End of Year talk - 22 May 02 Senate Meeting

Nathan Tublitz

UO Senate President 2001/2

A VIEW FROM BELOW: NOTES FROM A SOON-TO-BE EX-HAS BEEN

The end of the school year is always my favorite time. Spring has arrived. Flowers are in bloom. Students in shorts and t-shirts. Summer sun awaits. Here at the University we mark another turn of the academic wheel by taking stock of the past year’s accomplishments and false starts. Was our teaching any good? Were we productive research-wise? How can we do better? Those of us in Senate governance should not be immune to such self evaluation, so here’s the score sheet. Call it PPR for Post-presidential Review:

Communication: I thought a reasonable attempt was made to generate discussion on a whole host of issues in the Senate and in a few University Standing Committees. More, however, could have been done to widen that discussion to the community at large. Grade: B+

Leadership: Again, not bad but could have been significantly more successful. Grade: B.

Budgetary management: I still don’t know how much the Senate has to spend. I was told our budget was “sort of zero” but that’s not completely accurate. Greg: please figure this out and let me know. Grade: F.

Inclusiveness: A significant attempt was made to get others involved in all aspects of decision-making. Worked fairly well with a few faculty but the vast majority of faculty are still out of the loop. A start was made with classified staff by adding them to the Senate as participants. Failed horribly with students. Grade: C+.

Were goals met? Last September the Senate Exec, Senate Budget Committee and FAC met in the first of what hopefully will be an annual Senate Leadership Caucus, organized and conceived by my esteemed predecessor, Jim Earl. Four goals for the year were enunciated. Two goals - faculty input into the Univ. Strategic Plan, and fairness and equity on campus with respect to improving diversity, NTTIF, classified staff inclusion, and salary compression - were met to varying degrees. Not much headway was made towards achieving the remaining two goals -- increased faculty involvement in campus resource allocation and the meaning of “public” for public institutions. These worthy goals must await another Senate President (Greg and his soon-to-be-elected-VP: are you listening?). Grade for goals: B-.

Overall grade for this year: B-, which in my courses is about average.

This self-assessment of the past year is important, not just for me individually but for us as an institution, because the University is only as strong as its shared campus governance system.

The best working definition of shared campus governance was recently articulated in the form of 3 principles passed two years ago by the University Senate during the reorganization of campus wide committees. The first is that shared governance at the University includes all segments of the University community. I’ll call that inclusivity. The second principle is that the University Senate is the prime deliberative body on campus. Let’s call that respectful community discussion. The final principle is that regular communication and consultation among all constituent groups is a hallmark of shared governance. I’ll abbreviate that as regular consultation.

Inclusivity, respectful community discussion, and regular consultation - the 3 engines that keep the shared campus governance jet in the air and functional. All three must be inspected and maintained on a regular basis for if one fails, shared governance will be grounded. So let’s assess the current state of shared campus governance using these three standards:

Inclusivity: I have noticed the beginnings of a seed change in the Administration’s attitude on this subject over the past few years. With increasing frequency the Administration is coming to the faculty and students for advice prior to making decisions. Perhaps they are finally beginning to understand that we are all in the same boat and that it is self-destructive to row in different directions. Maybe its my overactive imagination, but I’m certain this attitudinal shift is the direct result of a hush-hush Johnson Hall internal memo encouraging administrators to go home and say in front of a mirror: “It is not ‘us’ and ‘them’; it is ‘us’ and ‘we’”. I suggest that the memo be re-issued monthly and that the other stakeholder groups on campus - faculty, classified staff, students - consider sending it to their own constituencies. Campus-wide grade for Inclusivity: B- with the note “tries hards, is doing better, but finds the subject inherently difficult.”

Respectful Community Discussion: This second engine of the shared campus governance aircraft has respectful listening as the engine’s input and respectful dialogue for its output. Sadly this category is not the Academy’s favorite since dialogue sometimes becomes monologue and good listening tends to sink under the weight of emotion, rhetoric and oneupmanship. This campus might do well to consider that not every issue is a life-or-death battle requiring the unleashing of one’s entire arsenal. In other words - lighten up. Recent improvement has been noted - communication in this year’s FAC has been routinely excellent and resulted in a very productive conversation with the administration on numerous issues. Campus-wide grade for Respectful Discussion: I for incomplete with the notation “needs to finish assigned work before receiving passing grade - Call Larry Dann, this year’s outstanding FAC chair for full instructions”.

