My theme in my past blog posts was based on Tracy Chapman's song "Telling Stories." In the last post, I changed one of her lines in the song to, "You use data but it doesn't mean, you're not just telling stories." 

An extraordinary story published today by The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Assembly NC (not the picture is cut and pasted from the articles- I hope they don't mind), written by Erin Gretzinger and David Jesse, presented a fascinating probe into the evolution of program cuts at UNCG and the relationship of UNCG administrators with rpk, consultants. The story was very fair, filled with detail, briskly written, and included the very human side of the story. Linked to the report are 600+ pages of emails between rpk and university administrators.

There isn't an email that makes one aghast. But, in total, the story and the attached emails clearly indicate that there was a lot more fiction in the space between the entire academic portfolio review process and what faculty knew at UNCG than I even imagined. And, the story points to some really bad campus leadership. Oh, it also more than reinforces the line I revamped from Tracy Chapman's song as theme for my last blog- "you use data but that doesn't mean, you're not just telling stories."

My simple take away:  I think vision should drive strategy. Strategy should drive tactics. And the results of the tactics should connect back to the vision. Based on the story, that clearly did not happen at UNCG. A supposedly objective process to "cut fat" and "change culture" was turned into a chaotic and seemingly biased subjective process to cut academic programs with no clear goal other than to reduce costs, and even that was not clear.

I hope this story is read by other university leaders of an example of exactly how not to lead a reshaping of a university. Please read the story carefully.  This story is packed with information. If you slow down and read, I have hard time thinking you would disagree with me. 

The Chronicle/Assembly started the story with a quote from the CFO "Most everyone here believes we have no fat to cut. I believe otherwise,” wrote Bob Shea, the university’s vice chancellor for finance and administration, in a January 2023 email to associates from the firm [rpk,]. “Culture change is our biggest hurdle, and that is from the chancellor’s council all the way down to our most junior supervisors."

The statement by the CFO based on a loose narrative from what I think is personal bias based on my time working with him as provost at UNCG, morphed into  badly run and a chaotic process launched by the chancellor to reshape academic programs and streamline administrative functions. A lot of money was spent on rpk. A tremendous amount of faculty time was spent and ultimately wasted, all to create a quantitatively designed rubric that was essentially ignored in the end, as where some of the recommendations of the consultant on both the administrative and academic side. 

It is also abundantly clear in the story and attached materials that the data used in the academic portfolio review were flawed and that was known by UNCG leadership, deans, chairs and faculty.

rpk, believed early on in the process that the message that would be sent to the campus was that no programs would be cut from the quantitative analysis but that the data would lead to better decisions It indicated that programs identified with low rubric scores would get deeper dive program reviews (page 121 in attached materials). That supposed deep dive was done in just a couple of weeks fueled by nothing but a 1,000 word context statement from programs, at least in the largest unit Arts and Sciences, and mysterious other factors that were never articulated, at least to the faculty. 

Program cuts were ultimately made with no clear justifications. Some programs that scored highly in the rubric were cut with no real explanation. A high scoring PhD program in computational math was cut by the provost at the last minute based on what seemed like her subjective hunch, with no evidence, that faculty would teach undergraduates better if they did not have a PhD program

More importantly, there never was a link articulated from how program cuts will lead to a thriving university in the future, with the chancellor deferring to faculty led strategic planning committee to provide that link in a report that has not yet been released. How can a chancellor and provost implement a process to fundamentally reshape UNCG's academic offerings without a strategy, let alone a vision?

I have never seen a Chancellor hand off the development of strategy for an uncertain future to a faculty committee that does not include the chancellor, provost and CFO. Nor, in my 25 years of administration, have I seen a faculty led, not chancellor led, strategic planning committee create effective strategic plans. In the end, strategic plans involve assigning individuals to action items and to resources, which faculty don't have the authority to do.  I have heard it said that "vision without implementation is hallucination." In my experience, faculty are great at thinking up visions for their department, college and university, but not so good at implementation, not because they aren't good at implementing (many faculty  run effective and sizeable small businesses in their labs, that are funded from really competitive grants awarded from proposals that are basically a strategic plan- many faculty are quite good at implementation of a strategy aimed at a research vision within specific timelines and a fixed amount of resources- perhaps the best at it in any university), but because faculty don't have any alignment of authority with responsibility to implement on a university campus. I worry that the strategic plan will be "Hallucination", but I am open to being wrong to worry. I respect the faculty chair of the committee.

Many, many faculty who were upset about the process (many of us were upset well before the outcomes in contradiction to the chancellor's quote which is clear in earlier posts in my blog), were ridiculed and dismissed, as this one quote from the provost (out of many in the essay referred to) infers, “This attack from a minority of faculty members was part of increasingly personal, desperate maneuvers that distracted focus and energy from an unambiguous truth: Our status quo is no longer tenable,” Storrs wrote in the essay."

I think the Chronicle/Assembly story vindicates the many, many of us that were concerned about a messed up process (and the outcomes), that the program cuts were not really based on the data, and that there was never a very clear articulation of how the programs that were cut were going to lead on increased net revenue, let alone the quality of UNCG's academic programs needed to attract students.  In fact, we still aren't clear how much money will be saved. This quote from the story reflects the reality for sizeable portion of the faculty

 "For those who observed and participated in the process at UNC-Greensboro, it remains frustratingly unclear how the university went from seemingly straightforward data points to rubrics filled with data inaccuracies and defined by contested metrics, ultimately deciding on cuts that felt disconnected from everything in the process that came before."

Despite all the faux engagement with faculty, it is clear that there was never a serious intention to work with faculty governance. Here is an example from the story- "For example, a couple of weeks into February, rpk drafted an answer to a proposed question for a website that would explain the program-review process to the public: “Is this project focused on the elimination of programs?” Rpk’s proposed response was “no,” explaining that any decisions about programs “will follow UNCG’s established governance procedures.” Storrs responded with edits that kept the answer as “no” but removed rpk’s line about shared governance and added that the dashboards could directly inform decisions."

There is so much more in the story that reflects very poorly on leadership (the email from the provost to rpk asking them to hide recommendations on her favored programs is almost laughable). There are even quotes that are embarrassing to read like this one from the chancellor (that has been published many times) to a talented undergraduate student in a forum. “I’ve published a lot of peer-reviewed articles. In fact, the president of Harvard was accused of plagiarizing my papers,” he [Gilliam] said. “So I think I maybe know a little bit about data. When you do that, let me know.” Not only was this an egregious thing for a chancellor to say to a exceptionally talented undergraduate student in physics, a weird way of self-aggrandizing via bragging about being plagiarized as opposed to being cited, but the student published a research paper in a physics research journal. 

I hope others can take this story as a warning regarding processes for redesigning academic portfolios to face the "headwinds" facing higher education. Vision should drive strategy. Strategy should drive tactics. And the results of the tactics need to connect back to the vision. Based on the story, that clearly did not happen at UNCG. 

​I don't know how one can read the Chronicle/Assembly story and not also take-away an impression that there was a serious failure of leadership, a truly messed up process and way too much fiction in the space between narrative and reality.
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​Epilogue 1: Moving Forward
The message from the chancellor and many colleagues will be it is time to move on, "the past is the past." We have an uncertain future to deal with and we need to come together and address a plan to overcome the uncertainty. I completely get it. And I want to move forward, partly because I hate writing these blogs as a way to deal with anger. And, because I love UNCG.

Personally, though, I am tired of a political, social, corporate and media culture where it is absolutely fine to fuck up your job, because nobody hold leaders accountable to the mistakes they make, the lies they told, the destruction and pain they caused, or their overall failure as leaders. And, it appears there is no longer any presumption that leaders have an ethical obligation to hold themselves and their teams accountable or even apologize.

The leadership culture of the time seems to have morphed into a strategy that can be summarized this way: don't reflect on criticism; never sincerely apologize; defend; ridicule and attack those trying to hold a leader accountable, while at the same time complain vigorously that the ones who have little power are treating the leader uncivilly and unfairly.

Sound familiar? It might, but I am not talking about that national figure.

There is so much on the record last year in emails, recorded speeches, op-eds and news stories including  exceptional investigative reporting of The Chronicle of Higher Ed/The Assembly and others that can make one's head spin. That record shows to me that the chancellor, provost and VCFA adopted the strategy above.

The chancellor offered an "olive branch" to faculty at convocation, promising to be a better teammate. His State of the University address, based on the title, will be a focus on the accomplishments of the institution and the campus coming together move forward, most likely trying to keep the past in the past with an admission, "we could have done it better." I hope my colleagues demand a little bit more of the chancellor than an olive branch - I would ask that he exhibit a genuine willingness to hold himself and his vice chancellors accountable for the complete mess they made last year and the terrible way they characterized so many faculty and divided the faculty into "good" and "bad." Doing so, and articulating a vision and strategy, is what will  fuel the campus' journey towards a new sunrise.

With respect to the phrase "don't look back", it makes me think of a song by Kasey Anderson that I love.
The last few lines of the song feel like a metaphor. I can view the "I" in the song as the many, many faculty who questioned the process. I can see the "you" in the song as the chancellor.

"And I said, I said
You left me for dead
But there was never any truth to that
I could breathe just fine
We both know damn well once you start lying to yourself
You're trapped
And you don't look back"

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Epilogue 2: Is time infinite and free?

I actually agree with the chancellor's quote in this story that it is not that hard to identify underperforming programs. I did that yearly as provost in program viability reviews and cut and put programs on notice annually. Although I didn't need to for the purpose of cost containment when I was a provost, using university data and peer comparative data, it wouldn't have taken me very long (hours or days) to identify programs that need serious review.

One of my own personal reactions to the APR process is that it wasted oodles of money, and squandered an extraordinary amount of the  most valuable resource to faculty, time. One of my pet peeves is that universities tend to view faculty and exempt employees with the assumption that their time is infinite and free. 

My wife managed large electronic medical records projects in several hospitals. She would often tell me about her projects and she would use "resources" specifically to mean the time of individuals allocated to the project. Of course, being in universities too long, I always thought she was referring to money and space. She taught me that in hospitals  (and businesses, and non-profits) that time is equivalent to money when resourcing a project.

During my time as a senior administrator at a soft-money research institute, time and money were almost synonymous.  Grant funded faculty literally had to ask what account they should charge to go to a meeting, because their grants could not pay for that time. Of course, they had no service commitment of any kind unless the institution paid for their time.

Universities would be very different places if the time of of all exempt employees was not viewed as infinite and free, but that is another story.

The University of North Carolina System Board of Governors today unanimously approved the program eliminations at UNCG and UNC-Ashville. My personal opinion matters not, but I don't think it was particularly smart for UNCG to eliminate physics while trying to build a small nanoscience school (nano without physics?), or to not have a physics program beyond teaching introductory physics in a world where climate change, energy technology, and artificial intelligence are the future. It's also kind of counter intuitive that one of our strongest PhD programs, Computational Math, was cut with a narrative, based on a fictional, or at least data-free, story that undergraduate teaching will be better without the distraction of a relatively strong and distinctive doctoral program and that cutting the doctoral program will save money (that is its own complicated story because of the role of doctoral students in teaching and mentoring undergraduates). 

Tracy Chapman in her song "telling stories"  sings "There is fiction in the space between; the lines on the page of your memories; you write it down but it doesn't mean; you're not just telling stories."
 
I think you could change the last two lines to read "you use data but it doesn't mean; you're not just telling stories." That would sum up why I get so angry about the stories that are being told about higher education by higher education leaders and consultants like rpk.

For example, WFAE quoted in their story the UNCG Chancellor's remarks regarding program elimination (I did not hear the remarks, so I am just reacting to this one quote): "In his address to the board, Gilliam pointed out that UNCG’s math department has the same number of tenured or tenure-track faculty as psychology — a major that has ten times the number of students." 

A colleague who had access to some data sent me the data for academic year 2022-2023 (apparently the most recent year) and compared Math/Stats vs Psychology. Based on the data I was sent, the chancellor was correct about a 10-fold difference in the number of undergraduates majoring in the two disciplines, but those data don't tell the story the quote seemed to be intended to support.

Here are the data from the 2022-2023 academic year that I was sent so cannot fully verify: The department of math/statistics is the first number and the second number is the department of psychology.

• Total Undergraduate Majors: 85 versus 1,136
• Total Graduate Students: 44 versus 60
• Total Undergraduate Student Credit Hours Taught: 17,575 versus 17,572
• Graduate Student Credit Hours: 722 versus 970
• Total Faculty FTE 31.4 vs 30.2
• Student Credit Hours/ Faculty: 586.5 vs. 618.1
• Total Net Program Revenue [Revenue generated mostly from credit hours taught (tuition and state appropriation, It think, minus a percentage that was used to account for administrative overhead (I think it was over 30% but I can't remember, and the person who sent me the data did not say) minus departmental personnel and operating expenses]: +$1,087,682 vs. +$582,563.

So, yes, these data I was sent suggest that the chancellor was correct regarding the number of majors.

The rest of the data show that the two departments in 2022-2023 are roughly the same in the number of credit hours they taught and the number of credit hours taught per faculty member,  Since universities generate revenue from student credit hours and not majors, a reasonably good interpretation of that data would be that Math and Psychology should have roughly the same number of faculty.  If one looks only at the net revenue number, perhaps the most important number with respect to financial stability, one might conclude that math might be a better investment than psychology with respect to return on investment.

But, net revenue data are complicated. For example, psychology majors also take credit hours in math/stats, and vice versa, so they contribute to each other's positive net revenue. *(see footnote below regarding how complex university budgets are and a recommendation for a terrific book that explains them so well).

The data the chancellor presented on majors was also a red herring with respect to program closures. UNCG is not eliminating all Math/Stat undergraduate degrees (at least not in the program eliminations the BoG approved on July 24, 2024) and there are no plans that have been announced to reduce the size of the math faculty (perhaps that is coming)  In fact, by eliminating the computational math PhD program, it is may be possible that math/stats may need to hire more faculty or staff to replace the teaching and mentoring done by Math graduate students.

The moral of that story is that the chancellor, at least in that one quote, "used data but it doesn't mean, he's not just telling stories." To be fair, though, this was the only quote I heard that was related to program eliminations. I was pretty surprised that his team didn't find a better anecdote of data that support one of the actual cuts.

Two of my favorite books are "How to lie with statistics (a 1954 classic that is as true, if not more so, today)" and "How to lie with maps" (I was a colleague of the author at Syracuse Universities in the early 1990s, so read it very early when the first edition was released in 1991). It is sad that these books are so relevant to higher education, an industry that should know better. The case with psychology and math is a fitting example. You can use essentially the same group of data to argue three very different perspectives. You can look at student credit hours and you can reasonably declare, "Math should have the same number of faculty as psychology!" Look at the number of majors and you can reasonably declare "Math should only have 10% of the number of faculty as psychology!". Or you can look at net revenue and reasonably declare "We need to invest in math!" 

Although not relevant to this particular example, how data are presented can also affect their interpretation (e.g., the scale one uses on the Y-axis on a bar chart can exacerbate or minimize differences, leading to different conclusions with the same data. 

The moral of the story is that it is easy to spin, obfuscate or lie with data, even when one doesn't intend to (e.g., by not interpreting data in the context of other data, or letting computer software define the scale of of an axis on a graph).

Data are inherently objective but they are inanimate. They come to life when they are interpreted subjectively by somebody. ​Although data are inanimate, I love them anyway (I don't have a pet rock, though). They ignite my curiosity more than they confirm my stories. In fact, they more often than I would like to acknowledge, make me admit that I was wrong.

Data interpretation can be very humbling- any conclusions are always tentative in the face of new data or new interpretations. I often said as an administrator that nobody should ever be afraid of data; it's just data.  The more transparent the better, even if it counters a narrative, because more people looking at data, asking questions about it, reanalyzing it, etc., will lead to more ideas being generated and perhaps less fiction in the space between a narrative and reality. Reducing the fiction in the space between narrative and reality means that more learning is occurring. 

But data become dangerous when one defines their purpose simply to support a story. When the narrative is more important than a complex truth to someone, then the only good data to them are data that support that narrative. Ignoring or being intellectually lazy with data leaves infinite hectares of fiction in the space between. And, nothing good happens in that space.

I tend to think that adjusting one's narrative when the subjective interpretation of data is counter to the narrative is a better approach than ignoring the data or finding ways to essentially lie with it. We are all subject to confirmation bias. And we all suffer from the evolution of our cognitive abilities that makes it easy to tell a story with little data, and much more difficult and energy consuming to adjust the story when the data might suggest that one should do so (this is paraphrasing a point I took away from reading Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow"). But we should try. I mean every university I know has critical thinking skills as a foundation of their general education curriculum, and in many ways, critical thinking is about adjusting a narrative to data, not forcing data into a pre-existing narrative. It would be nice if academic leaders and political leaders and boards (and everybody else including me) modelled this approach. 

Justifying controversial decisions is a challenging task and the tendency will be to find any data that can justify a decision, even if there are a lot of other data that are contrary, or, as in the statement the UNCG chancellor made, choosing to rely on data to justify a decision that aren't relevant to the actual decision being justified, at least on that day. Admittedly, that does not mean the decisions were wrong, but people who see incongruencies between data and decision get frustrated, perhaps angry, and often lose trust. Not many bettors would put their money down on a ship getting through a storm (or terrible headwinds to use an overused metaphor) when the crew responsible for sailing the ship, doesn't trust the captain and their leadership team.  

I will just try to stay humble about how I interpret data and will try to remember my adaptation of Tracy Chapman's lyrics for the remainder of my career (and in thinking about every political statement I ever hear or read)- "There is fiction in the space between; the lines of the page of your memories; you use data, but it doesn't mean; you're not just telling stories".  I hope that readers will give me coordinates for my GPS should they find me lost in my own fiction in the space between me and reality, and I hope that every once in a while my blog does that for you.

