The view from PA 330

In my 10th and last annual address to FASS faculty and staff, on January 19th, I made four sweeping predictions about what may lie ahead for universities in Ontario … mostly necessitated by the financial crisis that draws ever nearer as institutional operating costs rise faster than their revenues. As Alex Usher put it succinctly at the close of his January 23rd blog: “There’s no sinister conspiracy here, no evil administrative plots. It’s just math. More people should pay attention to it.”

I was told afterwards that these predictions were the most interesting part of the talk … indeed possibly the only interesting part … and so I shall share those this week, instead of following the previous practice of posting the entire address. See what you think.

The first is that, barring some huge changes in its financial fortune, the provincial government will simply have to find some way to control and ultimately reduce costs. Some of you may recall that it used the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) to float the trial balloon of differentiation based on research and teaching intensiveness, and that proposal didn’t fare particularly well. So, instead, it developed the system of Strategic Mandate Agreements … and my prediction is that we shall see further moves in that direction, particularly at the graduate level. While it may prove impossible for a major university not to have an undergraduate program in, say, English, there is much less of a case to be made for more than a handful of M.A. and Ph.D. programs in, say, English … especially given their extraordinary cost per student (in faculty time, library resources, and much else). Whether this will eventually lead to a sort of “University of Ontario” system along the lines of the University of California, I don’t know. But if I were the premier of a province running a deficit in double figures of billions, and with a massive accumulated debt, I would certainly be looking at that option. Clearly the status quo is not sustainable.

My second prediction is that, on the same premise of “necessity being the mother of invention”, we are going to see rationalizations and consolidations internally as well as externally. Of course Carleton, and particularly FASS, did experience something of this sort in the late 1990s, with the closure or amalgamation of a number of academic units and programs. This was the result of the university finding itself with a financial gun to its head … which is never the best time to make significant change. It is much better to undertake needed reform when it can be done calmly and rationally. Let’s take FASS for example. The Dean of FASS currently has no fewer than 26 “direct reports”: 18 chairs and directors, 3 associate deans, an Executive Assistant, a Financial Officer, a Communications Officer, a Director of Computing Services, and a “Senior Development Associate” (a euphemism for a fundraiser). Having dealt with this for 10 years, I can tell you it is completely crazy. And those academic units are of enormously unequal size, ranging from 2000 students to 20. I personally think it would make much better sense to group smaller programs together in “Schools”, along the lines of the school for Studies in Art and Culture or the College the Humanities, both of which house at least three separate degree programs, perhaps beginning with the establishment of a School of Interdisciplinary Studies. It simply makes sense, both from the perspective of effective management and also, even more importantly, from the perspective of breaking down outdated disciplinary silos. But, to be frank, I am not optimistic that this can or will happen unless there is some catalyst such as a financial crisis. I think it was Samuel Johnson who once quipped: “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” Of course I hope I am wrong, but I am a realist.

My third prediction is that we are going to see a gradual winding down of separate Faculties of Graduate Studies. These may have made sense in an era when only some faculty members had doctorates, were actively engaged in research, and hence participated in graduate supervision. But those days are long gone, and now all faculty entering tenure-track positions have this right. This makes it really quite unnecessary to duplicate all the functions of the Registrar’s Office in a separate Graduate Studies office, to have an additional Faculty Board, and so on … especially given that the existing Faculty deans, the so-called “line deans”, already carry all responsibility for funding and staffing graduate programs as well as undergraduate ones. I know that this is not a popular thought in many quarters, but it is already starting to happen on some campuses.

And my final prediction is that over the coming years we shall see the increasing internationalization of post-secondary education … which, incidentally, makes the loss of Pauline Rankin to the AVP “International” position slightly more palatable than it might have been otherwise. What do I mean when I say “internationalization”? For one thing, I foresee much greater mobility of faculty and students, more collaboration in both teaching and research, and the formation of university partnerships and “alliances” along the lines of what we have seen in the airline industry in recent years. I believe that Carleton is exceptionally well placed to participate in this phenomenon, just now getting started. This is not just about exchanges, which have been around for a long time, but rather about the joint collaborative delivery of teaching and research. And that is why the Dean’s Office has been a staunch supporter of proposals currently in development for linkages of this sort with universities such as Jindal in India, or the University of Warwick in England. But there is only so much that the dean or any other individual can do. If it is to happen, it will take the efforts of all academic units, and especially of faculty members who act as “champions”. Indeed, it is generally true that change rarely happens at universities when instituted from the top downwards; rather, it happens only when those at the grassroots level buy in.

I know that these won’t all be popular … one or two in particular … and that’s just fine. The onus is on those who don’t like them to find alternative solutions to the underlying issues, solutions which do not involve the government simply spending a lot more money. Because I can confidently predict that won’t happen!