Hatful of Hollow

The raison d'être at 901 South National is, as famously stated by the previous President, "the production of educated persons." I quite agree, even though it's not always been clear that the Central Administration does. Were this the case, how would the Administration explain its massive outlays of money on wasteful excrescences great and small - like the mediocre basketball teams, the ghastly football team, the oversized marching band, and the Center for (fill in the blank)? I suppose most of the Centers for (fill in the blank) confer at least some benefit on some subsection of the student body. But as long as all of the academic units are being converted into cost centers, why not convert the marching band, the basketball teams, and the football team into cost centers too?

I have fumed elsewhere on this blog about the corporative approach marking many of the usual suspects' well-meaning attempts to raise the level of teaching: Blackboard(tm) bloatware, the Academic Development Center, the late and unlamented Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. I have also railed against the asshats who can't, or can't be bothered to, teach their way out of a paper sack. It's about time I also dump some of the blame on the primary, front line producers of educated persons... the faculty at large. Including yours truly.

If there's one issue that raises faculty hackles faster than merit pay, it's teaching evaluation. One can always blame the Provost, the Dean, or the Department head for any given merit pay inequity. But teaching evaluation cuts to the core of what the average faculty member is at 901 South National to do. It reaches into the castle keep, where every faculty member is King or Queen, with all of the authority and privileges thereby conferred. Seen in this light, it's easy to understand the faculty's reluctance to evaluate itself critically. Mix in the merit pay factor - the results of teaching evaluations can and will be used against one - and the issue becomes one no sane person will go near. I should know. I once served on a University teaching evaluation committee. I met interesting colleagues, did my fair share of the work, and helped produce a set of recommendations that accomplished doodley-squat. A couple of years later, the Faculty Senate Chair called me and refused to get off the phone until I agreed to serve on another such committee. But I got the last laugh. I never attended a single meeting.

That is just one of my personal crimes. I stopped reading my numerical student evaluations years ago, because my department has never normed them. There have been semesters (not under the present Administration, though) when I didn't even give evaluations. It seems that the others in my department share my attitude toward student evaluations: only a couple of colleagues used them in their merit pay applications. It's all a pretty big joke. Oddly enough, I still read the students' written evaluations very carefully. Just last semester, one of my students called me out big time. And quite rightly so. I'm working hard to address it, and I'm confident that I am succeeding. Maybe there's hope for me yet.

Any serious form of teaching evaluation will require peer evaluation. Not surprisingly, that idea makes most faculty run off screaming, and not just the asshats. Let an intruder into the castle keep? Most faculty would answer "Get real." Then factor in the time and trouble involved in constructing and administering a viable peer teaching evaluation program. Can you say SoTL? Even though I've been known to drag colleagues, students, and random passersby into my classroom, that's where I run off screaming. That's where I join the asshats in their incessant chant (incessant bleat, is more like it) of THAT'S TOO MUCH WORK.

In my heart of hearts, I still care about producing educated persons. I firmly believe that constructing and administering a viable peer teaching evaluation program is crucial to that goal. I guess I'm just waiting for a sign to tell me why I should put my gluteus maximus on the line to help accomplish it... instead of holding on to a hatful of hollow.

The Youngest Was The Most Loved

Our department has made a new hire this month. As word has it - I avoid getting involved in searches involving this segment of our faculty - our future colleague is promising, personable, and happy to be aboard. All the things one looks for in a new tenure-track person. I never even asked what our future colleague wangled by way of a salary. One of the other candidates had demanded a salary about $5000 less than what I am making in lo, my third decade at 901 South National.. Another candidate had basically demanded "Find me a job for my spouse." Hiring one of your top choices in a seller's market can get expensive. I hope the department salary structure didn't get knocked too far out of whack. There is a world-class junior asshat in our department who will unleash a whining unto God or the University President, whichever of Them responds first.