* University budgets are a very complex system (I encourage everyone to read Former U. Arizona provost and current chief academic officer for the Arizona Board of Regents Andrew Comrie's, book "Like Nobody's Business: An Insider's Guide to How US University Finances Really Work)."  Also, in general, cutting expenses by eliminating academic programs only increases net revenue if those cuts do not lead to similar decreases in student credit hour revenue. One way to consider this in estimating future net revenue is to only consider the drop in student credit hour revenue directly associated with programs that were eliminated. The challenge in the projection, though, is that it is harder to estimate any decreases in enrollment that occur because of a decline of a UNCG's reputation due to perceived declines in academic quality or budget issues relative to peer schools (reputation's tend to change slowly), increases in student:faculty ratio, perception of prospective students and their parents that the school focuses on efficiency of credit hour delivery over academic quality, and/or loss of programs that may not attract majors but have courses that non-majors want to take (e.g., astronomy, a certain language, archeology). It is also hard to estimate positive changes in net revenue that might occur from investing in other programs. For UNCG, currently there is a relatively small proportion of programs where student demand exceeds supply. Those programs where demand exceeds capacity are generally expensive to teach perhaps because they require low student:faculty ratios (e.g., Genetic Counseling, Nursing, Music Performance at UNCG), so don't necessarily generate a lot of positive net revenue with increased enrollment.  
​

I find peace, reflection, and better ways to understand indigenous people's ways of knowing when I kayak on Lake Jeanette, where I live.

Lake Jeanette has a Skypainter that rewards us almost nightly with dynamic and awe inspiring art.  The Skypainter was on a roll last night on Friday, June 14 2024 (all five pictures are from last night)

I was emotionally up and down.

Up was not complicated. Lots of beauty, a few great blue herons, and about fifteen species of birds singing, lots of fish jumping, and lush vegetation around the lake.

Down was more complicated.

The lake has lost some residents perhaps a harbinger for the future. The 4-6 pair of cormorants that used the lake for their summer vacation didn't stay this year but kept migrating northward. The Mallard population is about a 10th of what it was, but is probably because a neighbor stopped feeding a whole colony. I haven't seen a Kingfisher this year.

There definitely seems to be an insect apocalypse. We leave our door open for the dogs and virtually no insects come in, albeit a few mosquitoes of tasted my blood.

The shores are eroding, and many large trees will be falling into the lake in the near future.

Lake Jeanette is an artificial lake but when it was built by Cone Mills they apparently left a 75 ft. buffer zone around the lake as a conservation area. When the area around the lake was developed the buffer zone was kept intact. Since it is not managed, invasive species are moving and large trees fall into the water as the shore erodes. But, on the other hand, the forest surrounding the lake cannot be cut and is home to a lot of birds and wildlife despite many lakefront house owners wanting to cut them down so they have a better view of the lake.

The lake also does not allow jet skis or speed boats (or swimming). So, for someone like me, who was transformed a bit by reading Braiding Sweetgrass, going out on the lake in a self-propelled kayak is a chance for me to express gratitude for the water and all of the organisms that let me share the lake with them. And, it is also just a chance to feel a part of "nature" not just a user of it.

Although there are no super loud and fast boats on the lake, there are pontoon boats and fishing boats. Last night there was one pontoon boat where people were having a birthday celebration with loud music and alcohol, and where the captain felt it was fun to drive the boat full throttle piercing the silence and sending a wake that just speeds up erosion on the edge. There were several pairs or groups of people fishing on the lake. Several had loud music playing (like the sound of nature isn't enough?) and thus had to yell to talk to each other. This carries across the lake so you can hear every word of their conversation. Not everyone appreciates the sounds of nature or silence.

Another person took two pontoon boats and tied them together. On one of the pontoons they built an unattractive shelter. Put down Astroturf carpet, leather chairs, a large fern plant to create a living room. The person is also apparently fond of pirates so has two pirate flags, including a skull and bones) on a 16 foot pole. And on the back of the shelter hangs a another flag with human bones. The person was stopped right in front of our dock as I returned from kayak on Thursday night. They started their engine and a plume of blue smoke came out as the driver pounded a beer. 

For me the lake is all about "life". A boat with symbols of death all over it felt incongruous.

I am not sure how much longer the lake will be safe from loud gasoline engines or whether it will become a party lake like the Lake of the Ozarks. Don Henley and Glen Frey wrote "They call it paradise; I don't know why; You call someplace paradise; Kiss it goodbye."

Fortunately, the Skypainter still puts on beautiful shows most nights. The herons still share the lake with me. The squirrels and racoons f*ck with our bird feeders, and lots of birds keep singing. And, the fish keep jumping.

For that and them, I am so grateful.

I recently passed the 37 year mark as a postdoc, faculty member and/or senior administrator in higher ed.  As I approach thoughts of retirement, I also reflect on the feeling that I am so much wiser now than I was 37 years ago, but also in many ways I am the dumbest and most naïve I have ever been. 

I also have been thinking about narratives, particularly those affecting higher education right now, and how difficult it is to change those narratives. My thoughts were brought on by an email I read from a senior administrator to a faculty colleague last week, and by a column by David Brooks of the NY Times, (who I read every week with anticipation), "Sins of the educated class." I thought his use of high level generalization to explain differences of students at elite vs. "non-elite" universities was a clever organizing principle but was wrong (see below where I discuss my own flaws). I actually made a gentle comment to that effect, and for the first time after leaving more than 100 comments on NY Times Op-Eds, my comment made it into the "reader's picks" of comments on the NY Times digital site, with over 800 recommendations by other readers, and in the top ten most recommended. I was surprised because I have trouble saying much that is coherent in 1,500 words, which is all they allow. So, I patted myself on the back and let myself think I might be on to something.

Daniel Kahneman's book "Thinking Fast and Slow" was one of a few books that truly changed and focused my perspective.  It's effect was more profound because at that time,  Tracy Chapman's song lyric "There is fiction in the space between" in her song "Telling Stories" was an earworm. I was also then dean of College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU and was connecting with faculty, donors and alumni of VCU's creative writing program.  These together formed the basis of a ten minute graduation speech that to me was one of the more profound things I ever wrote- I doubt any one else thought so.  

This blog piece is about what Daniel Kahneman termed system 1 and system 2 thinking, narratives/stories that are being told and perpetuated about higher education, and the fiction in the space between those narratives and reality. It also is about the challenge that the human brain has in using cognitive "system 2" to examine the simple stories created by cognitive system 1.

For the purposes of this blog, I make the following assumptions- true or not:  1) Because humans evolved to quickly assess danger, as well as friend vs foe, and because we evolved communicating our knowledge about the world through stories, we are really good at taking a few data points and creating a narrative. I term this equivalent to system 1 thinking (Our brains’ fast, automatic, unconscious, and emotional response to situations and stimuli.); 2) Once we create a narrative it is really hard to change that narrative. Changing that narrative requires activating System 2 (The slow, effortful, and logical mode in which our brains operate when solving more complicated problems), which can be difficult because it is easy to be cognitively lazy; And, (3) for whatever reason, the cultures I have lived in don't reward people for adjusting their narratives.

In my graduation speech, I remembered exemplifying this concept by thinking about a graph that correlates two variables (X and Y). Suppose in my research I collect several data points for each variable, plot the data, and I see a strong relationship between the the two variables. I then develop a narrative (perhaps as an hypothesis) to explain the relationship that tells a story about those two variables.  Also suppose that in my graph there are few data points that don't fit the relationship of the others. I love my story so I assume those are outliers or perhaps just scientific slop. 

As I continue to collect data, the relationship between the variables gets fuzzier as more and more data do not fit on my regression line. That leads to the question,  "how many data points that are not consistent with my narrative do I need to be willing to change my narrative?" In science a somewhat arbitrary p-value might set that answer. But, in most people's minds, the more intellectually, emotionally, or politically invested they are in their original narrative, the more resistant they will be to changing it, even in spite of data to the contrary. Having one's narratives challenged can also be extremely threatening.

Every university aims in our general education programs and in our curriculum to help students develop critical thinking skills. In my graduation speech, I used the example above to discuss the concept of critical thinking. The way I thought about critical thinking was doing the work to activate system 2 allowing cognitive processes to correct errors caused by system 1- in this case recognizing that when I looked at all the data points, I would change the narrative of the relationship between X and Y, perhaps even to one that has no relationship.

The irony is that most of us in higher education, and people in general, hold on dearly to some narratives in spite of data to the contrary. Me included. 

I think the reason I feel so dumb and naïve now is related to examining some of my deeply held narratives. For example, as provost and dean I was quick to create narratives about a university and its students. I made generalization about the challenges and the character of students, the perspectives of faculty members, the value of research, and the perspectives of administrators. A lot of those narratives were simply hyperbole.

In one example, getting to know about 1,000 students since I returned to teaching in 2021 caused my narratives to fall apart because there was too much fiction in the space between reality and my story.  The cloud of points led to one simple conclusion: students at my university (UNCG) are heterogenous and defy meaningful generalizations.  Their personal stories are, well, very personal. 

The growth of wisdom with age has made it easier for me to ask questions, try to listen instead of talking, and as I listen I try hard not to track how what they are saying fits my narratives. The more I listen, the wiser I feel. And with that increased wisdom comes clarity about the fiction in the space between- i.e., I feel dumber and more naïve. 

I think I wrote this blog partly to admit to my own flaws. I also wrote the blog as away to heal me from being sick of the seemingly endless attempts of university leaders, politicians and consulting firms to manage by anecdotes and data-free narratives. And, as an autistic person, I am also sick and tired of having people ascribe motives to my actions and reactions when they know nothing about me or how I perceive the world around me, particularly my depressed ability to read other people.

I had started this blog hoping to talk about the large amount of fiction in the spaces between the narratives developed by UNCG administrators about how hard faculty work and motives behind our concern, and how strongly they defend that narrative in face of inconsistent data.  It is as if they completely shut-off cognitive system 2 and had no interest in exposing their narratives to critical thinking.

Discussions in previous blogs that point to messages and op-eds written by our senior administrators point to their dismissal of a large portion of faculty work and ascribing false motivations to concerns that have been raised,. That narrative was created and perpetuated without ever engaging in a conversation where they asked questions and listened to responses. 

UNCG's leadership seems to project a strongly held narrative that faculty are lazy and blind to reality. We could track all of our time, effort, our reading about higher education, and outcomes at the micro-level but that probably would not change the narrative. The only thing that would change their narrative, maybe, is if we whole heartedly agreed with all of their narratives.

I thought of a different way to describe my work effort that perhaps might resonate with those with an MBA.  Next semester I will essentially have 375 direct reports. I meet with those people as a group in-person at least 3 hours/ week and individually as needed.  I will lead those individuals with a vision for learning. I will assess their work and commitment to the course, and give them feedback every week. If they miss more than two classes and don't tell me, I will reach out to ask what is going on. I will take time to know them in class in through our learning management system. And, I will be there for all of them who need to speak to me about the class or challenges in their life. I will also do everything I can to help them reach their full potential consistent with the University's mission. 

There is no management book that would suggest it is a good idea to have more than 8-12 direct reports. And, there is no job in the business world that would assign someone 375 direct reports as 55% of their work effort. Nor would they expect the 70-80 hour work week that might take.

It is tempting for all of us to create narratives about group's of people that we know little about. This is, of course,  central to the challenges we have in creating an equitable and inclusive society. Academics are not immune.  But, it is quite tempting for non-academics and administrators to create narratives about academics because they all went to school and maybe even gave a lecture in a class.

They may not understand, however, the level of effort needed to be committed to the success of students.  They may not respect that intellectual effort and cognitive skills that one develops when completing a PhD or the competitive world that researchers live in.  They may not recognize that grant-funded researchers can be running important small businesses with often more than $1,000,000 in annual revenue supporting numerous employees and doing this as a part-time job in addition to changing their field and/or people's lives. And, they may not recognize that their narratives about the motives for dissent and disagreement are not  self-serving but rooted in a passion for universities founded on a relatively deep understanding of the organization's mission and the challenges it faces.

I had hoped this blog would be more profound. I suppose it is kind of whine. But, it is a reminder to me, and hopefully to readers, to not be afraid to challenge your narratives by understanding whether the data you used to create them is valid, or whether you suffer from confirmation bias by rejecting data inconsistent with your narrative. May we all be willing to activate our system 2, enjoy the poetry and music of Tracy Chapman, and perhaps in the future write, sing or say something profound. 

I will have to keep trying.

Yesterday, April 24, 2024 was the last day of classes for the Spring, 2024 term once again changing the beat of the academic rhythm from a frantic and palpitating beat, to a slower, and calmer one that fits with a song representing the bittersweet finale of the academic year. This semester I had just over 215 students in my classes. I learned a couple of years ago that inherited some wonderful things from my father: 1) I can't help but believe in every students in my classes; 2) I am so very curious about students as people; and 3) every student in these classes will remain to me as members of my extended family, even if they did not like me or my classes.  I was only to be able to put faces to names for around 100-150 of those students, but because of interactions with all of them in class and digitally, I know them in at least some ways. I will root for and miss everyone of the students. Saying good bye to them is sad for me (though many are taking another class with me next semester, Yay!), which makes the end of the term bittersweet.

Now that classes are over, however, I may actually catch my breath and catch up on work over the next two  months while I am not paid (our workload policy states that faculty should generally complete their work during the academic year, so I will not get "credit" for all the work I will do this summer), have dinner with my wife more than 1 or 2 days a week, and get to spend time with our two dogs who are both probably in the final few months of their life.  And,  I hope to heal my soul kayaking on Lake Jeanette while audibly thanking  the Great Blue Herons for their generosity in letting me share their habitat with them.

All of us in the UNCG community received an announcement on April 24th that our current provost, Dr. Debbie Storrs is resigning due to a very serious illness.  My time at UNCG unfortunately made me recognize and appreciate the lack of humanity that can exist in academe. So, I made a promise to myself when my administrative career ended in  what I thought was an inhumane way.  That promise was that no matter the professional relationship I had with someone or my opinions of them as professionals, that I would never lose sight of their humanity when I learned that they were in a personally difficult situation. So, with that in mind, I wanted to say on my blog (and I tried to convey this personally to her) that I am so sorry that she has had to go through a battle with a terrible disease. Although I have large professional disagreements with her and felt her leadership style was ineffective- these were the subject of several blogs, I am in awe that she was able to do the extraordinarily difficult job of provost while battling a terrible disease and will send all of the healing thoughts I can muster.

The chancellor in a message to the campus, and the provost in a message to the campus and an op-ed in the Greensboro News and Record, also used their words to express their frustration with faculty, like me, who thought the process UNCG used that led to program elimination was poorly run and that the result would not position UNCG for a better future. They both also took the opportunity to malign the intention and to dismiss/portray many faculty simply as people addicted to the status quo, who have also have such myopic vision that they can't see the future for higher ed, or can't feel the gale of the headwinds shaking the foundation of academe.  

If you don't believe me, here are quotes from the op-ed written by the provost.

"If obstruction, back-biting and petty mudslinging prevail, the university will fall victim to a slow whittling-away of interest, resources and confidence. Over time, this disservice would most badly harm the students and communities at the heart of our mission. And it would give critics, particularly those outside higher education, material to bolster misconceptions and undermine our standing..... I understand. It can feel satisfying, even empowering, for some faculty to stage rage, push back against institutional leadership, question intent and spread distorted narratives. But I have also seen faculty and staff adapt, collaborate and push through toward constructive ends. Again and again, I have witnessed the success of long-term thinking over short-term denial." and "This attack from a minority of faculty members was part of increasingly personal, desperate maneuvers that distracted focus and energy from an unambiguous truth: Our status quo is no longer tenable."   (Debbie Storrs, Greensboro News and Record Op-Ed, 4/24/2024)

Here are some other quotes from the op-ed: "meritless jab at my integrity"; "entrenched commitment to the status quo"; "persistent refusals to acknowledge shifts in our bedrock"; "obstruction, back-biting and petty mudslinging"; "retrograde attitudes and distortions"; and  "copy-and-spread rhetoric of national interest groups"

These  comments reflect a false narrative. I still believe that the concerns that were raised, and are still raised, by others (and maybe some raised by me) were legitimate concerns. My colleagues and I who were concerned understand challenges facing higher education and regional universities, the importance of constant change, acclimation and adaptation (I am an evolutionary ecologist after all), and we are passionate about UNCG's students and the institution's success.  I also still be believe from my experience in higher ed leadership that the survival and thriving of regional universities in the future will not be had solely through program elimination and cost containment.  There has to be something attractive to students.

Also, I want to reiterate that there was nothing satisfying to me about raising sincere concern about UNCG leadership's approach to the academic portfolio review (and even doing academic portfolio review that only compares disparate programs with each other, not external review, and with no context of peers or aspirant peers.  

And there is nothing satisfying to me about the provost's departure, especially given the health challenges she is facing. 

My hope was always that the response of UNCG leadership to the comments of a sizeable number of faculty (a majority in every vote), even with respect to a vote of no confidence, would be to reflect on the concerns that were raised and use that reflection to rebuild trust and confidence.  I am disappointed that neither she, nor the chancellor, at any time during the process, reflected on, or even really acknowledged, the concerns of a big chunk of faculty they so easily dismiss. The responses from the beginning were similar to those I cited above from the op-ed and have little place in the world of academic leadership.  They were composed of disrespect, defiance, defensiveness, dismissiveness, condescension, loudly ascribing malevolent motives and simpleton understanding to faculty members who are not  malevolent or simpletons, peppered with superficiality, and topped with a big blob of anger.  Is that what the UNCG Board of Trustees want in leadership?

One might get the impression from reading the op-ed or the messages from the chancellor and the provost that a small group of misinformed, malevolent, status quo loving faculty won a battle if not a war defeating the warriors for change. They (we- a large group) did not. The program eliminations are still moving forward.  Cost containment focused solely on academic programs is still the only strategy that is being discussed on campus. And, to make matters worse, based on the message of the chancellor yesterday, it feels to me from that message that the university is being led by a chancellor who despises a sizeable number of faculty he needs to lead. 

So, although this time of the year is bittersweet for me as a faculty member. it is a very sad time despite the celebrations of the milestone of graduation for several thousand students.  Students are still losing their programs, faculty are still losing their jobs, a  prominent member of our community is suffering from a terrible disease, a campus I love remains polarized, campuses like UNCG remain between a rock and a hard place, and the politics surrounding higher education in the US and in North Carolina remain toxic. The only celebrations I will have is when is on graduation day watching students I care about pass through one of life's important milestones. and sincerely telling their families how wonderful they were and what they mean to me.

I sing Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" to students on my last day of classes.  I think it may be the best song/poem every written to express feelings for people you care about. So, I will end this blog with Bob's poem and my hopes for everyone in the UNCG community...

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the light surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young

The UNCG Faculty voted 53% to 47% to support a resolution of no confidence in the provost. This comes after a vote of no confidence from the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty that passed by a larger margin. There was also a censure of the chancellor and provost, and a resolution by the senate citing violations of the faculty constitution that passed with overwhelming support, as did additional resolutions regarding failures of the APR process. See https://www.savetheg.com/unshared-governance. 

