Notes from a Decent University in the Midst of Program Review: The Profession

Z y. ci J-. Notesfrom aDecent University in the Midst ofProgram Review THE PROFESSION by Deborah Symonds urogram review is to universities what downsizing is to corporations: a dark cloud ofdoom and foreboding called up by a sizeable deficit, that passes only when enough people have been fired to ensure black ink in a year or two. But there is one enormous difference. Corporate employees don't have tenure; we do. That means that while corporate managers can do their cutting with laser-sharp precision, provosts and presidents ofuniversities have to cut programs, which in many cases are identical with departments. In our uniwrsity, the wise will suffer with the foolish, the underpaid with the owrpid, and so forth, as entire programs arc identified for "further evaluation ." This matters to me, not because the history- department is in any danger —it has come through quite well— but because I haw to sit on two committees that haw, and will, advise the administration on the direction the cuts should take. I don't haw to fire the gun, but I get to wll to the firing squad and point in various general directions— ewry day, for the next two weeks. As time goes by, and this is a long, hot summer for me, the particulars of various programs—number of majors, hours of service teaching, cost effectiveness —matter less and less to me. Ultimately, the president will haw to decide, and he gets paid to do things that I don't want to do. The real question , it seems to me, is whether tenure has any future. Tenure supposedly protects us, and it has saved many a professor , I know. But right now, two miles away from me as I write this, tenure is costing people I care about, and people I don't like at all, their jobs. The only way to eliminate tenured faculty is to discontinue the program in which thcv teach. I know that our first criterion in reaching these decisions about programs is supposed to be essentiality. And I haw thought long and hard about what mayor may not be essential to a uniwtsitv. and to a student. I haw tried thinking about this when I was a student. The only two things I come up with as absolutely essential arc pzza and beer. I tend to belicw that I was doomed to learn certain things, and I would have learned them in chemistry and French, it not in literary history, history, and graphic art. So, my job is to aid in the firing of my colleagues, although I am not supposed to think of it in those terms. I am saving the university, improving the quality of education, designing an educational experience fit for the twent\ first century student. But essentialia is of no use to me as a guide—wc haw lots of pizza and beer across the street. As for "quality of program," and "quality of faculty," I made up my mind about those years before the touching, trying, and flamboyant reviews were written up and sent to me a few months ago. That leaves me at cost effectiwncss, which is probably precisely where corporate downsizers begin. Cost effectiveness—to be read as financial survival—and tenure are at loggerheads, and tenure cannot hold out wry much longer. I believe that I am in the last generation of scholars to have it, as well as to haw expected to haw it. And I don't expect to haw it wry much longer. This isn't based on any substantiw discussion here, or ewn on rumors, but on my own speculation. Uniwrsities, which have to cut entire programs when faced with budget shortfalls, will often, I suspect, be throwing the baby out with the bathwater . The innocent will suffer with the guilty; the excellent with the incompetent . The purpose of tenure will be defeated by the unintended effects of tenure mixed with economic necessity. There arc no alternatives for me or anyone else here, not right now. Tenure is in place, programs will haw to go, and unless the administrators of the upper ether lose their ncrw, the budget will balance again. I am...