Abstract
Reflecting on the nature, causes, and possible resolutions of the faculty-administration adversarialism is ubiquitous on our campuses. There is no doubt that we have faculty on our campus who simply detest administrators, and we know by hearsay that there are administrators (especially Board members) who detest faculty. The climate of adversarialism does not seem to boil down, at the end, to personal likes and dislikes. There is also no doubt that there is a vast fund of mutual respect and genuine friendship among other faculty and administrators, but those bonds do not seem to end the adversary relationship, or even mitigate it. There doesn’t seem to be any institutionalization of the adversarialism, as there is, for instance, in the American judicial system. Then where does it come from, and what can be done about it? I argue that we can come to see adversarialism as good, and learn to live peacefully with it. And conclude that we probably aren’t going to do a very good job at living peacefully, but it’s still worth the effort of trying. Adversarialism is in the end no more than the inevitably fractious working out of the competition of legitimate visions in a setting where (at our best) every vision is respected and honored, but (even at our best) resources are necessary and limited.
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Notes
- 1.
I have received helpful comments on this and earlier drafts of this paper from three college presidents and several other experienced administrators, including Kerry Romesburg of Jacksonville University, Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., Billy Weitzer, and Rita Duda of Fairfield University, and Stephen Weber of San Diego State University, for all of which I am very grateful. The mistakes and misdirections that remain, of course, are mine.
- 2.
The case in question is National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University, 444 U.S. 672, 100 S.Ct. 856; 63 L.Ed. 2nd 115; Decided February 20, 1980 (along with Yeshiva University Faculty Assn. v. Yeshiva University, also on certiori to the same court). The decision affirmed by the Supreme Court held that since university faculty controlled curriculum and other areas for decision, they were not “employees” within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act – so they had no right to form a union.
- 3.
Bennington College, for instance, was widely accused of “financial mismanagement” leading to the decision by the Board of Trustees in 1993 to restructure Bennington education. Twenty-seven faculty members were summarily dismissed, on the claim that departments and programs were being “pruned” and that the university was in “dire financial straits” and had no alternative but to fire them. Even though Bennington did not have the institution of “tenure,” strictly understood, the AAUP disagreed with the claims, and supported 17 members of the dismissed faculty in suing for compensation. (ACADEME March-April 1995, pp. 91–103) The case was eventually settled for $1.89 million (Wikipedia, “Bennington College”). Meanwhile, students and faculty alike defended the management that had led to the trustees’ decision, pointing out that Bennington’s very lack of structure provided an immensely satisfying atmosphere for study and creative work.
- 4.
Reported in The New York Times, Michael Janofsky, “University President Salaries Soar Into the Millions,” Tuesday, November 22, 2005. Source The Tech, MIT vol. 125 issue 56.
- 5.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 53 (14), 2007 “The Million-Dollar President, Soon to Be Commonplace?”
- 6.
Forbes Magazine, forbes.com (executive pay).
- 7.
“Compensation Monitor: How well do for-profit plans value their executives?” http://managedcaremag.com/archives. Data attributed to Families USA, an organization critical of managed care companies, which gathered it from information that the companies sent to the SEC.
- 8.
Then why compare college presidents with insurance company executives, and not with CEOs of hospitals? Because in the peculiar financial arrangements that govern health care in the US, the hospital is not in control of its own financial destiny – it is as dependent on the current level of government (Medicare and Medicaid) and private reimbursements for care provided as are the physicians. They have no effective say in any rate changes, and find themselves, like the physicians’ office managers, desperately trying to keep enough money coming in to keep going, suffering with refusals of reimbursement, and dodging repeated threats of prosecution for fraud.
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Newton, L.H. (2009). Educated Warfare: Adversary Relations in the Groves of Academe. In: Englehardt, E.E., Pritchard, M.S., Romesburg, K.D., Schrag, B.E. (eds) The Ethical Challenges of Academic Administration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2841-9_8
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