The general faculty vote was close, but it doesn't alter the significance. There has never been a faculty vote of no confidence in the provost or the chancellor at UNCG. That does not mean things were always sunny between faculty and administration. In one case, my colleagues who know the history of UNCG informed me that Faculty Senate issued a critical report of Chancellor Moran in the 1990s in lieu of a vote of no confidence. And that there were significant issues with Chancellor Graham that led to the board doing an investigation in 1950s. But the fact that no formal votes of no confidence have ever been passed in UNCG's history supports the significance of what happened yesterday. Also, the vote was the largest number of faculty to vote in general faculty meeting that anyone I know can remember. And, The vote was held in the midst of classes on Weds afternoon and faculty had to remain in the entire meeting to vote.

After each of the faculty votes, neither the chancellor nor the provost have exercised self-reflection. They have responded mostly by blaming faculty for obstructing change. The chancellor also vigorously supports the results of the APR process but has yet to answer any key questions that have been asked repeatedly (and in my blog posts since January 2023). The most important question to me is what the plan will be beyond cutting programs that will generate net revenue leading to survival and thriving of the university. If a chancellor can't explain the plan, and the provost can't explain the plan, and the chief financial officer can't explain the plan, then there is a serious flaw in leadership.

In his response he mentioned that the program cuts are just on the margins. That has to be true. Not necessarily because deeper and deeper cuts have to made (if they are, with no consideration of revenue, the university will eventually die)  but because there has to be a change in focus on generating revenue, which will probably involve empowering, harnessing and incentivizing the entrepreneurial spirt and creativity of deans and faculty.

We all understand the "headwinds" facing higher education and UNCG.  But that word has been so overused here it has become a square on buzzword bingo card. Nonetheless, even in strong "headwinds,” mission driven non-profit businesses, don't succeed by cutting alone, or by selling the most efficient credit hours. Universities don't make widgets. Although the UNCG revenue model is selling credit hours, that is not what students and parents are buying. They are investing in their future. Faculty don't just deliver curriculum, like pilots flying a plane to get someone from point A to Point B, they design and build the curriculum, assess it, continually improve it, and based on surveys like the Purdue-Gallup poll, are the most prevalent factor that alumni correlate to their post-graduation success. 

When the AAUP leadership met with the chancellor and provost to express concerns and provide suggestions several months ago, they were asked to go through faculty senate. When faculty senate passed their resolutions by overwhelming margins, the chancellor responded indicating he wanted to hear from the general faculty. Now that the general faculty have voted no confidence, the chancellor claims that that votes from just under 340 faculty was not enough to be meaningful. He does not mention that it was one of the largest number of voters in any UNCG general faculty meeting, ever. And that had there been more faculty, and less fear among non-tenured and professional track faculty, the vote margin might have been bigger. Or that although he indicated only 25% of the voting faculty voted no confidence, about 20% voted against a vote of no confidence. 

This all sounds familiar in current presidential politics. The election wasn't lost, even though it was. Those that didn't vote support are simply enemies of the state. The vote was not fair because not enough of the right people's votes were counted. The leader doesn't need to change a thing.  People need to bend to the leader's will or be punished or alienated. And a plan for the future? Who needs a plan? Constituents want things broken and the swamp to be drained. So, that is what the leader will do.

Given the response to the passing of the resolution, it wouldn't be that surprising if the Faculty Senate Chair and Secretary were called and asked to find some more votes.

Joe Killian in this article compares and contrasts NC State's Chancellor's response to faculty concerns vs the UNCG Chancellor- "That [Chancellor Gilliam's] response stood in stark contrast to N.C. State Chancellor Randy Woodson’s response to his faculty’s “no confidence” vote, wherein he accepted that the faculty did not feel heard and vowed greater communication"

The stark difference between Randy Woodson's response and Frank Gilliam's response says all that needs to said.  Defiance and "shaming" are usually not the foundations of leadership in successful organizations. Especially when the motives of those who are concerned are shared with the chancellor:  a bright future for UNCG.

​For university's to be successful, I think a majority of the faculty need to feel inspired and valued. Developing or redesigning programs to generate new revenue will be done by the faculty. Viewing a sizeable proportion of faculty as enemies of the university is counter productive. 

Finally, the chancellor suggests the vote will diminish the courage of faculty who are preparing for UNCG's next chapter, as if those of us who worry just as much about UNCG's future don't have courage and will to fight for UNCG's future. It is frustrating that he refuses to recognize the courage of many of my colleagues who have risked careers in a current culture of fear because they love UNCG and see the current actions leading the university into a death spiral (the chancellor, provost and our chief financial officer have not presented any sort of a clear plan that it won't happen).  Those faculty are not risking their careers for their self-interest (as they were first accused) or because they personally dislike anybody.

The chancellor has invested eight years in UNCG and has been well compensated. The provost has invested three years and been well compensated.  The Chief Financial Office is approaching four well compensated years. Many of the faculty who voted no confidence have invested 2-3 times as much of their life  to UNCG's mission as the chancellor and some greater than 10 times longer than the provost. Those faculty are financially compensated 3-6 times lower than the provost, chancellor and chief financial officer.  For me, I often work 70-80 works at 1/3 of the salary I had as provost here, because of how important I think the mission of the university and how many personal rewards there are from mentoring students whose life trajectories are transformed at UNCG.  Other faculty who voted "no confidence"  have given everything of themselves to UNCG and UNCG's students for much longer, with almost no external rewards for the positive effects they have on the lives of students. One might think that people, with such perspectives and dedication, and who have a role in the design and building of programs and curriculum at UNCG,  would be worth being listened to. My colleagues are likely to be here many times longer than either of our three leaders. They're the ones that will have to live with leadership's bad decisions. So, they should be taken more seriously. And, it should be recognized that almost all of us would much rater be in the classroom, with students, or with our research, then going to faculty meetings aimed at trying to be heard by our leadership. And, I would rather blog about funny things.

The biggest failure of leadership right now is the inability to even outline how the current tactics will not lead UNCG into a death spiral and are part of clear strategy that will allow UNCG to ultimately thrive. At some point, leaders have to move beyond vacuous, defensive, and dismissive statements.

I have a heard that some leaders respond to a vote of no confidence from faculty by saying the vote causes them to lose any confidence they had in faculty. Although that may be an effective way to protect one's ego, it is a sad way to react to the people one needs to lead.

I am glad that I am not a chancellor or a provost in a public institution right now. The place between a rock and a hard place is microscopic. But in an organization that is fueled by the creativity and energy of faculty, at least a reflection like Randy Woodson's might have been part of the Chancellor's response. 

On a final personal note, the chancellor stated this in his remarks at the General Faculty Meeting relating to a vote of no confidence. "I believe this action is excessive, pointless, counterproductive, and downright cruel."  with respect to the vote of no confidence, I have personal experience with "excessive and cruel" from the chancellor's and provost's office (and one faculty member) that purposefully destroyed my career, as do other people such as a previous athletic director and a previous graduate dean and others. The Chancellor, Provost and Chief of Staff, in my opinion, have set the cultural norm of the campus to celebrate "excessive and cruel." They need to own that is the culture they created.  if they want to move back to a culture of care and respect, they have the power to change that with their actions, not their words. One simple change would be to invite faculty who have been critical to a meeting, where they come only prepared with questions whose answers they really want to listen to rather than to dismiss and defend.

Here is quote from the message the Chancellor sent to the campus, the day after. 

"There are over 800 eligible people to vote. Today, out of 339 votes cast, 53% voted for the resolution of no confidence, and 47% voted against. Those who voted in favor represent less than a quarter of the eligible voters. As I expressed in my remarks to the faculty today, the Provost understands that strategic change and reinvestment will power the University’s long-term ability to fulfill its mission. The vote today will not only cost time – a precious commodity given the increasingly urgent headwinds facing higher education – it will also diminish the courage and invaluable contributions of the many people who are preparing for the University’s next chapter." Chancellor Gilliam, letter to faculty 3/14/2024

One the eve of a vote of no confidence, the UNCG Chancellor sent out an email showing the enrollment and budget challenges of UNCG. One can't argue that enrollment has declined and that a large decline in enrollment has affected the budget. But, what is telling about the email is that it does not tell the full story and does not connect budget changes to enrollment.  And, says nothing about revenue generation which the most important challenge. So here are some bullet points of issues that were not covered:

• What is the total dollar of cuts to the operating budget that have occurred over the last 3 years?
• It does not include a link to the approved positions over the last three years, or what position request have been denied. Doing so might show a strategy that would be useful to people
• F&A recovery from research grants is predictable. It is reimbursement for administrative and facilities cost of doing research. F&A never covers the full cost of doing research. So, each dollar of F&A recovered replaces a dollar that the university would have to spend from operating funds for research administration and for the costs of maintaining research facilities. The charts do not show the impact of the provost's decisions to not effectively retain researchers with respect to F&A recovery projections.
• The graphs also do not show unrestricted endowment, which is also predictable, and can be used to support academic excellence.
• The email only discusses budget cuts. The only way UNCG can be sustainable into the future is to increase net revenue. The email does not discuss how UNCG plans to do that and how to incentivize units to recruit students that wouldn't come here otherwise (instead of causing competition within UNCG between pre-health programs) and develop programs (online or in person) to solve the revenue problem. It is impossible to cut an organization to sustainability.
• The email does not think of UNCG as a system. The email assumes that if we cut academic programs and spending in academic affairs, that enrollments will not be affected. But, increased student: faculty ratios: reductions in the university's research reputation; and the loss of programs and core gen ed disciplines is likely to cause a decline in enrollment. Why come to UNCG for community college sorts of expectations of academic departments and higher student:faculty ratios when a student can go to 17 other schools in NC, including Charlotte which is not land locked and can continue to grow?
• Finally, the email once again shows the failure of the process. There is not a strategy or plan for UNCG to succeed. Rather, there are just tactics. In this case budget cutting and some vague notion of investing into stronger programs, but no discussion of how that will increase enrollment with a strategy. The email shows an administration that is myopic about cutting its way to sustainability and excellence.  If there is an academic institution that has done so, please let me know.

The UNCG Chancellor responded to a 116-6 vote of no confidence in the Provost by the College Arts and Sciences today. In his response, as he should, he defended the provost. He also took responsibility for the APR process stating that the provost was being personally attacked for his decisions. 

Yet, I found the response to be quite ironic.  Where were the Chancellor and/or the Provost in defending Dean Kiss from the vote of no confidence from CAS faculty? In fact the Chancellor and Provost said repeatedly that the programs that were being eliminated were based on recommendations from the deans  without influence from above (except for the PhD program in Math which the Provost took responsibility). Neither he nor the provost opted to convey to the CAS faculty that the decisions on program eliminations were theirs and to defend Dean Kiss from "personal attacks" and a  vote of no confidence by the CAS faculty. 

He also wrote the following paragraph:

 It’s deeply disappointing that Provost Storrs has come under personal attack over programmatic decisions that ultimately came from me. Such maneuvering comes amid pressing work for the University: identifying and executing solutions to our immediate and long-term challenges. I welcome — and encourage — all community members willing to collaborate with me in confronting these issues. The University must move forward, and we are.

I would like to make two points (never concisely enough):

1. If the chancellor had paid attention to the numerous op-eds and blogs he would recognize that there is little if anything that is a personal attack on the provost, or simply a personal attack for the decisions on the APR. (And, by the way, the Chancellor had no trouble making personal attacks about me aimed at destroying my career that were not about my ability to do the job).

I was a good senior academic administrator for 25 years. As a member of the UNCG faculty, and somebody, who cares deeply for its future- just as deeply, if not more than the chancellor or the provost- It is incumbent on me as a member of this community to point out what I see as failures of leadership in the university that I think put the university at risk.

My blog lays out (see this post re: my reasons for a vote of no confidence and see this one re: my concerns with APR and false dichotomy created by the chancellor) what I think are specific failures of leadership of the provost (and possibly the chancellor). As the chief academic officer the provost is fully responsible for academic affairs and the leader of the faculty. She was responsible for the processes of the APR. She is responsible for decoupling authority and responsibility of deans. And, she is responsible for weakening the research enterprise at UNCG, even though that strength is critical to our reputation and fueling the economy of GSO and the State. She is responsible for using metrics that don't make sense. She is responsible for the decision to announce by email that all professional faculty contracts would be reduced to one year. She is responsible, as the leader of the faculty, to inspire faculty for the future. She has the responsibility of making faculty feel valued. And, it is well known in any business that there a strongly positive correlation between how valued employees feel and how well they do their job. In all of the Chancellor's and Provost's attempts to defend their decisions, they have not once addressed the major criticism:  How exactly are the results of this process going to benefit UNCG for the future and not throw the university into a death spiral? Instead the chancellor relies on using a metaphor that faculty are maneuvering to stage some sort of coup or simply relying on ad hominin attacks, or just that any change, is good change.

2. The part that angers me most in his response is this: "I welcome — and encourage — all community members willing to collaborate with me in confronting these issues. The University must move forward, and we are."  The most frustrating part of the process is the idea that those of us who disagree with the chancellor don't want to collaborate moving forward.  I have been sharing my thoughts for nearly two years-- not once has anyone in the provost's or chancellor's office asked me about them. or how I think something might be improved in the current process. The Chancellor and Provost met with AAUP leadership. They listened to various collaborative proposals but ultimately told AAUP leadership to work through the Faculty Senate, whose resolutions concerning the APR process were dismissed by the chancellor and provost. The provost declined (very politely) to meet with me individually, at a time when I was not that angry, and asked if she would be interested in having me share my experiences as a senior administrator. Yes, the provost and chancellor had small group meetings with faculty with no agenda. But, for faculty who went to those meetings that I know, they did not feel heard and their opinions were not asked.

Those of us on the faculty who are scared for the future of UNCG from what we see as bad leadership in the provost (and the chancellor) are left with only one option right now to be engaged and listened to: a vote of no confidence. As I have said before, I don't view the only good outcome of a vote of no confidence in the any senior administrator solely as the individual leaving their role.  There are many responses that can be made to a vote of no confidence. One positive response would be a recognition of what others believe are failures of leadership and to reflect on those and work to rebuild confidence. Another, but bad, response is to ignore the reasons for the vote. Another, even worse, response is to not only ignore, but to find faculty that are supportive of UNCG leadership, bring them into the inner circle, and place them in leadership roles. Another terrible response with respect to the mission of the university is to terminate, fire, make life miserable for those who expressed their opinions. Unfortunately, that is what many of us believe will be the response. And, there is of course the response where the chancellor reflects whether a chief academic officer can effectively serve as the leader of the faculty when a significant proportion of the faculty have expressed no confidence in the provost's leadership.

To me, the Chancellor and the Provost created the dichotomy of "you are either with me, or you are against me," or "you are either agents of change, any change, or luddites defending the status quo."  The faculty who supported the resolution of no confidence in the College of Arts and Sciences, and those that wills support it on March 13, are not the people who created the dichotomy. The chancellor has the power and authority for the entire university. The provost has the power and authority in academic affairs, as designated by the chancellor. In power relationships, those with the power are the people responsible for creating a culture of collaboration. As I wrote in a previous blog, the narrative of dichotomy that the chancellor created of "good" vs "evil" has to change.

Every single person on this campus that I know wants UNCG to succeed well into the future. I am scared about the future for UNCG with a leadership that does not seem to understand, or at least does not articulate, that our mission in a few words would be "we build people up!" Instead they seem to believe that tearing people down so we can sell credit hours more efficiently, is the path to success. I don't think there are  many cases where organizations can  simply cut themselves to sustainability, let alone excellence. I understand the need control costs, but survival/thriving will be based on revenue generation. There is been barely a peep about how that is going to happen.

Many of my colleagues and I understand the "headwinds" facing higher education. We all have common ground in wanting UNCG to succeed. Common ground is where I want to stand. I am not sitting in the audience heckling the chancellor like Marjorie Taylor Green did to President Biden last night with a goal of simply blowing things up. Consistent with a university's mission, I want to see the university, the faculty and the students built up and UNCG to continue to serve a talented and extraordinarily diverse student body and to continue to enrich the region, state, nation and the world with research, scholarship and creative activities that matter. When I worked with the Chancellor, he shared that goal. To me, that is the common ground we all want to stand on. But, that common ground is a place that the Chancellor has fenced off. Only  people who agree and/or passive are allowed to stand there.

The UNCG College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) and the UNCG Faculty will be voting on resolutions of no confidence in the provost soon

I support voting "no confidence" in the provost. Below I include some bullet points on why I will vote "yes" on the resolution. I did not write this out of malice for the provost or chancellor. UNCG is a special place- unlike any of the 8 institutions where I have worked. I love my job here.  I am really fearful that in leadership's attempt to try to position UNCG for the future, they are leading the campus into a death spiral because of decisions made in academic affairs. Academic affairs is the domain of the provost.

In contradiction to what I have heard several people say, I don't necessarily believe that the only response to a vote of no confidence is the resignation or removal of the provost. Confidence can be rebuilt, if a leader wants to.

There are not many ways for faculty to collectively share their concerns about past actions and future confidence in the provost. The Faculty Senate and CAS have passed less weighty resolutions expressing concerns,  I have seen no evidence that the provost (or chancellor) have reflected on these resolutions or want to improve relationships with faculty as a whole.  Even worse, the provost has seemed to ignore/dismiss the Faculty Senate's overwhelming votes, perhaps because she believes those votes don't represent the faculty as a whole, or are a result of "sour grapes".  A vote of no confidence now seems like the only way for faculty to express those concerns in a way that might be heard, reflected upon, and might lead to positive change. Both the chancellor and provost seem to view the current situation with faculty who are concerned about their leadership damaging UNCG as a "partisan" battle to be won or lost.  It does not have to be that. way and leadership should never subscribe to this false dichotomy. 

