Response to Final Report of the Committee on College Reorganization (CCR)

 

 

The College of Arts & Letters, in its response to the draft report of the CCR on September 19, 2004, offered the following “General Comments on University Reorganization and the Arts and Humanities”:

 

Regardless of the form that it ultimately takes, reorganization must result in a strengthening of the liberal arts and sciences at MSU. From the perspective of the arts and humanities, it must seek to reach, among others, the following goals:

 

§         An organizational structure that results in strong advocacy for arts and humanities teaching, learning, scholarship, and outreach in competition for scarce resources within the university;

 

§         A structure and infrastructure with fewer impediments for faculty and students as they attempt to work within and across administrative boundaries, in an environment conducive to risk-taking, collaboration, and innovation;

 

§         Leadership that encourages the study of the arts and humanities for their intrinsic value and in their connectedness with other disciplines and the community at large;

 

§         An organizational structure wherein the value of arts and humanities scholarship is recognized and exploited to seek external grants and contracts that encourage or require cross-disciplinary partnerships and outcomes;

 

§         An organizational structure that provides even greater opportunities than already exist for collaboration within arts and humanities areas, as well as between the arts and humanities and other liberal arts disciplines, the professional schools, and off-campus communities;

 

§         Budget decisions that aggressively support and expand both new and already successful arts and humanities programs;

 

§         Governance structures that continue to recognize and reward high quality faculty accomplishments in the arts and humanities.

 

These goals will provide an environment that allows the arts and humanities to fulfill their mission in higher education at MSU. Central to this mission are the preservation, transmission, and creation of knowledge about the human condition as it was and as it is expressed through the artifacts of diverse cultures, including languages, art, and texts of all kinds. A university strong in the arts and humanities promotes social and intellectual change, conserves human knowledge and artistic achievement, and adds to the quality of life of its faculty, staff, students, and the broader community it serves. A university strong in the arts and humanities is a locus of intellectually engaged activity, enriches and sustains lifelong learning, and cultivates the capacity for empathetic and relational thinking among its students. A university strong in the arts and humanities enhances the intellectual and emotional growth of its students by emphasizing the core educational values of critical thinking, creativity and innovation, communication, and a knowledge of the ideas, literature, languages, and arts that are the hallmarks of human civilization.

 

Now, after discussion of the final CCR report within the college and with colleagues across campus, I offer the following additional observations.  They are offered in response to your request for commentary on specific aspects of  Options II and IV and how they might be implemented.  Thus I have refrained in this document from arguing the role and value of the arts and humanities in American higher education today. Let me clarify, however, that when I refer to the arts and humanities at Michigan State University, I refer not  to something located within a specific college, but to activities and areas of study that span the university’s mission.  The “arts” include but are not limited to  studio art, design, theatre, dance, music, filmmaking, and creative writing; the “humanities” include but are not limited to English language and literature, world languages and literatures, history, philosophy, writing, religious studies, art history, theatre history, and musicology. There are also numerous interdisciplinary programs in which these areas play a vital role and whose subjects in turn are firmly embedded in  disciplinary scholarly interest, such as African American and African Studies, American Studies, and Women’s Studies.   Further, this response contains many lists.  These lists are illustrative and not intended as inclusive. Items in the lists are unranked in value or importance.

 

Overall Position Statement

 

The faculty and administrative team of the College of Arts & Letters is prepared to aggressively support and help implement any and all aspects of Option II or Option IV that will better serve departments and schools, their faculty, staff, and students in the areas outlined below. Above all, I remain optimistic that these long and careful deliberations on reorganization will result in a strengthening of the liberal arts and sciences at MSU and a contemporary version of liberal education, informed by the university’s land-grant mission.  We would like to be positioned at the leading edge of arts and humanities teaching, research, and outreach nationwide. A major international public institution like MSU cannot serve its students or the global environment in which we now live without a strong and well-integrated liberal arts core.

 

The arts and humanities must strive to play a more visible and effective role in the education of our students.  This requires a productive and integrated balance between traditional approaches to the arts and humanities and collaborative endeavors that actively interrelate the arts, humanities, and other disciplines. Our students and the broader community must encounter the arts and humanities at MSU in a variety of venues and in ways that can result in better decision-making and a better quality of life.  Arts and humanities education contributes to these objectives through its affirmation and exploration of the artistic, the historical, the contextual, the ethical, the linguistic, the broadly cultural, and especially the reflective personal in the human experience.

The following commentary discusses those aspects of Options II and IV that I believe offer the best possibilities for realizing these goals.

