 I read yet another article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed today about how ruinous the resistance to change is in higher education. I have heard this over the 25 years I was in senior administration. And, I heard about the need to disrupt higher education when I was a 12 year old kid in the early 1970s.
I agree that higher ed is in a different situation now given that the demographics are no longer in their favor. So, I can accept that something has to give- probably campus closures. There are so many ideas about how higher ed can change and be more efficient. As a provost and dean I did my best implement them-most were important but incremental. I am not an expert in business transformation. But as a casual observer, disruptive change seems to come to an industry sector when it is disrupted by something very different. Over the more than 50 years that this conversation has been going on, and with the huge market of students, no organization has been able to disrupt the higher ed business. Also, I've lived through a couple of major disruptions. I often think about the end of the typewriter business and the video store business. These businesses weren't disrupted from within. The personal computer wasn't created to disrupt an inefficient typewriter business and make it change, and video streaming wasn't designed to disrupt inefficient video stores. I feel like higher ed change advocates are like the CEO of Blockbuster Video proclaiming that the only way video stores can survive in the face of streaming is having fewer employees, less videos and to make sure they have one or two videos that no one else has. Disruption is an action based on great ideas that can be implemented. Not a philosophy that is implemented based on the concept alone. There a few disruptive ideas in higher ed that failed. For example, several for-profit institutions built themselves around the "change" narratives, e.g year-round programs, fewer costs in maintaining physical infrastructure, no research, no tenure. Most all of them failed- at minimum they disrupted nothing. MOOCs were going to disrupt higher ed. Didn't happen. Online education has been a great addition to universities where I worked and generated net revenue, but it hasn't been disruptive. In the end, the challenge that regional, less elite universities have now is enrollment that only offering an affordable, better, or different product is going to solve. The idea that universities can fix that by cutting costs and reorganizing the academic side of the institution while creating some program that no one else has is silly. It can't work unless it actually better facilitates launching students into meaningful and successful lives. Again I am only a casual observer, but one might view some universities as a business in rural America in a town whose populations has shrunk. There really hasn't been a disruptive model for local businesses to thrive in that environment, other than closing, or being the last business standing. Certainly, cutting the number of products they sell and having employees get paid less and spend more time selling isn't the greatest strategy when your customer base is falling for reasons out of your control. The world will not end if the number of universities shrinks to match population demographics. I mean it will hurt a lot of people and a number of communities, but the larger problem we face as a sector is more about having way more capacity for in-person higher education than is needed to teach the volume of students. In some states, this is simply because legislators wanted a university or college in their district. Making all of that capacity more efficient isn't going to change demand in the sector. Most likely, the university's and college's that survive and thrive will be able to deliver the best product at the most reasonable price and be willing to offer that product broadly. In my university, the focus is almost entirely on reducing cost and demanding more student credit hours/faculty and staff, at the cost of student engagement. I might be wrong, but I just don't see that as a winning strategy as competition grows. Also, almost every "universities are resistant to change" story focuses on faculty and academic programs. Really? the major disruption every one keeps talking about is how to make fewer faculty do more. I would love to learn of a university whose marketing line was "Come here! we increased our student to faculty ratio to 100:1" Very few universities have thought about aligning the revenue strategy with the mission. The reality is that we don't exist to maximize student credit hour per unit cost, but as a public university that is how we are funded.. We exist to facilitate launching students on to meaningful and successful lives. Are there other ways to charge students to be consistent with the mission and service we provide? Are there other ways to incentivize academic units towards this mission? Of course there are. And, that is probably where the disruption will take place I hope some day to see a true disruption of higher ed that delivers high quality education and mentoring that attracts students, at a reduced cost, and keeps the US a world competitor in research, scholarship and creative activities. I mean the whole idea of universities was not to simply transfer information- one can do that on Chat GPT now. Universities were also about creation, and very much about mentoring. I hope that idea does not die, only left alive in a few elite universities. I also hope to see a disruption in the culture that has fostered higher education becoming the enforcer of social inequity, as opposed to the great equalizer perhaps envisioned when land grant universities were created. When I first become a vice chancellor for research in the early 2000s, the time of the dot.com bubble, dramatic disruption and innovation-- I mean I remember going to a economic development talk where the brilliant futurist that thought cell phone cameras were silly- guess he wasn't such a great futurist. I often thought about why it was that universities changed so little over their history, even has innovation changed everything over the same time. Even back then, I saw several talks that would show something like trains and then automobiles and then show a university classroom then and now. And, comment that universities must be doing something wrong to still look the same. The only thing that I could come up with in my mind, which was somewhat supported when I talked to people who study creativity, is that the teacher-scholar model, even more so when pushed to the scholar side, requires creative people, and that perhaps creative and open minded people thrived best in a stable environment even though their work was about change. I found that to be an interesting hypothetical paradox. In any case, I hope that the next article I read about how frustrating it is to change things on a university campus mentions at least a few of these: 1) Recognize that this discussion has gone on for at least the 62 years of my life; 2) Several organizations have tried to disrupt higher education and failed, leaving havoc in many cases. A few other have been successful (Southern New Hampshire, Western Governors), but haven't disrupted anything; 3) At least in state universities, but also in some privates, the bureaucracy and lack of financial creativity is a big part of the problem; and 4) Faculty remain the only employees on campus that actually do the university's mission of teaching, research and service. Blaming teachers and forcing administrative change from on top, hasn't worked for public K-12 schools. But, then conservatives keep believing that tax cuts stimulate the economy and trickle down to lower income people, and increase equity, even though there is no evidence to support that view, and a lot of empirical data to reject that hypothesis. 5) And, please stop suggesting that incremental changes (wow.. new idea, let's make more revenue in the summer, or maybe actually teach courses aligned with the biorhythms of students) are disruptive. They aren't that hard to implement and they affect revenue/expense at the margins (perhaps keeping some universities afloat). I worried about keeping my campus afloat as a provost (and as a faculty member), but whether keeping a campus afloat is good for higher education as a whole is another question. I think that Higher Ed. will disrupt when an organization figures out how to disrupt it. There is clearly a lot of money to be made for an organization that does so. But, whether that happens or not is totally unrelated to the many books and articles that are published on why higher ed needs to change, and no matter how loud Republican narratives are that they are inefficient, and ineffective at anything except brainwashing students with liberal ideas, or maybe when an athletic teams win. Beating the drum of disruption and blaming the only employees in the organization that actually perform the mission is certainly not the path to victory,  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..  Dear Gentle Biology Graduate Students
If you have spent time with me, you probably know that I have worked through mental health challenges of chronic and acute depression, debilitating anxiety, and navigating the academic world as researcher, teacher and administrator while being on the autism spectrum. I am open about these things because I decided thirty years ago, when I was successfully treated for acute depression, that I would do everything in my power to destigmatize mental health challenges. Candidly, being open about mental health challenges left me vulnerable as an administrator as some people used that openness against me. Depression leading to suicide is the second largest cause of death behind accidents (mostly car) for people in their late teens and twenties. The risk of dying because of a treatable mental health disorder is far greater than things like cancer and heart disease for those of you in that age group. "So, I want to take a moment and acknowledge the events that took place at UNC-Chapel Hill earlier this week. You may know that a graduate student is accused of murdering his faculty advisor. According to a few news outlets, the accused graduate student stated that his PI made him work 80 hours a week and didn’t care about his work-life balance. Other graduate students in the lab stated that they didn’t think the accused student was up to the task of being in the graduate program but was well-meaning. Of course, everyone interviewed was shocked and saddened that such an event could take place. The deceased faculty member, Dr. Zijie Yan, was an associate professor and father of two." (This paragraph is a quote from a message sent colleagues and students of Dr. Ayehsa Boyd, Arizona State University. She gave permission to quote from her note.) This is a reminder that stress, anxiety, depression and other challenges may not only lead to violence against oneself to stop the pain, but in some cases violence against others. I can't pretend to know what was going on in the mind of the graduate student who was accused of shooting the professor so don't want to imply that I know what the person was feeling. But, I do know from experiencing deep depression and debilitating anxiety that the emotional pain can feel unbearable and that your mind wants to do anything it can to stop the pain. Those in my undergraduate classes and in BIO 600 know that I talk about mental health a lot. And, I try to provide constant reminders to students to take stock of their emotions and to take a break if that will help, but also to seek help. I know from experience that one cannot deal with depression, extreme stress, or debilitating anxiety completely alone, albeit there are things you can do to lessen their effects (exercise, for example). UNCG has counseling and crisis resources : https://shs.uncg.edu/mental-health-well-being/counseling-psychological-services/in-crisis/. And, the counseling center takes walk in appointments every weekday between 12:00- 4:00. Don't hesitate to use these resources. I have also worked with a number of students in connecting them with resources or just sharing my experiences with mental health challenges and having a neurodiverse brain. I have walked with several over to the counseling center because some are really scared of seeing a counselor. If my door is open, you can walk in. If you want to schedule an appointment, just ask. The only things I can promise you are that: I won't try to diagnose you: I will not be judgmental; and if you want, I will do what I can to connect you to professional resources. Malcolm (and other faculty) are also excellent resources and many of us, including Malcolm and I, have been trained in mental health first aid and can connect you with resources. In BIO 600 last week, I talked a little bit about the challenge of power differentials between graduate students and faculty. There are some faculty who make those boundaries clear. There are some, at least me, who want to treat everyone like colleagues. And, those of us who do can forget that graduate students are always aware of the power differential even if we (I) are not. The power differential can result in great feelings of stress for graduate students, especially if you don't know how to navigate it. One of the reasons that the GSC included a long list of expectations for students in advisors in their relationship as mentor-mentee in the 2023-2024 graduate handbook was so that issues related to expectations of both mentor and mentee can be discussed early in one's tenure in a faculty member's lab. For those of you who have never experienced what it feels like to someone who is experiencing acute depression, it can be really hard to understand that clinical depression is not just feeling down or disappointed. The pain it can it has caused in my life is significantly worse than my most physically painful experience - an excruciating battle with a kidney stone that required a whole lot of morphine to get through. The 30 or so your old book by William Styron (the author most notably know for Sophie's choice), "Darkness Visible", is a short read that describes what it feels like for those experiencing acute depression and how he managed to come out of it. If you have family members or friends that say they have clinical depression, and you don't fully understand why they just can't snap out if, this book can help. Also remember that undergraduates in the courses you teach at UNCG are also dealing with significant stress, mental health challenges and being on the neurodiverse spectrum. In my large undergraduate classes where I talk about this a lot, it is amazing how many notes I get about what that means for me to be so open about mental health challenges for their sense of inclusion in class. I am happy to talk with any of you about how I approach discussions with students. I always start the semester with some survey questions. I always ask what the student's biggest non-academic worry is for the semester. The choices are infectious disease, financial issues, relationships with family, partners or friends, issues relating to diversity, equity and inclusion, and mental health. The class is at least 65% minority students. This year in my class of 125, over 60% selected mental health with the remainder selecting finances and relationships. And, in Canvas, Achieve or email conversations, probably about half of the class has told me about mental health challenges they are trying to manage.. I hope that those of you who have interacted with me as a professor and/or as GPD recognize that I really do care about all of you. I also genuinely believe in all of you. I have only realized recently that is a trait that I inherited from my father. I feel lucky to have it, even though it can affect me deeply when any of you (or any students I work with) are struggling, especially when I don't know how to help. Sorry for the long note. But, it is just a reminder to take care of yourself, pay attention to your stress levels and emotions, and never be afraid to reach out for help, because you feel that asking for help with mental health challenges is somehow a sign of weakness. Mental health challenges aren't any more a sign of weakness, in my opinion, than getting an infectious disease or cancer. I often remind students that if they break a bone, or feel really sick, they rarely hesitate to go seek help form medical professionals. Yet, when they are in intense emotional distress they hesitate. I dream of a world where culturally we don't see much difference between mental and physical health challenges with respect to seeking help. I know I speak for Malcom that we really do care about you and want the best for you in graduate school, your current lives, and your future. with the warmth of ours and all other suns, Jim  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.  This blog was written on March 7, 2023. This version had some wonderful edits from Chat-GPT.
This morning, an extraordinary event unfolded at Lake Jeanette. It seemed as if the sky and the lake were engaged in a mystical union, giving rise to an intriguing question: What would their offspring resemble? Occasionally, I perceive the universe attempting to communicate with me, yet deciphering its messages can be perplexing. It requires practice and attentiveness. One interpretation could be that the reflected sky in the lake served as a powerful metaphor for climate change. Alternatively, it might symbolize the demise of a poorly managed organization, similar to the one I am employed in. Furthermore, it could be a celestial indication that diving into the lake grants the freedom of a skydiver, while kayaking effortlessly evokes a sensation of soaring through the clouds. Alternatively, it might simply be another message urging me to pay closer attention, like a resounding "Wake the f**k up!" Regardless of its meaning, this occurrence marked a captivating episode in the ongoing series at Lake Jeanette: Reflections are beautiful; Reflections are profound; reflections are a way the universe talks to you. While fully engrossed in this spectacle, I happened upon a moss preparing for reproduction (though not depicted). This sight caused me to lag behind Annie (one of our two canine family members), who had grown weary of the natural aromas and returned to the house for her morning milk bone. The morning on the nature trail always holds something to convey—I only wish I dedicated more time to listening. The universe's discourse did not cease at the lake; it continued its chatter within the confines of the driveway as I opened my car door. I felt sort of whole looking at are cherry tree, located near my parking spot, which stood in full bloom. I took a moment to listen, and to my delight, I was serenaded by a symphony of songs from eleven distinct bird species. When I looked up, I spied a striking male cardinal perched on a cherry branch nestled within the tree's core, its vibrant scarlet plumage contrasting with delicate pink flowers. How did I ever take these sights and sounds for granted, or to be too myopic to notice? It is regrettable that we become so consumed by our own concerns that we cease to listen, observe, and truly feel. Today, my angst dissipated as I contemplated the sight of the sky descending into the lake, accompanied by a harmonious and resplendent chorus from the descendants of dinosaurs we share the planet with.  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? 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.
. 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  Update on this blog. I asked for people to tell me if I was wrong, and a colleague who had a greater understanding of the new budget model gently did. That person gave me access to data showing that I had a few misunderstandings of the new BOG budget model. I now understand that the new funding model exacerbates the budget issues associated with declining enrollment since we now lose (a lot) more money per undergraduate credit hour than we did in the last model (and gain or lose less per graduate credit our) when undergraduate sch declines. Of course, we will recover more quickly if we can create a reason for undergraduate students to enroll here.