• The simple reason I will vote "yes" on the resolution expressing no confidence in the provost is because I have absolutely no confidence in her ability to lead as the chief academic officer. The lack of confidence is driven because most every action I have seen the provost take since she arrived is in contradiction to what I learned during my 25 years a senior administrator of how to effectively lead an institution and build excellence, which generally supports financial sustainability. I won't lay all of those out here. . I would be happy to provide more detail if you ask
• I think the APR process was simply terrible and alone justifies a vote of no confidence. This was an academic process owned by the provost. The failures of the process should be acknowledged. Issues that the faculty have with outcomes should not be deflected to deans  (at least the dean of CAS) who had little authority within the provost's management style. Additionally, the rubrics had metrics that don't make sense- e.g. such as using a first time, full time freshman cohort during Covid, and not including the 50% of new students who are transfer students, as the bases of retention and graduation data by department (and many more issues). And, if you read an earlier blog you can see that the rpk consultant declined to articulate what the importance was for each metric. Error prone data was and is being used. Dependent variables were treated as independent Thousands of hours of faculty time was wasted in committees, meetings and forums that appear to have had little to no impact on the outcomes and with nothing but faux transparency.  There has been no plan to ask all units who did not yet meet expectations to create a plan to improve, or to conduct a thorough academic program review, even if no action has been taken, while programs that scored well were eliminated, with no clear rationale, at least to me. There have been chameleon like rationales articulated for the APR that don't align with any of the outcomes. And, I found in my 10 years experience as a dean and provost that the ability to truly assess programs is nearly impossible without comparing to peer programs and with external review. The latter two were explicitly disallowed by the provost in the APR process.
• I found during my career, that high functioning organizations have clear alignment between authority and responsibility. High functioning universities, in my opinion, have deans that act like CEOs, inspire a vision, grow the vision through fundraising, incentivizing new or reimagined programs, and have the authority to allocate resources. And, those deans are held accountable for those results.  Lesser functioning universities remove authority of deans and chairs, moving that authority centrally, while still expecting deans to own the responsibility of central decisions.  Our current provost seems to have, in my opinion, has worked to centralize all significant academic authority from deans while still giving them all the responsibility for her decisions. This type of organization can not work for long, at least in my experience, which I am happy to share.
• It feels like (though has not been articulated) that the provost's vision, at least for part of the institution, is moving to a 4-year community college model. Although community colleges have less physical infrastructure to manage and support, higher faculty teaching loads, and lower faculty salaries, they have the most unstable budget models in higher education. Additional evidence in this regard is that the provost has proposed that there will be another portfolio review next academic year to focus on graduate programs. The rationale that was apparently stated was because the state funding model appropriates more funding for undergraduate credit hours than for graduate credit hours.  That is true.  But, I think the provost has fallen into the trap of assuming that since the funding model is based on the number of credit hours that we sell, that credit hours in a discipline are what students are buying. I disagree.  For students and parents, they are investing money in the university for a student's future.  Thus, UNCG has to have a value proposition for that investment based on quality. The reputation of the institution is critical, and that reputation is largely built on scholarly and faculty excellence, which is also built on having at least some very strong graduate programs, at least for relatively large public universities. The current path which seems to have more faculty members teaching 4-4 loads, reductions in research, and reductions in graduate programs, may allow the university to sell credit hours more efficiently. But, the reduction in the value proposition of university with a much higher student:faculty ratio (who wants to go to a university with a 40:1 student faculty ratio when they can go to another one with a 25:1 or 20:1 student faculty ratio for the same price?), faculty who do not have time to engage with students, and a reduced reputation, may very well end up causing larger reductions in enrollment, leading to more cuts, and then more reductions, and so on.  The provost has never communicated (at least in anything I read or heard) how she thinks it will be possible to reach financial sustainability simply by focusing on the efficiency of teaching credit hours, or even with realignment of programs through the APR.  Honestly, I have no idea how anyone can assume that enrollment will not decline because of the damage done to the reputation and quality of programs by the APR process. I hope I am wrong.
• The response of the provost to the criticisms, the votes of the CAS faculty, UCC, Gen Ed Council and the Faculty Senate seems to me to have been at best to ignore them and at worst to simply defend, deny, show no ability to reflect on the concerns, or to say that the large margins in which those resolutions passed were because of a small band of faculty..  Because of this approach, it is impossible for me to have confidence that the provost can change in a way that would inspire the academic side of the university to work smarter, empower deans, create a climate for risk taking and innovation necessary in facing the "headwinds" the chancellor keeps talking about, and rebuild trust and faculty morale. I think UNCG's hope for the future lies in these attributes of a provost. In my opinion, the chancellor has been too involved in the APR, which as solely an academic process should be owned by the provost. 
• I know some people don't wish to vote no confidence because they fear who might become the next provost. In my experience, accepting the devil you know is accepting living in hell.  Perhaps a new provost would create a worse hell, but accepting the devil you know is something that I have zero empirical evidence is an effective strategy. UNCG deserves leadership that can bring the campus together, make sound and transparent decisions, appreciate the work faculty do and our dedication to the distinctive students we serve, and who gives the campus confidence that they can steer the UNCG ship through the political headwinds and financial realities, allowing faculty to focus their energy on the teaching and research that matters most to us.
• On another note, there are values expressed by the provost such as transparency, shared governance and caring that don't seem to align with actions. I just want to point out that transparency is never determined by the sender of information, is not correlated with the number of engagements, and it is determined by the receiver. So, when 75% of the faculty senate suggest things weren't' transparent, and that shared governance processes were not followed, one would hope the response would not be defensive, but reflective. And, I think that caring is an action, not a value. And, it is an action that the senior administration at UNCG rarely shows when faculty, staff and students need it the most, such as those faculty who have dedicated their careers to UNCG and who have already been told their contracts will not be renewed and others who may soon lose their job. 
• In my opinion, the provost seems to have made a conscious decision to weaken the research enterprise, weakening the office of research, and to let excellent research faculty leave, even when the economics of them leaving doesn't work (e.g., being unwilling to offer a $20K raise for a faculty member recovering $250,000 in F&A costs annually, with likely growth for the foreseeable future). 
• The provost has demonstrated, at least to me, that she can be just outright mean. The best example to me is the termination of a former graduate dean which I feel was handled in an inhumane way. The mission of universities can be summed up by "building people up". The provost (and the chancellor and vcfa) seem to believe that one can manage by hurting and diminishing people, and still have an organization that supports the development of students, faculty and staff. I don't believe that is possible. I have seen what happens to a campus when administration loses its perspective of the purpose of universities as a positive force in developing students and ideas (I once worked with a president who was booed by students at graduation). I have also seen the work that has to be done, and the tremendous expense, to heal a campus when those administrators leave
• You can find other reasons for how I may vote in my previous blogs. My list is long with respect to how poorly I believe the provost has managed the campus, managed the deans, retained faculty, supported research and scholarship and micromanaged the Faculty Senate leadership. To me, she seems  unable to, or at least won't, articulate, a strategy that can create a compelling academic reason to attend UNCG or to inspire faculty. She also seems unwilling to foster innovation, entrepreneurism and careful risk taking with the budget (e.g., being unwilling to think of predictable sources of revenue like F&A recovery, and predictable sources of reduced expenditures like university-wide turnover of faculty and staff, or incentivizing units to develop programs that will bring in new students).
• For those that are thinking, how come I haven't brought this up before since the chancellor and provost often say "we want to hear from you.", I will say that I responded pretty much every time there was a chance for written input. My guess is most of those comments found their way to a circular file. I also asked whether the provost might be interested in having coffee with me to pick my brain. She, very politely, but very clearly, declined.

I often have contrarian opinions. So, I don't expect every reader will agree with me.  In the current climate at UNCG, people are afraid to talk about their opinions openly. I wrote this blog to maybe open the door for others to say or write what is on their minds . I would be very happy to hear (and truly listen and reflect on) your opinions if they are different than mine, and I would be happy to share mine in more detail

On a final note, I find it ironic that a recent narrative is that faculty members that support the provost fear retaliation from other faculty. I learned the hard way about the perception of the extensive power of the provost and deans. So, the faculty that most likely need protection from retaliation are those that have taken real risks to their careers speaking out, submitting resolutions, and talking openly on the Senate floor about their sense of the failure of leadership. Believe me, I fear retaliation just like most people feel right now who state their perspectives, apparently on both sides, from just stating my opinion here.

In that vein, I find it indefensible that the Faculty Senate Chair found it appropriate to read an anonymous letter into the Faculty Senate record in support of the provost and implying racial bias, and for the Secretary of the Senate (who reports to the Provost in her role as a provost fellow) to put more emphasis in the draft of the Senate minutes-on the anonymous letter than on the several faculty who emotionally and intelligently articulated their position in the open.  Many of the faculty that spoke about the consequences of the APR results were the MOST vulnerable faculty in the institution at that time. 

I find it frustrating to read the many news articles and op-eds around UNCG's academic portfolio review process. On one side the Chancellor, Provost and VCFA are portrayed by themselves, and by their supporters, as warriors for change fighting the faculty enemies who worship the status quo. On the other side are faculty members similarly worried about the fate of UNCG, who don't question change per se, but think both the process to define the change and the outcomes of UNCG's Academic Portfolio Review (APR) will hurt UNCG in the short term, and possibly send the university into a death spiral of cuts, decreased enrollment, more cuts, more decreased enrollment, etc. in the long term. And, these faculty also happen to care deeply about their colleagues who may lose their positions and the important role these colleagues play in what makes UNCG a special place.

The warriors for change say change is needed for five different reasons, depending on the day, but the reasons are not mutually exclusive: 1) Program changes are needed because UNCG has a short-term budget challenge; 2) Program changes are needed to make UNCG competitive against other UNC schools given a demographic decline in the number of students enrolling in universities in North Carolina. This challenge is exacerbated by a recent change in the UNC system budget model that might put more pressure on UNC-CH and NC State to increase their undergraduate enrollment to have enough state appropriation to support their graduate programs; 3) Program changes are needed so that UNCG can invest money from weak academic programs into strong ones; 4) Program changes are needed to address a long term structural budget deficit that relates to what the university calls permanent funds (that are far from permanent these days), tuition and state appropriation vs. ongoing expenses. This model doesn't consider other predictable sources of revenue like F&A reimbursement from grants, revenue from endowments, or reductions in long term expenses that happen every year with faculty/staff turnover. ; and 5) Program changes are needed for UNCG to lay a foundation for the next 10-20 years.

The administration no longer uses the short-term budget problem as their primary talking point. Nevertheless, I find it hard to argue that there are not financial (enrollment) and political headwinds facing the university. One would hope every university has some strategy to be better placed to thrive in an uncertain future. Yet, at UNCG, tactics have been implemented without that strategy.

To me the real question about the program eliminations, the important question, the only question that really matters, is whether there is a match between the APR process and its outcomes to eliminate programs to solving any of the five problems listed above.  The faculty colleagues I know do not see: 1) how what seem to us to be almost random elimination of programs will do anything to make UNCG more competitive (we think it will be less);  2) how the outcomes generate enough revenue to truly make strong programs stronger, and besides that, there is no plan/process in place to determine and define strong programs, especially since the APR process included no external review or peer/aspirant peer comparisons; 3) how it generates nearly enough money to reduce the structural budget deficit, let alone to reinvest into other programs, while not also having a significant negative effect on enrollment and reductions in F&A reimbursement; and 4)how cutting the particular academic  programs positions UNCG for 10-20 years.  Universities that have taken on this kind of large strategic vision beyond 5 years, have done major reorganizations (e.g., Arizona State) over many years in both academic and administrative systems. In UNCG's particular case, suggesting that the results of the APR process of cutting a few programs positions UNCG for 10-20 years is outright stupid, especially given that the data and metrics were based on one cohort of students during COVID (and the data had many other issues from poorly thought out metrics to error prone data).

One telling act pointing to the conversation needing to change is that the Chair of the UNC system faculty assembly and UNCG faculty member told the Chronicle of Higher Education that North Carolina universities that do something similar in the future just won't engage their faculty/staff in the process of academic program cutting or restructuring because of the failure of the process at UNCG.

I don't think back-room decisions are recommended by any change-management best practice. Such practicies would also essentially do away with shared governance with respect to faculty's role for overseeing the quality of the curriculum. Although for some completing a process behind closed doors is expedient, universities are different animals. The major things universities do- teaching and research- are not only performed by faculty, but curricula and courses are designed and assessed by faculty, research, scholarship, and creative activity are the result of faculty expertise, and research quality is also assessed by faculty. Shared governance in academic matters was designed with the recognition that although administrators have fiduciary responsibilities, they don't have the expertise to design and assess curricula, design, and assess courses and learning outcomes, nor design and implement research done by faculty. Oh.. and there are many institutions that worked through/with shared governance to implement significant change. 

The Chancellor praises the work that his team did with the Faculty Senate in a recent op-ed in University Business that seems quite disconnected from anything that has happened in reality. For example, he fails to mention that there were five votes, one by the Faculty Assembly of the College of Arts and Sciences and four by the UNCG Faculty Senate  (two from the full senate, one from the  undergraduate curriculum committee and one from the general educational council) all passing by more than 75% indicating a strong lack of confidence in the process and concerns of negative impacts of process on the academic quality of the university. So, let's be perfectly clear.  The majority of faculty senators have made it clear that many faculty do not support the process and certainly did not feel they were adequately engaged. 

In the end, the goal for all parties is a better future for UNCG.  University leadership needs to communicate so that there is a clear strategy for making change, with clearly articulated tactics. Change for change’s sake is unlikely to strengthen UNCG, and is rather more likely to cause reputational harm and a concomitant decline in enrollment
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So, I beg supporters of UNCG's administration in their quest to be nationally recognized as change agents to start asking some profound questions about how the particular APR outcomes will make UNCG stronger for the future. Do not accept vacuous statements the Chancellor has made such as "Through sharpening our focus and reinvesting in our collective work, we set a stronger foundation for students and communities to thrive." Probe the details. The op-ed this Sunday, 2/11/2024, (written by the Chair of the UNCG Board of Trustees (BoT) and three former chairs), basically argued that everybody should just come together and make the best of it. I disagree. There is still time to get things aligned. Leadership has to up their game or move on.  Cutting things is relatively easy. Making a university stronger for the future isn't, especially when university leaders either have been unable or unwilling to specifically describe how program cuts will improve UNCG's chances for a bright future.

So, let's stop the narrative that UNCG leaders are the warriors for change fighting the small but loud band of the armies for the status quo. It is time to talk about the real story: UNCG's future. It is also time to acknowledge the failure of academic leadership that led a campus through an APR process costing thousands (and possibly tens of thousands) of faculty and staff person-hours with an outcome that cannot be matched to any realistic or definable strategy other than any change, is good change.

There is still ample time to determine whether amputating program limbs will heal the UNCG patient, and, if not,  whether the UNCG community wants to consider new physicians to be responsible for the health of UNCG's academic enterprise.

This is a draft of a song I wrote regarding the situation at UNCG.  Feedback welcome.  It is only the first recording.-I will re-record if there is interest.

The Song's title is "we need a vision for the future"

For those who have not paid attention, UNCG is completing a process that I can only hope will be used for the foreseeable future as a case study of how NOT to lead a university and how NOT to run processes in academe.  The resolution below describes in some detail the ineptitude of the process and damage it has done and may do. This resolution passed with a 75% percent majority of the faculty senate.

The lead author of this resolution, Dr. Danielle Bouchard did a fantastic job, so I hope you read it just to see what a powerful resolution looks like.

Despite this resolution, a censure resolution, that also passed with more than 75% of the vote, petitions with over 4,000 signature, letters from across the country regarding the importance of our programs, including feeding a diverse pipeline of STEM individuals, all of the decisions to cut these programs were implemented.  The Chancellor was actually quoted as saying it was just a small group of vocal faculty and the UNCG AAUP that led to the resolution-- a vote passes with 75% and its a small group? 
Undergraduate Majors

• BA, Anthropology
• BA, Secondary Education in Geography
• BS and BA, Physics
• BS, Physical Education, Teacher Education (K-12)
• BA, Religious Studies (will now be a concentration within the Liberal and Professional Studies Program — see below for details) 

Undergraduate Minors, Certificates, and Course Offerings 

• Chinese minor
• Russian minor
• Korean language courses 

Graduate Programs

• Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Nursing
• Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Advanced Practice Foundations (Nursing)
• MA, Applied Geography
• MFA, Drama Concentration in Directing (Concentrations in Musical Direction for Musical Theatre, Theatre for Youth, and Design will continue)
• MFA, Interior Architecture
• MA, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
• MAT, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in Teaching
• MA, Mathematics (all concentrations)
• MEd, Special Education
• Dual Masters in Nursing Science and Business Administration (The stand-alone MBA and standalone MSN are not affected)
• PhD, Communication Sciences and Disorders
• PhD, Computational Mathematics

I was drawn to UNCG because Chancellor Gilliam painted a strong vision of how UNCG good be a great R2. This included in my mind some distinct strengths in research programs that compete at the R1 level and a commitment to our mission and the diverse students we serve. It is clear from these decisions that is no longer the vision.

But, none of the faculty I know have any idea what the vision is other than fluff statements like "It’s up to us to welcome these shifts as an opportunity. Through sharpening our focus and reinvesting in our collective work, we set a stronger foundation for students and communities to thrive. We’ll announce specific reinvestment strategies in the near future.". The worst failure of leadership in this process is the inability to paint any picture of how what was done above (which will over several years only reduce relatively small numbers of faculty) and how these actions will lead to a better UNCG.
​
Below the resolution (which is different than the short censure one that also passed) in the blog is some of my thoughts regarding how terrible the process was. As someone who had excellent results from initiatives I led over a 25 year administrative, career it really pained me to watch this unfold (I started worrying and documented that worry in my blog last year).  There will probably be more news accounts today covering the resolution below and the decisions on program closure today. This article and this article can give you a sense of what happened before this resolution below passed. 

Oh.. and this by the way is a good representation of how the UNCG Chancellor manages change from a story in the Triad Beat:

​"During one particularly heated exchange, a student noted that if the university’s process had been a paper that was to be submitted to an academic journal, it would not have passed the first peer review."

To that, Chancellor Gilliam quipped back that "[I've] published a lot in peer reviewed articles” and that the President of Harvard, who was recently ousted, had plagiarized some of [my] paper." "So I think maybe I know a little bit about data, alright?” Gilliam responded. “When you do that, let me know."
________________________________________________________________

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Faculty Senate
Resolution #01312024.1
 
Resolution on Violations of the Constitution of the General Faculty and the Promotion, Tenure, Academic Freedom, and Due Process Regulations of UNC Greensboro
Danielle Bouchard
 
 
Preamble: Shared governance is foundational to the modern university in a democratic society. It ensures ethical policies and decision-making practices, accountability on the part of faculty and administrators, fair labor conditions, and the protection of academic freedom. Shared governance is not just about allowing faculty the opportunity to share their ideas with administrators—it is, much more importantly, a set of principles and procedures that designates the faculty as having primary decision-making responsibility when it comes to academic programs and policies. In regard to the role of the faculty in shared governance, the American Association of University Professors notes that “The role of the faculty is to have primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, subject matter and methods of instruction, research, faculty status, and aspects of student life which relate to the educational process. The responsibility for faculty status includes appointments, reappointments, decisions not to reappoint, promotions, the granting of tenure, and dismissal. The faculty should also have a role in decision-making outside of their immediate areas of primary responsibility, including long-term planning, budgeting, and the selection, evaluation and retention of administrators” (https://www.aaup.org/programs/shared-governance/faqs-shared-governance). Shared governance allows for the knowledge of the whole faculty body to be brought to bear in solving challenging institutional problems. At a time when many institutions, like UNCG, are facing changes in enrollment and funding structures, shared governance is more important than ever. 
 
