has been
unequitable, then the reinstatement of salaries can be crafted to create a more
equitable relationship between those who make the least at the institution and
those who make the most and we can work on that.
I think it is our job to remind the executive committee why
we are here. We are a public trust. As a Jesuit Catholic institution, we also
have particular obligations to particular constituent groups. We serve the general and a particular public,
and we have a central mission that is invaluable. In a time of uncertainty, we need to look to
our core values and to preserving those as we move forward.
The central part of our mission statement is that the
University exists to teach. That’s what
we are here for.
One of my, but I believe, our central beliefs is that
synchronous, in person teaching is the best pedagogical tool that we have. Conversation as a means of communicating –
even though, and perhaps partly because, it is such a difficult way to
communicate – is central to the best learning.
Conversations are hard because the ideas we cherish are
being questioned and we have to hold onto the idea while also hearing the
concerns that others have with those ideas.
This is a tremendously complicated psychological and cognitive task –
but it is one that is critical to the learning enterprise.
Conversation becomes more difficult when we are remote. We can and will assign asynchronous tasks as
we always have – papers, long and short and with varying foci will be part of
the pedagogy. So will we assign homework
with problems to solve and ideas to react to.
But discussion – the verbal communication between two or more people is
at the heart of our pedagogy.
Discussions are necessary because we need to see people
thinking – to hear the thoughts being formed – and to see how they are shaped
in the cauldron of conversation in order to a) not follow our own thoughts into
a rabbit hole of logical sense divorced from consensual reality and b) to hear
from others so that we can learn from their experience and perspectives.
So: we should move towards having in person classes because
those are the best kinds of classes to provide the kind of teaching that we
value most highly. And we should do this
in the context of protecting the safety of the students, staff, and faculty to
the best of our ability. If we are to
open in the fall we should do so as safely as possible.
This means that: masks should be available to all students,
faculty and staff. It would make sense
for the University to provide both cloth masks for those who don’t have them
but also plenty of disposable masks for individuals who forget them. We should work on signage and other means of
getting out the message that “No Masks, No Class”. We should make it clear that wearing a mask
is cool and considerate of others.
Taiwan, with a population of 20 million people, has under 500 cases of
COVID and fewer than 10 deaths at this writing, AND THEY ARE NOT USING SOCIAL
DISTANCING. They are using masks. Everyone is wearing them. This virus is transmitted through droplets
born on breath, coughs and sneezes. If
we are going to breathe the same air, let’s make sure it has been filtered at
the source. Everyone must wear masks. It has to become basic to our culture as an extension of our valuing consideration of the other.
Because social distancing is required where we are, we are
being told to prepare to teach to sections of class that are in the room while other
parts of the class are joining remotely or not in the classroom. We need tools to be able to teach in this
way. The classrooms need to be fitted
with adequate cameras that will broadcast good quality images and with very good microphones. Our laptop cams and mics are not up to the
task. We need the tools to be able to
use the white board on Zoom as a true whiteboard. Our laptops have pads that are TERRIBLE for
drawing on the Zoom white board. We
need, at minimum, mice that will work well, but ideally some form of tablet that
can be connected to the zoom whiteboard.
It also means that we should be regularly testing students,
faculty, and staff and demanding quarantine for those who test positive – even,
or perhaps especially, when they are not symptomatic.
Oh, and by the way, we should also meet in person because
this is important to the economic health of the University. But economic health, while an important
consideration, is not primary. What is
primary, and needs to be kept primary, is that we have a culture of
learning. And this culture, which is
dependent on direct contact in ways that we can’t appreciate until it is taken
away (including extracurricular contact between students as well as contacts
between students and faculty and students and staff) should be protected in the
concrete world as long as we can safely do that, and when we can’t, we should make
the best virtual analogue of that so that we can deliver the best possible
education we are able.
And we should bear in mind that the reason that the economic
well-being of the University is important is that it is necessary to support
the culture that supports the students doing the necessary and important work
that they are doing. Economic well-being
is necessary to our survival, but not the reason for our existence. The reason for our existence is the culture
that we have created that at its best can lead to improving the lives of our
students.
As a corollary of that, we should continue to do the best we
can to work together – executive team, faculty, and staff, to craft the best
possible experience that we can for our students – including one that is safe
for them, for their families, and for those who serve them.
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