Some Perspective on Hard Times

The Review of Higher Education Fall 1982. Volume 6. No. 1 Pages 69 to 78 Copyright © 1982 Association for the Study of Higher Education All Rights Reserved SOME PERSPECTIVE ON HARD TIMES Joseph F. Kauffman Our Association is not so old that one can refer to a “ tradition” in pres­ idential addresses. We are glad to be together again each year and the As­ sociation president’s address usually reflects the incumbent’s scholarly or professional interest. It may be a paper on one’s ongoing research or a portion of a book that one is developing. At least that is my recollection of the addresses of my two most recent predecessors. My own career in higher education has combined practitioner with pro­ fessor—or vice versa—but whatever the nature of my responsibilities, 1have always valued most highly my membership in this Association and its fore­ runner, the Association of Professors of Higher Education (APHE). If 1may be permitted a personal note, it was always my aspiration to spend the latter part of my professional life free of administrative duties so that 1 could attempt to be professor/scholar—or at least be more reflective and contemplative about our field. 1 seized that opportunity in 1973 when 1 left a college presidency to return to the UW-Madison as professor. (In fact, I was on a panel at the APHE program in Chicago, in 1974, speaking on “ The Practitioner As Professor.” ) When 1 agreed to have my name placed on the ASHE ballot in 1979, I had no idea that 1 would ever be in the position l now hold. If I had known, I would not have accepted the opportunity to serve ASHE in this capacity for it has been difficult for me to meet fully all of my responsibilities to the membership. Although I still teach one course each semester, and work with a dozen Ph.D. candidates, I am unable to find time for studying or scholarly pursuits. I have returned to the “ administrative trenches,” as one reviewer of my last book described it. (What keeps me going is the knowledge that, as a sexagenarian, I cannot keep doing this much longer!) As the Executive Vice President of one of the largest University Systems Presidential address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Washington, D.C. March 2, 1982. Joseph F. Kauffman is Executive Vice President of the University of Wisconsin System and Professor of Educational Administration. University of Wisconsin-Madison. 69 70 The Review of Higher Education in the United States, I do have an existential perspective that I would like to share with you this evening. 1 think my experience is transferable to others as well—thus I will generalize from it. The one overwhelming concern that dominates all others in higher education today is MONEY. It preoccupies Deans, Vice Presidents, and Presidents as well as faculty. It affects all thinking about the future, as well as the present. (Those who are not here tonight to hear this, probably could not get travel funds or afford to come to Washington at their own expense!) The subject of MONEY dominates concerns with student enrollments, tuition policy, the Federal and State role in higher education, the who pays—who benefits debate, admissions standards, arguments over quality, faculty morale, col­ lective bargaining, governance, libraries, the new technology, the future of graduate education and even issues of academic freedom. It is all pervasive. As one who chose education as a field of endeavor to avoid the hurly burly values of the marketplace, it is disconcerting to find money as the dominating force on each agenda. 1am more than ever resolved that in my future teaching of would be educational leaders, there will be a proper concern with re­ sources—their acquisition, management, allocation and defense. That can no longer be left solely to a business office! It was a decade ago that Earl Cheit (1971) used the term “ the new depression in higher education,” to describe the general erosion of the financial position of a selected group of institutions he had studied under the auspices of the Carnegie Commission on Higher...