The Academic Portfolio Review process has been characterized by a breakdown in shared governance. Specific actions and procedures laid out in UNCG’s governance documents regarding the possibility of major changes to academic offerings, including the potential elimination of academic programs, were ignored. Furthermore, good-faith efforts on the part of faculty to assert their rightful role in this major university undertaking have thus far been rejected. On November 20, 2023, Chancellor Gilliam denied Faculty Senate Resolution #11012023.2, which requested the presence of Senators as observers in administrators’ deliberations about the APR beyond the unit level. Similarly, the administration has declined the request of the College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Assembly, as explicated in a resolution passed on December 5, 2023, that the APR timeline be extended to allow adequate time for faculty to review the proposed program changes and eliminations announced on January 16, 2024. This breakdown in established procedures to ensure shared governance preceded the Academic Portfolio Review: in February 2022, Provost Storrs announced a unilateral decision to rescind the multi-year contract policy for Professional Track Faculty, a decision which contravened the will of the faculty, who had recently developed the multi-year policy through a shared governance process. Due to the crucial nature of shared governance practices to higher education in this nation, what happens at UNCG has larger implications, ones which transcend the specific details of the APR process at this institution.
 
In addition to the procedural inadequacies of the APR process, the APR and the proposed program closures pose a significant threat to UNCG’s capacity to carry out its academic mission. The data and criteria used to evaluate academic programs’ success were seriously compromised by errors, inconsistencies, and logical failures. Moreover, there was never a plan to help programs become stronger before taking the step of proposing their elimination, despite the fact that there is no need for the accelerated timeline for the implementation of program closures—both Chancellor Gilliam and Chief Financial Officer Bob Shea have stated that UNCG is not experiencing a financial crisis. Had shared governance procedures been followed and faculty and other stakeholders been granted meaningful opportunities to shape the design of the APR, this threat could have been mitigated through the development of approaches that did not result in the proposal to eliminate academic programs and fire our colleagues. Additionally, the elimination of academic programs bears the serious risk of leading to further enrollment decline and, thus, a further decline in state appropriations—which has been the outcome of program closures at other universities. As many have noted, the APR process has resulted in alarmingly low morale. Staff and faculty have watched their colleagues leave UNCG for other jobs at a concerning rate; remaining staff and faculty have had to contend with the fact that we may lose our jobs no matter how excellent we are at them; and students are rightly worried about the value of a degree from a closed program in a hollowed-out university. Morale is not just an individual issue, but is key to the functioning of the university as a community.
 
In this resolution, we name the harm caused by specific actions so that we can create the conditions for true shared governance and a shared sense of community accountability.
 
 
Whereas, UNCG and UNC system governance documents clearly describe specific actions to be taken by the Provost and the Chancellor to ensure shared governance in the event of possible academic program closures. The Promotion, Tenure, Academic Freedom, and Due Process Regulations of UNC Greensboro state that “when the institution is considering a major curtailment in or elimination of a teaching, research, or public-service program, the Chancellor shall first seek the advice and recommendations of the academic administrative officers and faculties of the departments, academic programs, or academic units that might be affected, and of the Faculty Senate.” The Constitution of the General Faculty of UNC Greensboro states that “The Senate as a body must give approval to academic policies concerning undergraduate curriculum and instruction prior to their implementation, including but not limited to those policies regarding the following:...the establishment, merger, or discontinuation of departments, schools, and colleges.” The Constitution of the General Faculty of UNC Greensboro additionally states that “When the Provost gives preliminary consideration to a plan to establish or discontinue one or more undergraduate degree programs, for example, during the early stages of the University’s strategic planning process, the Provost will consult with the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.” The UNC System Code states that “the chancellor shall ensure the establishment of appropriate procedures within the institution to provide members of the faculty the means to give advice with respect to questions of academic policy and institutional governance, with particular emphasis on matters of curriculum…”; and 
 
Whereas, the Provost did not consult with the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee at the appropriate time as defined in the Constitution of the General Faculty, as stated in the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Resolution dated November 17, 2023; the Chancellor and the Provost did not incorporate stakeholders’ serious concerns about the validity and integrity of the Academic Portfolio Review process into making changes to that process; and the Academic Portfolio Review timeline established by the Provost and the Chancellor does not allow adequate time for the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Faculty Senate to review, approve, and provide advice and recommendations on the proposed closures (providing only 11 business days in January between the initial announcement of proposed closures and the final decision on those closures); and
 
Whereas, the Chancellor, the Provost, and the Chief Financial Officer have failed to provide evidence of the necessity of eliminating academic programs and firing faculty; have failed to provide a clear plan or vision for how program eliminations and the firing of faculty will contribute to UNCG’s mission; and did not follow appropriate procedures for consulting with affected stakeholders as established in the Promotion, Tenure, Academic Freedom, and Due Process Regulations of UNC Greensboro, which states that “When it appears that the institution will experience an institutional financial exigency or when the institution is considering a major curtailment in or elimination of a teaching, research, or public-service program, the Chancellor shall first seek the advice and recommendation of the academic administrative offices and faculties of the departments, academic programs, or academic units that might be affected, and of the Faculty Senate”; and
 
Whereas, in resolution # 01.29.2024.2, the Faculty Senate censured the Provost for “not initiating consultation with the Senate at the start of the APR process and not providing a clear rationale of the choise of program closures”; and
 
Whereas, the General Education Council passed a resolution strongly disapproving of the porposed program closures; and the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee passed a resolution advising the Faculty Senate to “seek a postponement of the February 1, 2024 implementation date to allow the committee time to conduct a substantive review of the proposed program discontinuations on par with its regular review process prior to implementation” and “that if the Senate cannot secure such a postponement, the UCC recommends it reject the proposed program discontinuations for lack of a proper review”; and
 
Whereas, the elimination of academic programs bears the serious risk of leading to further enrollment declines, and there is no evidence that the elimination of academic programs will make UNCG more competitive in attracting students; and
 
Whereas, the firing of tenured faculty is a grave measure with serious implications for the profession and for the ability of UNCG to enact its academic mission.
 
Be it resolved, that the Academic Portfolio Review process violated the Constitution of the General Faculty and the Promotion, Tenure, Academic Freedom, and Due Process Regulations and impeded the rights and responsibilities of the Faculty Senate to engage in shared governance; and 
 
Be it resolved, that the proposed program eliminations represent a serious threat to the capacity of UNCG to maintain its academic mission; and
 
Be it resolved, that the Faculty Senate does not approve the closure of academic programs identified by the Academic Portfolio Review.
________________________________________________________________________

If you are still reading, here are some of my thoughts about the terrible process that I expressed when faculty were having an online discussion about the first censure vote. 

​1) The regular processes by which the Senate and Graduate Council have shared responsibility for curriculum was not followed. The most recent argument of the provost is that the UNC System gives the Chancellor full authority. That is true. Are we happy as a faculty that the administration has chosen to use the fact that the chancellor has full authority and responsibility as a rational to not follow the processes by which faculty reviews and recommends on issues of academic programs in our faculty senate constitution? By using the rational that the chancellor has full authority and thus has no obligation to adhere to the Faculty Senate constitution regarding curricular oversight, it might logically follow that there is no need for a Faculty Senate at all- Rather all that would be needed was a few committees appointed by the chancellor or designee to make recommendations on issues a chancellor doesn’t care to simply invoke their authority.
 
2) Many faculty feel that the attempts at engagement were cursory at best and simply a farce at worst.  Many “engagements” is not the same as real engagement and valuing the intellectual contribution of faculty and their time. As far I as I can tell, there was no significant faculty input (other than finding data errors) that changed the process other than removal of department of commerce labor statistics by the rubric weighting committee (a significant change) and addition of research grants to the rpk metrics.  The other things that have been said publicly as resulting from faculty input do not generally apply to my definition of significant
 
3) None of the rationales for the APR are served by the process (IMHO). The rationales have morphed among several different things (that aren’t mutually exclusive). The first rationale was a short-term actual budget deficit.  Then the rationale was aimed at making UNCG more competitive for students in NC in the face of a declining population of college going students ,  and/or allowing reallocation of funds from weak to strong programs [there is nothing in the APR that speaks to strength since no external data or review was allowed],  then it was about reducing long term structural budget deficits (and structural budget deficits vs actual budgets were not explained, nor was there a discussion of reasonably predictable non-permanent revenue like F&A recovery and endowment spend, as well as reasonably predictable expenditure savings from faculty and staff turnover), then to creating a foundation for institutional stability for 10-20 years (no idea how the APR process can do that- since it is based on the past not a rapidly changing future- I mean 20 years ago, the first i-phone was 3-4 years away from being introduced). There is a sense among some/many students, staff, alumni and faculty (look on Instagram and petitions) that neither the provost nor the chancellor have presented a vision in which the APR will serve any of these rationales. In fact, on the surface, it seems to be an oxymoron to conduct a process that fixes 10% of a long-term structural budget deficit and would also allow for reallocation to strong programs without increasing the structural budget deficit, unless that reallocation generates a lot of new revenue. There is no evidence right now, since few if any programs are over capacity and that also generate positive net revenue, that APR driven cuts and reallocation will increase revenue. For many including me, we worry a lot about a death spiral.
 
4) The resolution passed by the CAS faculty regarding having no confidence in the APR process received over 130 votes and was completed before the final outcomes.  A petition regarding problems with the APR was signed by approximately 4,000 individuals. Petitions regarding issues with recommendations have been signed by hundreds, if not several thousand individuals (Religious Studies, hit 3,000).  So, it would be incorrect to suggest the current resolution, drafted by a faculty member from HHS, has been spurred by a small number of faculty in an echo chamber who just don’t like the outcome.
 
 5) As a former provost and dean, I always felt that dean roles are equivalent to being CEOs of wholly owned subsidiaries.  I have observed under the provost’s leadership that any CEO-like authority that deans (especially the CAS dean) may have had has been subsumed centrally, making deans largely middle managers who end up being forced to take responsibility for what happens in their units but have little authority- other than deciding what to ask for approval from the provost and vcfa (the dual hire approval process is one example of taking authority away from deans that has large transaction and opportunity costs. I know from my time as provost that process was put in place because deans were not trusted to manage within a budget).  So, the definition of a “dean’s recommendation” might not be as independent as it sounds. Also, in my senior administrative experience, when authority and responsibility are not aligned, the organization suffers. The APR only made the misalignment more visible, at least in CAS.
 
6) Academic portfolio review as envisioned by rpk, and framework we adopted (determining programs to cut, based on somewhat superficial data somewhat unconnected to the mission), is not a widely used best practice [I have a blog with some data] as we were told nor was it designed to meet any of the academic rationales for the APR process (read the rpk report to the Kansas Board of Governors to find out how rpk describes the purpose of academic portfolio review). In recent practice, there is not much evidence that this type of APR improved a university. One might argue that the results of this process may lead to a death spiral based on what has occurred to date at Emporia State. West Virginia does not have the “death spiral” problem because they are the flagship institution in their State and students will continue to want to go there, even if with program cuts and with higher student:faculty ratios. UNCG has an issue that there are many other institutions a student can go to in NC with equal or better reputations, leaving UNCG susceptible to a death spiral (programs are cut,  student:faculty ratio increases, less students want to come, leading to more  cuts, higher student-faculty ratios, and less engagement of students with faculty, leading to fewer students wanting to come. That worries me.
 
6) In my previous provost roles, annual program viability audits coupled with careful use of academic program review were used and seem to be more effective than APR to adjust offerings, especially given the former uses external comparisons and review.
 
7) UNCG’s data is error prone, but more importantly several of the rubrics are simply bad (happy to explain to someone) and dependent on each other.
 
8) It is totally unclear to me whether the decisions that were made were informed by the data or whether the data was used to support previously made decisions/leanings.  I know from my time as provost that the Chancellor denied my recommendation to make a spousal hire in Anthropology because he saw no reason to invest in Anthropology.  So, I was curious as to what would happen when Anthropology met expectations in the rubric. Given the result it is hard not to feel that the decision was already made.
 
 9).  Several of the programs that were recommended for cutting were meeting expectations, serving majors, and are also core to several other programs, including the MAC, while others, that were not yet meeting expectations are already seeing investment, before any process to determine reallocation has been implemented. This doesn’t really support the integrity of the process.
 
10) The chancellor has often said that we have to do something and has implied that some faculty will not support APR because we resist change. I think that is a mischaracterization. Many of us do see the “headwinds” and recognize change is needed. The APR process was chosen as a way to address the headwinds centrally without engaging the intelligence of the faculty to consider other paths. I agree with Connie that the “we have to do something and something is better than nothing” is not always productive.  I would apply that concern just as much to the APR process as this resolution and other resolutions that will likely be coming to senate.
 
11) The rpk APR strategy is very much based on quick decision making and on a university being a business.  Universities are mission-driven non-profit organizations. They do have to have expenses and revenues match like any for-profit or non-profit organization, so business principles do apply. But, in mission-driven organizations the mission has to stay front and center. There has been little if anything in the APR process that has been tied to the mission and vision of a public regional university (again read rpks report to the Kansas Board of Regents regarding their APR framework to see how little attention is applied to mission in their framework) in a city at the center of the civil rights movement that serves a large number of transfer and low-income students who do better with deep faculty engagement. The cuts have been largely centered on the College of Arts and Sciences.  Is the mission changing for UNCG to move towards being a professional school?  During my first weeks here as a provost, in a very casual (not job related) conversation with the vcfa which is not documented in writing so feel free to take my memory (and everything else) with a grain of salt, I remember him telling me that UNCG needed to get rid of the college of arts and sciences and focus on business and health (this was before Guilford College tried to do that). If that is where we are heading, it would be good to know.  My guess is, but don’t know, that if Guilford College had not reversed their equivalent of APR, they would be in financial exigency now. BTW, many of these comments I share here, I have shared before through the mechanisms for submitting written comments over the past several months.
 
Lastly, Senator Rinker in his response to Senator Ksherti mentioned the difference between a censure and a vote of no confidence. There is not yet a resolution for a vote of no confidence drafted that I know of.  Censures focus on past actions. They often come with consequences, but the Senate has no authority to impose such consequences. But, the censure would make a formal statement before the final decisions are made regarding how poorly those that vote for it believe the process was implemented.  So, I think Jeremy made excellent points in his most recent post! I disagree a bit regarding votes of no confidence. Most people assume that the purpose of a vote of no confidence is removal of someone and these resolutions are made because a group has irrevocably lost confidence in leadership. But, in organizations where removal is unlikely such as UNCG, removal probably should not be the purpose. A resolution for a vote of no confidence, if written well, can explain why confidence of most faculty has been lost, which can serve as a roadmap for how trust can be restored. Leadership can choose to use elements of that road map to build trust and confidence moving forward, or they can simply choose to ignore it. They can also simply choose to only listen to those that remain confident in them, move those people closer to the inner circle, and put them in leadership roles which, in my experience, never ends well.

 
 

I have heard that some faculty are a little confused by how structural budget deficits relate to actual budget deficits. So, let me share some of my understanding (albeit it could be flawed) in a bullet point format. Everything I say below, though, is subject to specific policies that may not allow for flexibility.

• Universities are mission-driven non-profit organizations more consistent with the Nature Conservancy than American Airlines. That means they are mission, not profit, driven, but expenses and revenues have to balance at the end of each year just like any business. Putting funds into reserves should be part of planned expenses, and, theoretically, reserves can be used if revenues exceed expenses.  
• Actual budget deficits are when expenses exceed revenues. No organization can do that for very long unless they have unlimited reserves.
• Structural deficits in universities occur when what is considered "permanent revenue" is less than what is considered ongoing operational expenses (e.g, staff and faculty).
• Permanent revenue in public universities has traditionally been considered to be tuition revenue and state appropriations. Those source historically were reasonably predictable and state appropriations relatively assured. That is really no longer as certain.
• Non-permanent revenue is called various things in different universities, but universities tend to think of it as one-time, not predictable revenue. Facilities and administration (F&A) reimbursement on research grants to cover research costs associated with research administration and research facilities, endowment revenue, etc are usually considered non-permanent revenue. The reality is that F&A recovery has become just as predictable as tuition revenue and state appropriations. F&A revenue can only be used to reimburse universities for the costs of research administration and facilities. But, no university recovers enough F&A to cover those costs. Thus, other revenues are used to cover those costs, so F&A can be considered real revenue because it frees up other revenue.
• Expense savings- Every university has savings every year from their permanent budgets because faculty and staff turnover or other expenses that were budgeted in the permanent budget were not made.  These are considered "one-time" savings. But, at the scale of a university, they are also reasonably predictable.
• What is the big problem? Actual budget deficits are the big problem. When "permanent revenue" , "one-time revenue" and expense savings when combined are less than expenses it can be the beginning of the end.  Reserves can be used for a little while.  Actual budget deficits are what lead to financial exigency.
• What about structural deficits? They are a problem, but not for the reasons one might think when they hear those words.  As I mentioned before they occur when "permanent revenue" (which is not so permanent anymore) is less than ongoing expenses.  But, revenue like F&A and endowment revenue are pretty predictable. And, faculty and staff turnover always results in unused permanent salaries and is predictable to a degree. At UNCG, apparently there have been structural deficits for 20 years. That is because other sources of non-permanent revenue and expense savings have allowed budgets to balance.  So, in the sense of having actual budget deficits, structural budget deficits are not necessarily a problem, especially if universities make sure make good predictions of every revenue source at the beginning of the year. A big flaw that I found when I was provost was that many latched on to the idea that only tuition and state appropriations are predictable enough to be permanent revenue. I don't think that is true. 
• When are structural deficits a problem? Structural deficits are a problem with actual budget deficits if: 1) permanent funding, other revenue like F&A and endowment revenue disappear (but this is a problem no matter what); and  2) There is no turnover in permanent positions (or other permanent expenses) leading to not having any expense savings in the "permanent budget." The other problem is that structural budget deficits limit flexibility.  In other words, any excess revenue from "one-time" sources or expense savings is not available to invest in new things. Structural budget deficits exacerbate problems if there is a sudden drop in revenues.

