President Dennison asked for comments from ECOS on the document which appears to be his concluding statement of the results of the planning process begun last fall, THE STRATEGIC DIRECTIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 1998-2003 (SDUM). This request came shortly before the spring Senate elections and the reconstitution of ECOS. These comments therefore officially represent the views of the current committee, though suggestions from the ECOS of 1997-98 have been incorporated.
In presenting this critique the members of ECOS speak as the representatives of the faculty of the University of Montana at Missoula, not of The University of Montana. Moreover, we have borne in mind the fact that we are the only committee composed wholly of UM-M faculty members called upon to evaluate SDUM.
The committee recognizes that it is privileged to reflect upon the work of those involved in the planning process free from the various requirements that process imposed. We have striven to put that liberty to good use, avoiding to the best of our ability falling into mere caviling, carping or idealistic dismissiveness; our comments will by the nature of the case, however, appear to emphasize the negative. Yet our aim has been to make a positive contribution to the planning process itself in its last stage, that where plans begin to become concrete guides for actions.
We begin by presenting comments on general weaknesses of SDUM , i.e., those involving its structure, its organization, or which occur at various places throughout the document. We proceed to consider the document in detail, section by section. As an aid to clarity we have numbered our points within each of these divisions of our report.
GENERAL PROBLEMS:
(1) SDUM appears to us to fall into four major parts: (I) a brief introduction describing the planning process of which SDUM is the result; (ii) a rationale segment, divided into three sections, "Aspiration Statements," Core Values," and "Strategic Goals"; (iii) an action segment, divided into three sections, "Executive Functions,"Academic and Student Services Functions," and "Administrative Affairs"; (iv) finally, there is a very brief "Conclusion." None of these sections include any clear indication of the document's purpose. [The nearest thing to a mention of purpose we find is in the heading paragraph for the "Strategic Directions" section, but that statement refers only to the directions which follow, not to SDUM itself.] The natural assumption would be that it has been presented as the final, summary report from the planning process, an assumption which is supported by its "Introduction." Indeed we have stated above that we regard the document in this way. But the "Introduction" goes on to state that, "The final reports of the seven task forces will serve as a guide to the future as we seek to respond to the challenges before us." [p. 1] This point is then reasserted in the heading paragraph for the "Strategic Directions" [p. 3] segment and in the "Conclusion" [p. 13]. We are left with the possibility, therefore, that as a whole is not meant to have any directive significance at all, but is merely informational.
(2) We do not see an explicit relationship between the "rationale" section (as we have called it), and the "Strategic Directions" segment. Our initial assumption was that the "Aspirations Statements," "Core Values" and "Strategic Goals" were intended to lay down the basic principles, ideals and concepts which, together with the particulars of UM's concrete situation, would presumably imply the actions described in the "Strategic Directions" segment. While one can see some such likely connections, the document makes no attempt at all to make them. On the contrary, the actions segment begins with a paragraph which ties the specific measures described to "the final reports of the Task Forces," not the preceding parts of this document. The reader is therefore left to speculate as to how the various actions are to be traced to the rationale.
(3) As for the rationale segment itself, we find ourselves confronting similar problems of structure. On the one hand, we have "aspirations" stated, and on the other, "goals" described; but the distinction between these two things is so subtle as to make its notice extraordinary in general discourse. How do the document's authors understand goals to differ from aspirations? [ We understand that the author of SDUM is President Dennison,though that is nowhere stated in the materials we have been provided. We speak of the "authors" in view of our lack of certainty on this point, and more importantly, because SDUM is abstracted from the reports of several committees. ] We are at a loss to see any differences in kind between the items listed in the two sections. Then there is the intervening "Core Values" section, in which occurs a list of phrases; e.g., "Affordable access to higher education for Montanans." We do not know how to cash out these phrases. Perhaps they are shorthand for sentences of the form, 'The University of Montana pledges itself to <core value>.' However we attempt this, we come close to producing things which look quite like goals or aspirations again. It would seem that the authors have fallen victim to the inherent vagueness in the widely invoked concept of a "value" here.
(4) Certainly the document suffers from vagueness and ambiguity of various origins throughout. From time to time the reader is brought up short by a word, phrase or statement and made to puzzle over its meaning. For example, the document's second sentence informs us that, "The guiding concept...envisioned..." To be sure, 'envision' is often used metaphorically--perhaps more often than it is used literally, even--but its subject is then a person, group of persons or a quasi-person. In the second paragraph the authors tell us that, "The dedication to education for and throughout life reflects the commitment to service learning and community building on and off the campuses." We think that perhaps we know what is meant by 'service learning', but the meaning of 'community building' eludes us. We are unsure, too, about the relationship between the commitment to these things and the heretofore unmentioned "dedication to education for and throughout life." As we would see it, the former commitments would be reflections of the latter dedication; but the sentence has it the other way around.