The other thing I learned, which is what I thought would be the case from past experiences, but it was such a focus of narratives that I heard I thought it played a lager role, is that the performance-based model is only at the margins, not the core of the new model. My colleague referred to it as a (the) red-herring, because the money involved is far less than the challenges caused by decreased credit hour production. I think my colleague confirmed, though, that the performance model is not comparing UNCG absolute numbers directly against UNC CH, but is based on marginal gains and losses from institutional norms. Although I still may be wrong about this, the new information did not change my opinion that UNCG is not inherently disadvantaged in the new budget model because of the students we serve. In the performance part of the model, we have room to make significant marginal gains. Rather, it seems we are disadvantaged because of how the model was implemented. Part of it is just bad "luck"; the new model took effect when UNCG's sch production was in free fall from declining numbers of new students and a post-covid retention drop. Usually, when funding models change drastically, quickly, in a way that really hurts units or schools, there is some period of "hold harmless" or for adjustments, I think the BoG helped to try and hold us a little bit harmless with an infusion of $3M in one time funding (this is from memory of provost's remarks) this academic year. I guess we either are not getting additional funds to help deal with the "bad luck timing" in the next fiscal year, or at least no one has said that we are that I have heard (and I may not be listening). I also think my opinion still holds that a major effect of the new budge model will be to incentivize UNC CH and NC State to increase in-state undergraduate sch production, if those schools want to maintain strong graduate programs. Some have interpreted the decrease per graduate sch as a "defunding" of graduate programs. Perhaps it is. But, I read it as just a new way to support graduate programs. Basically, if an institution wants strong graduate programs, and needs state appropriations to do so, increasing in-state undergraduate enrollment is the path towards having the funds. This creates an indirect problem for UNCG. If UNC CH and NC State significantly increase in-state undergraduate enrollment, then UNCG will lose prospective students to those schools because they are perceived as better (though the experience of many students here with faculty is outstanding- I would take it over what I have seen when I was at an elite private or two flag ship land grants). I still think the actions and narratives at UNCG right now, suggest to me that the budget issues have given some in senior administration the opportunity to do what they have wanted to do since they arrived: implement the strategy of changing the university from what it is, with a strong liberal arts and science core, to a 4-year "high-value" vocational tech model in areas like health, business and IT (and eSports)focused on the first job after graduation, in programs taught with fixed term faculty with high teaching loads, who are viewed as easily replaceable commodities, Perhaps that is incorrect. Yet, I think there is nothing in actions or narratives that would suggest otherwise. Or at least the data chosen for program review don't seem to me to point to much of any vision for the future. The importance that rpk puts on federal labor market data- does suggest the focus will be on the first job after graduation. There is research data in the mix, but grants and contract data don't necessarily say a lot about the impact of research. It does feel like a select set of data will be analyzed independent of any norms in our peer group with the hope that the data will define the vision. At least that is how I see it. Budget cuts are hard, but there are many ways to approach them. Our problems are serious, but don't seem yet to be existential. So, we still can have a vision other than just survive until tomorrow (and candidly, if survive until tomorrow is where we are, we probably should merge or close, fighting for survival of a public institution in the face of it not being needed seems wrong to me in some way in a State with so many good institutions). If we have a clear vision that is about finding a way to be the distinctive mix of select strong R2 research programs with transformational education, then that would lead to a different strategy to budget challenges, than a vision of transforming into a "new" kind of residential university focused on "high-value" vo tech programs in health, business, and IT, with a smattering of STEM. I came here because of how articulately the chancellor promoted the distinctive R2 university mission which so fits the campus culture and my values. Thus, I still hope that the chancellor believes that should still be the future goal. If so, that vision should drive how we approach budget challenges and the institutional and comparative data we examine. But, if the vision is something else, which seems clear to me from what I know about people, decisions on faculty retention and the program review process is targeted toward the sort of change akin, but not as severe, as to what is happening at New College in Florida. If so, then I hope leadership can be clear about it so we all know that is the vision that will direct the strategy for addressing the budget challenges and the university's future. My original blog is below- I stand corrected on the things I learned from my colleague (but I did not remove them from the blog so you can see where I was simply dead wrong). I still think that many of my opinions are still consistent with the data I have. Critical thinking is about changing a narrative when new information is provided and I am happy to do so. Let me end the update with a huge thank you to my colleague for correcting me on a serious misconception of one part of the budget model! And, keep the corrections coming,. The original blog of May 1. I was very glad to see the op-ed in Sunday's paper (4/30/2023) by a large cohort of former UNCG faculty who gave their careers to make UNCG an extraordinarily transformational institution. Their op-ed expressed concern about the UNC Board of Governor's new funding model. The model certainly has put people on edge. And, recent action/policies of the BoG around DEI, Faculty Grievances, Chancellor searches, etc, are simply scary to those of us faculty who believe in the power of higher education and of an organization that shares governance, with administrators having fiduciary responsibility and faculty having authority on curriculum and quality control of that curriculum. In sitting on the University's General Education Counsel this year, the faculty take quality control extremely seriously. It was inspiring to work with this group. I have some concerns, though, that the new budget model has been a red herring that has effectively diverted faculty attention from more important issues. Let me state now that I have no inside information. I have never talked with a member of the BOG. I have, though, searched the web earlier this year to try and find out more about the specifics of the budget model. Those data could be outdated. There could be much clearer data available to faculty in shared governance positions.. So, simply put, everything in this blog could be wrong. Thus, this is solely an opinion piece. My sense of the rationale for new performance funding model is not as nefarious as the narrative suggests. The increase in funding per undergraduate student, and decrease in funding per graduate student, seems to be a logical way to incentivize UNC Chapel Hill and NC State to enroll more in-state undergraduates to help subsidize their graduate programs. The ratio of undergraduates to graduate students at UNCG is relatively high, so it is possible (but I do not know) that the increased funding to undergraduates offsets the decrease to graduate students. UNCG is hurt by this part of the model because if UNC-CH and NC State enroll more undergraduates as a way to maintain their graduate programs, there will less NC students wanting to enroll at UNCG unless we offer something special. When the new budget model first came out, I believe it was run with 2020-2021 data and UNCG would have received a 1.4% increase in our budget- about in the middle of the pack of UNC schools. Our ratio of undergrads to grads is large (larger than UNC-CH), so the decrease in graduate funding, may be offset by increases in undergraduate funding. I don't know. Performance based funding models, generally should not be things that scare faculty. In essence, they incentive universities to get better- in this model better at student outcomes and lessening student debt. I doubt that any of us as faculty think we as a university should not get better every year at improving these student outcomes. We might argue that the metrics don't really define student outcomes, or capture other areas of excellence, but I can't argue against metrics like graduation rates, and reduced debt for students as outcomes that UNCG should get better at. The narrative has been that the new performance funding model pits UNCG against schools like UNC CH with direct comparisons. That is not how I understood the performance-based model. Like most states, I understood that the performance metrics would be weighted by institutional missions and targets, and driven by marginal improvements. If that is true, the model does no inherently disfavor UNCG. I am sure the downturn and enrollment and retention in the last two years would hurt us in the performance model, but would have hurt us in the old model, too. But, without knowing how performance based metrics are weighted by institution, I certainly can't tell how much the model would help or hurt us. In general, UNCG has a lot of room to improve those metrics, which means we theoretically would have a great chance of winning in the new model. I worry that new performance-based funding model is a red herring that leadership has relied upon keeping the spotlight off the new "vision" for UNCG. Given the data UNCG is using in program review such as the focus on faculty teaching productivity data rather than instructional costs; given the explicit requirement not to use comparative data like the Delaware Study in the review; given the focus on Department of Labor job growth data; given the lack of concern about excellent faculty leaving; and based on my experience with some members (not the Chancellor) of the senior administration, my uninformed opinion is that the budget challenges are being used as an opportunity to transform UNCG from a potentially high functioning, and transformational R2, into a 4 year university with many characteristics you might see in a vocational tech community college that focuses on health and business (and maybe some STEM). The conversation about faculty teaching loads leads me to think that the goal is to get to faculty that are full time teachers (4-4 or 5-5) loads, on fixed contracts, who are easily replaceable commodities. This strategy would ultimately raise sch/faculty much higher and reduce instructional cost/sch greatly. The university would have a long way to go to make that transition - but I would be surprised if that is not the intention. The question is whether students would enroll. I have to admit that I truly enjoyed working with the Chancellor when I was provost. We were completely sympatico with the vision of UNCG carving out what it means to be a university with distinctive research strengths with a strong and transformational role in undergraduate education. That vision seems to have disappeared. Rather, I see the vision leading us to a 4 year vocational school with non research, fixed term contract, faculty, ultimately sending UNCG into a death spiral because with each move toward that model, because fewer and fewer students will want to enroll. I mean community college financial models are the least stable financial model in public higher education. And, what would we offer in health and business that would make us more attractive than other UNC schools.? I also have to say the budget challenges are real and I am glad I am not responsible for fixing them. Yet, I know that fixing them does not require the institution to fully reshape its vision and transform into something that makes conservative anti-higher education people happy, and I don't think that approach has really worked anywhere. I may be completely wrong. I am always happy to eat my words. Although my interaction with the chancellor around my termination as provost causes me deep animosity toward him as a human being, I truly believed in his vision of what UNCG could become. And, I hope he can up his engagement and reinvigorate that vision. We are experiencing true budget challenges. But, my experience in higher ed tells me that these budget challenges do not have to change the fundamental vision that drew me to UNCG and that the Chancellor expressed so well when I was recruited here. So, it might surprise people that I state "Chancellor Gilliam- we really need you now!"  I had a special day today. The PR arm of the College of Arts and Sciences wanted to highlight me as one of a few professors in social media posts around our May 5 commencement. They also filmed me having a discussion with 12 graduating undergrads about their experience at UNCG and with me. To say the hour long conversation was profoundly fun and meaningful to me, would be a ridiculous underestimate. A few of the students had participated in undergraduate research with me- one saying in the conversation that a course in plant physiological ecology where they had to read two scientific papers each week, and the research they did my lab, took them from a somewhat lost student, to someone with tremendous focus on science, particularly conservation of marine animals. One of the other students in the conversation is working with five other students on a tobacco project. The first time I have used tobacco as a model system in 20 years. So, today I celebrate organismal biology, model systems, tobacco plants and eastern cottonwood just for the fun of it-. I am so excited to work with Tobacco again (after 20 years) with undergraduates. The tobacco plant pictured above is almost ready for the experiment! This pilot experiment is looking at whether the preference and performance of an insect herbivore feeding on tobacco plants grown in microplastic amended soils or controls. Unfortunately, I underestimated the time it would take for tobacco plants to grow, so the students are frustrated. But, they got to find a cool topic, amended soil with microplastics, designed and built plant-insect cages from PVC and netting that would have cost five times more to buy, transplanted seedlings and kept them alive. Students will finish the pilot experiment this summer. To digress for a second, I was at a seminar the other day where the opening slide showed a progression from genes, to populations to ecosystems that defined the topic. As a plant physiological ecologist, my heart sank that organisms weren't in the progression. That reminded me of the collaborative work of developmental plant anatomists with plant physiologists who took years, but brilliantly tied together the form and function of eastern cottonwood plants which allowed me to conduct a pretty fun PhD thesis and beyond. Also, tobacco is such a cool plant to work with for similar reasons. This blog post discusses some of my favorite papers using tobacco and eastern cottonwood as model systems that never got the traction they deserved in the scientific community. The work described below represents two out of five research areas my lab was focused on before becoming an administrator. Tobacco and Cottonwood My first paper, and my only single authored paper ever, was the result of a question on my PhD candidacy exam at Yale from Clive Jones, Bill Smith, John Gordon, Charles Remington and Mike Montgomery that related to my thesis using cottonwood as a model system. It was titled, Leaf development and leaf stress: increased susceptibility associated with sink-source transition. The project was based on a fully funded NSF grant I wrote with Clive. The group of friendly inquisitors asked to me look at the relationship between leaf development and susceptibility of leaves to insects and pathogens. A couple of hundred hours in the library (does anyone remember living in the stacks?), and a few hundred references, later I produced an answer that suggested that there was a window of time during leaf development associated with the sink source transition where susceptibility to specialist insects and pathogens peaked. And, that window was due to a balance of several characteristics including secondary compounds, size, toughness, nitrogen level, starch/sugar levels and was consistent across a wide range of organisms. That led to a cool paper that has recently found more interest from others. I didn't do so well on the other question they asked me, but they concluded that none of them could have answered it any better. They thought my answer to the leaf development and susceptibility to consumers was excellent, and they couldn't; argue with the funded NSF grant, and I was admitted to candidacy. One paper that I loved was led by then graduate student, and now Professor at Missouri State University (Alexander Wait;), "Chrysomela scripta, Plagiodera versicolora (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), and Trichoplusia ni (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Track Specific Leaf Developmental Stages" (https://doi.org/10.1603/0046-225X-31.5.836) where we grew tobacco (and eastern cottonwood) in sand, and were able to control the relative growth rate, of plants by providing exponentially increasing nutrients daily at the rate of the RGR we wanted. And, were able to produce plants that had leaves reaching full expansion on the stem at different leaf positions. The results supported our hypothesis that specialist insects carefully tracked leaf developmental stage (and the point of sink-source transition) independent of RGR, independent of leaf position and independent of nutrient supply. It was such a cool study. I think, unfortunately, we published it in Environmental Entomology and it hasn't been read as much as it might have. A follow up paper on how closely insects track leaf development stage, in this case tracking the feeding behavior of aphids on cottonwoods, and carefully correlating that behavior with biochemical leaf characteristics was done by former PhD Graduate Student Georgiana Gould.. She showed in the paper "Variation in Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides Bartr.) phloem sap content and toughness due to leaf Development may affect feeding site Selection behavior of the aphid, Chaitophorous populicola Thomas (Homoptera: Aphididae). " The aphid seemed to track leaf development to avoid mature leaves and to preferably feed on rapidly expanding leaves. Concentrations of the amino acids GABA and aspartic acid, as well as the phenolic glycoside salicin, differ in leaves of different developmental stages and may be used by the aphid to determine the age of leaves to feed upon. Another favorite paper is, "Why it matters were ion a leaf a folivore feeds " was conducted with a wonderful undergraduate, Soren Leonard (https://www.linkedin.com/in/a-soren-leonard-4316b344/). This paper (doi.org/10.1007/BF00328818) was based on the fact that the tip of leaves stop expanding well before the base of leaves. We hypothesized that given how leaves develop and expand, herbivores feeding on the base of the leaf would appear to have eaten much more tissue than those that feed on the tip of the leaf. And that amount of area lost from a leaf would be dramatically different if herbivores fed on the base vs. tip of an expanding leaf, which could lead to reductions in plant performance. We tested this hypothesis by taking the same area of leaf tissue from the tip or base of mature and expanding tobacco leaves. We found that removing area from the base of an expanding leaf created over twice the amount of visible damage than occurred on the tip of an expanding leaf. Furthermore, damage to the base of an expanding leaf resulted in nearly a 40% reduction in the final leaf area, resulting in a 35% reduction in the number and mass of fruits produced. .Some implications of this study could be extraordinarily important in assessing the amount of leaf area eaten at a whole plant, plant population and/or ecosystem level. For example if we had tried to estimate the amount of leaf area consumed by herbivores by the size of the hole from the base of an expanding leaf, we would conclude that herbivores removed 16.6 cm 2 even though only 3.9 cm 2 was actually removed. On the other hand, if we estimated the reduction in overall leaf area simply from the size of the final hole in a leaf, we might conclude that leaf area was reduced by 16.6 cm 2 when, in fact, damage to the base of the leaf resulted in over a 180 cm 2 reduction in the area of that leaf. (over ten fold). This really could have created large errors in data assessing the amount of herbivory or loss of leaf area due to herbivores in agricultural or forest ecosystems. Although I think this is a simple paper, I also felt that its results were really important for scaling from leaf development to ecosystems. However, it is hard to measure where an herbivore eats on a leaf in the field. Despite the fact I think this paper was a really important paper (and almost immediately accepted by Oecologia- a great journal for this work), the rest of the world did not- it has a really low citation rate relative to other less interesting papers I have written with students or colleagues. And, in discussing with scientists who try to assess the amount of leaf area that herbivores remove, or the affect of herbivory on ultimate leaf area, despite the 4 fold mistake in leaf area eaten, and the 10 fold mistake in leaf area reduction, they felt these data were simply an annoyance and would just unnecessarily complicate their work and the narrative of their findings. C'est la vie. There was another paper my group published using tobacco that was also an extraordinarily cool paper. My lab was interested in the ecological and evolutionary physiology of heat shock proteins and why, given their role in thermotolerance, were low molecular weight heat shock proteins only induced by stress and not constitutively produced (that we later demonstrated protect PSII during heat stress). Because of other work that had been done, we thought it might be possible that one leaf could be heat stressed on a plant and send a volatile signal in the air or a chemical signal through the vasculature to induce the heat stress response in other leaves. Molecular heat shock protein biologists, at the time, thought we were crazy, because they believed that cells only induced HSP production when they were directly stressed. Bill Hamilton a former undergraduate and PhD student (with Sam McNaughton and me) and now professor and chair of biology at Washington and Lee tested this idea using tobacco- again because the relationships between form and function that had put together by others in the paper " Heat-shock proteins are induced in unstressed leaves of Nicotiana attenuata when distant leaves are stressed. " https://doi.org/10.2307/2657048 Much to our delight, we discovered that a systemic induction of heat-shock proteins (Hsps) occurred in response to the treatment of a leaf with heat shock, mechanical damage, or exogenous application of methyl jasmonate (MJ). All treatments increased the abundance of members of the 70-kD Hsp (Hsp70) family and induced synthesis of one or more of the small Hsps (sHsp) (16–23 kD) in both treated and untreated leaves. Those results provided the first evidence that Hsps can be systemically induced in plants and suggest that systemic induction of Hsps may be important in pre-adapting leaves to stress. Why you ask?, Although we never tested this in the field, one could hypothesize, that, for example, leaves on the eastern side of plant may experience increased temperatures before those on