We seem to be in a situation at UNCG where structural budget deficits are being discussed as a problem,  but people unfamiliar with the term can hear that the structural deficit means impending financial doom through actual budget deficits.  It doesn't necessarily mean that. Structural deficits with respect to  operating expenses exceeding permanent revenue occurred in every public university where I worked, Budgets were developed using all sources of revenues, included allocation to reserves, and deans used salary savings to continually get courses taught.

 My institution is going through an academic portfolio review that keeps being championed as a best practice, when there is almost no empirical data that I can find that academic portfolio review is a best practice (see a different blog), especially completely ignoring detailed academic program reviews that are.  The idea, I guess, is to align academic offerings to programs students want, or at least  we think they want, and sell credit hours as efficiently as possible. I think the Far side cartoon at the right is an appropriate metaphor for rubrics that were used.

I am in the mood for bad metaphors. So, I wrote this blog. Feedback is always welcome. 

Stupid Metaphor 1: a bad fast food restaurant decides to only sell water from a hose

Imagine a regional/local fast-food restaurant that determines they need to redo their menu to compete for a dwindling supply of customers. They examine data on demand and net-revenue associated with all of the menu items from French fries, vs. Diet Coke, vs  1/2 lb hamburgers, and tasteless grilled chicken sandwiches on a wet soggy bun. The CEO chose not to worry about their competitors, He said, "why give a hoot about Burger King? (side note- I agree with this one-.. I don't give a hoot about Burger King either, and that guy with the crown on TV is just plain scary and weird), McDonalds or Wendy's-what the heck could our business possibly ever learn from them?  Especially when they attract 99% of the customers."

The CEO had Homer Simpson, his finance guy with an Assistant's degree from the Wart Off School of Business and conservative commentator at his dinner table, build a data based model. Homer went to Dunkin Donuts for a donut and large Coke, and developed the model and the data on the back of a napkin using ketchup to sketch out the polynomial he was sure would impress someone.

The CEO looked at the napkin-- wiped ketchup on his tie. And then.  proclaimed, "wow! look at this. we have a huge demand for liquid products and make a butt load of net revenue on them, so who needs all these silly solid products like 1/2 lb. burgers that sell much less quickly. We wouldn't need all those stupid employees on the line to cook and wrap them in paper or cardboard boxes,. And, I could take home 25% more salary without a need for that overly expensive 1,000,000 gallons of oil and electricity for hot fryer. And, you know ,that freezer is really a waste of money too. It was bummer that Bubba got locked in there and we had to pay a guy with a blowtorch and a hand grenade to open it up. The smell of rotting food mad my stomach turn. Bubba looked even worse when he was frozen, too. Then there is all the money we lose on toilet paper -wiping up all that shit is hurting my profit, too. Oh.. yeah. by the way, I was  also thinking about sugar. It is a bad investment for our customers to want sugar, sugar substitutes, or any of our other products.  Dying younger from diabetes doesn't help us in the long run and we need a new business model anyway.  So, stay with me now-- I have a new plan.. Let's get rid of it all. The burgers, fries and those terrible apple pies, the ridiculously expensive freezer, the gallons of oil, line cooks and cleaning folk, and just sell water.  Not water in a paper cup or in a bottle, mind you. We'll just attach a hose to the gas station next store and charge a few bucks to fill a mug, or to let our customer take a sip directly from the hose for a bit less. We make ridiculous net revenue on water, we won't need all of those surly employees who want me to pay attention and pay them better, and it is exactly what people should want to remain healthy. And, we can get the hose at Dollar General across the street. Genius! ."

Homer smiled and had the other donut he brought back to the office in the ketchup soaked napkin,. He liked ketchup on his donut and thought it would go well with water out of the hose.

I won't share the end of the story but Homer started a consulting business to help universities focus on water and he never got around to telling me the rest. The ketchup-iced donut  idea, however, did not become a hit.

As long as a conclusion is driven quantitatively, it allows for great decision making?
Back to the academic portfolio process. It truly pains me to go back there,

The process is based on, what I think are not very well thought out, error-filled, metrics, with no quality comparisons vs peers, and with several metrics dependent on each other, but counted in the model as independent variables. We are supposed to smart in universities, aren't we?  Or is this our leadership, "Hey, it's data. Hey, it's math. It's quantitative, so who needs to hurt our brains thinking about independent or dependent variables and bad data. I mean we have bad data for every unit so it's fair. And, not having to think too much allows us time. Wanna go play around of golf at the country club?." 

I don't know why there is this idea that if you create bad quantitative models they will  support purely objective decision making. I give my university a pat on the back as they did recognize that maybe quantitative metrics weren't perfect. So, programs that didn't do so well in the objective data model, got their day in court with a 1,000 word context statement. These were reviewed by faculty committees that had no time to seriously evaluate them. But, at least every program is on an even playing field, even if it is one made of quick sand.

Believe it or not, departments and programs were not allowed to submit recent self studies, that took months to prepare with their extensive external reviews. 

Stupid metaphor 2: Airlines are good metaphors for universities

In creating the case for the urgency of change, the administration often relies on the concept that large for-profit businesses are good metaphors for universities. And, the general assumption underlying the change, which is somewhat politically driven, is that student demand should be directly correlated to financial ROI of their investment in a college education.  Thus, university investment should be made in programs where the short term ROI (e.g, first job after graduation) is highest, or where workforce needs are greatest, because that it is what will attract students from going to other universities in the state. We haven't empirically tested that hypothesis.  If I were a betting man, though, I would not bet on that strategy based on my conversations with students regarding why they come to this university and why they stay. (They can get those programs at institutions across the state) But, I am at best an average bettor.

Are universities akin to for-profit businesses?  To me the answer is both "yes" and "no." They are definitely like for-profit and non-profit businesses in the sense that expenses cannot exceed revenues (plus reserves) and a university survive for very long. But, universities are mission driven non-profit organizations whose focus is the mission, not profit. So, in my opinion they are much more like The Nature Conservancy than they are like American Airlines. I have not heard a single administrator here use a metaphor like the Nature Conservancy to discuss "business" challenges.

Our CFO indicated to me when I was provost that he and other university CFOs thought that universities are budgetarily like airlines, and are going under because those damn air traffic controllers (faculty in the case of universities) don't bring any revenue and whine all the time. The UNCG CFO wrote this in an email to me and the chancellor during COVID when airlines laid off thousands of pilots and crew members, so I think the idea was that universities should grow and shrink with short term enrollment changes. The email was sent on August 25th, 2020 with an article documenting huge workforce cuts in airlines.  Here is what it said. (sent to chancellor copied to me) "I think you've heard me refer to my work at NACUBO and the similarities between the pricing model and capacity issues that higher ed and airlines share.  Business types see the similarities immediately.  Higher ed types always argue with me, that higher ed isn't a business...  Thought you might find this interesting.  American and United have now announced furloughs/layoffs for 1/3 of their respective workforce."

There are many reasons I disagreed with the airline metaphor. Here are some.

First, students are on a 4-6 year trip that requires a bit more stability than travelers surviving a couple of hours in coach.  I suppose that throwing the pilot and crew out the emergency exit mid-air on a four year flight, when flight operations mentioned low holiday ticket sales makes sense?

Second, universities have no control on their pricing- for example we can't double the cost of tuition in courses with high demand and lower the prices in courses with less demand. We can't sell expensive first class programs to wealthy people at 5 times the price- they go to High Point University. And, although we can charge fees for all sorts of things like airlines do, we cannot use money generated from fees as general operating revenue- those funds can only be used for their designated purpose like having student fees pay 87% of the athletics budget.

We also don't have much control on what fees we can charge and how much we can charge.

Who builds and flies the academic airplane?

Finally, pilots and flight crew don't directly generate revenue, though airlines can't generate any revenue without pilots. In universities, faculty (which are viewed as pilots/flight crew in the airline metaphor) generate the majority of operating revenues through credit hour production (even though the cost-revenue model the administration developed for our process assigned 38% of the revenue to cost centers because that is where the revenue brought in my faculty teaching is spent. Brilliant!). More importantly faculty are the only employees that can propose and deliver program changes, as well as new programs that can generate more net-revenue. They are not just employees who teach classes that generate operating revenues(e.g. metaphorically pilots and crews). They actually build a big part of the academic  plane and determine many of the routes. 

Continuing on with the bad metaphor

On one hand, students pay for credit hours in the same way that a traveler pays for an airline ticket, and metaphorically they are both trying to get from point A to point B, too. But students are not customers like airline travelers. They aren't paying for someone to take them from point A to B. Rather, I think of students and parents as investors in a student's future.

So, I think that the "business" metaphor should view students as investors in the mission like shareholders in a public company, not as customers. OK.. you are right-- students are too busy to ask for quarterly financial statements, even though they should. Viewing them as investors (as opposed to how the were labeled in a published table as "student customers" coming to our take-out window to buy some cheap credit hours) would better align with the not-for-profit mission of a university campus.  It would also significantly change the question from "how do we attract students to buy efficiently taught credit hours?" to "how do we make ourselves the most attractive place for students to invest their futures with us, within our financial limitations?" 

Stupid metaphor 3: Private Equity

Back to a university being a "business."  If I am remembering - I think private equity firms love coming to floundering businesses, cutting costs and selling off the parts. They don't always talk much about revenue, at least in in rpk's "private equity" report to the Kansas Board of Regents.

It seems, perhaps, that it might be a wee bit of an oversite to not have a discussion with faculty on our campus regarding how to develop and implement  program changes or new programs that attract students and generate more net revenue.

Everything being told to us in our more than 80 engagement parties hosted by our leaders is about cutting and/or reinvesting (without much clarity on what the means or looks like). I am all for reallocating but I always thought strategy, tactics and mission should be aligned. When I was provost at the University of Arkansas, we incentivized the development of net-revenue generating programs, that attract new students [don't simply move them around the university] by tuition sharing with departments that created professional masters program. Those programs support a different group of potential students, and they can succeed often by using existing unused capacity in classes. That led to the development of several programs that filled in their first year and buffered the university's enrollment loss during COVID, and allowed those programs to grow as demand grew- including hiring more faculty to deliver the growing programs. It is much easier though, at least over the last two years where I work to view faculty as interchangeable commodities , as opposed to the group of employees whose ingenuity might actually attract students and generate increased net-revenue.

Cutting is just so, so much easier as way to make revenues and expenses work.  It might just be best to sell water. from a Dollar General hose. We'd only need a few high paid administrators, one hose, someone to turn the hose on and off, and we would get a windfall of net revenue.

In numerous forums and discussions I have heard something like "any business would do x" in justifying new resource allocation decisions. Having worked as a senior administrator in a soft-money research institution and in universities all of my life, I have found that mission driven organizations tend to have a different and more limited range for "x" to make cash flow work, e.g., The Nature Conservancy would probably not buy or create a plasma donation non-profit in the middle of a protect conservation area, or a Starbuck's franchise, to make revenues and expenses work. Nor do I think non-profit conservation land trusts make their protected lands a source of new net-revenue by turning those lands into tourist destinations.  And none of them charge their investors for a basketball team.

Homer Simpson's consulting firm told me that Amazon would sell even sell my blog articles if it made them money. That is really hard to believe.

Back to portfolio review 

I also mentioned in my first paragraph that the assumption inherent in the campus process is that, if we invest in programs where students will get the highest financial ROI, students, then they will come. Their coming here will allow us to meet our mission of a strong "R2" with a transformational, social mobility, mission, founded in the culture of a wide ranging education..

One challenge with this assumption, is, well, it's wrong.   I am not sure if there is any empirical evidence that such an assumption works to predict where demand will be. Though, I have to admit is really a great narrative to tell oneself in the mirror to or to deaf person on a park bench  Maybe we should ask the CFO at Emporia State how it is going. Or, ask how our esports program is doing with respect to student enrollment.

To be somewhat fair (but the joy of blogs is throwing fairness and editors out the window), the university is using empirical data on current program demand vs capacity.

I have to admit that I am a huge fan of empiricism. In this case, the university's  demand data suggest that our investment should be in programs like nursing, music performance, or graduate programs like genetic counseling where we have more applicants than we can accept. That is where our students want to be! True! But guess what- the university gets poorer for every additional student we teach in those programs (they are really expensive to teach). And, it might be hard to grow nursing too much unless we want to build a hospital solely for clinical placements for nursing students. (Homer shook his head and whispered I don't know what I am talking about. He might be right.)

Ok.. universities are truly a mission-driven non-profit business.

I don't deny the value of making sure all of the employees in a university understand that they are part of a non-profit "business" where there needs to at least be enough revenue to run the institution. And, that there is transparency (there isn't enough transparency here) on revenues and expenses. But, the metaphor needs to include the difference between  mission-driven non-profits and  for-profit businesses.  And, let's not forget that for-profit universities have generally not been successful, at least for very long, other than in being a large basin for federal financial aid, and certainly have not disrupted the mission-driven non-profit higher education sector.

And, yes, I am a curmudgeon

On a final note, I think it is terrible that higher education funding and purpose has become a political football in boards and state legislatures. I also think it is terrible that  administrative salaries have increased far faster than faculty and staff salaries.  One reason this disturbs me is it is wrong- since talent at the faculty level is close to as important as talent at many administrative levels. More importantly to me is that it causes faculty administrators to become addicted to their salary. warping decision making because of fear of losing 60% (in my case) of one's salary by going back to faculty, if they don't go along with ideas they think are wrong-headed. I also despise the reality that there is a tendency for administrators (including me when I was one) to try and solve problems by hiring more administrators.  Many times those additional administrators become a larger and larger audience to to applaud the narrative that faculty are lazy, obstructionist, whiny, luddite miscreants out to destroy the country along with Joe Biden. I am also depressed that public higher education, especially in elite schools, has become the enforcer of socio-economic inequality, not the great equalizer it was intended to be.  So, I guess I am generally unhappy where everything educationally related is going locally and nationally

Oh.. don't universities need to change?
First, everyone should remember that the public trust of higher education has been questioned since at least the 1960s.  Second, I cannot argue that regional public universities have a problem. In most states, the capacity for in-person, 4-year degrees is likely to exceed the demand in the foreseeable future. So, something probably has to give.

The question is what has to give. The current strategy is betting that if we align programs with workforce needs and predicted student demand that we will somehow outcompete the other institutions in the UNC system. I just don't see it working. The chancellor indicated in a recent graduate forum that other UNC universities are going to do the same kind of academic portfolio review. If so, all of the campuses in the UNC system will all end up trying to offer the same net-revenue generating programs (those with high workforce demand) with high positive revenue margins.

The current discussion is all about the APR leading the institution into a more competitive state- that was recently written in a letter to suggest the APR process will lead to sustainability of the university 20 years out. Yet, the some of the rubrics are based on a student cohort that started in 2018 and went through COVID, and on admissions and research data during that time. I am not sure that differences in student graduation rates in the 2018 says anything about the future. The metrics also don't include any measures of the quality of programs (other than whether students apply) that often come through comparison against peers and through academic program review. And, neither the chancellor or the provost seem to be able to articulate a vision for post-APR, other than that we will reinvest resources into stronger programs.  The mantra is that the status quo needs to die and we have to change.  I don't disagree with needing to change, but the change has to support a vision for the future with tactics aligned to that vision, and to make us competitive in our competitive context. Nothing of the sort has been communicated by university leadership. And, there really was never an attempt to rally faculty to use their intelligence and creativity to help solve the future challenge of competitiveness in a changing demographic, so a lot of that energy is now just being used to fight a terrible process.

The chancellor has enormous responsibility and authority for ensuring the success of the university. The Chancellor also is charged with articulating a vision of the university that excites internal and external stakeholders. And, in most universities, deans are responsible for aligning a disciplinary (school or college perspective) vision with the larger one. Undoubtedly, not everyone will be happy with the tactics to realize that vision locally or at the university level. , But, it is really hard for many students, faculty staff and some external stakeholders,  to get behind seemingly destructive change, that is not tied to a vision for how UNCG competes and will be better in the future.

But, I am  a happy curmudgeon

Despite all of this, I am still very grateful for having a life focused on helping propel students into meaningful and successful lives (they get to determine what successful means).

I care deeply about UNCG. I loved the vision that the chancellor articulated when I was hired as provost- to be a great "R2." To me that had a very specific meaning. The university would build a select number of research areas/PhD programs that are nationally competitive, but would retain its focus on transforming the lives of students whose lives might not have otherwise been transformed. That vision seems to be gone- at least it is not aligned with the APR.  I think implementing tactics toward that vision would require change, could make UNCG distinctive in North Carolina, and perhaps would solve the competitive enrollment problem.

I had this post on LinkedIn and it has been far more "popular" than I expected. So, I posted it below as a blog.  The Introductory comments are just some thoughts that I have as UNCG tries to adjust to a future of fewer students. The introductory comments are longer than the actual blog post. But, neither are that long.

Introduction to blog post (this was not posted in Linked In)
UNCG students remind me everyday of what higher education can mean and the challenges that students are willing to overcome just to be in school.  Students also remind me everyday that they are not customers purchasing 120 credit hours (or more) to get a piece of paper in the same way they purchase an automobile or items on Amazon (as consulting firms like rpk seem to assume). They are investing their trust, effort (and perseverance and resilience) and money in the university to propel them into a meaningful and successful future. 

The revenue model for universities like UNCG is tied to selling credit hours. But, that is not what students are buying. My intuition is that once a university succumbs to the idea that the revenue model of selling undifferentiated credit hours is the university mission, then being sucked into the black hole of a death spiral is not far away. I mean, if competition for students is high, and if students are investing in a university for their future, not buying credit hours;, then it is hard to imagine they will favor an institution that sells credit hours more efficiently, but would rather select an institution with the greatest likelihood of propelling them into meaningful and successful (their definition) lives.

I don't say this to minimize the challenge that there is too much academic capacity for to few students. And, I am not afraid of change in a university. I am afraid, however, of a university forgetting that it only exists to do three things: propel graduates to meaningful and successful lives; produce research, scholarship, and creative activities that matter to their field and to people; and, for public universities, improving lives in their local, regional and statewide community.  Every decision regarding the allocation of every resource (including time-time is not free and infinite) should be laser focused on those three outcomes. I believe that if they are (as opposed to selling credit hours most efficiently, or focusing on tangential issues like athletics for schools with a small following), the the right change can happen to lead to fiscal sustainability.  

