ARE YOU SUFFICIENTLY SENSITIVE TO ADMINISTRATIVE INTENT?

When I was an assistant professor aspiring to become an associate, I had to prove that my teaching, publications and service met the mark. My "course evaluations" were quite good. (Actually they were my customer satisfaction ratings — but it was unwise to call them that.) My publications also met muster. The problem was my "service."

 

Why was that? Well in this institution "service" was chiefly defined as service on college committees. But despite my annually volunteering in writing for whatever committee slots were available, I received not a single one. 

Favored faculty got all the key committee assignments even when they didn't fill out the requisite areas of interest form. I filled mine out carefully. I indicated preferences but also noted I was eager to serve on any committee. Still, this resulted in zero assignments.

Absence from committee work would sink my prospects for promotion. So I decided to find out what was going on. Committee assignments were made by a faculty "Committee on Committees." This august body largely consisted of old boy faculty, many of whom were alums of the then single sex school. But the committee was chaired by a woman. What were her distinctive qualities? Knee crooking servility to the Roman Catholic order that owned and ran the school. 

When I requested an appointment with this woman, I was in no mood to genuflect. So, upon meeting with her I boldly declared that I had repeatedly volunteered for any available committee assignment year after year, but got nowhere. Other favored faculty got one assignment after another. What, I asked, was going on? Her reply? I had been determined "insufficiently sensitive to administrative intent." 

How to respond to that? I'm not recommending it, but here's what I did. I reminded this academic weather vain that my promotion was at stake. I told her that I had kept a careful record of all my futile efforts to volunteer. Then I indicated that if I failed to get promoted because of any alleged "lack of service," she and the other committee members would likely hear from my attorney.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

I never again had any trouble getting committee assignments. Although I continued to do my best to remain appropriately insensitive to administrative intent.  Promotion followed in due course.

Care to guess what subsequently became of this weather vane chair of the Committee on Committees? Want to wager on the brightness of her academic future? Well i wasn't long before she was appointed, perhaps "anointed" is a better word,  Dean of Arts and Sciences. 

Once in this exalted administrative office, she continued to utilize her finely-tuned sensitivity to the administrative intent. Unsurprisingly the consequences of her newly-acquired influence typically disadvantaged the very faculty whose interests she supposedly represented. Before her rise to power this gal was a professor of English, not meteorology. Nevertheless, she always knew which way the wind blew.

What can be learned from this story? 

1. That course evaluations actually measure customer satisfaction. 
2. That there is an irreconcilable, though unmentionable, tension between the interests of the administration and those of the faculty. 
3. That a surprising number of faculty are craven lick-spittles. 
4. That brown-nosing pays — at least in terms of promotion.
5. That one's alleged colleagues might not be collegial. 

What else, in general, can be learned from this? That there are covert academic realities reminiscent of the missing genitalia on censored human anatomical illustrations. Genitalia are obviously critical components of the human anatomy. Yet they frequently get “disappeared” on such illustrations. Worse, mentioning their absence is risky business. Similarly, the discerning know that academia is not what it claims to be.  However, joining in the pretense that it is pays off. ” 

Are there times to confront the academic equivalent of those anatomical illustrations, point to the blank crotch area and ask, “What the hell is going on here? Apparently there are. But when should one do that? Here is the answer. Only when you have more to lose if you keep pretending you don't notice the absence. 

This is a professionally dangerous maneuver. However, pulling the sheet off these covert realities can produce a sobering effect on academic power holders when all else fails. At the very least, it causes them to stop and reflect before messing with you further. But remember, breaking the silence will forever change your status both with the power holders and your colleagues. For good or ill, neither will ever view you, or treat you, in the same way again.