 

The “Problem” of the College of Arts & Letters: First, let me provide my assessment of what is commonly referred to as the “problem” of Arts and Letters.  The budget model of the College is far more centralized than most others in the university. Individual departments do not fully manage their own financial affairs but instead receive annual allocations from the College to cover basic recurring salaries and minimal SS&E and labor accounts. Currently, all recurring commitments can be met with Arts & Letters recurring base budget. However, I do not have sufficient recurring dollars to meet all instructional needs. Significant non-recurring funds for instruction in writing, general education, and foreign language are received annually from the Provost. Other non-recurring support to units for temporary instruction and special projects are usually allocated annually via projected salary savings from non-discretionary recurring commitments. Thus, very few dollars lie fallow each year in the departments or are held there in reserve for emergencies. Emergency dollars are held centrally and dispersed as needs arise. The College can run leaner in this model, but units do not have financial independence. If the arts and humanities are to be revitalized, A&L department budgets must be returned to a level of financial stability and on par with other university units so that departments can manage funds in ways that allow them to respond locally both to new opportunities and to any rescissions. In addition, with cuts to tenure system lines in recent years, several of our units are at or below the critical mass of faculty needed to sustain an active scholarly culture or offer a responsible undergraduate—let alone graduate—program. Systematic rebuilding over a multi-year period must be a major component of a long-range plan to rebuild arts and humanities at Michigan State.

 

Local budget flexibility that enables the College to fund initiatives and reward faculty for participation in inter- and multi-disciplinary programming is essential if we are to do our part and move with all possible speed to further interconnectedness across the university.

 

Additionally, questions are raised in the CCR report about the viability of the College of Arts & Letters without the Department of History and, potentially, without the School of Music. While I would prefer to have these two units within the college, their loss does not fatally weaken the College or undermine its mission. If Music becomes fully autonomous, the loss of the 53 Tenure System faculty would still leave Arts & Letters with 182 Tenure System faculty, more than all colleges except the College of Social Science, the College of Natural Science, and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. I strongly disagree that such a college, with such a complement of faculty, would be weak or less viable. Such perceived “weakness” is primarily a matter of budgeting decisions that must be addressed regardless of what decisions are made on reorganization. I expect that collaborations with faculty and students from the units in question will remain strong, even if they are located outside the College.

 

The CCR also refers to falling salaries within the college. Formulas for part-time fixed-term faculty were reduced by 10% to parallel General Fund reductions in the budget crunch of 2003-04. Otherwise, salaries continue to rise for faculty and TAs and we remain competitive with other institutions, especially given the lower cost of living in mid-Michigan. I agree with the report in its assessment that these issues are not peculiar to MSU but can be found in most major research universities across the country. (Please see the recent report on the state of humanities education issued by the AAU: “Reinvigorating the Humanities: Enhancing Research and Education on Campus and Beyond,” April 22, 2004.)

 

Finally, before addressing specifics in CCR Final report, it may be helpful to summarize the role that colleges serve within the administrative structure of a university. As vital links between the university as a whole and its diverse departments and schools, colleges:

 

1. provide a home and identity for units with similar academic interests and goals;
2. provide leadership and advocacy for these interests and goals to internal and external audiences;
3. are of a size that encourages programmatic and budgetary risk-taking;
4. have budgetary autonomy with funds allocated or earned;
5. offer centralized professional services where economies of scale obtain (research support, student affairs and advising support, computing support, personnel and staff support, communication and public relations support);
6. provide intermediary reviews and recommendations for the Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion (RPT) process and annual merit increases;
7. house interdisciplinary programs;
8. provide curricular oversight;
9. set common graduation requirements as agreed to by all degree programs within the College;
10. disseminate information;
11. provide regular forums for idea sharing among chairs and faculty;
12. provide representation to university committees as required by governance;
13. stimulate research and teaching innovation; and
14. mediate to solve problems where those problems cannot be solved at the unit level (e.g., student complaints)

 

Areas that are the joint responsibility of the colleges and the broader university include:

 

1. liberal education;
2. general education;
3. verbal and quantitative literacy;
4. international studies and study abroad;
5. teacher education;
6. research collaborations;
7. graduate education; and
8. much interdisciplinary programming.

 

At this point in the reorganization discussion it is important to determine which of the areas outlined here can be improved and strengthened by greater attention and stronger advocacy within current college structures, which by new or merged colleges, which by hybrid models within colleges, and which by assigning responsibility and advocacy to new intermediary structures between the colleges and the university. In determining this, we must consider whether the university might be able to achieve optimal outcomes by attending to the current infrastructure rather than by devising new structure.

 

Points of Concurrence with the CCR Report

 

1.      I take the position, as does the CCR report, that the objectives of strengthening liberal education at MSU must be sought in a way that presents as little organizational disruption to faculty life as possible. Faculty energy and time are best invested in scholarship and teaching and in the exploration of new programming, basic and collaborative research, and curricular innovation. Unless significant benefits are likely, faculty time and energy should not be directed toward implementing major structural changes.

 

2.      As one considers these options, and in light of current demands on faculty, staff, and administrative time, I strongly urge that no new committee or new administrative position be proposed that does not eliminate a similar one or reduce a commensurate amount of faculty and staff time now spent on administrative tasks elsewhere.