'Community' and 'diversity' (or one of its cognates) occur often in SDUM; this is especially so of the second group of terms, at least one of which is found on most pages. Nowhere is 'diversity' defined, or otherwise explained. This term, of course, is quite like 'variety' in meaning and of the same semantic type: both are abstractions derived from terms which designate relations. To understand either, then, the relata intended must be specified, and, in many contexts, the respect in which the relata differ which is of interest must be made equally clear. [ The National Historic Places Register plaque near the southwest corner of University Hall conforms to these requirements in speaking of the campus's "architectural diversity".] Yet SDUM wields 'diversity' as if it were an absolute, non-relative term. Such misuses breed confusion.[ Admittedly, few readers of this document will be stopped short by the occurrences of 'diversity' within it. That is because most will be professional educators, or closely involved with education, a domain in which this use of the term is common and where it functions, one must candidly admit, to an important extent as shibboleth. But that does not solve the problem of its use here, in a document apparently stating policy and meant to guide substantive action. ]
The usual dimensions of diversity alluded to in educational circles are those which mark persons as members of legally favored classes under court decisions, statutes and regulations ultimately deriving from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. [ Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (438 US 265) is among the more important of these cases for J. Powell's discussion of diversity, 311-319. ] How is such diversity to be introduced into "student services?" [p. 3] Does "diversity" loom larger in the minds of the authors of this document than excellence? ("Attract, retain, support, and develop a diverse and excellent faculty and staff" [p. 3] Exactly how does "diversity" figure in the proposed "...targeted enrollment plans for each campus..." [p. 7]? Are we to establish quotas for the enrollment of members of the various favored classes? Surely not.
For our part we would maintain that it is imperative that the
institution's interest
in "diversity" be openly, candidly and rationally discussed.
[ It is perhaps fair to say that the set of ideas, policies,
and actions evoked by the term 'diversity' is as complex and
controversial as any in American higher education today. ]
We would
further maintain that the most important diversity with which a university
must be concerned is diversity in ideas.
[In a brief discussion with ECOS at its Aug. 17th retreat we understood President Dennison to grant our last two points, and to assert that there are several qualities or characteristics in which the University must value diversity.]
INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS:
(1) The principal assertion of the "Aspiration Statement" for The University of Montana would appear to be that the aggregate university intends to qualify as a Research II institution under the Carnegie classifications. We see this as a worthy goal, and a realistic one; we offer our support in this effort. We would urge that the statement of this goal be made clearer by citing the relevant documents to which one might go to find out exactly what the standards for this classification are. [ A footnote might be appropriate, though an appendix stating the criteria, listing some example institutions, etc., might also be called for. ] This statement could be made more substantial and persuasive by excising much of the rest of the existing language.
(2) We would make similar suggestions regarding the "Aspiration Statement" for the University of Montana at Missoula, but press them more forcefully. Again, a citation of the text from which "public ivy" was drawn is called for, but here considerable elaboration is required in virtue of the apparent loftiness of the goal. On the basis of our conversations with Vice-President Todd about the "public ivy" concept, we would see this as an appropriate goal for UM-M. It is, moreover, one which accords well with this institution's traditions, though those traditions have become difficult to maintain in recent decades. It is worth remembering that for the better part of its history, and all of its formative years, UM-M was quite like a liberal arts college in size and character. As late as just thirty-five years ago its enrollment was that of a large liberal arts college or small university. We see the possibility of the "public ivy" ideal becoming a means through which UM-M's liberal arts and professional educational missions are welded together and given renewed vitality; but we see equally the possibility of the term's becoming mere slogan, thus creating problems both internal and external.
(3) Among the "Strategic Goals" the last listed gives us pause. How can the University itself "provide a stable financial environment" for the University? The problem here is the Legislature's notorious stinginess. "...[A]ssure equitable distribution of resources" among whom? The various departments and divisions on a single campus? Among the various campuses? By what standard of equity?
[President Dennison advised ECOS that the primary concern regarding distribution of resources was distribution over the various campuses of The University.]