the western side of the plant and that systemic induction might be valuable in inducing thermotolerance before the western leaves were in direct sunlight. Again, this very simple and cool experiment that kind of shattered a paradigm at the time that cells only induce greater production of HSPs if they are directly stressed. Nonetheless, not many people cared. A short trip into the ecological and evolutionary ecology of heat shock proteins Bill, myself, and a great post doc in my lab, Scott Heckathorn, professor at the University of Toledo, found this experiment really cool, and in the early 2000s it was kind of fun to find a result inconsistent with a molecular paradigm at the time. On a side note, my lab's work with heat shock proteins was originally aimed at linking molecular and ecological approaches to understand whether their where resource costs that prevented plants from just making them all of the time (and we showed that there could be) which led to me receiving an NSF (Presidential) Young Investigator Award. A paper with Scott and Dick Hallberg (a heat shock protein biologist of note working in yeast systems) "Heat shock proteins and thermotolerance: Linking ecological and molecular perspectives," described that perspective. And, we publishes numerous papers on this topic. But, sometimes our work became the subject of ridicule because of not doing the sort of mechanistic work that molecular biologists expected. So, we were forced (and that ended up being a good thing) to get better at molecular approaches to the HSP work in order to have our ecological/evolutionary work accepted. That culminated when Scott worked with Craig Downs, Tom Sharkey and me find a result that was something I would have never predicted/imagined being done in my lab- we were the first lab to demonstrate a molecular function for how plant low molecular weight heat shock proteins protect photosystem II during heat stress (doi.org/10.1104/pp.116.1.439). Who da thunk that? Back to cottonwoods Returning from the digression, the tobacco and cottonwood studies were related to NSF and the Andrew Mellon Foundation support. And, these projects were great fun because how fun it is to work with students. It is just a bummer that what was exciting to us (or at least me) did not resonate much with other scientists. But, I am really proud of the work these students did and the potential significance of the work. One other study conducted by an undergraduate that drew on the form and function work of the special people I alluded to above but didn't name- Philip R. Larson, Jud Isebrands and Richard E Dickson- who connected the form and functional development of cottonwood probably better than any other plant species. In their work they mapped the vasculature of cottonwood trees and related the vascular connections (and flow of water of and sugar) to the phyllotaxy of leaves. Leaves in cottonwood, develop at the same angle from each other and after a few spins (depending how fast they grow) their leaves vertically align. And, that alignment is always consistent with the Fibonacci series (see figure below). Nature loves symmetry. In most of the plants we worked on the phyllotaxy was 2/5 meaning that every that after 2 spins around the stem, every fifth leaf would align, and every third leaf would be most distant from the 5th leaf. Not surprisingly the strength of vascular connections was strongest between every 5th leaf. And the fifth leave after two spins was least connected to the third leaf. In the paper "Plant vasculature controls the distribution of systemically induced defense against an herbivore," Clive Jones, Robert Hopper (undergrad), Vera Krischik and I tested whether the vascular connections between cottonwood leaves could predict the strength of an induced defensive response in other leaves when one leaf was damaged. The paper showed that mechanical damage to single leaves resulted in systemic induced resistance (SIR) in non-adjacent, orthostichous leaves (vertically aligned on the stem) with direct vascular connections, both up and down the shoot; but no SIR in adjacent, non-orthostichous leaves with less direct vascular connections. The showed the control that plant vasculature exerts over signal distribution following wounding and might be useful in predicting SIR patterns, explain variation in the distribution of SIR, and relate this ecologically important phenomenon to biochemical processes of systemic gene expression and biochemical resistance mechanisms. This paper received more citations and much more attention. But, it never would have happened with the dedication to connecting plant form and function that inspired Larson, Isebrands and Dickson. Clive, Vera an I tried to integrate and conceptually model how plant form and function could link to new models of thinking about how the interaction between plants and insects and plants and pathogens can be interpreted from a greater understanding of plant-form and function and of herbivore and pathogen characteristics in three synthetic papers, A Phytocentric Perspective of Phytochemical Induction by Herbivores. In: D. Tallamy and M. Raupp (eds.). 1991 edited volume Phytochemical Induction by Herbivores. J. Wiley and Sons. pp. 3-45; Plant Stress and Insect Herbivory: Toward an Integrated Perspective. In: H.A. Mooney, W.E. Winner and E.J. Pell (eds.) Integrated Responses of Plants to Environmental Stress. Academic Press, NY. pp. 249-282 and in one of the best papers I ever wrote but almost nobody read, Phytocentric and Exploiter Perspectives of Phytopathology. Advances in Plant Pathology 8: 149-195. ISBN: 012033710X, 9780120337101. My grand synthesis (with Clive Jones) attempted to link plant form and function, plant phenology, evolutionary characteristics of insects and pathogens to describe the evolution of insect and pathogen communities on various plants, and specific traits that would be present in specialized insects and pathogens. It was the best paper I ever wrote, Leaf Ontogeny, Plant Phenology, and Plant Growth Habit: Toward a General Theory of Resource Exploitation by Herbivores and Pathogens. But, it was rejected by the American Naturalist with one very positive review (from Sir John Lawton, my academic grandfather- you have to admit it is pretty cool to have a British Knight as a grandfather) and one negative review. After leaving it and stupidly never resubmitting because I decided to move on to new things when I started as an assistant professor, I am back to it again. I have had a few scientists in the field read that paper recently and they all strongly encouraged me to get it up to date and resubmit. I am working with undergraduates on that now. I don't know why I procrastinated so much on the work I am proudest of. Science is funny that way. So, here is to Tobacco and cottonwood- both great model systems for organismal biology. Here's to a hope that the amazing understanding we have gained at the genome level doesn't make organismal biology obsolete. And here the hope that the new undergraduates in my lab with find a joy of working with tobacco that is not related to smoking. A short synopsis of the stuff that got more attention (and not): The other three main research areas (and two peripheral areas) consuming my life and accounting for a large number of citations are: 1) understanding the role of ontogenetic drift in plant traits in understanding the function of phenotypic plasticity with Kelly McConnaughay (and several of her students) and David Ackerly- the area of science where most of my citations are. (we started with a synthesis piece, Interpreting phenotypic variation in plants) and a symposium that David and I organized with some other amazing people, produced a nice paper that still gets read quite a bit, The evolution of plant ecophysiological traits: Recent advances and future directions; (2) Another area was global change ecology (around $20million in funding)where my work is cited frequently - example Nature paper here of a large team project in the Mojave Desert.. And the third area is another area that boomeranged on me. Twenty years ago I worked with Mae Gustin (and Mae's graduate student Jody Erickson), Steve Lindbergh and Dale Johnson on a project trying to understand the flux of mercury in ecosystems, where we published a kind of seminal paper in mercury flux (using aspen-- close enough to cottonwood for comfort), "Accumulation of atmospheric mercury by forest foliage ". This came back around when I returned to the faculty at UNCG in 2021 and inherited three grants from Martin Tsui, who moved to Hong Kong, looking at mercury flux in response to different silvicultural practices used to restore loblolly pine plantations to longleaf pine ecosystems. Oh, and then there is my short stint with radishes in Hal Mooney's group- another one of my best papers that barely anyone read came from my time in Hal's lab Anthropogenic stress and natural selection: Variability in radish biomass accumulation increases with increasing SO2 dose. I also had a blast working with Sam McNaughton as as his mentee and colleague when I was an assistant professor at Syracuse, and our students including Bill and Scott, Bryan Wilsey, Michele Giovannini, Ben Tracy, Kevin Williams, Doug Frank, Greg Hartvigsen and Stephanie Moses on interactions of grasses (and other plants) with herbivores. I am particularly proud of a conceptual/synthesis paper that Scott, Sam and I wrote on C4 Plants and Herbivory. And, Greg did a really interesting paper with Alexander and I on tri-trophic interactions as a result of resource availability to cottonwood saplings. Brian wrote some really interesting papers on global change and grasses with Sam and I-- a topic for another blog about the story of my carbon dioxide work. Writing about Sam just reminded me that during the seven years I was at Syracuse University (I was tenured and promoted there). I declined every offer, every year, to go to the Serengeti with Sam and his team. That is near or on the top of the list of stupid decisions in my life. I remember the days of cottonwood and tobacco (and radish and Serengeti grasses) fondly. And, I hope future days will also make me nostalgic before I die. Some other day I'll blog about our much more appreciated work regarding allometry/phenotypic plasticity in plant traits, global change biology, and mercury biogeochemistry. Below is a diagram of a 2/5 phyllotaxy of a cottonwood sapling. The shadings relate to the experiment. People actually hand drew these figures back then-- and it wasn't me. I can barely draw a straight line.   For those of you who had the misfortune of reading my post titled "It's time for time," I appreciate you. That post was kind of mis-titled, as if I was a were a headline writer for a tabloid, where the title had little to do with the blog. The post was largely about the joy of the academic rhythm, with a three paragraph digression about time as quoted below.
"I have a new passion this semester: I am starting an imaginary activist group aimed at ending the practice of unnecessary meetings, and another one focused on fighting society's oppression of the value of time- I think that time is really sick of not being valued--and I worry what will what will happen if time goes on strike. I am hoping at one point the university will sign a new infinitely long contract with time, providing equity in its compensation with space and money. My imaginary group has a catchy slogan. "It's time for Time". Besides fighting for equity for time relative to space and money, we will fight to stamp out hurtful phrases such as "killing time", "wasting time" ,"crunch time", "do hard time", "got no time", "in less than no time", "it's payback time", "living on borrowed time:, "lose track of time", "the last time" "the race against time", "out of time", etc." This post is a follow up. To say it mildly and sadly, my revolution to protect time is failing. The first question you should be asking is that if I find time to be so scarce and valuable, then why in the hell am I writing a blog? Good question! I can only respond that writing on a blog, and maybe, if I am lucky, having 2 other people read it, is cathartic in its own way and makes me more productive. It's kind of like taking a laxative when you are constipated and feeling cleansed afterwards. I wrote this new blog because protecting time has made me feel guilty. From the time I was a undergraduate student in 1982 until now, I was willing to work 18 hours or more a day and worked both weekend days. As an Assistant and Associate Professor, I volunteered for everything- from making phone calls to prospective students (Syracuse University was in an enrollment crisis when I started), to playing a lead role in Syracuse's MLK celebration (which at that time was perhaps the biggest of any campus. filling the floor of the Carrier dome). As an administrator, the weekends were often the only time to get work done. During my phase as a Ph.D. student, I regularly blocked off time for exercise, but other than that it was all work and little play.. But, once I became a postdoc, especially with an advisor who would drive around at night just to see if the lights were on in the lab, I gave up protecting time. It has been that way ever since. Weekends were to get things done or to do weekend work-related activities,. Evenings were for doing work. Downtime was only available when I just got too exhausted, if there were house chores, or if the Steelers or Penguins were in the playoff hunt.. It has taken me 40 years to figure out that my time is not infinite and free. This is paradoxical because in my first administrative position back in 1997, I worked in a soft-money research institute where time, indeed, was equal to money. For example, if I wanted faculty members to come to a meeting, or do anything that was not related to their grants and contracts, I had to find a fund to charge their time. Most of my colleagues in universities gave me a funny look on their face and would say "WTF?". But, it was true. As an administrator, the State of Nevada covered my salary to run my the unit (though I covered half of it from grants), so I did not have the conundrum of violating the terms of grants and contracts to work all of the time on the "hard" part of my salary in addition to my grant funded work. This year, for the first time in 40 years, I have put a wall around Saturday. I spend most of the day with my wife, though I let myself work for a few hours in the morning. I put a wall around Saturday because: 1) Although not a practicing Jew, Saturday is our Sabbath and I am trying to find more spiritual meaning now; and 2) The real reason: My wife has much of Sunday booked. Having Saturday walled off for us has made me more productive at work and has helped strengthen my marriage. dah. Sunday-Friday UNCG owns me for usually around 75-80 hours during this semester. Sunday, Mon, Tues, and Wed are usually 14-18 hours on campus either in classes, prepping for classes, grading for classes, working my lab, or in my office engaging with students in person or digitally. and performing my duties as Graduate Program Director, member of the Gen Ed Council and a member of the Sustainability program's advising council. Thursday and Friday are usually 8-10 hours each. These are the longest hours I have worked in my career even as an assistant professor with 5 active grants (and who viewed by job as 100% teaching; 100% research; and 100% service) as well as VP,R, Dean and Provost. When I was a senior administrator, I was usually one of the first people in the office in the morning and the last to leave. To digress for a moment, an old family friend, and former dean and university president, told me recently in response to my saying I was tired because of working 80 hours a week, "you still have 88 more hours to work each week." Believe it, or not, that was a pep talk. This is probably the response I will get to this post from campus leaders. I don't mind my hours now, because they are spent mostly on things that reward me with energy, i.e., engaging with the 230 students I teach this semester. I don't want to ease up on that engagement, because that is the most rewarding activity that gets me up in the morning. But, getting home at between midnight and 2:00 AM four days a week does gets old. Here's my problem. Despite this level of effort, I am feeling extraordinarily guilty and frustrated about not having more time to give. In the last week or two, I have been encouraged to spend 8 hours in an "open space" meeting during the busiest time of the semester (the week before and during finals) and just before a major IT switch will occur that will require a lot of time on my end) so that Arts and Sciences and Biology faculty are represented, not because of being passionate about the theme of the meeting. Open Space Technology meetings are meant to only include people that are passionate about the theme. The Open Space "rule" is whoever chooses to attend are the right people- I am not in that group. Additionally, I have been encouraged to give up a big chunk of time on two Saturdays for undergraduate recruitment days (I care about this-- UNCG needs students an faculty can help- if these were on Sunday I would most certainly volunteer); attending training sessions on mental health and anti-bias (I am already certified in mental health first aid, and I can' even count the number of times I have done anti-bias training;) to attend a plethora of various seminars, particularly ones about student success and DEI,. To nominate faculty, staff and students for like 10 competitions for awards and review internal proposals for small amounts of money. And, then there are many recommendation letters for students. In total these non-core activity requests would come close to adding up to somewhere between a half to a full extra 40 hour week during the last five weeks of the semester. Oh, and then there is the invite for the 3 hour university commencement. In 25 years in admin-- every university I was employed at worked hard to have graduation ceremonies never be more than 1.5-2hours maximum. That is another story. When I was a provost and dean, I enjoyed the time on stage shaking hands (as dean I would go to 7-9 ceremonies over two days of graduation)- it flew by. But, after several thousand shakes, my hand did hurt a bit. I felt so sorry, for the families, and friends who really just wanted some pomp and circumstance, maybe a funny or profound graduation speech (rare), then to get to watch their student walk across the stage (with lots of hooting and hollering and pictures) having to sit there for 1.5-2 hours. And, I felt worse for the students who were generally bored to tears with the speeches, the honorary degrees, and having to listen to the chancellor or president talk about the accomplishments of 5 of the several thousand graduates, all of whom felt their story was also compelling. I can imagine how they might feel after 3 hours. When I was at the University of Missouri, we did have a 3 hour ceremony for graduate students, and at Rice we had a 3 hour ceremony on the Rice lawn with temperatures in the 90s and the humidity near 90%. These were not fun. Fortunately, a new graduate dean came in and shortened the graduate ceremony at the University Missouri to 1.5 hours. I don't think anything significant was lost with the reduction of 90 minutes. It is amazing what fewer speeches and speedier hooding can do. I really look forward to our much shorter graduate recognition ceremony in biology in May, 2023 and hope our students and families will have the energy to come after the 3 hour campus gig. I really look forward to just after the Biology ceremony, where I get to say farewell, get a hug from as many of the students I know as possible, and honestly tell their parents, friends and families how special their graduate is to me. That just can't be done at the big ceremony. And, my 62 year old back can't handle sitting in a crowded uncomfortable seat for three hours. I suspect the grandparents of some of our graduates may feel similarly. Sorry, although that seemed like a digression, but I feel guilty for not going to the 3 hour ceremony, too. This is a good Segway back to the theme of the post... The guilt I have now comes from understanding how important the Saturday events are, particularly recruiting students, but feeling like protecting my one day a week is a mental health necessity. This makes me feel like I am letting my department head down (who I am grateful for every day) by not showing leadership as a full professor in volunteering my time for these events and other activities. The frustration comes from a few things. Mostly, I am frustrated by the philosophy of most universities that time is an infinite and free resource for faculty and professional staff (a philosophy I probably had as an administrator-- though I was much more aware of how hard faculty worked than my senior administrative colleagues). I am a little frustrated that all of these events, including the requirement for curricular advising, are not officially in my workload (though all faculty in my department do these things). I am most frustrated, because each of the numerous events, advising meetings, seminars, and nominating individuals for award competitions, etc. are either important and/or worthwhile. Each of these is, by itself is doable (accept for the 8 hour retreat)). But, in aggregate, just thinking about all of them gets me exhausted and makes my head hurt. I hate feeling guilty for doing something I should have been doing for 40 years: walling off one day a week to recharge and be with my family. I am a cultural Jew, so the guilt gene is almost always overexpressed, making me acclimated to its effects most of the time. Methinks, though, the current sense of guilt has passed the threshold of effectiveness of that acclimation and I hate feeling that way. So, I am back where I started. I wish it were "time for time" to be valued as I indicated in the previous blog: "I have a new passion this semester: I am starting an imaginary activist group aimed at ending the practice of unnecessary meetings, and another one focused on fighting society's oppression of the value of time- I think that time is really sick of not being valued--and I worry what will what will happen if time goes on strike. I am hoping at one point the university will sign a new infinitely long contract with time, providing equity in its compensation with space and money. My imaginary group has a catchy slogan. "It's time for Time". Besides fighting for equity for time relative to space and money, we will fight to stamp out hurtful phrases such as "killing time", "wasting time" ,"crunch time", "do hard time", "got no time", "in less than no time", "it's payback time", "living on borrowed time:, "lose track of time", "the last time" "the race against time", "out of time", etc." I am sad and feel defeated to write that I have failed my imaginary activist group. Time is being less valued now than it was even back in August when I wrote the first blog. Maybe time will never have its time to be in equity with money and space. I am scared it will remain the oppressed resource in modern human societies. I wish time was viewed as precious in our culture, but as the Stones sing, "you can't always get what you want" Let me end with an apology to time and a plea to time: Dear time, Please do not go strike. I mean, evolution gets me excited, but without you, it has no meaning. And, if evolution goes away, I don't know what we are left with except for timeless black holes. Below this introduction is an email from Michael Daly from rpk Group to questions I submitted on the feedback form. These answers confirmed my worst fears about the project. The answer that was most alarming to me is the answer to the question (bolded and highlighted) about the rationale for metrics. I mean, I can't imagine writing a research proposal that indicated I am going to measure two dozen metrics but I can't really say exactly what we will learn from them but know that all of them are equally important. None of the answers were very informative. Some of them are articulated verbatim on the FAQ on the UNCG site. But, I understand that my questions were ones that Michael could not go into detail on.