I myself used to get quite bothered by this sort of salary compression issue. But with the passing years, I realize more and more how lucky - or blessed, or whatever - I was to land in a tenure track job at a time when the bar was set so much lower. Sure, the department was run by the asshats when I arrived. But as long as probationary types like me acted friendly-like, didn't whine about a 12-hour teaching load and didn't threaten the asshats too much with the publication records we were forced to compile, tenure and promotion were no big deal. I had to plead with our then-department head to be given a third-year pretenure review. The response was "We like you! You'll do fine!" They did like me. Then. The response I got when I went up for promotion to professor was something different, but that is another cycle of posts.

Now, probationary faculty are confronted with a mind-numbing sequence of hoops to jump through: codified departmental and collegiate tenure and promotion guidelines; annual evaluation letters from the personnel committee, head, and dean; the rumblings from Carrington Hall that the standards will continue to go up, up, up as 901 South National becomes even more excellent than it already is. This on top of excelling in teaching, service and research at all times, and acting friendly-like to the tenured faculty. Know what? It's all too easy to gripe about how bad we had it when we taught 15 hours per week, published a book a semester, and sprinted to and from work, uphill in both directions. All too easy to compare salaries and whine that the youngest was the most loved, when in fact the mountains of released time and inflated salaries can't begin to compare with the pressures new hires live with every day of their probationary periods. In fact, as much as I genuinely love what I do for a living and as grateful as I feel to make a living doing it, I sincerely doubt I'd even go to grad school today if this gray miasmic haze of uncertainty and blind chance was what awaited me when I finished.

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

For more than a decade, IDS 110 and its Honors counterpart, UHC 110 have been providing the freshmen of 901 South National with their introduction to college life. None too well, for the most part.

The previous administration had rightly seen the need for such a course, and ponied up the resources to develop and staff it. Unfortunately, they selected as program director someone whose only qualification was having chaired (satisfactorily, for the administration's purposes) the Faculty Senate. A professor of "Administrative Office Systems," no less... a glorified typing teacher who looked and acted like the Church Lady. Within her first year as director, the Church Lady's control-freak tactics had run off 90% of the committed and enthusiastic faculty members who had crawled out of the woodwork hoping to help the poor little freshmen assimilate to college life. Soon IDS 110 was taught only by staff members and a handful of faculty members who were desperate for the money.

The kids hated the class too. They were frogmarched through every chapter of the IDS 110 textbook, which was authored by (you guessed it) the Church Lady herself. They snoozed through the stultifying group lectures about the evils of alcohol, drugs, sex, smoking, and whatever else the Church Lady considered worth worrying about. By semester's end they were well on their way to a profound cynicism about 901 South National and everything it was hoping to offer them. The original version of IDS 110 was literally worse than nothing at all.

There was no question of making changes to IDS 110. Not only did the Church Lady defend her turf like an irate mama badger, she was the BFF of the one person the University President was known to fear. Mrs. University President. It took two years' worth of surveys, reports, and committee meetings for the Church Lady to see the handwriting on the wall and begin the practice of addition by subtracting herself from the employ of 901 South National. IDS 110 soldiered on as best it could, somewhat bereft of direction while the current administration took the University in hand.

In keeping with the current administration's emphasis on student success, IDS 110 is being retooled yet again. Administrators of all levels are signing up to teach sections of the new and improved course, and have been tasked with "nominating" worthy and interested faculty members to teach other sections. The course carries a small stipend of $1000. A section of UHC 110 pays $1500. Another student success initiative involves "learning communities" consisting of a dorm floor's worth of students and a faculty member who becomes (I guess) their faculty big brother or big sister for a semester or two. I have been approached to participate in both initiatives for next year. I enjoy doing things like this, and have done them in the past, sometimes even without extra pay. Nor am I necessarily adverse to doing things which will redound to the greater glory of 901 South National.