(4) Under "Strategic Directions" the first item listed under "Executive Functions" caused us genuine alarm. Budgeting changes are to be made. There is to be a "revised funding model" whose anticipated role is quite large, but which slides through the document unexplained. The "Actions" appear to begin by stipulating that the "Executive Functions" of the University will be funded at the level its officers declare to be their needs, and then the remainder of the available funds will be parceled out to the other divisions of the University. This seemed to us to say that the University's "Executive Functions" have the highest budget priority. That is certainly a disputable position: we would, in fact, strenuously argue that the instructional function should be accorded that status. Moreover, this funding procedure could have the effect of insulating the "Executive Functions" from budget reductions, such as those the University has endured at the hands of the Legislature at regular intervals. [ ECOS was not pleased to learn that in the pst year the UM-M's Intercollegiate Athletic department has apparently enjoyed special funding status. The report of the discussion of funding models with Joseph C.Burke and Mary McKeown-Moak at the Center at Salmon Lake, Jan. 22, 1998, indicated that Intercollegiate Athletics has been funded at no less than the full amount of the previous year's allocation, while other divisions of the University have been forced to share in reductions pro rata. Burke and McKeown-Moak recommended an end to this practice. SDUM's recommendation regarding funding for the "Executive Function" appears instead to mandate extending privileged funding to the entire central administration (Intercollegiate Athletics now falls administratively under the President's Office).]
[Here ECOS simply misunderstood what was being said. 'Revised funding model' and 'executive functions' are terms of art in the MUS lexicon, it seems. The idea of this section is that the costs of administering the various campuses of The University of Montana other than UM-M are to be paid by those campuses; i.e., they will contribute financial support to the central administration housed on this campus so that UM-M is not paying the cost of, for example, the President's attention to WMC.]
(5) The directive "Implement organizational changes and management information systems appropriate to the multi-campus University" would seem to imply some considerable expansion of the administrative staff and some dilution of the administrative function devoted to UM Missoula. What is described here is the next stage in a process already under way whose effect is to transform UM Missoula's central administration into an administration for the aggregate institution. We have seen problems with this at UM-M already. The Provost, for example, who is UM-M's chief academic officer, is often away at the other campuses, or otherwise attending to the affairs of the aggregate institution. This necessitates handing off of some functions to the Associate Provost, or an assistant. One can envision the ultimate issue of this process being the separation of the administration of The University of Montana from that of the University of Montana-Missoula, with the former even being housed elsewhere. In one respect this might not be a bad thing. We note that of the several units of The University of Montana, only UM-Missoula does not have a local administration ranking above Dean whose responsibility is to advocate the interests of the unit. [ In this connection all see point (11) below.]
(6) The directive "Develop and secure approval of responsive academic programs and delete from the inventory those programs no longer viable" raises serious concerns. These begin with the vagueness of two key terms in the directive, "responsive" and "viable." In what sense and by what standards are programs to be "responsive?" To whom, or what, are they to respond? What shall determine whether a program is "viable?"
We fear that the authors of this document have succumbed to the allure of the industrial/economic model of the institution of higher education. According to this conception, the institution sells the service of training to prospective workers, demand for training being a function of the industrial market. Economically, university programs are then like product divisions of a manufacturing company, from which it follows that they are to be administered accordingly. Thus, when demand for a product falls below a certain critical level, the division manufacturing it is closed down, or converted to the production of another product. Similarly, when, say, enrollment in Sociology falls below a threshold figure, Sociology will be disbanded ("deleted from the inventory") in favor of, say, Computer Engineering.
What this model neglects, aside from the administrative impediments it would face, like faculty tenure, is the essentially educational mission of the University. We represent for an appropriately selected segment of our youth the last stage in their upbringing. We do not merely train for careers; we seek to nurture the maturation of human beings. We are obliged to attempt this, irrespective of market demands. [ We do not intend in making this point to establish a dichotomy between liberal education and career training, and to assert the superiority of the former. UM-M's mission has always been to provide both liberal education andprofessional career training to its students. We understand these to be more than compatible; professional career training, properly conceived, relies upon liberal education and extends it. What we sense in SDUM, given its relation to the Regents' apparent vision of the University, is the potential emergence of a desicated model of career training, one in which there is no room for the genuine liberal arts, with such career training being the sole educational function of the University. The net result would be quite as if UM-M's having been directed to absorb the former Missoula Vocational-Technical Center led instead to UM-M's being absorbed by it. ]
[At the ECOS retreat President Dennison expressed doubt that he, or the planners, were relying exclusively on the industiral/economic model as we described it. In any case, he advised us, there are three criteria for viability and responsiveness: (I) a program is viable and responsive if it is central and fundamental to the institution's character, as are the classic liberal arts disciplines at UM-M; (ii) a program is viable and responsive if it meets an essential community need that can best be met by an academic program, as in the case of the former communications sciences and disorders department; (iii) finally, viability and responsiveness may be determined by such quantitative factors and enrollments and graduation rates. For the most part, at least, a program would be viable and responsive if it satisfied any of these criteria.]