I was not able to attend the faculty forum at UNCG on March 20th (advising appointments), so all the issues below may have been addressed there. A brief introduction before the short email exchange. The dashboards that rpk is creating are very similar to those of a dashboard software marketed by the Educational Advisory Board (EAB) as "academic performance solutions." The Academic Performance Solutions dashboards were interesting and could be good tools for deans and department heads. I engaged with EAB quite a bit and investigated purchasing the software at two schools as provost over five years and I went through the process of investigating them twice at the University of Arkansas. We decided not to purchase the software (which is more than just software-they try to work with the institution's data like RPK), for two reasons. We had ERM software (Banner is the ERM at UNCG) that was developed in house many years ago and the data contained in that system was bad. UNCG's Banner ERM was also not developed to give integrated reports on academic metrics and lots of central data is junk because of how it was collected. Also, at Arkansas, I often tried to give the deans "dashboards" and tools, but I always had them check the data before I would "publish" anything. Every department had to run shadow systems to keep relevant data because they couldn't get it out of Arkansas' ERM- and their data was often much better than central data. That is pretty much what is happening at UNCG. I can confirm that is a very frustrating situation for a provost to not be able to get good reports out of the ERM, but it was the reality when I was provost at Arkansas and during my short tenure here. I don't think the data has become better at UNCG since January 2021, but I honestly don't know. Given the errors in the teaching performance index, it seems it has not changed. Second, most department chairs and heads at the University of Arkansas were already using data on class fill rates, dfw rates, in courses and by instructors, and some had started doing curricular complexity analyses that was developed as part of an APLU student success initiative where I was significantly involved and started streamlining curricula. The EAB web platform made it easier to view data quickly, but we thought that at the time it wouldn't provide anything new for Arkansas, because: 1) it was very expensive and the ROI did not seem strong given the quality of our data; and 2) most importantly, the deans and the heads felt the data was useless to them without benchmarks. EAB had been signing up institutions for Academic Performance Solutions over the 5 years I was in conversations with them. As they signed up more institutions, the number of institutions to benchmark against became larger, but at the time there were not enough relevant benchmarks to make the deans and department heads feel like the product offered would add any value, and I agreed with them. This does not mean that having the dashboards would not have helped make better decisions. And, there are more institutions to benchmark against now. But, one has to understand the data, know that is correct and be able to understand it in the context of peer institutions (not against itself at some previous time) to create useful dashboards, at least in my opinion. rpk has no benchmark data other than IPEDS. The other interesting thing to me from the answers to the questions below is that only academics is being examined in this kind of detailed way. Doing program reviews is always important, and certainly is important during a budget crisis, so I am not criticizing trying to do those, though I don't like the process. I was involved with several administrative efficiency and process reviews using the firm Huron, over my career. Huron is kind of the go to firm for these analyses. It is clear to me that UNCG has some costly and counter-productive inefficiencies in HR, finance, and facilities and possibly in other administrative functions. Huron is well known for making solid recommendations to eliminate those administrative efficiencies which can save substantial costs. They are also quite expensive. But, I find it telling that the only serious review of efficiency is being done on the academic side. I don't have much trust in the Chancellor's Task Force for Sustainability, and that might not be justified. But, my sense is that the administrative inefficiencies at UNCG (including in academic units) are quite large and not much progress has been made in fixing them-- and some have gotten worse (e.g, HR, finance). When problems are large and difficult to fix, then it is a good time to get some outside eyes, It would be quite expensive to hire a firm like Huron, it has probably been considered, but I think there would be more trust on the faculty level if we had consultants looking at efficiencies across the institution. And, the reason I think it would help create trust, is that there seems to be a narrative that faculty aren't working hard enough driving this analysis as much as the budget challenges. There has always been this narrative. It grew to be a larger narrative in Republican circles when Richard O'Donnell, connected to Governor Rick Perry's administration released this report. The report presented data basically reaching a conclusion that faculty workloads were the major source of cost inefficiency in Texas' universities. This led to the UT and A&M systems, particularly U. Texas-Austin and Texas A&M doing a detailed per faculty analysis of productivity and revenue generation, turning O'Donnell's analysis on its head. The detailed analysis showed on average, faculty generated way more revenue than they cost in this report from Inside Higher Education . At the time, based on memory, there was a general recognition of the kind of productivity analysis done by O'Donnell (and a paper by Richard Vedder in 2011) were wrong. Yet, that narrative still lives on in anti-higher education Republican circles and in places like the Wall Street Journal (Bob Shea sometimes gets his narratives from there), even when several detailed analyses showed it has been a false narrative. Another answer below that concerned me, is that Michael indicated that rpk's role is to find UNCG's data truth. Yet he also indicated that they plan to create draft dashboards before they have data reviewed at the unit level hoping to fix and evolve it later, In my experience once the dashboard is out there it is hard to change. For example, we know there are errors in the teaching performance index dashboard, but they have not been fixed and I believe the dashboard is still up for faculty and administrators to view. And, as I said above, some dashboards might be useful without benchmarks, but I think most won't. And, some data aren't really very useful, like the job market analysis, because they don't capture what jobs students go into and their trajectory after their first job. That analysis basically assumes that our curriculum should be tied to the job market, and, for example, that only business majors go into business. Or only health majors go into health. We know that is not true- albeit I don't know the data. I do know all of the national data that looks at income over a lifetime show that liberal arts and sciences majors generally catch up with many professional fields over a lifetime. See the old (2014) article Liberal Arts Majors Win in the Long Term published in Inside Higher Education. The Email Exchange- btw my response was not my best.. but for transparency this is all verbatim On Fri, Mar 17, 2023 at 10:17 AM Mike Daly <[email protected]> wrote: Hello Professor Coleman, Thank you for your inquiries to the project feedback form. Engaged and informed stakeholders are essential to a project such as this. We appreciate your asking these questions and the opportunity to respond. Below please find responses to your questions in red. In some cases, your questions may be modified and incorporated into the running FAQ document on the project's site. "Why is the Delaware Study not mentioned in the data context? Why are the metrics not aligned with Delaware Study metrics? If you are using another data base to compare peer programs, what is it?" rpk GROUP is working with UNCG to establish a single source of data truth that allows academic leaders to be as informed as possible about their departments and programs. The scope of the project does not include developing a new mechanism for comparing UNCG’s academic programs to its peers. {note from me: the provost apparently said at a forum that she does not trust Delaware Study data (she didn't explain why) and that institutions were no longer subscribing to it (implying b/c of trust issues). When I heard this, I did look at Delaware Study membership in 2022 and it was down. But, sometimes institutions go in and out of it because they don't need the data every year and it is expensive to be a member. Her comment about not trusting the data led me to reach out to four of my old provost colleagues who I looked up to as mentors (two are now Presidents at major public institutions, one is a system vp for academic affairs, and one moved into a vpr role; and one of them is kind of the dean of provosts at AAU and APLU because he has been in the role for like 15 years). None of them had heard any conversations among provosts that Delaware data was not trustworthy, and they confirmed, that in their opinion, Delaware Study data was still the best data to do benchmarking at a granular level. My sense from conversations I had when Bob Shea when I was provost, is Delaware Data aren't trusted because the benchmarking show that UNCG is actually more efficient than peer R2 university in the overall costs/credit hour in almost all departments and programs- and that went against Bob's narrative which is similar to the narrative in the O'Donnell report. I think, in the end, cost per credit hour at the department and program level is the metric to manage toward (number of classes per faculty is stupid because classes are not the same, and sch per faculty is stupid because we teach the size of classes are head assigns us to, and none of us were hired with a position description that are jobs were to sell credit hours.) If the provost wants lower costs per credit hour, she let deans and heads figure out how to do it. Trying to tie programs to labor market statistics placates politicians, but doesn't really help students "Some of the data are hard to get and irrelevant. I know politics want us to match program to job demand. But, the only data that matters if students get jobs and feel successful in those job. In five years, the top jobs will probably different, or require training in things we don't even know. How are planning to find the job data[?]." Projected labor market trends will be identified by cross-walking classification of instruction program (CIP) codes to standard occupation classification (SOC) codes. That crosswalk will be aligned with data made publicly available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "I happen to particularly concerned in efforts like this, how is each data metric going to be used. The list looks like throwing spaghetti on a wall and see what sticks- and I find that horribly inefficient and dangerous. So, I think that each metric should have a paragraph abut why this data was chosen and how this data is going to help make decisions. If the answer's "we won't know until we see it" or if duplicates other metrics getting at the same thing, then that metric should be deleted. I don't believe in more metrics is better. Multi-metric models rarely work in these sorts of program evaluations. So, do you agree or disagree with this and why? Will there be short paragraphs describing why each data metric is important and how it will be used?" rpk GROUP’s approach to understanding a diverse academic portfolio and academic departments is that no one data point is more important than another [bold is my emphasis- this is generally not a great way to talk about data in a community of scholars. As any new data definitions are developed, UNCG’s established Data Governance processes will be utilized to formalize those definitions. UNCG’s structured and on-going training for department chairs and other academic leaders will be utilized as an opportunity to provide an initial introduction to how participants understand and use the academic data dashboards to make decisions. "Are deans, heads, chairs and program directors going to get to view the data before anything is published? Again, as provost here, I can tell you that central data on academic performance and productivity is seriously flawed- departments have to keep their own shadow systems since Banner reporting is terrible. The dean/department level data is far better" The development of the academic data dashboards that are part of rpk GROUP’s engagement with UNCG are intended to move UNCG toward a single source of data truth. Opportunities will be offered to stakeholders to review the dashboards in their early development stages. It is the expectation that these dashboards will be refined over time, as informed by the user experience and UNCG’s needs. "Is the business model of RPK similar to the Hunter Group (the major consulting firm that were hospitals that were financially hemorrhaging -i.e.. to be the cost cutting experts for universities in financial crisis? Or, is RPK trying to compete with EAB's "Academic Performance solutions" rpk GROUP is a higher education consulting firm that partners with clients throughout the U.S. and globally, including two-year and four-year institutions, public and private sector institutions, membership organizations, and foundations. We specialize in sustainable financial models, strategic platform creation, and the financial model behind mission and equitable student success. "All of the metrics are academic metrics. Why are there no administrative metrics on performance, efficiency & cost? Having served as provost in three places there are several administrative functions that are broken and costly (particularly in opportunity costs)- HR is an example. I don't think that Student's First has demonstrated an ROI; mid-term grade reports and starfish reporting waste huge amounts of time. Starfish is a ridiculously bad early intervention system. Finance is a mess. Wil RPK look at revenue generating ideas that also help retention- e.g. amount of debt that triggers registration holds?" rpk GROUP’s engagement with UNCG includes providing data analytical support for the Chancellor’s Taskforce on Sustainability. That taskforce is focused on identifying potential opportunities to realize non-academic efficiencies in how UNCG provides services and supports to faculty, staff, and students. "Continuing from above Student affairs also has programs that are used by few students. Will there be dashboards for them? Will RPK examine the impact of the athletic fee on enrollment?" rpk GROUP will not be assisting UNCG in developing dashboards for student affairs. The impact of isolated fees on enrollment will not be part of rpk GROUP’s work. My response (not my best) [Dear Michael from rpk] I appreciate you taking the time to respond. You have confirmed my worst fears about the project-. Having been provost here, I can tell you that you will not get a single data truth at UNCG unless the data is reviewed before the dashboards are created at the department level. I know from experience that once a dashboard is created, it is much more difficult to examine and change the data. For example, a significant amount of data in the teaching productivity index is wrong. For example, the number 1 productive teacher in the dashboard is an instructor of record for a large number of lab sections and doesn't teach any of them. I was given 50% credit for a course that had co-instructors but the credit should have at least been 75-25. Had the department head seen the data, he would have changed that, because he was the co-instructor. In any case I appreciate your answers- but they were not very informative. I realize you are doing what you have been asked to do. Similar dashboards also can be made for student affairs functions ($/student' use of programs, etc); and certainly for HR (e.g processing time; $s per transaction) and facilities and finance (staff per student; cost vs market cost, revenue models for registration holds etc.); enrollment ($s spent/application; cost vs. yield rate for various activities). I feel comfortable guaranteeing that those kind of data will not be looked at buy a taskforce that communicates poorly- and only has partial expertise in examining cost and productivity issues in other units good luck with your work An open letter to the UNCG faculty senate and to faculty colleagues: it's time to pay attention1/27/2023  March 2, 2023 update