But before I decide - well, I know I'm not going to teach the UHC as a matter of principle -I would like to know one thing. Will my contribution to bona fide University initiatives benefit me professionally? If so, how? Just about anything would count. Even the right to boot the asshat of my choice right in the ass, even once a month.

Barbarism Begins At Home

The faculty activity surveys are now out of our Personnel Committee's hands. As suspected, the departmental asshats have outdone themselves in portraying their sorry excuses for a life as meritorious academic performance. Who could have guessed that a dog-and-pony show at a local elementary show counted as scholarship? Or that instructional technology included faxes and emails? Or that one could chair a committee which, in fact, doesn't even exist? There's a certain low pleasure to calling bullshit on pathetic bilge like this, but it passes quickly. I wish somebody at 901 South National could do something about these asshats - like institute a post-tenure review process. But traditionally, a crack on the head is what you get for asking.

Now that I've finished working through my pile of faculty activity surveys, I have a sneaking feeling that this go-around may turn out badly. I would love to be wrong, as I was last year. But things are changing quickly at dear old 901 South National. Familiar old troughs are being shut down or diverted, and sinecures (at least most of them) eliminated or turned into real jobs. Not everyone is happy about this fact, least of all the departmental asshats. I can't say I'm exactly thrilled about each and every change, either - the new cost center model, for example, has turned scheduling into an exercise in prayer and guesswork. But then, I'm not obligated to be thrilled. Since I'm still too young to retire, I have to adapt.

That said, I had still better catch up on the asshats this year. Or I will smite them even harder next year.

This Charming Man

Last month, I observed in this post that the University's name was apparently mud in many corners of the Ozarks. To judge from yesterday's University news release, the administration has also read the handwriting on the wall.

SPRINGFIELD – Highlighting the interdependence and saying “thank you” for past support are the two major goals for the first Missouri State University Community Caravan, which will focus on eight locations in the first three weeks of April. The theme of the 2008 Caravan is “What the Public Affairs Mission Means to You.”

University officials will work with local planning committees to plan a day-long event that will include these elements: one or more civic/economic impact events; school visits; media contacts; visits with individual donors and alumni; and an evening event for prospective students and their parents.

This charm offensive is, I think, brilliantly conceived. While I'm sure the usual suspects have already been tasked with the appropriate grunt work, this can only have been the President's idea. God knows the usual suspects never came up with anything like this during the previous administration.

No doubt the Community Caravan will be a great big traveling dog-and-pony show on the order of the alumni and athletic caravans. A parade of the University's highest salaried personalities and demipersonalities backed up by the Best Band The Missouri Taxpayers Can Buy. But I have even less doubt the voters and taxpayers of Southwest Missouri will greatly appreciate the attention and the effort. So why pamper life's complexities when the administration does something so boldly and obviously right?

Sing Your Life

The last week of Christmas vacation is upon us, which means it's time to compile my faculty activity survey for calendar year 2007 - otherwise known as the old merit pay application. Unlike the average asshat, I have never resented having to walk right up to the microphone: I have always put in at least as much as I have taken out. It looks like 2007 has been one more year I have staved off the descent into asshattery. Even so, I'm already starting to get angry about the likeliness of getting hosed out of merit pay in order to keep the looters somewhat mollified.

I have to admit that contrary to my expectations, I did pretty well on the old merit pay for calendar year 2006. Not only did I catch up somewhat on the asshats and other looters, the departmental merit process was far less acrimonious than it apparently was elsewhere on campus. For this I credit the department head and, to a lesser extent, the personnel committee chair. God knows I was expecting World War Three. The most important factor, however, was that the merit pay wasn't allocated in integers. That is, faculty were assigned an integer from 1 to 5 for teaching, for research, and for service - but the "final scores" were assigned on the plus/minus system. Instead of the 15% "5s," 35% "4's" and 48% "3's" forecast by the planning document, faculty could receive a 5, or a 4+, or a 4, or a 4-, or a 3+... and so on. More gradations in the final scores allowed finer differentiation in merit pay. An elaborate quartile system was built in to ensure "equity," but on this count I have to point out that certain people are in the lowest quartile because they deserve to be in the lowest quartile.