(7) Some of the "Actions" listed under this directive pose other problems we would like to note. For example, "expand[ing] access to higher education by expanding the two-year transfer programs of the Colleges of Technology" would seem to require either that these institutions be transformed into general purpose junior colleges, or that the curricula they now offer be accepted as college-level, academic work by the other campuses of The University. To take another instance, SDUM ignores the fact that the UM-M faculty has several times declined to bifurcate itself into a Graduate Faculty and a non-Graduate faculty.
(8) We are alarmed by the directive "Integrate curriculum as much as possible and feasible." The qualifications "as much as possible and feasible" here are crucial. Plainly, our notions of possibility and feasibility differ from those of SDUM's authors. Our experience with the other campuses of The University causes us to have grave reservations about establishing "a common course numbering system" and its related measures. (We are not sure what is meant by "Assure articulation of course sequencing.") Giving courses in, say, History, the same numbers at WMC and UM-M would be fundamentally misleading, a liability which could be significantly diminished, if at all, only by the impostion of a common syllabus for the courses on the two campuses. Even on this campus, however, courses are usually not formally described by the University beneath the Catalog level. Thus, a course in Philosophy will cover one selection of materials in one way within the range of its Catalog description when taught by Prof. X and another selection in quite a different way when taught by Prof. Y. This variability is quite intentional on the part of the Department's faculty, who by virtue of close association know one another's work reasonably well.
(9) "Establish a proficiency-based General Education Program" is the action we find most troubling under this heading. An education--general, or otherwise--does not reduce to a set of proficiencies. To be an educated person is to possess certain skills, of course, though most of the essential things which might be so denoted (e.g., reading) are such as to transcend what is usually meant by 'skill'. An educated person has certain essential habits, attitudes, disciplines and capacities for insights. [ This is equally true for some persons who prefer to speak of their preparation as "training", performing artists, for example. A UM graduate in voice or instrumental music would likely take some offense at hearing her singing or playing described as "proficient".] Indeed, the present concern with inculcating in our students "appreciation of diversity" [p. 8] is an example of the type of non-skill which an education may plausibly be said to require. What would it mean to say that one was (or was not) "proficient" in appreciation of diversity? How does one test for such "proficiency?" The very idea is absurd. We cannot escape the sad conclusion that such measures as this recommendation to redefine the general education program evidence a gravely diminished conception of the mission of the University of Montana--that is, by the reasonable standard under which it has understood itself for the last hundred years. [ We grant that there is a minimalist possible meaning of the phrase 'proficiency based' which escapes the bounds of the plain meaning of the term, but which is generally unobjectionable. One might have in mind simply that courses and curricula have reasonably well-specified goals, and that an attempt is regularly made to test to see whether those goals are being achieved -- those of them, that is, for which such testing is appropriate. All good teachers do this.]
[In a recent discussion the President agreed that 'proficiency' was too narrow a term to cover the full range of educational results we should aim to produce and the set for which we may test. It is not at all the intent of adopting the proficiency-based approach that the scope of our purpose be reduced, he asserted. Moreoever, it is not the intent that our educational purposes for our courses be limited to those for which we can test before graduation day. 'Proficiency' may then be an unfortunate choice of terms, though it is hard to find a single term which will express the idea adequately; he suggested that 'competency' and 'outcome' might also serve. The term he has used, then, is not to be taken as seriously as we have done in our comments above. Testing for the proficiencies, competencies, outcomes (or whatever we call them) is essential to the proficiency-based approach, and the test is to be the full determinant of the presence (or absence) of the outcomes. This means that we do not adjudge a student as having satisfied a requirement simply because a course, or set of courses has been passed; rather, a special examination must be devised and administered, and the student may, in theory, at least, satisfy the requirement by passing the examination without taking any of the courses the faculty might regard as essential for mastering that material.]
(10) SDUM repeatedly refers to, and makes recommendations relying upon, a sound information technology base, one to be extended to support numerous innovative activities. It is our perception, however, that our information technology system is in drastic need of improvement, as it stands--this despite the important strides that have been made in recent years.
(11) Finally, we note that many of the directives are aimed at increasing the integration of the various campuses of The University of Montana into a single institution. The general idea has been described elsewhere as creating one university which manifests itself in several places. It was, in fact, a fundamental hypothesis of the planning process itself that this vision was to be a general goal, and the process was structured accordingly. The "Introduction" to SDUM also speaks, however, of the importance of being "...respectful of the unique identities and strengths of the four campuses." There are, therefore, limits to the integration of the aggregate institution; integration must stop short of the point where a campus's "unique identity and strengths" are placed in jeopardy. We believe it especially important for the faculty and administration of UM Missoula to be aware of such limits; we are the campus with the most to lose. We think it likely that we are nearing those limits now, or that we may even have transgressed them. We urge great caution in proceeding further in implementing this Regental mandate.
ecos9811.doc