I could really use your help. I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone episode where I have a special power to see an urgent calamity & everyone else sees a mild storm & plenty of time to prepare. Thank you Rod Serling for creating some kind of context to interpret my emotions. Is there a commercial break coming any time soon? it would just be good to know if I am just a character in a TV show. I am afraid that I am living in my own distorted Umwelt of paranoia and fear. Although I fight some psychological battles, living in paranoia and fear has never been one of them So, I would like to ask my UNCG colleagues, or others who have been following the situation (or are one of 1,500 unique viewers of this blog) some questions so I can understand. I truly just want to understand 1) Are you feeling that the discussions the UNCG Central Administration has had with faculty and staff about the budget crisis, the plans to address the crisis, the decisions that have been made to date are fine, transparent or even excellent? If so, why? 2) Are you unconcerned about, or even looking forward to, the work of RPK because you think they will help strengthen university, or because you don't think they don't matter? 3) Do you trust that the central administration has demonstrated the skill necessary to get the campus through the financial hurricane? Why? Do you feel that you will be thrown overboard if you ask questions? If not, are there things that have happened that give you that confidence and could you share them with me? 4) Do you feel that you have a strong understanding of the Chancellor's or Provost's vision for the campus after the budget cuts and structural reorganization? 5) Are you not particularly concerned because you think the enrollment issues are cyclical and that recovery is around the corner? 6) Are you unconcerned that the fist dashboard the provost put up was a teaching productivity index listing all faculty class workload and SCH generation, with no context, even though it is an index that has been shown over the last 12 years to be a relatively useless way to assess productivity, and was first implemented by conservative, anti higher education members of Governor of Texas, Rick Perry's advisors? Are you not concerned that chairs and deans were not asked to check the data for context (e.g., the most productive faculty on the list is the instructor of record for 30 lab sections but doesn't teach any of them)? If you aren't concerned that it is the only data dashboard that has been put up, that administrative dashboards have not been developed, and believe these data will be used by central administration in a positive way, why aren't you concerned? 7) Do you not see signs of an increasingly authoritarian administration and faculty senate leadership that is working extremely hard to control the messages and only present data they wish us to see? Are you concerned that faculty senate turned off the chat function in meetings making it harder for senators to communicate with each other and faculty during the meetings? Are you concerned that Faculty Senate minutes no longer contain any information on the specifics of conversations? Are you concerned that the Senate Chair apparently unilaterally decided to remove one of the recommendations of Faculty Morale group (i only know this second hand?), 8) Do you feel like faculty senate leadership is representing the issues that concern faculty? If yes, could you give me an example? 9) Are you simply to busy to care? Or are you planning to leave so you don't care? 10) Do you think that faculty have time to work on recommendations on budget or structural issues over the next year and help shape the future of the institution? I am perfectly willing to accept that my Umwelt is distorted by my own temperament and my experience.. But, for those who wouldn't mind educating me about why my Umwelt is not representing your reality, I would appreciate it. Leave a comment or send me an email ([email protected]). Feb 17, 2023 update The blog post below is very long and I don't have the energy to edit. So, I wanted to say the main point right up front: Faculty need a sense of urgency. UNCG Senior administration rightfully has a strong sense of urgency (and budget decisions have to get made in the coming weeks or a couple of months for 2023-2024). My guess is that RPK was hired because of: 1) the enormous size of the problem; and 2) the urgency of the financial problem. UNCG may be facing a different situation than the cycles of enrollment and revenue that faculty who have been here for awhile are used to for two reasons: 1) The predictions by some who study higher ed is that regional universities like UNCG are not going to recover enrollment because of shrinking demographics; and 2) The current leadership has made it clear that they want to fundamentally change the institution (though it is not clear into what) because of the budget and enrollment situation. For at least one senior administrator I know, the budget situation simply gives that person an opportunity to do what they always wanted to do which is cut liberal arts programs, and other "non-professional" programs, and make lazy faculty teach more. I am concerned about some of the action items from the Faculty Forum's working groups on Feb 16, 2023 because they seem to not recognize the urgency (others do). The Senate Leadership seems also unconcerned. In fact, the working group on faculty morale had an action item of sending this blog to the full senate (which would have meant it was on the agenda and available to all faculty). The Faculty Senate chair removed that item from the list of recommendations that was shared with the faculty agenda. I am surprised that the Senate Chair found it inappropriate to share an action item to let faculty know about this blog. I Personally, I could care less whether anybody reads this blog. But, I do care about UNCG and my role as a faculty member. Both are potentially under some threat. I am discombobulated why this is not the central item of all senate discussions. I suppose in response to cries about transparency. The senate leadership stood up a budget webpage with no useful information (such as what asked for by the working group on budget) that we don't already know- nothing there resembles transparency at all. I am really surprised that the Senate chair felt the need to censor a recommendation/action item and how little the sense of urgency there is from the Senate Executive Committee about what is happening- e.g., the teaching productivity dashboard should have generated a resolution within a couple of days after the Provost's update (I explain why I think that below). By not expressing any sense of urgency and by not focusing, the Senate is rather loudly saying to senior administration that the faculty as a whole feel like everything is fine except for a small number of myopic concerns, the current approach to cutting budgets and restructuring the university is fine, RPK is of no concern, productivity and workload issues are not of concern, and that faculty are content and don't see a hurricane approaching. Those sentiments are not what I hear from my colleagues, but if it is true of the faculty at large in the Senate and the faculty they represent, so be it. But, I hope all faculty senators understand that once a new budget is proposed for 2023-2024 and once RPK is here- the ship has sailed and the faculty and the faculty senate will simply be in reaction mode, with no power to shape the budget and/or the structure of academic programs and/or the future. If the Faculty Senate leadership is truly fine with the approach that is being taken by senior administration, that is fine. If so, they should put a resolution of support together and put it up for a vote in public session and see if the full senate supports it. Proactively stating support is a far better approach than passively giving support by pretending nothing is happening. It is really easy for faculty, particularly those who have been at any institution for a long time, to ignore campus senior leadership and to think this is just a normal enrollment cycle.. They've been through many, many changes in chancellors, provosts, deans and vcfas. Although those leadership changes my have engaged faculty attention during the search process, in the end, most faculty continue to teach their courses and conduct their research in spite of administrative chaos, whether leadership is excellent or poor, and whether the budget is growing or shrinking. If there was any time that faculty should pay attention to the larger issues at stake, this is it. The rest of this blog is long and I discuss my selfish reasons for writing it (in the preamble that you can skip) and then my thoughts about the main issues (budget/transparency RPK, Teaching Productivity, and a lack of communication to faculty about a whole lot of data as well as any other revenue generation or costs cutting strategy besides eliminating graduate programs, potentially eliminating other programs, firing professional track faculty, and increasing the teaching load of remaining faculty). I make some other suggestions, reflect on my experience on these issues, and present some actions that I think would help build a sense of a more collective engagement on how UNCG could move forward and what it will look after the budget cuts, and analyses of RPK. The tone is angrier than it should be-- and that just arose because of my frustration of what I am seeing and the speed at which the UNCG train seems to approaching the cliff and diving of the edge into oblivion. UNCG is a ship going through a financial and existential hurricane. The conditions are so bad that the captain(s) don't know what to do (hence RPK). The lack of clarity and display of what seems to me to be incompetence has led to a crew with no trust and fears being thrown overboard. The odds of the ship getting to calmer waters, and not sinking, are at their worst in this situation. I may very well be wrong about all of this-- but I still think it is time to stop worrying about where the chairs are on the deck of the ship and what type of cabins the crew gets to sleep in. It's either a time to start loading the life boats, or a time to collectively pull together in action like a well synchronized crew team. ____________________________________ Preamble: I wrote this blog post (open letter), because, ironically, I am exceeding an 80 hour/week workload (got home from the office at 2:00AM on Friday, 1/27). The hours are mostly self-imposed because of the engaged way I try to teach the 220 or so students between my two classes, having nine undergraduates doing undergraduate research in my lab, my own research, and my role as Graduate Program Director in our department. My time engaging students is close to 24/7. My concern about what is going on at UNCG has been a major distraction for me. Every time an email pops up with another town hall, update, angering video or visioning session, I experience toxic anger and frustration. Often these emails come when I reached the 14th hour of my day where my ability to hold down my emotions is even more limited. Those emotions often add 2 hours to my time in the office leaving at 1:00 AM instead of 11:00 PM. I can't do it anymore. I love my faculty role at UNCG. But, senior leadership has made the campus environment very toxic for me and many of my colleagues. I decided today that I had to find a way to discontinue wading into the toxic water. I have tried many things that haven't worked. Today, I tried a new technique: writing all of my thoughts down drawing on my 25 years experience as a senior administrator who has managed through difficult situations. I am frankly discombobulated by poorly researched and bad decision making at UNCG. (I will admit that I haven't always made the best personal decisions, but I was deliberate and strong decision maker as an academic administrator) I've grown tired of continually seeing at UNCG that failures of the past become the new ideas of the present, and that data-free narratives are used as a basis for new activities, policies, and/or disruptive change. I have also come to realize that the UNCG administration has no interest in what I have to say or to draw on my significant experience, e.g., accomplishments and experience I have had at previous universities an at the national level in student success. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to accept that- I suppose this is one challenge of being a high functioning Asperger's. I thought for some unknown and obviously stupid reason that after my lawsuit was "settled" in the university's favor, that I could be considered a valuable resource outside of my department. I need to disengage from frustration, angst, anger and discombobulation, and put that energy into focusing on students who inspire me every day. So, I wrote the blog post below as a way to rationally vent my concern in the hopes that others (particularly the UNCG Faculty Senate) will pick up the ball and represent faculty concerns. As the author Tom Robbins wrote in Still Life with Woodpecker, "We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.” Although it might not seem this way, the rest of this blog is aimed at rescuing myself from the gravitational force of my dragon. I also want to state the chair of my department has been an amazing leader and has worked so hard to keep faculty morale positive as he projects a lot of optimism in conversations and faculty meetings. Despite his efforts, faculty aren't stupid, and they know what is going on. At least a few of our best younger faculty are looking to leave. I want to sincerely and honestly say that my chair has done everything I would have ever wanted a chair to do as provost and dean in leading change. I write this because every time our senior administration feels that faculty are negative, they openly, and stupidly, blame the department chair. The note below was most certainly not inspired by anything the department chair has said to me. I am completely responsible for what it is below. It has only been reviewed by a couple of AAUP members, and I certify that the opinions below are mine and mine alone- based on my experience at UNCG and my 25 years as a senior academic administrator (and husband to a wife that understands, from her former career in healthcare, what being "Hunterized" meant and the destruction it caused) ____________________________ .Dear UNCG members of the Faculty Senate and other members of the faculty. We have been told that the campus is entering a period of a financial crisis due to continuing enrollment declines. The enrollment declines are real. The extent of the financial crisis has not clearly been shown but one would expect enrollment declines to hurt finances. In my conversations with faculty colleagues, there also seems to be a crisis in that there is little to no trust by faculty in the senior leadership’s ability to navigate the UNCG ship through a financial hurricane. The Faculty Senate Agenda sent out this week has no items related to the financial crisis, the lack of real transparency (making available data and truly seeking, listening and incorporating input), the “malevolent” purpose of consultants like RPK: and the posting of the Faculty Teaching Productivity Dashboard as then only metric on the provost’s dashboard. This metric makes every single faculty members "metrics" available to all faculty with no context, thus inviting shame and finger pointing among faculty for no reason. Furthermore, this method of assessing faculty productivity has been discredited and shown to be a poor measure of faculty productivity time and time again since a debacle in Texas around 2010. Finally, there are strong concerns by of the AAUP that shared governance is being ignored. The Faculty Senate is the representative body of UNCG, so faculty concerns need to be channeled to administration through senate leadership. Faculty Senate leaders “report” to their constituent faculty and not to senior administration- yet they seem to function as if the provost is their boss. The Senate is not planning to use its time at the first meeting this semester to discuss serious faculty concerns about the future of the university, other than the IT project (which is important). I would hope that some Senate time, perhaps in closed session, should be directed to discuss the impending disruptive changes that are sure to come from RPK’s recommendations and to recommend the use of non-discredited measures of faculty and departmental productivity. The administration plans to act quickly. If faculty are concerned, proactive actions need to be taken just to get the information from the administration that they need to express data-based concerns and to adopt recommendations that have some chance of being heard (albeit those chances have similar odds to a frozen snowball surviving the summer on the desert sands in Qatar). Unfortunately, the AAUP seems to be the only organized group recognizing that the likely disruptive changes, and the perspective that is being used to make those changes, will dramatically change the university, and potentially send the university into a death spiral. In every university, the AAUP tends to be viewed by Admin as small group of misfit faculty who just want to make trouble. Of course they are not, but our administration loves to latch on to data-free narratives. But, it is true that AAUP does not have a formal role in faculty governance. I hope the Faculty Senate embraces its role right now as the representative body for faculty, clearly articulating concerns, collecting data on the current trust level, and raising concerns and recommendations based on data and experiences at other higher education institutions. I am sure the AAUP will continue to act as a strong, smart and coherent voice for many faculty. I hope their work can be joined with the work of faculty senate. In the words of singer/songwriter Todd Snider, “I need a new inspiration, another kind of conversation. Anything but this situation we've all been through and through and through.." What drives my particular concerns? I hear from every faculty member that I talk to that there is little to no trust in senior administration (and this has only recently emerged- Provost Dunn was widely trusted). How Is it possible for UNCG to navigate the ship during the impending hurricane when the crew has no trust and fears being pushed overboard? The series of marginally useful attempts to feign transparency in the large number of town halls and small meetings, where faculty are invited to ask questions (even though they have no data) does not seem to have been helpful in creating a sense of transparency and trust in the administration by those that have attended. In the end transparency is defined by the audience, not the provider of the information, and it is completely related to the quality of information conveyed and unrelated to the quantity of interactions. Every day it seems I open an email announcing town halls, small meetings with the provost, visioning sessions with the dean, etc (the dean requested a whole day visioning session. I can barely find an hour in an 80 hour week, during the normal workday, that is not involved directly with my assigned workload. It is ironic that on one hand the administration is focused like a laser on faculty productivity suggesting that the problem in the university is lazy faculty, but yet somehow want faculty to spend hours at useless town halls, filling out surveys, watching angering, almost silly, videos, and reading non-informative updates. I rarely can find an hour in the normal workday, let alone find a full day, or half a day free to engage in visioning (request from CAS) while the university is headed into a death spiral. The models of town halls and small meetings with the provost have been simply to invite faculty to come with questions. I have not attended one, because in my experience the open-ended “ask a question” nature of these meeting don’t work unless attendees have the appropriate level of information shared with them to ask significant questions, and only if the provost and chancellor actually care about what is being asked and said. Every faculty member I have discussed this with, who has been to the town halls or small meetings, has indicated that they found the discussion somewhere between useless and angering to marginally useful at best. If new information is presented in town halls, it is generally not sent out to faculty with enough time to review and process the information and asked informed questions at the town hall or meeting. It seems clear to me that these forums are not directed at engagement around the financial/enrollment crisis, but rather are attempts to show by their sheer number, that the administration is documenting how many times they have offered chances for faculty to express concerns. Hearing something is not the same as listening. Rarely has anyone I know felt listened to. And, no one I know feels there is transparency. The administration’s lack of sincerity about wanting to be transparent and engaged was demonstrated in last years’ Faculty Forum. Faculty were given time to draft thoughtful well-articulated and probing questions that were sent in advance, giving senior administration the opportunity to reflect on them and provide thoughtful, not defensive, and sincere answers at the forum. A last-minute decision was made to not answer the vast majority of those questions at the forum or even in writing after the Forum. The written questions were not even released to the faculty several months later in Faculty Senate meeting materials. So, what I kind of information and actions do I think it would be useful to share?