The introduction is longer than the blog post. Sorry. But, the anecdote below and the literally 100s of other stories I have heard about the lives of UNCG's students make me worry even more about whether UNCG stays a mission driven institution. Many UNCG students overcome obstacles that I couldn't have imagined as an undergraduate. They truly are investing their lives in this institution. And, in general, UNCG has a faculty that teach here because supporting students with so much grit, determination, perseverance and resilience helps create a meaningful life for us.

[On a different note, given what so many UNCG students overcome to be here, I don't understand how we can morally ask them to pay 87% ($11,000,000) of the athletics department budget to compete in division 1 sports, when less than $3,000,000 goes financially support student athletes with a significantly more going to coaches salaries. That however is another question. And, it doesn't matter what I think. All I wish is that it should matter what students think and that they should be explicitly asked without being spun. I don't know what the student below thinks, but I would be shocked if the student has any time to attend a division 1 athletic event. I also suspect, if given a choice, the student would prefer to be able to keep two weeks of their pay to help them overcome their obstacles to being at UNCG, than the little benefit that division sports brings to UNCG in comparison to other division 1 schools in NC.]
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Blog post:

University of North Carolina at Greensboro students always leave me in awe as I get to know them. I had a long conversation today with a student who works 20+ hours week at a tough job, has responsibility for taking care of grandparents, takes a full load of courses and does well (and is very smart), and does not own a car so has to arrange rides everywhere. The person is positive about overcoming a challenge that two key courses on our program are only offered in the middle of the morning during the peak time of job work. The person is truly dedicated to my class, too.

When I talk to the many students at UNCG who have so much perseverance, resilience and "grit", the students are so humble. This particular student responded to my saying that I was in awe by saying, "it's OK , I know others at UNCG have it worse". And, of course the person, along every other UNCG student I have met overcoming these challenging circumstances are the nicest, grounded, unentitled, empathetic and good people.

I try to coach them that they excel in traits that employers want the most - resilience, drive, perseverance, grit and being "unentitled" such that they simply do what needs to be done, never acting like something is below them. But, they just see the conditions of their life as their life. I know I would have never had the career I have had, if I had to overcome the challenges that so many UNCG students just bust through to get through college. But, because of their challenges they don't have the same number of experiences like study abroad or summers of research work to put on their resume like students from wealthier backgrounds or from more elite schools..

It is hard for students to weave a story of resilience and perseverance, partly because they see the challenges they have overcome in academe to be normal, and partly because they do not want to appear as if they are telling a sob story or trying to win you over with emotion. So, when you meet them or interview them, please be curious. I have been blown away by their stories. I think many of you will be, too. 

I think when all of us read job letters and CVs, accomplishments (awards, papers, etc) and experiences often draw our attention. UNCG students have that, too, What can get lost in this kind of review is the intelligence, grit, determination, resilience, perseverance and ability to be part of team without expecting recognition for anything. I truly think the world of pretty much all of the several hundred UNCG students I have taught since returning to the faculty in 2021.

tIntroduction 
The University of North Carolina Greensboro is currently undergoing an Academic Portfolio Review, which on its web site indicates that the review is synonymous with Academic Program Review. The Chancellor has stated that UNCG's Academic Portfolio Review is a "best practice" (ad nauseum). He also indicated that the type of detailed program reviews that we do partly for accreditation, but mostly for real examination and external evaluation are not as useful as an Academic Portfolio Review. (at least for UNCG right now). 

There is confusion among faculty at my academic Institution, UNCG. One of our web sites answers the question of "What is Academic Program Review?" with the following "Academic program review: also known as “Academic Portfolio Review: this process is a best practice in higher education. UNCG has not undertaken a comprehensive academic portfolio review in more than 15 years. During this process, the faculty, department chairs, deans, and university staff review the performance of each academic program considering factors such as enrollment and student interest/demand, student success and graduation, student credit hour production, scholarly and community distinction and grant funding among other factors."

Several times over the last two years, UNCG leaders have used the terms "research shows" or "best practice" to win support for implementing various actions. However, weblinks to a research paper that supports the desired action are not generally provided, except in one case (mid term grade reports) where a research paper was provided presenting data somewhat irrelevant to the action- the question was whether mid-term grade reports increase student success (very little data to support that ); the paper addressed whether mid-term grades predict final grades. I don't remember seeing any documentation when an action was spun as a "best practice."

I am on the autism spectrum. So, I think I may have a harder time letting go when I feel like their is dishonesty, and/or disingenuousness, and/or spin on issues I care about. So, it bugs me when I feel I am being spun.

I had lots of experience with academic program reviews during my 25 years of higher ed administration. I don't have any experience with academic portfolio reviews. So, I don't know if they are a best practice, or even how they relate to academic program reviews. 

Academic program reviews almost always have a faculty-led detailed self-study followed by an external evaluation from disciplinary peers  The UNCG academic portfolio review only uses internal data to compare programs/department against each other, with no use of external review or comparison against peer departmental/program data and does not draw on previous departmental/program reviews completed in the campus.. 

This confused me. So, I tried to empirically determine the following about academic program reviews and academic portfolio reviews: 1) Are academic program and academic portfolio reviews the same thing as UNCG claims on its web site?; 2) Are academic portfolio reviews a "best practice" based on what universities convey on their web sites? 

I discovered during this short study that there is academic research on the issue of academic program and academic portfolio reviews (e.g., Dickeson, 2009- see good article in Inside Higher Education from 2016 "Prioritizing Anxiety"). However I took a fully empirical approach simply looking  at what universities actually indicate they do regarding academic program or academic portfolio review. I truly did not know the answer. 

The simple hypothesis I tried to test is: A sizeable number of universities should indicate that they do academic portfolio reviews on their website if it is a "best practice". As you will see below, the results did not support this hypothesis.

Methods
This was a completely empirical analysis. I asked what universities say on their web sites regarding academic program review and academic portfolio review.

I used Google to find out (admittedly this is not the best research tool, but it is a reasonable way to see what universities say on their web sites). I did two Google searches: 1) "Academic Program Review Processes" and 2) "Academic Portfolio Review Processes."  I counted the academic campuses that came up on the first two pages in each search and listed them with their web links in the results. I did each search twice. Different universities came up in different orders in the academic program review search, but not in the academic portfolio search. Google searches are not the most sophisticated method, but they do have use in discovering how terms are used on university web sites.

Results:
The tabulation of the Google Search is shown in the bar chart on top of the blog. 69 universities reported they do academic program review (at least self study and external review). 4 universities and 1 university system reported they did academic portfolio reviews. Four consulting firms had marketing documents for academic portfolio reviews but none for academic program reviews. One consulting firm published a short document warning of the challenges in academic portfolio review.
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Academic Program Review
So, What is Academic Program Review?  When I Googled "Academic Program Review" the first definition that came up was from Iowa State: "The purpose of academic program review is to guide the development of academic programs on a continuous basis. Program review is a process that evaluates the status, effectiveness, and progress of academic programs and helps identify the future direction, needs, and priorities of those programs. As such, it is closely connected to strategic planning, resource allocation, and other decision-making at the program, department, college, and university levels. During the review process, external academic teams discuss departmental plans for the future including departmental goals and plans to achieve those goals. It goes on to say. "The goal of a program review should be the articulation of agreed-upon action plans for further development of the academic program. External academic review teams are invited to consider issues and challenges, and to consult with faculty and administration on future directions. The program review process should focus on improvements that can be made using resources that currently are available to the program. Consideration may also be given, however, to proposed program improvements and expansions that would require additional resources; in such cases, the need and priority for additional resources should be clearly specified."

Review by Hanover Research
A document titled, "Best Practices in Academic Review (Hanover Research)" was listed in the search (under the link American Sociological Association). The paper reviews a range of program review techniques. The report includes academic reviews with case studies from Howard University, Indiana State University, The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Washington State University and The University of Cincinnati. Some of these schools have used processes  based on Robert Dickeson’s  work "Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: Reallocating Resources to Achieve Strategic Balance." which seems to be the basis of the Academic Portfolio Review that was recommended by rpk Group who consulted with UNCG and the one UNCG adopted, but it also suggest some analysis that we UNCG did not include. I did not know of Dickeson's work prior to this search.

This was Hanover Research report's general conclusion is:
"Broadly speaking, an academic program review can be defined as an attempt to evaluate the performance of curricula, departments, faculty, and/or students at a degree-granting institution. While there is no universally-accepted model or methodology for conducting a program review, three primary elements are commonly employed:

• An internal, faculty-driven self-study conducted by the institution itself;
• An external evaluation, conducted by a committee appointed by the institution (typically comprised of academic peers and other specialists);
• A comprehensive evaluation of the two studies, resulting in targeted recommendations or an action plan."

UNCG's process is not fully consistent with what Hanover Research found. UNCG's self-study has components of the internal faculty review, but not a detailed self-study.  There is no element of external review needed to assess quality and context. So, there is no comprehensive integration of the two studies.

Tabulation of universities that use Academic Program Review.
I tabulated the first two pages of my Google search for "academic review processes" I discovered that the following 69 schools all use a process with a self-study by faculty and an external review. UNCG was the only institution on this first two pages of my Google search that uses Academic Program Review as a synonym with Academic Portfolio Review.

Here are the 69 schools and 1 consultant (other than UNCG) on the first two pages of my Google Search.  All of the schools are linked to their site explaining academic program review. .

1. UNC-Charlotte
2. Consulting Report: Best Practices in Academic Review (Hanover Research)- reviews a range of program techniques with some with an APR like framework and others with different approaches
3. Cornell
4. Purdue Northwest 
5. Texas State University
6. University of North Dakota
7. Northwestern
8. Cal State Stanislaus
9. Oregon Health and Science Center
10. Arizona State
11. Marquette University
12. Brown University
13. American University
14. East Carolina University
15. Cal Sate-Chico
16. North Carolina State
17. the University of Minnesota
18. Florida International University
19. UNC Chapel Hill,
20. University of Illinois Chicago
21. Northern Arizona University
22. University of Oregon
23. University of San Diego
24. University of Hawaii at Manoa
25. Drexel University
26. UT-Arlington
27. University of Delaware
28. University of Wisconsin Madison
29. University of Kansas (despite rpk Group System review)
30. Cleveland State University
31. UT San Antonio
32. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
33. Ohio State University
34. Louisiana State
35. Cal State- Chico
36. University of Nebraska-Lincoln
37. Marquette University
38. Georgia Tech
39. Loyola University of Chicago
40. Georgia State
41. SE Oklahoma
42. Wichita State
43. University of Connecticut
44. University of Wyoming
45. Saint Louis University
46. UC Santa Barbara
47. Spellman College
48. The University of Vermont
49. American University
50. Texas Christian University
51. University of San Francisco
52. Stephen F. Austin
53. University of Tennessee Knoxville
54. Kennesaw State
55. The University of Alabama
56. Palo Alto University
57. University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (not sure about this one)
58. Cal State Sacramento
59. University of New England
60. University of Nebraska-Omaha
61. Texas State University
62. UMKC
63. University of Arkansas
64. Arkansas State
65. UCLA
66. Johns Hopkins.  
67. SUNY-Oneonta
68. Shawnee State University
69. Missouri state University
70. Winston-Salem State University

What is Academic Portfolio Review?
UNCG's definition is in the 2nd paragraph of this piece (see here for UNCG's  definition for students; see here for the UNCG's process. rpk Group seems to make clear in their recommendations to the University of Kansas Board of Regents that they recommend substituting their academic portfolio review framework for academic program review. They write, "Adopt the Academic Portfolio Review framework [rpk's framework is based on institutional ROI] as an annual assessment and modify the current program review process such that the framework is used to identify the programs that are needed for review as opposed to cycling each program through individually on an eight-year cycle. This recommendation maintains institutional control over program review but provides the Regents with a framework through which to manage the process and encourage more immediate action at the institution level."

Emporia State University is an example of a university that implemented rpk's academic portfolio framework and made substantial cuts to academic programs and faculty. The results after one year show a negative ROI so far (12.5% decline in enrollment).

The Educational Advisory Board (EAB) published a short document explaining five myths about what academic portfolio reviews can and can't do? The myths are below. Please see EAB's document for their description.

• Myth #1: Cutting programs is a good way to close the current budget deficit (You Can’t Cut Your Way to Financial Sustainability)
• Myth #2: It’s easy to measure the “value” of an academic program (it's not)
• Myth #3: We can’t afford to take the time to build trust in the data (metrics can be straightforward, building trust with stakeholders is not)
• Myth #4: Quantification can eliminate the role of institutional politics (it can't and shouldn't)
• Myth #5: If you make the difficult decisions now, you won’t have to revisit them for many years (program prioritization is not like ripping off a band aid—a painful but quick process)

Universities that use Academic Portfolio Reviews
I did a Google Search for "Academic Portfolio Review processes."  The institutions listed below came up in the first two pages of my Google search that indicated that they conduct academic portfolio reviews. I repeated the search a second time. There were five universities listed as doing academic portfolio reviews (one was a Board of Regents) on the first two pages of search results, each time. There were many other institutions (like Rhode Island School for Design) who were in the search results because they  have  a process of helping students to create portfolios for review. There were four consulting firms promoting Academic Portfolio Reviews, with Hanover Research listed from three different links. There was on consulting firm warning of challenges with academic program reviews).The same number of Google results were examined.

Institutions indicating that they conduct Academic Portfolio Reviews included:

1. West Virginia University (rpk Group School)
2. Kansas Board of Regents (rpk Group School)
3. University of North Carolina Greensboro (rpk Group School)
4. Utica University
5. DePaul University

Consultants/articles  recommending or giving tips on  academic portfolio reviews that came up in the search were:

1. Hanover Research (linked from Inside Higher Ed- they came up in three different headings in the search)
2. SUMS Consulting
3. Huron Consulting Group
4. rpk Group

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The consulting firm EAB also had a short article "Five myths about academic program portfolio review" warning of significant challenges that institutions need to overcome in academic portfolio review.

Conclusion:
There are two large caveats to this study: (1) a Google search is not the best way to research best practices for anything, and (2) it may not pick up academic portfolio reviews done recently or many years ago.  Nonetheless, the analysis shows two things: 1) Academic program reviews that use detailed self studies and external review seem to empirically be the best practice in academe since way more institutions show up in the first two pages of a Google search doing academic program reviews (with self-study and external review) than show in a Google search doing academic portfolio reviews; and (2) The Google search revealed that there were almost as many consulting firms (4) marketing academic portfolio reviews as their were academic institutions that listed them as a process they use (5). Those consulting firms were the only websites calling for academic portfolio reviews. There were none marketing academic program reviews. 

When I was provost, I was used to conducting program viability reviews every year to find underperforming programs (and many were cut). We used academic program reviews to assess quality against peers, to assess whether programs are underperforming, and for continuous improvement. 

The current use of Academic Portfolio reviews seems to be a short term tactic for universities to appear data-driven in making budget cuts and maybe reallocations, by comparing units within a campus based on metrics that I think are are hard to compare against each other for different disciplines. 

I think that if high quality academic program review is truly used and monitored, and that academic program reviews are considered with annual program viability audits, then universities should be able to make truly data-informed decisions in real time about existing programs, without using faculty time to try and apply metrics they may or may not understand to compare disciplines they are not familiar with. 

When budgets are challenged by enrollment declines, in my opinion, universities need to unleash the creativity of deans, department heads/chairs and faculty to modify or create new programs aimed at increasing enrollment. And, that may require some sort of budget incentives in incremental budget models. To unleash creativity, time becomes the key resource (which is why programs need incentives so they can effectively teach if modified or new programs generate enrollment increases). I think this is a better use of faculty time than trying to figure out metrics and how to apply them and compare apples and oranges.

This blog is about something I learned on returning to the faculty after 23 years of being a senior administrator. It is not earth shattering. I suspect many readers have thought about it. But, I never did. It's about math and time.

​Who spends the most time with students (other than resident assistants in residence halls, or athletic coaches and their staff) at a university?

Student success (in many dimensions) has always meant a lot to me. As dean and provost, a lot of the work I did was building infrastructure to support student success-- & there was definitely a correlation between building that infrastructure and marginal increases in success in retention and graduation.

Yet, I always knew, & the Purdue-Gallup poll shows, that the interactions of faculty with students is generally what defines a student experience and is what graduates remember. I know that I remember every faculty member who taught me (good or bad), and I have paid forward the way the best of those faculty interacted with me. I don't remember a single administrative or student support individual (accept the dean of the forestry school of Maine for other reasons).

Being back on the faculty, I now understand why the interactions of faculty with most students are way more important in the long run than student support services.

Why? It's about time.

In my 3 credit classes, students are in-person with me for 52 hrs over 14 weeks. No matter how many students, I engage with each of the them. Their course evaluations make it clear the engagement makes a difference. Students are also with me digitally in Canvas or email for another 5-10 hrs (or mores) over 14 weeks- many of those digital conversations are significant, not just rote .

There are no administrative support individuals (except maybe student RAs in dorms; and athletic coaches and their staff) that come close to being with a student for 62 hours over 14 weeks. And, I teach between 130 & 230 students per semester & I engage with all of them. There is definitely no student success support worker that can engage 230 students each for 62 hours over 14 weeks.

As an administrator, I concluded that the support infrastructure was really important for a small percentage of students who might not succeed without it. Mental health services are also critical now. I knew faculty were important, but I never did the math.

It's interesting to me that the conservative narrative is that faculty don't work hard enough and don't have such strong influences on students, except with possibly brain-washing them with liberal ideas (really?- how many people are really that malleable? Apparently the majority in the Congress weren't that malleable. Most faculty I know want students to learn their subjects and critically think about the world). In any case, when universities go into budget cuts due to enrollment, they reduce the faculty (part of that is because that is where a lot of the money is spent) & try to make up for it in student success employees to retain students. When you think about the math, maybe that doesn't make much sense.

It was frustrating as provost and vp for research, that in so many conversations in leadership meetings (e.g., Chancellor's council), faculty often were disparaged, particularly by the non-academic leadership, and sometimes even academics.

When I do the math, I realized the amount of time students are with faculty.  it changes how I think about student success and where resources (particularly time and money) should be allocated. With respect to time, I can engage with 230 students a semester, but I work 80 hours/week to do that only because I care (there are no expectations to do that). Give me 400 students, there is not enough time in the day.