My concern is that the looters have had a year to figure out how it can finagle the new system. Finagling the system to get their "fair share" is what they do best: they consider inventing released time boondoggles and importunate pleas for equity adjustments far more gratifying than developing new curriculum or, heaven forbid, learning something scholarly and new. I predict an onslaught of minor syllabus tweaks and bogus committee service, all painstakingly documented but amounting to less than zero. The process will have greater urgency this year if merit pay is (as I suspect) to be allocated by integers this time, and not fractions.

My department has a bad habit of not calling looters out on crap like this. Last year I played nice like everybody else apparently did, even the asshats. Not this time. It's not a matter of the money, either. I make enough money. Sure, I wouldn't mind making more money. But money isn't why I got into academia. If I find myself locked into the same integer with the asshats and the rest of the looters, there will be hell to pay. But first I have to make sure that I have exercised due diligence by providing an accurate assessment of what they're up to when they sing their lives. We'll find out what happens with that.

The Headmaster Ritual

My generation of faculty was the first in Missouri State University history actually required to earn tenure and promotion. In some ways it was the worst of both worlds. President Marshall Gordon had been brought on in 1983 with an explicit mandate to raise the University's research profile, and woe to the tenure candidate whose publication record did not satisfy then-VPAA Donald E. Bowen. On the other hand, the departmental personnel committees were stocked with asshats who had never published anything, and who had gotten tenure and promotions just for showing up on a regular basis. The same was true for most of the department heads. My generation taught the same number of courses per semester as the belligerent ghouls who were already tenured - the difference was that we were expected to publish or perish.

As an incentive for faculty performance, President Gordon had also installed a "merit pay system." Part of any annual raise for the faculty would be doled out as an across the board percentage, with an additional raise for faculty who had been "meritorious." For purposes of merit pay, the workload for all faculty at SMSU was set at 40% research, 40% teaching, and 20% service. This was an ideal balance for newcomers like me, because we were expected to be all things to all people at all times anyway. But the oldtimers didn't like the merit pay system at all. They had been hired to teach, not to do research. They sure didn't want to receive a grade on their annual performance. Worst, the idea of their junior colleagues making up ground on them financially was downright perverse.

Naturally, the departmental merit pay committee and personnel committee were controlled by the oldtime asshats; they passed their recommendations up to the department heads, who tended to be even older timers (although heads were starting to be brought in from off campus by the time I arrived). Non-tenured faculty could serve on merit pay committees, but they tended to keep their mouths shut, even if it meant going along with some rather outlandish claims on the part of the senior faculty. A colleague I like and respect deeply, two years senior to me, chaired the committee once while still non-tenured. He had the nerve to call out an old-timer on a bogus conference presentation the old-timer was trying to take credit for. In return for this and other alleged instances of "uncollegiality," the personnel committee (they had to recommend tenure; this colleague had literally outpublished the whole department) unanimously recommended against promotion to associate professor. The department head concurred. If not for swift strong action by the then-College Dean, my colleague's promotion would have been toast.

As the Gordon administration plodded onward, the pool of money for merit pay eventually dried up. But the merit pay evaluations, and the wealth of bad feelings they produced, continued regardless. Acting President Keeling introduced a sliding percentage scale for faculty to set their own workloads; a worthwhile idea which only complicated matters in practice. The Keiser administration's solution was to pay off four years' worth of arrears with a maximum available raise of $1000 for a faculty member who had averaged 100% meritorious performance over that time. For what it's worth, I racked up $960. I wasn't happy to see the merit pay system go, but I respected President Keiser's decision to end the unfunded charade. It was replaced by a greatly increased number of faculty awards for research, service, and teaching. But that is another rant.