Here are a few very fair articles on the Hunter Group
The work that RPK has done in Kansas is documented here. (https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/education/2022/12/15/kansas-regents-get-first-look-at-rpk-report-on-duplicate-programs/69729559007/) there are many other news stories. It seems obvious that our campus administration wants to implement similar kinds of cures. There is a "science" and "art" of leading an organization through massive disruptive change. A former CEO of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been recognized as a model example of how to lead an organization through disruptive changes through his preparing employees for the Hunter Group's work and engaging them during and after the process. If UNCG faculty read this article, they will recognize some of the strategies that are being deployed (like the full day "visioning" session at the college level) , but it seems to me, they are being applied without much, if any, "sincerity." I tend to think being candid about the dire situation administrative leaders see, why RPK is being hired, and the expectations of their work would help build trust. Everyone is already super scared- so I don't think candor will raise anxiety- sometimes knowing the truth quells anxiety even when the truth is bad. I might suggest the following:
This level of openness would be painful for any senior leadership group , especially fearing that these things will end up in the press. But, my sense is that if the goals are to get people's morale up by imagining a future, and to have employees work with leadership on implementing disruptive change, the only way to get that engagement is to build deep trust as was done in the case study. Trust is basically non-existent right now. I think it can only be rebuilt with an unusual level of candor and honesty about the present (and silencing the defensiveness gene), what the vision is for the future, and to show a sincere interest in understanding why there is little to no trust so that trust can be built. Senior administrators often forget that faculty are actually smart and creative. Harnessing their collective intelligence and creativity can, in fact, lead to meaningful institutional change. I saw that happen in my first Vice President for Research role at the Desert Research Institute. when we led an institutional reorganization. Dismissing the collective intelligence and creativity of faculty, and proceeding under the assumption that faculty are myopically focused and resistant to any needed change, just harnesses all that intellectual and creative energy into a conflict. I hope the goal is not to end up on the cover of the Chronicle of Higher Education with an article discussing how administration won a war with the faculty., turning faculty into some kind of Stepford wife. That is certainly not a recipe for success since the faculty are still the only employees that actually perform the university's mission of teaching, research and actual engagement in solving issues in the broader community, and generate most of the revenue that pays for unnecessary mid-level administration. Faculty Teaching Productivity Dashboard
When this analysis was finally complete at the University of Texas at Austin, they found:
Final thoughts UNCG has lost 2,000 students over the last few years. That is serious- and we as faculty need to understand that a university cannot survive at a rate of losing 1,000 students a year- and the revenue losses are huge and exacerbated by the new funding model. If that enrollment bleeding continues, the university’s existence is at risk (and maybe the reality is that North Carolina has too many public institutions and does not need a large regional university in Greensboro). But, all of the conversations to date that I have heard have been about cost cutting and faculty productivity. The VCFA will argue that 75% of the budget is in academic affairs so that is where the majority of cost cutting needs to be. That is true. Yet, faculty are the only employees that actually generate operational revenue through credit hour generation and facilities and administrative costs on research grants (and play the largest role in retention) except for development which sometimes generates unrestricted annual funds or endowments. And, cost cutting by increasing class size and workload, if done without any attention to what cost cutting might do to recruitment and retention, is going to fail Generating net revenue Furthermore, there has been little discussion of how to generate more revenue. One way to do so is to incentivize departments to create online programs, professional masters programs, certificates, etc that can bring new students into the university, not shuffle them around the university. Professional masters programs often can use existing teaching capacity allowing them to generate high marginal revenues. As provost at the University of Arkansas, we returned a portion of online tuition to departments that created online programs. Those funds allowed the programs to hire faculty and support research and grow and increased operational revenue, too- this incentivized many departments to develop programs that met a need for students that would not otherwise enroll (and would not simply move existing students to online programs). I also made a deal with the deans that they would receive 75% of the tuition revenue for professional masters programs that brought in more students. We selected 75% because in almost every university about 75% of tuition revenue supports academic affairs and 25% support institutional overhead. The College of Business jumped on this offer and created six new professional masters programs, all filling in their first year, that buffered the university from a Covid induced enrollment decline. The challenge for developing these programs is faculty time- which is not, despite how the provost and vcfa seem to act, free and infinite. At this point, most faculty are working at least 60 hours a week in my department, and many of us work for free in the summer. Without seed funding and incentive, there is not the energy necessary to spend time to develop new revenue generating programs that bring new students into the university, when all it is going to do is provide revenue to support other units and add additional time to the 60 or more hour weeks we "enjoy", taking time away from engaging students. In my short my time as provost here, there was no appetite by others in the administration to think of a tuition sharing model to create programs that will generate new net-revenue. The E-Sports program was put in place as a program to generate new net revenue by attracting students that would not come here otherwise, but what I know second-hand is that it is not generating much revenue from existing or new students because very few are enrolled in the programs. Although it has a lot of seed money from the legislature, it is an expensive program to operate and may soon be a burden on the university. Too much focus on doing things that simply would move students and credit hours around the university As a member of the Gen Ed Council- it has been really frustrating to see proposal after proposal aimed to create a MAC course solely to gain student credit hours, taking them away from another department. Every ounce of faculty energy should be focused on retaining the students UNCG has or recruiting students to come here. Shifting students around is like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic Another example of trying to generate new net-revenue without planning is the new undergraduate degree in HHS designed as a pre-health major. The Biology department has many years of experience in managing pre-med, pre-dental, pre-nursing, and other pre-health disciplines. We have curriculum designed through our experience in what facilitates acceptance into these programs, and we have extraordinarily knowledgeable advisors (e.g, Robin Maxwell) dedicated to these programs. HHS stood up their program, with as little science as possible, with no communication with biology (and perhaps chemistry)- so much so that required courses in the curriculum in biology and chemistry do not include their required prerequisites. Most students are aware that pre-health programs with little science and lots of professional development are not the path to increase the probability for acceptance into at least to med, dental and veterinary schools. It may very well capture students majoring in biology and chemistry where the science is too difficult, shifting credit hours around the university. But, was there any evidence that a pre-health program minimizing basic biology in favor of more professional development courses would attract students away from going to other campuses in North Carolina or from out of state? Time will tell. Unless there are clear data that I don't know about, it is hard to imagine a second pre-health program on campus will lead to capturing more of North Carolina's students. And, the biology's large pre-health program is run without a "director" position- yet HHS advertised for a full time director. What about any of what I wrote above represents efficiency? (a side note that I discovered after discussing this with a colleague in HHS and after I wrote the paragraph above, is that he conveyed to me that the purpose of this program was as an off-ramp for students that would drop out because of realizing they could not get into med, dental, nursing, etc programs. I was worried about needing such an off ramp when I was provost here. We also developed an off-ramp degree when I was a dean at VCU. But, the way the HHS program was advertised made it seem to me more like a destination program, than an off-ramp program. Many current students use the BA in biology as an off-ramp and then enroll in the 1-year postbac program managed by biology to get grades up to a point they can be accepted into health graduate programs). Most of the courses taken in the postbac use existing capacity so help students and generate a lot of positive net revenue). Other ways to cut costs and generate revenue I also haven't heard any discussions of "public-private partnerships" as a way to reduce costs and build win-win partnerships. However, I suspect these are or were being considered. And, I do not know how such partnerships might be limited by system policies or state law. But, some universities have moved to outsource units such as facilities, residential life, IT and other functions to save costs and/or to build long-term mutually beneficial relationships. HR here seems to be completely broken here-- perhaps that is a candidate for outsourcing. I suspect we are going to end up losing grant revenue because technicians and postdoc position can take months to just get positions posted and not all sponsors allow for no-cost extensions. Another thing that has bugged me here (and in other institutions) is the relatively small amount of funds owed by a student to the university that creates a registration hold. Often times, this leads to students not be able to register for the classes they need and then to them ultimately dropping out. My data here is second hand, but I know students can have a registration hold because of a couple of hundred dollars (or less). Those students might be Pell students who receive around $7K or students with other guaranteed sources of funds. If we force such students out of school because they owe a couple of hundred dollars, in the case of Pell students, we minimally lose the $7K Pell grant revenue. It seems kind of counter productive. To be fair, we do offer students the opportunities to construct payment plans. But, still, losing a student because of a debt that is far smaller than the revenue we'd lose doesn't seem like a great idea. Dr. Hamilton is greatly concerned about this issue from both a student success and net-revenue point of view, and we discussed it when we were colleagues in the Provost office. My chair tells me this is still a problem that concerns Andrew. He indicated that Andrew continues to try and find ways to help some students with small debts to keep them enrolled, but has not yet been able to get traction with the finance side of administration. Universities have to be careful about this approach- Henderson State in Arkansas got into serious problems by lettering debts get to big. But, it should be possible to model where benefit:cost starts getting negative. I know that in some schools, at least up until some higher limit, another strategy is that students can't get their official transcripts unless they pay their debt but are not forced out of school by not being able to register. At my last institution the finance officers didn't want to do this since not all students ask for their transcripts. In any case, as faculty, we have no idea whether net-revenue generating measures like this are being considered and what the net-revenue consequences would be. Since losses of students is a serious problem for us, the net revenue consequences by a change in this policy could be significant. It is frustrating that all we hear about is program elimination and faculty workloads. Faculty need a sense of urgency Senior administration rightfully has a strong sense of urgency (and budget decisions have to get made in the coming weeks or a couple of months for 2023-2024). My guess is that RPK was hired because of: 1) the enormous size of the problem; and 2) the urgency of the financial problem. It is really easy for faculty, particularly those who have been at any institution for a long time, to ignore campus senior leadership and to think this is just a normal enrollment cycle.. They've been through many, many changes in chancellors, provosts, deans and vcfas. Although those leadership changes my have engaged faculty attention during the search process, in the end, most faculty continue to teach their courses and conduct their research in spite of administrative chaos, whether leadership is excellent or poor, and whether the budget is growing or shrinking. UNCG may be facing a different situation for two reasons: 1) The predictions by some who watch higher ed is that regional universities like UNCG are not going to recover enrollment because of shrinking demographics; and 2) The current leadership has made it clear that they want to fundamentally change the institution (though it is not clear into what) because of the budget and enrollment situation. For at least one senior administrator I know, the budget situation simply gives that person an opportunity to do what they always wanted to do which is cut liberal arts programs, and other "non-professional" programs, and make lazy faculty teach more. If there was any time that faculty should pay attention to the larger issues at stake, this is it. Postscript A few of my blogs have been read a lot. But, none of them have made a difference. I hope my colleagues in Senate Leadership, those who are faculty senators, and those who are rank and file faculty members do what they can to understand what is happening and to collectively ask the right questions and propose viable solutions. One of the consequences of town halls and small meetings, with no focused agenda, is they become a myopic airing of concerns, distracting attendees from the real issues at stake. I hope everyone knows the use of those kinds of forums is a type of divide and conquer strategy,. Something humorous to write as I finish my last blog on these kind of issues. Let me end my last foray into thinking I can help stop the train from going over the cliff on humorous notes from one of my favorite authors who is also a friend, Tom Robbins (best known for Even Cowgirls Get the Blues; my favorite book of all time is Jitterbug Perfume). Tom's quotes can cause both laughter and reflection: So, let me leave this treatise with a few that I think relate to the issues at hand. "It doesn't matter how sensitive you are or how damn smart and educated you are, if you're not both at the same time, if your heart and your brain aren't connected, aren't working together harmoniously, well, you're just hopping through life on one leg. You may think you're walking, you may think you're running a damn marathon, but you're only on a hop trip. The connections gotta be maintained.”― Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito "Curiosity, especially intellectual inquisitiveness, is what separates the truly alive from those who are merely going through the motions.” Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito "Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature." Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker "It is so amusing the way that mortals misunderstand the shape, or shapes, of time. … In the realms of the ultimate, each person must figure out things for themselves. … Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received." Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume "“The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.” ―Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction (This reflects why I love teaching BIO 330. Evolution is cool!) Canvas is now calling.......again. It will be another late night-- but my hope is this will no longer be a distraction for me unless asked. in lux perpetua, me  Today is a Yin/Yang kind of day.
