LAWRENCE S. BACOW Working with the Faculty: Rethinking the Way We Do Business

Shortly after I became president of Tufts, I approached the executive committee of the faculty with the idea of creating a task force to study the entire nature of the Tufts undergraduate experience. I wanted the group to evaluate the curriculum and the co-curricular experience of our students, and to frame recommendations to strengthen both.

The committee balked. They explained that a few years earlier, the faculty had been asked to undertake a similar review. People spent countless hours in committee meetings. They wrote lengthy reports. Nothing came of their recommendations. No one had any appetite for repeating the experience.

Clearly, everyone loses when faculty committees labor hard to bring about meaningful change, only to see their recommendations fall on deaf ears or, worse, to be actively repudiated by the faculty, students, or the administration. When this happens, committee members may rightfully feel embittered by a process that does not adequately respect their work on behalf of the larger community. Perhaps more importantly, when the work of a group appointed to address an important issue is not acted upon, the underlying problems that prompted the committee's creation remain unresolved. Moreover, after one group has dulled its ax on a problem without result, it is difficult for others to muster enthusiasm to tackle the same problem again, regardless of how pressing the issue may be. Indeed, when I asked the faculty to work with me on a new task force, the most frequent response was, "Is this for real?"

I believe there are good reasons why the experience described above is so common.

Standard Operating Procedure

Ad hoc faculty committees follow predictable patterns in going about their business: The president, provost, or relevant dean drafts a charge. Faculty are recruited to the enterprise, usually to ensure reasonable representation across different disciplines and constituencies. Typically, people are picked because they are thoughtful, good citizens who are likely to work well in a collaborative undertaking. Those with strong a priori positions on issues are rarely asked to serve. A few student representatives are added. Depending on the nature of the task, a few members of the administration also maybe named to the committee.

Once the committee is formed, it usually meets to review the charge and discuss what factual information needs to be gathered. Occasionally, a committee will hold hearings or conduct surveys to gather additional community input. These sessions are often poorly attended, either because people are busy or because anything less than a specific proposal is unlikely to inspire a response. After assembling the relevant information, the committee schedules a series of meetings to discuss substantive issues. Usually the chairman of the committee takes responsibility for preparing a draft report. The circulation of the draft often represents the start of serious internal negotiations over substance. Once consensus is reached, the committee issues its final report (minority reports are rare). After it delivers its report to the party issuing the charge, the committee's work is done.

While the above process appears reasonable, it frequently fails to bring about meaningful change. Why? There are at least two explanations.

First, committee processes often undervalue (or, worse, ignore) problems of implementation. Those who serve on committees typically have no responsibility for putting their recommendations into action. Moreover, they usually are totally removed from the process of allocating the resources necessary to bring about change. As a result, while faculty committees are great at diagnosing problems and prescribing reasoned solutions, they often ignore the process by which we move an institution from status quo to desired end state. As Mies van der Rohe once observed, "God is in the details."

Second, consensus on a committee is not the same as consensus within the larger community. No matter how carefully its members are selected, no committee fully represents all diverse interests on a campus. Students, for example, are a far from homogeneous group. Having one or two on a committee in no way ensures that "student views are represented." Similarly, traditions of collegiality may actually discourage vigorous representation on committees. Having been appointed to serve on a committee, most members feel obliged to take a broader view of an issue than might be articulated by someone outside the process.

Also, committee members often do not see it as their responsibility to actively solicit the views of their colleagues, or to keep different constituencies informed about the progress of committee deliberations. Thus, we should not be surprised when the carefully crafted consensus of a small committee breaks down when subject to the parochial, and sometimes more sharply worded, opinions of the broader community.

A Different Approach

Rather than simply asking committee members to write a report, I think it is far better to charge them with building a consensus for change. As a first task, they should be encouraged to develop a series of possible suggestions for reform that the larger community would then review. These suggestions should be viewed not as fully formed recommendations, but rather as alternative ways of responding to the charge. Indeed, it may be desirable for some of these approaches to be mutually exclusive. The purpose of this first task is to stimulate vigorous debate, and to encourage others to come forward with suggestions for improving upon the committee's work.

Second, we must ask our ad hoc committees to build a coalition for change that not only enjoys wide support and is sensitive to implementation problems, but also is realistic in light of limited resources. To succeed at this second task, these groups must successfully engage faculty and administrators who have major responsibility for implementation. There must be give-and-take in their dialogue to weed out recommendations that are beyond the organization's financial capacity. No one gains when expectations are inflated by faculty committees, and then dashed by administrators who must balance a budget.

If faculty committees are to succeed at bringing about meaningful change on our campuses, they must spend as much time thinking about how to move the organization forward as they do about defining desirable end states. The latter approach has failed more than once. The time has come to try to risk new forms of error.

LAWRENCE S. BACOW is president of Tufts University.

Copyright American Council on Education Fall 2003
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