No one likes change. Change implies, at the very least, that the tradition or patterns of what I am comfortable in will become different. I suppose at one level change has always happened. It feels, though, that change has accelerated in the past decade. I have long read tech magazines and used to feel able to keep up with the discussions, the options. Today, sometimes when I read, I end up feeling queasy as if I have been at sea rolling with the waves that seem to come from all directions.
Change is upon Higher Education in ways that few could have predicted even 10 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago. This fact is indisputable and becomes, for those of us inside the institution, the galvanizing energy of action. But, action to what end?
I believe we can articulate the problem in a simple one—the country remains mired in economic and social distress with many assuming the solution will emerge from the educated college graduating class. So, when reports continue to emerge that show clearly our students, as a nation, are not very high in rankings regardless of the measure (well, perhaps our students would be high in things like most facebook posts or snapchats sent per hour), the public wonders what has happened to us.
In the midst of that musing, the people running politics in our various 50 states, cast an eye our way with the intent to judge output. Politicians, at least as some level, respond to what they believe “the people” are upset about, and since education should supposedly fix all ills, the political leaders are ready to march into the halls of academia to “fix things.”
Now, in this blog, I have written many times about this issue and posited some solutions. I don’t know that anyone, least of all me, has all the answers. I would offer that generally I think our national problem is a moral or values problem, and without dealing with the issue on that level, we are merely marking time while the critical moments crash upon us.
Looking for solutions is not the point of this posting, however. Today I am raising the point that an unwillingness to actually enter the arena of discussion is abdicating the contest to others. So often, I hear from some who seem to imply the answer is “leave me alone,” as if we can stop time and go back to some supposedly “better” time. Personally, I appreciate others outside of academia talking about solutions; that is often where great solutions come from…a person outside of that specific industry. Yet, at the same time, allowing those outside to simply dictate the terms of change or the measures of success is lazy on our part to not better explain what it is we do and who we are.
My three part series on the nature of college was part of my ongoing attempt to participate in the discussion. (read part 1, part 2, and part 3). Some of my peers, however, don’t see it that way. For them, any attempt to bring in change in order to better participate in the debate, or to answer areas of change smacks of cronyism or just abandoning your main purpose of being (educating in the classroom).
We are in the midst of such a debate at my college where my peers and I have contributed to a yearlong debate about how decisions get made. As we have worked on a new governance plan, working alongside our College President Sandy Shugart, we the faculty have also moved to tweak and update our Association constitution.
Our “Association” is really just a term for the gathered full-time faculty at our institution. It provides us a place to host conversations, debates and votes about ideas connected to the College. We, as the Assocation, vote on these proposed changes in our guiding document, and that vote happened last week. We won, but not without dissent. In the week leading up to the vote, those opposed made their position known clearly. One peer spoke about wishing to only focus on classes. Another professor spoke about wistfully wishing for an older time when faculty and administrators mostly stayed out of each other’s way, doing their own work…in other words, not asking faculty to participate in these guiding decisions.
I chose to answer these ideas and a few others. The point, as I told them, wasn’t about the few changes in the proposed new constitution. No, that vote was about whether I, as a faculty member, want to be involved in the leading of the college development or not.
I explained it this way: I could go on talking about the many policies that have been changed because of our involved work. Now, one may end up claiming that all of those policies, so changed, are still worthless or silly or onerous or things that hamper our ability to do the teaching work. By all means make that claim (on some policies, I would absolutely agree)…but do not forget this point—we work in a business that has leaders who make decisions….these policies will be made with or without us. Union or no union, these policies will be made. Sometimes that will happen due to Tallahassee, sometimes only because a leader here (a human just like you and me trying to be responsible for whatever their job is) decides the policy needs to be made. But the decisions will be made. Now, we can either participate in those determinations or we cannot. If we vote no and simply pull back from involvement, then those decisions will be made without us.
In your life, you have the same choices. Things are changing around the country—for some of you far too fast, for others of you not nearly fast enough. Those changes do impact your work here, at a local level. You may be watching changes happening in your local schools or your own work, maybe in your HOA. Wherever it is, your choice is the same as the professors at Valencia…you can participate or not. If you don’t participate, the changes will be made anyway.
As for me, I plan to be engaged, to live life well, active in the civic entity where God has placed me. And since I think education is critical to our national success, I want to play my small role in communicating about what are best practices.
Look, you can choose to just retreat if you wish, but I urge you not to. Instead, I urge you to be alive, present, engaged, active in the surroundings of your life. Be that dangerous person, that dreamer of the day, who engages life.