Today is the 50th anniversary of the immaculate reception- a vividly happy day as a 11 year old that turned 12 the following week (I was there in person with my dad- one of our most fun experiences together). But, also a week or so before we moved from Pittsburgh where a transition occurred-the day marked the beginning of a of change from a wonderful childhood (at least that is what I remember) to a painful adolescence (what I remember). That transition ultimately led to a fulfilling adulthood. Today is also the 2nd anniversary of another transition- i.e, the day my administrative career died and the rebirth of another one I received my teaching evaluations yesterday- they couldn't have been more rewarding, I also generally get up every day excited (after a couple of cups of coffee) to come into work, as opposed to fighting anxiety to get out of bed in my previous incarnation. So, in the end I am grateful. I transitioned (with all the angst and challenges that transitions have) from a more stressful, less spiritually rewarding, but financially and egotistically better job, to one that is equally time consuming, less stressful (albeit still time consuming), dedicated completely to doing for others, and more rewarding and spiritually uplifting, The Yin and Yang of it all has made today emotionally very confusing I am a very lucky person. I am learning how to make gratitude a stronger spiritual force in my life. I know that many of my Facebook friends, and the students I have taught, have endured much more difficult situations and transition and just keep going without complaint. -They "whine" much less than me. And, I am in awe of all of them. So, I will play Todd's Snyder's song-" I cant' complain" over and over again this holiday season: A little out of place A little out of tune Sorta lost in space Racing the moon Climbing the walls Of this hurricane Still overall I can't complain  Dear full fledged Biospherians and BIO 431 alums,
Grades have been entered in Genie and the semester comes to an end. I have an out of office message that is kind of funny about this that will be up until tomorrow. If you send even a test email, you should get a copy. Congratulations again to those of you who graduated yesterday!!! This is such a bitter-sweet moment for me. Although you might not have liked the class, I loved it. I was inspired by most everyone by your stories and your engagement in class. And, your responses to my "good afternoon!" filled my heart. The nice notes that many of you sent to me fill me up because they make it feel like I made a positive difference in your life. In the end, doing so defines success for a teacher Please remember that grades only represent your work or understanding of material or whether your work met the expectations of one person (your teacher). Both of those aspects are strongly affected by what is going on outside of class in your life, how your brain is wired, and how much you are interested in the subject. Grades are not a reflection of who you are as a person and your potential to make a difference in the world. Remember that! It is important. I had to take cartography as a freshman forestry major. I received my only D in my life in that course. My brain is wired in a way that I have a hard time transferring a three dimensional object onto a two dimensional piece of paper. And, back then, people had to draw engineering diagrams and maps by hand (not very useful skills now), which required having very neat handwriting and drawing skills. I have neither. The teacher in that class made me feel like a worthless human being because I did poorly in his class. When I received my PhD from Yale, I had lots of vision about going to in his office and shoving that degree into his face and letting him the loss of self confidence from his stupid course almost cost me my whole academic career. So, I worry that our society puts so much emphasis on grades, that it creates so much angst, preventing people from feeling safe enough to engage with the material and figure out where their passions are. Angst about grades can destroy people's self-confidence because our culture makes it feel like your worth is equivalent to your academic success. In this class, I learned that all of you are very talented and so many of you have amazing grit and determination which will take you very far if you let it. And, the compassion the whole class showed each other and me, tells me that I was lucky to interact with such great people So, something I learned after 61 years of life is that academic success will probably not ultimately define your value as a person (at least it didn't for me). As I was sitting in my office one weekend afternoon doing something with one of my courses, I got an earworm (a song that gets stuck in one's head) for Jewel's song "Hands" (maybe before your time). The refrain in that song is "in the end, only kindness matters". It was a great earworm to have. The world needs a lot more of it. And, it can take you very far. To end our time together, I share below a blog I wrote about the end of the semester. Don't feel compelled to read it. But, it will give you a sense of the end of a semester to a professor who is inspired by students. ____________________________________ The academic rhythm is beautiful, but it has its melancholy moments The last day of classes each semester is just bittersweet. For fifteen weeks every student I teach (whether it is 80 students this semester, or around 200 in the Spring) becomes part of a metaphorical extended family. I spend as many hours a week as a provost and dean working (60-80 hours) to teach the best that I can, and engage with every single student, trying to meet them where they are so they can reach their full potential in my classes. In my older age, I had to come full circle to see teaching being a far more rewarding activity than senior university administration. And, although I still am intellectually inspired by mine and others' research, the stories I told myself regarding the importance of my research to the world seem now to have been a bit hyperbolic. In the universe of college teaching, 15 week semesters are the defined lifetime. I watch students (and me) grow, struggle, hurt, and hopefully experience joy in learning as we mature together. And, then, suddenly, just as trust is solidified with as many students as possible, the rhythm of learning expectations gets in sync, and when my engagement with students ignites parental like pride and intense parental like worry, the semester ends. Then for the next couple of weeks, I am stranded on a beach, mourning, as students drift away into the sea as the tide ebbs. Yet, before I know it, and without warning, even though I know it is coming, a new group of students will envelop me like sea water envelops a beach grass during a hurricane, and then the storm will subside, and the 15 week cycle will start again. The UNCG students I have come to know are an amazing, compassionate, trustworthy, authentic, unentitled bunch with grit, determination, and heartfelt appreciation for being noticed and cared about. So, I actually care about the life stories of these special people. I can only hope they will continue to share their biographies, and that their biographies will become a source of fascination and celebration for many. I will end where I started because the academic rhythm is an indeterminate loop... The academic rhythm is beautiful, but it has its melancholy moments __________________________________ Take care of yourself this holiday season. And, make sure to let yourself experience some joy, even if you don't feel joyful. Please stay in touch  Graduation passed me by. I didn't participate. This note explains why and maybe will make you giggle.
Below is my out of office message for the last two days while buried by a ton of digital paper. You might enjoy it. Dear Gentle email correspondent, Although I have a pathological addiction to email, I have been transported into a saferoom in an untraceable location, with no digital communication tools, to allow me to finish grading 56 take home exams by Saturday at noon. I turned off my Google Email and buried its tab in some far away place- I am already suffering addiction withdrawal even though I am still in Google. I will check on my reliable digital companion a couple of times over the next 48 hours and let it know that it is cared for, but you may not get a response until I am rescued from the safehouse; and/or when Banner turns off the electric fence when grades are submitted, and/or Canvas stops holding my students hostage until I enter detailed comments and add their extra credit. If this is truly urgent-- Genie and Canvas have indicated that they will not block my phone or text at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Though my ringer is off. I will, however, gaze down at my lonely phone, who is also addicted to my attention, after each exam is graded, to ensure its withdrawal symptoms are not severe, and that every emergency message is received, This will ensure that the world won't end if I don't respond. Thanks for your patience .. disappearing, Jim Here is the background. The academic rhythm is like a marathon designed by the devil. There is an extraordinary steep uphill climb to the finish line. I made it, just barely crawling over the ending point a few hours before they locked the gate. For me, the end of the marathon is grading 56, 10 page or so Take Home Exams, giving each student a pretty long paragraph of comments. They were due Weds by midnight because that was the day their final was scheduled-- but we didn't have a final. Of course, even though students had a month to do the exam, most handed it in a few minutes before the deadline on Weds night.. So, after two 16 hour days of grading on Thursday and Friday, not getting to bed before 3:00AM, and then waking up on Saturday to get the feedback entered into Canvas and the grades entered by 1:00PM. I made it before the the grade entry system is locked on Saturday night. Our university used to have deadlines for submitting grades on the Monday following graduation. But, apparently the registrar thinks grading is really easy and needed them entered by Saturday evening. I assume the registrar's office will all be working on Sunday to to verify graduation for students. I have to believe that myth. Now there is a lull in the academic rhythm where students disappear, and where one gets to focus on all the things one couldn't get done during the semester, prepare courses for Spring, write proposals and paper, and serve on panels. It gets tiring getting notes for senior leaders that suggest we all just go home for three weeks and sleep. But, I still love the academic rhythm.  Dear most gentle students and lab members,
I know some of you might be stressed with finals or papers, but the good news is you completed my course(s) and/or your programs and some of you will be graduating in May. I wanted to say again how much I appreciate the engagement of all you in classes or as members of my research group this semester. I truly enjoyed the 15 week journey with you. Again, please stay in touch. And, please know you can always use me as a resource for references, advice, or just to talk. I know for many that the December holiday season is joyous and/or restorative including connecting with your friends, family and/or your spirit. I hope that is true for you. I also know, and have experienced, that the holidays can be stressful for some (especially if you have to buy gifts for everyone) either because of tension with family, recent loss of loved ones, loneliness, financial stress (and taking on extra hours at work), other emotional stress that is heightened during the holiday, or things like expectations that you are supposed to be happy and celebratory during the holidays, while you might be suffering from depression, which I can tell you from my own experience can be painful. If you are in the latter group, please know that you are not at all alone. For example, the Mayo Clinic has a site focusing on tips to deal with holiday stress here. Also, the UNCG counseling center's website has links to important services and indicates that "for urgent mental health needs,crisis assistance is available anytime, from anywhere, by calling them at 336-334-5874." If you just have no one to talk to and just want to talk you can contact me by email and I will get back to you. I really do care about all of you, so I am wishing all of you nothing but the best in the future. But, I still want to remind you that most people would not hesitate to seek professional help when they are experiencing significant physical pain. My wish is that our culture would recognize that it should be just as second nature to seek professional help when experiencing emotional pain, especially for people in your age group where suicide is the second largest cause of death (and it spikes during the holidays), behind accidents (car accidents, etc). Please don't let yourself believe you are weak and unworthy because you hurt or don't recognize yourself, and think that normal people work through it alone. Over my 61 years of personal experience, alone didn't work well for me, and support from mental health professionals made all the difference. I also will be rooting for each and every one of you to ultimately propel yourselves into lives that you consider meaningful and successful- the definition of meaningful and successful, I hope (if your culture allows it), can only be found in your own dictionary. There is a song by Bob Dylan that I always think of during the holiday season, and play it often on my guitar. Let me leave you with his words and my hopes for you 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 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 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- I'll be listening for your song! :)  UNCG issued it's 2022 holiday card video today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Kg8EKmyl0 . It is a very, very good video- kudos to the team that made it,
Yet, it reminds me a bit of the university commercial spots during football games, or university magazines, which rarely capture any essences of a campus, because they all highlight the same kind of things and bang you over the head with them, often requiring naproxen just to get to the end. I was reminded today of the 2020 UNCG holiday video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-qifRCi1o4 one of my last acts a provost, and the only reminder, really, of how much I loved my time as Provost and my professional relationship with the chancellor. This is a rare university video that one wants to watch until the end. It's strength was fully capturing the essence of UNCG, without saying a single word about the campus. Although I am biased because I play two bars of piano in the 2020 video, it really did capture so much of the essence of UNCG by singing a song about hope. It captured the campus' inclusivity, its creativity, and its joy as a campus community, without saying a word about UNCG. In many ways, I wish the 2020 holiday video was used in our current student and faculty recruitment, even though it doesn't say a thing about the quality of education, research, the beauty of the campus, etc. When I watch it, I want to be a part of the UNCG community, (or perhaps because my ego is so insatiable). I have never seen any marketing materials from another campus that have used that approach. My administrative career ended a couple of weeks after the 2020 video was released. That was followed by a lawsuit, intense disabling anxiety, and being enveloped by a sea of anger. Let's just say it was a very dark time, only made somewhat lighter by the joy of returning to teaching and no longer being stuck between the rock and hard place where administrators live. This Fall, Yom Kippur traditions led me to a tzedakah offering an olive branch to those who hurt me in the form of offering to make a donation in their name to their favorite charity. The offer was declined by all. But, the attempt at tzedakah was healing. for me. So, I was able to watch this 2020 video again and experience the joy I had at the moment and the love of the transformational mission of UNCG. It feels like that much of that sense of joy and community is lost now- lost to enrollment declines, budget cuts, faux caring, and a loss of trust throughout the community. I hope the UNCG ship can find its way out the hurricane currently enveloping the campus.. Nonetheless, it is nice for me have this video as a reminder of the joy I felt being provost here  The last day of classes each semester is just bittersweet.
For fifteen weeks every student I teach (whether is 80 students this semester, or around 200 in the Spring) becomes part of a metaphorical extended family. I spend as many hours a week as a did as provost and dean working (60-80 hours) to teach the best that I can, and engage with every single one, trying to meet them where they are so they can reach their full potential in my classes. In my older age, I had to come full circle to see teaching being a far more rewarding activity than senior university administration. And, although I still am intellectually inspired by mine and others research, the stories I told myself regarding the importance of my research to the world seem now to have been a bit hyperbolic. In the universe of college teaching, 15 week semesters are the defined lifetime. I watch students (and me) grow, struggle, hurt, and hopefully experience joy in learning as we mature together. And, then, suddenly, just as trust is solidified with as many students as possible, the rhythm of learning expectations gets in sync, and when my engagement with student ignites parental like pride and intense parental like worry, the semester ends. Then for the next couple of weeks, I am stranded on a beach, mourning, as students drift away into the sea as the tide ebbs. Yet, before I know it, and without warning, even I know it is coming, a new group of students will envelope me like sea water envelops a beach grass during a hurricane, and then the storm will subside, and the 15 week cycle will start again. The UNCG students I have come to know are an amazing compassionate, trustworthy, authentic, unentitled bunch with grit, determination, and heartfelt appreciation for being noticed and cared about. And, I really care about the life stories of these people. I can only hope they will continue to share their biographies, and that their biographies will become a source of fascination and celebration. I will end where I started because the academic rhythm is an indeterminate loop... The academic rhythm is beautiful, but it has its melancholy moments
With the time change, I don’t get to attend as many immersive art shows by the Skypainter. Tonight was an exception, I am sitting on our deck with a smooth glass of bourbon.
I feel sad that tribalism trumps (no pun intended) honest debates: that derision is now the preferred way to deal with disagreement: labeling people is a way to not have to listen to them: and that dishonest narcissists feel entitled to lead government, business or academe. It is even sadder because few people seem to care. When did the ends start justifying the means? And why do our tribal instincts make mediocrity so easy to embrace? The skypainter just ended tonight’s show. Time to get distracted by something else now and hopefully for a while  I voted today. And, I smiled an only semi-authentic smile for the camera. It is in fact a very worried smile
In the past, I felt some kind of joy in playing some tiny role in perpetuating representative democracy and feeling gratitude for living in a country where the belief in the voting process was shared across party lines (but I am naïve). This is the first year I ever felt there might be people at the polls trying to disqualify my votes because I am a democrat- there weren't- but that was an uneasy feeling. Although the machine registered my vote, I remain worried that someone will try disqualify my vote for a candidate for US Senate, especially if the candidate I strongly support, wins. Despite the uneasiness of whether voting will remain free and fair. .I still felt special trying to fill out the little bubbles with my black pen and fill them so they were dark enough to see, and also did not go over the line. This a challenge for someone with the artistic talent of a rock (I apologize to the whole broad field of geology- didn't mean to offend any rocks-- but most know that artistic talent usually doesn't go hand in hand with being an inanimate object.) And, there is something metaphorical trying to fill a little circle so that it is dark enough to register in the magic machine, but not go over the line, such that all I get is an error message and the possibility of being terminated from a job and from people's humanity. I also thought as I voted about my grandparents who came to this country simply to survive mass killing of Jews, and their constant belief in a better world for their children in a country, albeit an imperfect country, partly because of what we sing about in "America the Beautiful" and what we praise in the Constitution. My father lived his life obsessed with politics, and lived his life to find common ground among people so that good things could get done. I miss him so very much. But, I feel lucky for his soul that his physical manifestation does not have to watch politics degrade to the current place where the moral code of the Game of Thrones replaced the Golden Rule. And, I am glad he does not have to watch a country devolve such that politicians who try to find common ground are seen by a way too large a portion of society (on both the left and right) as spreading the philosophy of the devil. My dad, if sill alive, would be glued to the TV and NPR every day with an angst so large and overwhelming that it could refill the Great Basin. One of my dad's greatest strengths was that he had a gift for finding even tiny pieces of common ground (and gave his memoir that title , because he was so interested in people that he could see pieces that many did not know existed. He also was an amazing optimist, even when crippled by anxiety, about the state of politics. He also remained optimistic about the good in people and in the inherent worth of every human being. I feel lucky to have inherited that optimism and belief in the inherent worth of every student taking my classes. But, I don't share much optimism with respect to imagining a society in America or even in Academe, founded in integrity, intelligence, optimism and empathy. And, I have grown cynical whether there are any spaces left in the universe where people can build a homestead together on even 1/4 inch of common ground. With all of that going through my head this morning, as I woke up at 730 after not going to bed until 345 AM, I trudged to the polls to cast my early vote. I was the least energized I have ever felt about voting (and not because I was tired and trudging). I seemed to only be able to imagine the evolution of American society from something metaphorical to an inspiring painting (maybe Van Gogh or Monet for me) towards 24 hour showings of 3-D horror movies. I hold out some optimism despite my cynical nature. Students give me hope-teaching is so rewarding in that way. UNCG students overcome amazing challenges just to get to class. They are not entitled and have little expectations that the world should give them anything. And, I have found them to be very smart, curious, extraordinarily empathetic and compassionate, and they have a passion for living in a better world. How can that not give one hope? . So, I hope everyone finds a way to trudge to the polls or get an absentee ballot- and vote. And, believe in the voting system.. It would even be inspirational to me if everyone viewed polling places as sacred sites in America, where one's vision is restored on the first Tuesday of November at least every two years, if not every year, allowing the shining light of freedom and integrity to come into view,. And, as that beautiful and captivating light comes into focus, I hope the light overshadows the darkness and emptiness of the large black hole of partisanship and paranoia that seems to be sucking all that is good into oblivion. Like Comment Share About 25 years ago, just as I got tenure at Syracuse University where I loved teaching, was managing five grants (including an NSF [presidential] Young Investigator award), and participated in every department, university and professional service I could, I was offered and accepted a rotation as a program officer running the program for Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology at the National Science Foundation. I discovered in that role that administrators were not necessarily evil people (I had thought they were) who wore business suits, were addicted to wielding power indiscriminately, and were on a mission to make faculty lives as miserable as possible. In fact, I discovered that in the program officer role that I could facilitate the success of others and of the organization. I also discovered that facilitating the success of others was rewarding, and much to my surprise, I found out I was good at it.