Regular Consultation: The third cornerstone of shared campus governance is regular consultation on all major issues among all stakeholder groups. Emphasis on “regular”, “all major issues” and “all stakeholder groups”. Regular communication builds long standing bridges. Conversation on all major issues increases community involvement and promotes that intangible of intangibles, community spirit. And including all stakeholder groups is not just common sense but required in this era of fiscal uncertainty that threatens the entire institution. Although specific policies and decisions may be the domain of specific sub-groups within the University, any issue affecting large segments of the community needs to be aired broadly. The question of administrative versus faculty prerogative was introduced in this year’s FAC and Senate Exec committee but not fully resolved. More discussion is needed on this important question. Grade for regular consultation: P for Pass but take the next course in the sequence for a grade to prevent back sliding.

A truly functional shared campus governance system, grounded in inclusivity, respectful community discussion, and regular consultation, is the single most important component to achieve the aspirations and goals of the University.

To me, the University is a family - a big, extended family to be sure- but a family in the real sense of the word. We have all the elements of a family: common goals, caring for each other, coming together in times of need, nurturing and helping our youngest achieve independence and success. But like a family, there are only two ways to go: forward and upward together through consensus building and broad conversation to achieve common goals, or backwards and downwards through communication breakdown and individual squabbling, events that eventually lead to the emergence of self-centered behavior, what I call the D’Artagnon effect - “one for all and all for one as long as it’s all for me”. Shared campus governance, through inclusivity, respectful community discussion, and regular consultation, provides the only viable structure to allow our University family to flourish in the short and long term.

Fortunately, the University has begun, ever so tentatively, to embrace the concept of shared campus governance. The driving force behind this effort has been the rejuvenation of the campus govenance system beginning with the establishment six years ago of the University Senate as the prime deliberative and legislative body on campus. Whatever progress has been made in these past six years –and these have not been insignificant -- has primarily been the result of the hard work of your 6 past Senate Presidents: Paul Simons, Carl Bybee, Ann Tedards, Jeff Hurwit, Peter Gilkey and Jim Earl. They are owed a huge debt of gratitude by us all and I specificly wish to thank each of them for their efforts during their presidencies as well as their thoughtful advice and sage guidance during this past year. Successful shared campus governance is, by definition, the result of many stakeholder groups working together. I wish to acknowledge the on-going efforts by the administration – specifically Dave Frohnmayer, John Moseley, Lorraine Davis, Dan Williams and Alan Price as well as their outstanding staff -- to water and fertilize the seed of shared campus governance. I also thank the students, through the ASUO, and the classified staff for their continued dedication towards promoting consensus building inside and outside of the Senate. And a special thanks to that very wonderful person and fountain of all Senate knowledge, our esteemed University Senate Secretary, Gwen Steigelman, who put the bit in the mouth of the Senate President early last fall and was not shy to gently pull on it when required (luckily, it was only a few times).

Although I never would agree to such a designation, I have been told by a few bold people that I am a classic type-A personality. We can argue this issue later, however I do share one type-A characteristic. I believe that one can always do better, and I’m certainly not satisfied with the current status of our shared campus governance. That said, I believe the University is making positive gains on this issue, albeit slowly. It is essential that we all work together to continue this upward trajectory, particularly in the next few fiscally-challenged years.

Last June, two months before his passing, Wayne Westling gave me his usual excellent and pithy advice as I began this job: Work hard. Make things better. Don’t lose sight of the real goal: striving towards academic excellence through shared campus governance. As I leave this job, I feel I should reply directly to Wayne: “Wayne - I really tried to follow your advice. Thanks for your support and assistance all year. Your influence on us and to the vision of shared campus govenance remains strong and vibrant. Keep talking to us - we’ll get it someday.”

It has been a privilege and a deep honor to be your President this year, to work with and serve all of you, and to help champion the necessity of shared campus governance.

Nathan Tublitz