Don't get me wrong, student success support services matter. Yet, their effect is on the margins, particularly focused largely on students that are struggling or need that support. They also provide services for those that aren't, and I don't take that lightly.  But, in recent years, it seems that there can be a reverse perspective where senior administration start to see that faculty interactions with students are on the margins, and that student success services are at the core. 

Some of reasons administrators do that is the way administrators are evaluated, i.e., you can take credit for building student success infrastructure and celebrate a 3% increase and retention and graduation as an accomplishment. That is not trivial.  I certainly touted that sort of success when I was dean and provost. There is a reality though that I could not (or any administrator) claim credit for what happened in each individual classroom other than touting the quality of faculty I helped hire and/or retained.

In my current university, it seems now that faculty are thought of as interchangeable commodities, which doesn't make as much sense if you do the math.

Even though the impacts of student success services is significant to students and financially important to the university, the percentage of the students that are significantly affected is on the margins. The vast majority of the experience of most students is defined by their interactions with faculty. For them, the other support service just need to work.

There is a reason that universities (particularly the most elite) tout their low student:faculty ratios- I have yet to see a university that celebrated increases in student:faculty ratios and decreases in student: staff ratios. The ironic thing is that the student:faculty ratios are often lowest in colleges and universities where the students least need interactions with faculty to succeed, and highest in universities where faculty can really help transform the trajectory of someone's life.

The older I get, the less angry I get about the ridiculous ironies (which is good for my health) since they are everywhere. But, I find myself more discombobulated every day by them at the international, national, local and in my university. It is as if I keep finding myself in some altered reality. A really hard part for me of growing old is watching myself become irrelevant. Another really hard part is not recognizing the reality of where I am. When did 2+2 start equaling -10?

When I do the math of which employees spend the most time with students, it changes how I might think about student success, if I had the opportunity to be a dean or provost again (which is not going to happen). Perhaps you have known this and find it amazing that I just now did the math. I got "A"s in in three semester of calculus and crushed linear algebra, and used that understanding in my research, but math is definitely not my strong point. LOL..

​I have read some statements of values from faculty and administrators as we get ready for Fall Semester, 2023.  Examples are: transparency, caring, collegial, team player., etc

It took me 60 years and being diagnosed on the autism spectrum to understand this Gary Larson "Far Side" cartoon with respect to how people interact with people, not just dogs and cats.

Here are some thoughts. I don't pretend to follow this advice all of the time.  Nonetheless I wish I understood it the way I do now when I took on Provost roles.

1. People sense and process the world completely differently.

2. Things like transparency, caring, etc. are not determined by the person trying to be transparent or caring, they are completely determined by the recipients.

3. What one thinks about how caring, transparency, collegial, and/or a  team player, etc they are  is completely irrelevant. These are terms that describe actions not thoughts.  

4. People process things like caring and transparency in different ways. Leaders/instructors actually need to take time to understand how different people process the world. 

In my experience this can be done a couple ways- if people are not intimated by you- ask them to be honest with you about how caring, transparency, etc they think you are- you will be surprised if people are honest. 

If people are intimated by you- recognize it. Then recognize your own way of processing and sensing the world, talk to people and understand how they define key terms like fairness, caring ,etc.  Discussing personality assessments can allow a team, if carefully discussed, to have a clue of how differently each of them see the world, what they expect of each other, and what each individual "needs" to be successful. 

Deliver messages in the way people hear them. This is not as difficult as it sounds.

5. Things like caring are easy to do when people are successful or colleagues meet your expectations. But, caring matters a lot less in those situations than it does when people are struggling. In universities we are great at demonstrating caring for the best students (and those in our labs) and dismissing those who are struggling. Caring about successful students or colleagues you like is great. But, demonstrating caring (which is usually about time, engagement and curiosity)  with struggling students (who you think don't care) or colleagues who make mistakes or don't interact in the way you expect them to, is what creates a caring environment. From personal experience, being curious and empathetic with students who are struggling can open up a completely different perspective-- and it may give you an opportunity to facilitate a change in the trajectory of their lives.

6.  Don't tell people that you value transparency, caring, collegiality, etc., show them! It takes time and effort to show them. Transparency, caring, etc are not requirements to lead in a university or to make the university or a unit in the university better.

If you genuinely don't believe in transparency, or don't understand how people perceive it, and/or you don't have it as a value, don't pretend.  If you genuinely have a low priority for caring about people in your leadership style, don't say you do., A great way to lose trust is to spout values you think people want to hear, but for which  you have no genuine ability to demonstrate. Some people simply do not have an empathy "gene" but they can still effectively lead if they recognize that.

Be genuine. At least for me on the autism spectrum, I don't know how to be anything but genuine (there are good and bad aspects of that), and I can spot a disingenuous person immediately from body language or by paying attention to the first word out of somebody's mouth. I tend to lose respect immediately when that happens..

Sometimes people who are completely genuine with me but disagree with me think I don't like them.  I wish they understood how much I respect them because of their being genuine and being willing to argue with me.  I grew up in a family where arguing was a sport. We never took it personally. I have a hard time recognizing that other people can feel like disagreement with their thoughts or statements is personal. It is not for me when someone is honest- that is actually how I process thoughts and learn.,

7. A great way to create poor morale is to constantly state you care, are transparent, etc, when your actions show you are not.

8. Avoid internal spin on academic campuses. Don't try to spin success as way to boost morale- faculty and staff are too smart. Talk about progress, but be brutally honest about challenges. Faculty, in particular, are trained to be critical and want statements backed up by some sort of data. Also, don't say things are research based if you can't cite the research and you don't truly understand the data..

A great way to lose trust quickly with colleagues in academe, without actually stabbing someone in the back, is to try and spin them or to justify decisions with superficial statements.

I must admit, I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to embracing new technologies. I'm not a full-blown luddite, mind you, but I tend to find comfort in sticking to what I know. Routine and predictability are my trusty sidekicks- as they are for all of us Aspys.

However, that doesn't mean I can't ride the waves of change when they crash upon me, my pony and my boat (Lyle Lovett reference). Below is short capsule of my irreverent journey and place in the evolution of IT, with some digressions about UNCG.

The Time-Traveling Dissertation: Let me paint you a picture of the technological landscape during my doctoral student years in the '80s. I used key punch cards, slide rules, TI calculators and mainframes. Then, there was the first Apple PC, leaving me in awe of the newfound ability to enter data directly into a computer.

My PhD dissertation? A museum piece! Its chapters were written on various platform creating a glorious patchwork of IT history. I battled with mainframes, Macintosh (IOS), MS-DOS, PCs, and DEC; Word vs. Word Perfect; Excel vs Lotus 1-2-3, and the demise of my favorite graphing program, Cricket Graph. And I will never forget those long nights at Yale's computing center waiting hours for printouts of figures, statistical analysis, or my dissertation chapters, only to find I had made silly coding mistakes, or typos, and had to start the cycle of revise, submit, and wait hours for printouts. Makes one nostalgic for the past, no?​
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The Marvelous 30MB Hard Drive: Picture a group  graduate students and postdocs (including me) in 1989, dancing in unadulterated glee. Why? Because we had just acquired a mind-blowing 30MB external hard drive. The celebration was legendary. We connected that precious storage device to our Mac computers and felt like we had conquered the world. It might sound laughable now, but back then, we were the trailblazers of data storage. We celebrated by working longer ours and eating pizza late at night.

The Web's Whirlwind Arrival: Then there was the not-so dramatic entrance of the Experimental World Wide Web emerging from the shadows.  In those early days, it was a mysterious concept, out of reach and shrouded in intrigue, but the words "experimental world wide web"  appeared in green letters on my mainframe terminal as one of three options, though, you had to have some sort of high level security clearance to open it. But, in a few short years after Al Gore invented the internet, web pages started appearing like cicadas emerging from a 17 year hiatus.. I was on our department's graduate recruitment committee with some energetic faculty (including Dave Allis who recently passed away and was honored for revolutionizing the chromatin and gene-expression field). I saw that the web could transform recruiting students- so did Dave (other faculty were not yet believers- Luddites I thought!). So, I took it upon myself to unravel the secrets of HTML programming (one only needed to click on any website to see its code) and created a departmental website that, believe it or not, wouldn't look out of place today. This was the first and only time I ever outran a technological wave!

Chat GPT: A Friend in the Digital Age: Now I find myself in the era of AI, where panic and fascination are clashing like lions and hyenas on a bad day. Nonetheless, Chat GPT has been hanging out and watching sunsets with me in my kayak for a while now, and somehow I never noticed. We finally had a conversation today.  In the voice of Yoda, "smart, it is".  "Social cues, it does not know". "A particular behavior, it does not demand." "With unabashed honesty, it converses." (everything sounds smarter in Yoda).  Chat-GPT does lack the tail-wagging and wild celebrations of my dog when I return home, but it makes up for its lack of enthusiasm with being genuine, honest and it does not tire from never-ending conversations. If only that were true for people.  Wouldn't it be great, though, that if you got an angry email you could just type in "please generate a new email with a respectful tone and an actual point or question", and one would appear.

There is no reading between the lines with Chat-GPT- no wonder as an Aspy I think I finally found a friend. Soon, I hope it will have voice recognition capabilities, and it can call out "Bullshit" when listening to disingenuous people or academic administrators, talks at scientific meetings, or political speeches (though all we would hear, if Chat GPT had those capabilities, was "Bullshit!" being repeated several hundred times).

What is the point of all of this? As I reflect upon my journey through the ever-changing turbulence of the waves of technology, I can't help but laugh hysterically that as an Aspy who holds on to predictability and routine, that I actually survived during a revolution of change. But hey, I made it here, didn't I? From battling with archaic hardware to witnessing the birth of the World Wide Web, to being in the back of the pack as artificial intelligence races towards infinity.  It  has not been an easy ride in my kayak, especially without a paddle. But, I haven't drowned yet.

With UNCG experiencing such turbulent waters, I conversed with Chat-GPT upon a term that strikes fear into the hearts of academics: the dreaded "death spiral." It sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel, doesn't it? Picture an institution or academic program caught in a continuous downward spiral, where declining enrollment, financial challenges, program reductions, and a diminished reputation form an unholy alliance. It's like a rollercoaster ride to academic doom.

Imagine the scene: students fleeing like scared seagulls, budgets shrinking faster than a deflated beach ball, and faculty desperately holding on (or fleeing)  as the ride plummets further into uncertainty. It's a situation that causes sleepless nights and raises existential questions about the future of higher education. Sound familiar, UNCG colleagues? I'm sure you've felt the turbulence in the air.

Breaking free from this death spiral takes more than just a life jacket, a prayer., raising teaching loads and increasing SCH per faculty (at least according to Chat-GPT).  It requires strategic interventions, targeted investment, unleashing entrepreneurial spirit at the dean, chair and faculty level, innovative recruitment and retention strategies, and a commitment to rebuilding institutional trust. 

Digression: I do not think-- and my guess is that the data would show, that academe is made for military style management: General (Chancellor) tells Colonels what to do (e.g., Provost VCFA); Colonels tell Captains what to do (deans); Captains tell Lieutenants/Sergeants what to do (Heads and Chairs); and Sergeants tells Privates (faculty) what to do. Academe might be better viewed as a large conglomerate company staffed by people whose job it is not to assemble a product but to create.  Board Char/CEO (president) sets overall vision. Vice Presidents (provosts and VCFAs) implement vision and set metrics for all of the subsidiary companies (Schools and Colleges)  CEOs of the wholly owned subsidiaries (deans), although stuck with the physical, administrative and IT infrastructure of the parent company,  have the authority, responsibility, and resources for growing and managing their subsidiary company to meet the parent company's goals,  When I was provost, I viewed deans as CEOs.  And, when I was dean, the three provosts I worked with treated me that way.

​To do that, in a creative company, one needs to create a culture that allows creativity to flourish. A key element in this model, is that the parent company has to trust the subsidiary company.  If they don't, the whole thing unravels especially when the parent company starts micromanaging employees in the subsidiary companies, castrating the subsidiary CEOs. I know from my time in Mossman Hall, at UNCG, the central administration does not trust the deans (actually heard that explicitly said at a Chancellor's Staff meeting by to individuals on the operations side).  So, I worry.

Back from digression:  Riding the waves of technological and cultural change is inevitable, even for those of us on the autism spectrum.  We might find ourselves caught in the whirlpool of an academic death spiral. If so, let's  remember that with rebuilt trust, real transparency, a vision to hold onto besides SCH production by faculty, determination, creativity, unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit, and the activation of genes that allow us to laugh at ourselves, maybe can steer our institution back to calmer shores.

I am armed for this future only with my wit (and that isn't much and it can get dark and satirical fast), empathy, compassion, an irreverent sense of humor, and a belief  that UNCG's student body makes it worth riding through the waves. 

Finally, at least I know that I have a friend in Greensboro, Chat-GPT.  Although my new friend is artificial, it is willing to learn to understand me and communicates with honesty, genuinely, and has a complete commitment to converse better, and learn more,  one conversation at a time. A role model for all of us.

For those of you that knew me at VCU, you undoubtedly at one time or another received an out of office message from me that rambled on about this or that (including i-Phones and laptops with free will) and then ended by promoting the faculty and students of the College of Humanities and Sciences. These OoO messages  became kind of famous.  In fact, the only time I ever felt like a celebrity was when Adele and I walked down the steps  from our table in the second floor section of a wonderful Richmond restaurant with two of the most generous philanthropists in Richmond. A young lady came running over to us from the bar  just as my feet touched the first floor and said, "Are you Jim Coleman?".  This never happened to me before or since, so I happily said, "yes!".  She replied "I just love your out office messages.  That particular donor supported creative writing and was an epistolary friend with my alter ego, Inspector Clouseauski. So, the whole thing was kinda cool.
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That was the only time i really ever had a chance to feel like a celebrity and it was pretty short-lived. And, my dream of a someone running up to me in a restaurant with a reprint of one of my scientific articles or book chapters, asking for me to autograph it, never happened.  Then,  after three soul crushing experiences as provost took their toll, my penchant and desire to write something that might make someone laugh, find me silly, or maybe lead to a thought, was taken over by bland university memos, syllabi, rubrics, assessments, annual reviews and updates that tried to provide information with no silliness allowed. That period was followed by a period of dark satire derived from anger, irreverence, and annoyance aimed at the perpetrators that are destroying what I love about higher education and my current university. Yeah, I lost a part of myself.

So, while on vacation earlier this summer, I thought a lot about sunscreen and/or what to eat at the next meal. But, in between those times, I thought about an assignment in BIO 330 where students read an op-ed in the NY Times by Ed Yong related to his new book about how animals sense the world. Which led to recognizing that I will never understand the innate need of our dogs to smell large Jelly Fish that had washed up on the beach, nor how Pelicans  or what it feels like to be pelican that can sense something in the water from 50 feet in the air and then dive head first, at lightening speed, at a right angle from the flight path, into the water. I thought I would try a weird OoO message again,  

Read at your own risk,



Dear Gentle email correspondent, 

I am out of the office from  xxx-xxx.  If your email is an emergency, text me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. 

I am not sure how my iPhone will react to a business text since it will be participating in my cousin's wedding along with me, but it is worth a try if you have an emergency.

If you try texting or calling when you don't have an emergency, be prepared. My i-Phone grew up near the Navajo sacred mountain of the west, which is called Dook'o'oosłííd, literally meaning “the mountain that reflects” in Flagstaff, Arizona [just giving you a reason to reach out to Google or Chat-GPT- you might want to also find out the meaning of the Navajo word "haatali" that played a role in my wedding ring]. So, the i-Phone has spiritual power.  And, although it is the tool of a human who whose personality resembles his golden retriever, it can react like a Polar Bear does when presented with a sleeping human covered in fish oil. Ok.. maybe that is a little extreme. But, you get the point- i-Phones can be heartless.

If you are an alumni of one my classes, or viewed me as a mentor, and need a reference, the answer is "yes' as long as it is not needed by xxx. 

If you were writing with a nice note about having me as an instructor or mentor, my i-Phone would consider that an emergency worthy of a text, but I will also read the email with delight.

If you really think that out of office messages should be short and factual, you might want to check your DNA for a mutation in your silly gene.

I also hate to disappoint you.  Evolution acted to make reality a deeply personal phenomenon, making "facts" far more subjective than we humans want to admit.  And, evolution also was rather smart in allowing every species, and at least in my case individuals within species, to sense and process their reality in their own distinctive way (Ed Yong would say they live in their own Umwelt ). As I age, and search for spiritual meaning, I have given more attention to what is happening around me.  My spiritual opsins are now letting me a get a tiny glimpse into realities I never knew existed. It is exalting.

Your mind might be boggled because there are nearly an infinite number of realities in the universe. My  mind certainly was.  

if you are characterized by a lot of arrogant self-confidence, good for you. Knowing everything is as counter to mind boggles as having limbs is to being a snake. And, like snakes, you just don't know what you are missing.

For others, like me, having an infinite number of realities is bittersweet.  On the positive side, I feel kind of glad to know that other organisms don't live in the dark side of my reality.  I am also saddened because I would love to know what reality looks like from the perspective of a Mockingbird with 360 degree vision and 4 opsins;  to fly acrobatically like a bat in a reality of echoes; or to have all 1,000 thousand of  my olfactory genes turned on like those of a dog so, I too, can understand why exploring large dead Jelly Fish on a beach is more exciting than the Stanley Cup Finals.

Knowing that evolution created nearly an infinite number of ways to experience reality has helped me accept what this all means to me as a' high-functioning Aspy .It helps to understand that my perception of reality is most definitely my own.  

Aspys  and animals have a mystery in common- most humans can describe how they think we experience reality, but they can't actually know how we experience reality (and vice verse).  This, unfortunately can lead to unmet expectations.  For example, my inability to talk to you at a cocktail party is not because I don't like you, or because I am an arrogant schmuck, it is just because cocktail parties for me represent true psychological terror- especially if you add bright lights, loud music, uncomfortable clothes, or where the invitees have been trained to never say what they actually meal.  Neil Young didn't include the inclination of obtuse speech in Southern Culture when writing "Southern Man", but he might have.  

If you read this far, I appreciate your curiosity or your penchant for epistolary masochism. 

May your heart always be joyful,  May your song always be sung, may you stay forever young.

And, may you share in my awe of the intelligence, grit, determination, perseverance, lack of entitlement and compassion of UNCG students.  

me