I then moved out of my faculty role an into a 25 year long journey as an administrator, including as the chief research officer at the Desert Research Institute, then the University of Missouri and then Rice University. I seemed to facilitate success in those roles-- and success isn't hard to measure-- the quality and quantity of research grew dramatically in all three institutions. But, still, what I was proudest about in my career was seeing lives of students transformed because they met me when I taught at Syracuse University. Thus, I missed the entirety of the academic mission. I also discovered at Rice, that although elite private universities have spectacular students and faculty, and more financial resources than their public counterparts, that my heart was in the transformational power of public higher education. So, I was willing to ignore the political guerilla warfare that surrounds every public institution, because I really believed that public higher education was one of the greatest transformational forces that people have ever invented. That led me to a role as Dean in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU- a truly transfomational place. And, to provost roles in three public institutions (Northern Arizona, University of Arkansas, and UNCG). In all of those places, I seemed to facilitate good things like improving student success measured by retention and graduation, improving the quantity and quality of research, hiring great people, and supporting the full range of disciplines in a university and in friend and fund raising. In these roles I always made some time to teach, but my schedule only allowed me to teach smaller seminar type courses. Those were always the best hour or two of the week. Yet, although I came into work every day as a senior administrator with a single goal: making my college or my institution better, and I felt and received feedback that my efforts had a positive impact, in the end it didn't seem very meaningful. The turnover in senior admin positions is high, and each new person usually comes and undoes what the last person did. And, let's face it, how many of you can remember who your president/chancellor, provost or dean were when you were in school? I was an undergraduate in a close knit forestry school at the University of Maine and a doctoral student at Yale's close knit School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, so in both cases the dean was an advisor to me so I remember them. I don't think I ever knew who the president was and definitely had never heard of the provost at Yale or Maine. But, I remember just about every one of my professors. There are a couple of professor who were really bad and I still feel animosity toward them. But, others transformed my life with their enthusiasm, their belief in me, and with making their subjects exciting. These are people I have never forgotten and will remain grateful to them forever. And, I have tried to pay forward the exceptional teaching styles, the caring, and the believing in students that characterized the best professors I had. I think about those individuals almost every day. In January 2021, I had no choice other than to return to the faculty at UNCG- it was a painful experience. But, in doing so I am back to teaching subjects that I love (organismal biology, ecosystem/biome science, and evolution). We are a minority serving institution, with a large number of Pell grant recipients, a large number of first generation students, and a large number of adult and non-traditional students. These students inspire me every day. Also, I have suffered from depression for my entire life and anxiety over the last 10 years or so. I made a commitment to myself to always be open about my mental health challenges in order build awareness that conditions like depression are diseases, every bit as much a disease as cancer, and far more deadly to students in their early twenties. I also talk about it because I want people to know that it can be managed, but that you can't manage it alone, And, I want students to see that I am not afraid of any stigma associated with admitting struggles. I knew as provost at UNCG that our student body was in crisis with mental health, partly related to COVID. And, I also knew that many of them had to work many hours while going to school, had families and children to take care of, commuted long distances and had financial hardships. But, the extent to which mental health, financial instability, work hours (many [40%] of students classes I teach work 30+ hours/week while taking a full load), and home issues serve as obstacles to their education was far greater than I could ever have imagined. In my first undergraduate class here that had 52 students I got to know all of the students well. There may have been 10 students who had any resemblance to what I would consider a "normal" student, living close to campus, working maybe 10 hours a week, and was able to create blocks of time for school work. So, I engaged with my active and project-based learning teaching style. Any student that missed class was contacted by me with a message that simply said "I missed you today, are you Ok?" - many would respond that they weren't OK and began to open up as trust was built. I talked to students about mental illness. At least 60% of the class was suffering from severe depression, debilitating anxiety, uncontrolled ADHD, untreated Bi-Polar disorder- some were in treatment, some were not. Most came from immigrant or first generation families that do not recognize mental illness, so they had little support. I worked with these students, met them where they were, was flexible with them in due dates, etc. It was a lot of work. In my Evolution class of 120 students, we used digital checkpoint surveys five times during the semester. Each time around 60 students would reveal significant mental health or off campus challenges in each one. Every one of those students was contacted by me. I exposed myself as way to build trust. This engagement was the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my academic career. This editorial shows the impact of this kind of teaching through an unplanned experiment. I received strong student evaluations. More importantly, student comments indicated that I changed their lives, kept them from dropping out, gave them the strength to seek behavioral health support, and facilitated their love of the material ( If you are interested in seeing comments [99% positive; 1% not]), let me know. I had 220 students my first year teaching and received around 200 email notes, comments in evaluations or comments that were made in Canvas telling me that I was the most caring professor they have ever had, that I had changed their lives, and even made them feel better about people. I love the subjects I teach (in my case ecology, organismal biology, global change and evolution). I am curious and interested in students who awe me every day in how they overcome challenges I could never have imagined when I was an undergrad. I relish the impact I can have on students, and how that impact grows as they go out into the world and pay it forward. In many ways I feel sorry for the 25 years in administration- I really felt like I had a positive impact in the moment. But, I don't think the good I did in those roles will last. The moral of the story is that despite being paid about a third as much as I made as provost, but still working the same 60-80 hour work weeks (even in the summer, where my grants cover about 0.75 of a month but a work full time all three), I discovered that my calling is to be a teacher-scholar. The difference I can make in the world by supporting students who will pay it forward and forward is infinitely greater than the impact I could ever have as a senior administrator working in a cloistered echo chamber, where we argue about the future of higher education, while we try to make the ridiculously large number of university stakeholders with competing interests happy, and where we succumb to the idea that time is infinite and free making it possible to believe more can be done with less- especially those faculty!. And, much to my disgust, even though I am politically liberal, as administrative leaders we had no choice but to buy into a "woke" agenda, appease those who feel like victims, and act as thought police while we try to protect academic freedom, and try to not get our heads taken off by Republican and/or Democratic legislators. Unfortunately, I think the increasing guerilla warfare between campuses, boards and politicians; the increasing power and money awarded to university leaders, far outpacing the growth of salary and autonomy for faculty (and staff); the increasing chasms between the vast numbers of stakeholders in a public university; the unsustainable fiscal model of public higher education; a growing sense that faculty (governance, resistance to change, work ethic) are the problem instead of the solution since faculty are the only employees capable of delivering on the mission of student learning, research, and community engagement; increasing pressure for universities to be social engineers (e.g., woke or anti-woke), not just educators; and the stress that chancellors are under trying to make decisions tightly squeezed between a really hard rock and an even harder place, has created an environment that increasingly selects for leaders (increasingly, not always, and maybe still a minority) who support my original hypothesis stated in my first paragraph (evil people who wear business suits, are addicted to wielding power indiscriminately, and are on a mission to make faculty lives as miserable as possible), because the political narrative is that faculty are the problem (just as teachers are the scapegoats for K-12). I'd like to think I was not evil and I worked with a chancellor at the University Arkansas who definitely was not And, I certainly know many leaders who want to do good just for doing good. But, leadership jobs in higher education are leading to emotional suicide for far too many good people. I guess that my journey was not linear, but some weird shape, perhaps and octagon where one lands where they started. In my case, I started and "ended" (not dead yet!) as: engaged teacher: active researcher: and energetic member of the department and the greater faculty, who believes that administration is truly the dark side. Life's journey's are never linear. And, as Jackson Brown sang "no matter how fast I run, I can never get away from me"- but me always catches up to us. Hopefully, one is happy when that happens. Although I carry hurt and anger in my trunk as I return to where I started, I am happy that me caught up to me and we were glad to see each other. So, now I hope I can stop running from me and take a rest. BTW- I currently teach BIO 431 (The Biosphere- 50-60 students); BIO 330 Evolution (100-160students); Plant physiological ecology (11 students) and our required class for entering Ph.D. student on environmental health sciences: from organisms to ecosystems. I also have a cadre of undergraduate students in my lab (taking BIO 499) and 2 Ph.D. students working with me in some capacity. And, I serve as the Graduate Program Director for the department Although it was more cloudy today than yesterday, reflection is still the theme that greeted me, Adele, Annie and Halley on our daily visit to our backyard and nature trail by Lake Jeanette.
There is something profound in the two pictures below. One is the actual view. The other is the actual view turned 90 or 270 degrees (I am not telling you which one because it would tell you which side of the photo is real and which is reflection). The profundity arises for me in that the perspective of the picture truly affects how one differentiates "reality" from reflection. So, can you tell which side is real and which side is reflection? If you are a good Zen Buddhist (or probably more if you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night and read a popular book on Zen Buddhism) you will say "neither", which is a fine answer. And, if you are a theoretical physicist or a philosopher, you might remind me that even by the time this image reached my camera lens it was already way in the past, at least from the perspective of atomic particles. So, you might dismiss any profundity I found in my photos as the musings of a nitwit. (which being a nitwit is probably true, but there are much better ways to classify me that way than the musings on these photos) And then the philosopher might follow up with a question of whether the past is real and whether this image of reflection has any meaning at all. At this point, the 16-17 year old version of me would have eagerly engaged with the philosopher and stayed up all night talking with him/her/they about the meaning of these perspectives and exploring objective reality, quantum physics, relativity and how that all of these ideas of how humans can never actually be in the moment (by the time we sense or observe anything it is in the past), somehow explained my sense of isolation. And, that all of my peers who I felt outcast from were too stupid to see it because they were worrying about their own relationships, partying, proms, playing football, or whatever. Of course, this just made me feel more isolated and outcast. But, hey, I was deeper. The 61 year old version of me just tries to absorb the beauty of nature and find some meaning, or connection, or joy to reflect on. Being a high functioning Aspy, I still feel pretty isolated in human society. But, If I am successful at paying attention to my surroundings. If I remember to feel and express gratitude for being part of this all encompassing energy we call nature. And, if I remember that I am a very recent product of evolution relative to the trees in this photo whose lineage goes back several hundred million years before mine, and who have so much to teach me, then I find myself becoming lighter and connected to something bigger. I like to think my 61 year old self has gained some wisdom, albeit still flawed. It's embarrassing to admit that I love reading Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology and have for many years. Rob always has something quirky enough to say about Capricorns that it always feels profound There is no prediction of the future, but there is always reflection. For the week starting 9/28/2022, Rob told us Capricorns the following: "Let's imagine you are in your office or on the job or sitting at your kitchen table. With focused diligence, you're working on solving a problem or improving a situation that involves a number of people. You think to yourself, "No one seems to be aware that I am quietly toiling here behind the scenes to make the magic happen." A few days or a few weeks later, your efforts have been successful. The problem is resolved or the situation has improved. But then you hear the people involved say, "Wow, I wonder what happened? It's like things got fixed all by themselves." If a scenario like this happens, Capricorn, I urge you to speak up and tell everyone what actually transpired." This was the scenario in most of my administrative life. Any success I have had is because I empowered really good people to move toward a vision- but my sweat, blood and tears are embedded in every good thing I helped lead or facilitate. I had so many personal rewards for seeing problems solved and the institutions I worked at get better- and I always enjoyed giving credit to others. But, humans are a competitive species, and people who don't like you or want your job, have no trouble finding vulnerabilities and/or developing false narratives when there was not a competing narrative created by you. In Arkansas, this was not a problem with my boss- he completely made me feel he understood my effort and contributions- but false narratives created by others with an agenda, built a strong enough political coalition to perpetuate a false narrative to just a few, albeit powerful, people The reality is that I am just not good at selling "what actually transpired", and despite, Rob Brezny's insight, I feel morally centered in never developing a good chord progression to sing my own praises. But, if you want to go into senior admin in higher ed, think about how this relates to you and your willingness to work, sometimes, almost as hard at talking about what you are doing, as you work actually doing it.. I still have a hard time accepting that once a senior administrator leaves a position, the problems they solved and the things they did to make the institution better, become the successes of the new senior administrator(s) (even when those individuals fought the problem solving and the things that were done to move the institution forward), And, anything a former administrator did that new administrators want to change, just becomes problems the former administrator created that they will now be the saviors to fix. Academics are scholars who rely on process to move fields forward. Yet, we also get infected, particularly when we rise into administration but sometimes in our fields, with what I call "burning man disease". That is-- we love to create straw men narratives (often simplistic or false), and then burn them down hoping an audience sees our intellectual brilliance. I hope I never see another presentation that lists "myths" that nobody actually believes, and then go through a silly process of destroying myths that everyone already knows are false. And, I hope I never hear myself say, or hear anyone else say, "what the hell did that previous person do?" and then go about creating the narrative of needing a savior to make everything alright. Thanks, again, Rob, though, for a horoscope that causes reflection, and doesn't pretend to predict the future... The picture in this post was from one of the few times I asked others to help sell my accomplishments leading to being recognized for a career a impactful work in science and effectively building research infrastructure on campuses and in some states. I hate to admit that I truly enjoyed the recognition (as my smile below indicates). But, I still haven't written a good chord progression to express that happy feeling.   L'shana tova tikatevu to all of my acquaintances, friends, family, those I do not know, and even those I know, but wish I didn't.! We all deserve a time of reflection, the option of acting on those reflections to align ourselves more closely with our values, and committing ourselves to become what ever it means to be a better human and spiritual being. As humans, we are the young ones relative to other life on earth with much to learn from other organisms. The first animal to transition from water to land, Tiktaalik rosea, lived about 375million years ago, the first land plant lived around 550million years ago. The first cyanobacteria started photosynthesizing nearly 2 billion years ago. The first Homo sapiens walked the earth maybe 300,000 years ago. As a Jew, my ancestors have been reflecting, atoning and committing themselves to be more connected to G-d this time of year (which means many things to me) for maybe 5,000 years. Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass wrote "..in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.”" I will reflect this season on what the tall tulip poplar in my backyard, the great blue herons that watch over the lake where we live, or the 2.5 million ants for every human on the earth, along with every other organism can share about what evolution has taught them. I hope I can be aware enough to listen . And, I will wonder what the fish crows around my lake are trying to tell me when they call, over and over again, quite loudly, "uh-uh". They would make great university administrators- every request gets denied with a simple "uh-uh". Last year at this time, my spiritual experiences at the Erev service for Rosh Hashanah helped me understand a spiritual need to try and right a wrong, leading to filing a law suit. Although that turned out to be an emotionally and financially expensive action I still feel very good that I did what I needed to do to try to correct an injustice I would not usually associate filing a law suit with any sort of spiritual awakening. But, last year at this time, the high holiday season was truly a time of reflection and commitment for me. A sense of awareness, gratitude, and reciprocity awoke my spirit last summer on my evening kayaks under the Skypainter's works of art. So, my spirit was centered coming into the high holiday season. Unfortunately, this year, although work is going well, I feel kind of spiritually lost and off center. I am hoping to find a new path to reenergize my soul. Over the last few weeks, my mind, for the first time, was able to connect some of the many Jewish prayers that I grew up saying that made me uncomfortable- speaking prayers of gratitude and humbleness, over and over again, to a powerful force that was presented to me as an omnipotent anthropomorphic figure- with intense human anger and ego, with my naïve understanding of indigenous ways of knowing. This summer, some emptiness got in the way of a flowing spirit, like an air bubble interrupting the transpiration flow of water in a tall tree. But, at least I now see Jewish prayer in a different light and as a path to awareness, gratitude and reciprocity. For those who celebrate this time of year, may you reflect well, commit your actions and spirit to be better, and find sweetness in the air even during a time with so much bitterness and anger around and within us (or at least me)' And, thank goodness for my canine companions who don't struggle understanding who they are and why they are here. And, they only expect two meals a day, a few walks, a few pets, and a treat on returning home. Otherwise, they just exude joy, trust with no trepidation, and project what I perceive as love.  |