 

3.      Similarly, I strongly urge that no new administrative, governance, or consultative structure be proposed that is likely to slow or unnecessarily complicate decision-making at the university. We must balance the ability of administrators to make responsive and timely decisions with the advantages of responsible consultation, collaboration, and inclusion in the decision-making process.

 

4.      I concur with the CCR’s observation that reinvestment in the arts and humanities is critical if we wish to revitalize the liberal arts and sciences at MSU. I believe that the objectives of the CCR report cannot be met merely with structural changes; nor can they be met if further erosion of funds available to the arts and humanities occurs. University and major donor commitment to reinvesting in the arts and humanities (and to liberal education in general) are the sine qua non to further progress. While the College is prepared to pursue aggressively external funding through donors, contracts, grants, and foundations, the arts and humanities at all research-intensive universities rely heavily and primarily on general fund dollars to support their fundamental mission.  (Please see the discussion in the AAU report referenced above, pp. iv-v.)

 

5.      Similarly, interdisciplinary collaboration will be successful only if the fundamental needs of the arts and humanities and liberal education in general are met first. As Mackie Messer sings in Bertolt Brecht’s Three Penny Opera: “Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral” (people must have the basic necessities for survival themselves before they will begin to think about the general welfare of others). Faculty in Arts & Letters continue to engage in good faith discussions to determine the nature of those fundamental needs ( i.e., what is required to provide quality education in college programs) and what constitutes a vital liberal arts offering to the university’s students. As observed repeatedly in the CCR report, such determinations must be faculty driven and not superimposed by administrators or external committees at the department, college, or university level. Curricular change and the refocusing of faculty expertise, research, and curricular values are far more likely to succeed in a climate of optimism and reinvestment than in one of retrenchment, where faculty are called on to do more and more with less and less or to live with conditions that demoralize and distress. 

 

6.      I concur with the CCR report when it links decisions on college reorganization to decisions on general education and the new residential program. These decisions are connected in significant and intricate ways, and no single issue may be viewed independently of the others. If sufficient curricular connections exist between the new residential program and faculty in the arts and humanities, as I expect they will, I strongly encourage the university to locate that program within a college where current faculty expertise and dedication to the areas of study exist --either in Arts & Letters or in FAHS--as recommended by the CCR. I share the concern that investments made in the residential program could unnecessarily and adversely affect arts and humanities departments if the investments are fully independent of them. I have written to you on this issue earlier in my response to the NRCPPC report on November 30, 2004 and ask that remarks contained there be referenced.

 

7.      Similarly, the restructuring of general education must be undertaken within a context that provides students with an effective and engaging introduction to different ways of thinking and to the different cultural traditions of the world that also strengthens the broader mission of liberal education at the university. In recognition of that context, the limited charge of the general education task force to make recommendations on increased centralization of the enterprise should be expanded to the reassessment of the philosophy and delivery of general education at MSU. The three core deans have begun discussing ways to better convey the value of general education to our students.  This involves communicating this value more effectively, curricular packaging (students choosing courses from thematic groupings across the centers) and more varied instructional models.

 

Specific Issues and Actions Involved in Revitalizing the Arts and Humanities

 

1.      Inter- and Multi-Disciplinary Programs: Faculty in the arts and humanities actively pursue curricular and research collaborations with faculty from around the university. Much of this activity has been stimulated and given added visibility and validity locally by the reorganization discussion. Like collaborations with other colleges that aim to strengthen and enhance core disciplinary offerings, support for inter- and multi-disciplinary initiatives--such as women’s studies, American studies, museum studies, ethics and development, bio- and medical ethics, information studies, cognitive science, all ethnic studies programs, film, design, “creative incubators,” second language studies, and global literary and cultural studies-- is most productive when traditional disciplinary fields also profit from that investment. In most instances, research and teaching in these areas are now well integrated in the disciplines and are no longer marginalized. Faculty are recognized and rewarded for accomplishments in these areas. Alongside the simple presentation of knowledge in relevant and contemporary ways, inter- and multi-disciplinary initiatives stimulate creativity and innovation, especially when differing methodologies, scholarly traditions, and material converge. They also provide our students with unique skills and experiences that prepare them for a wide range of career opportunities. Arts and humanities faculty are engaging faculty in other fields in all areas mentioned to form better partnerships for research and curricular collaboration.

 

In addition, I will be meeting with the deans of those colleges with faculty actively engaged in interdisciplinary programs to discuss plans to contribute to long-term SS&E budget stability for these programs. We must also encourage the modification of existing disciplinary courses, where appropriate, so they may be cross-listed with interdisciplinary program subject codes and increase the number of faculty with joint assignments with interdisciplinary programs. It is important that we establish more formal and routine means by which interdisciplinary program directors provide feedback to home units so that faculty can be recognized for their participation and their work evaluated in the context of annual salary and Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure decisions. Finally, as long as disciplinary units are stable, the College advocates the assignment of faculty lines to inter- and multi-disciplinary initiatives that will be filled, after negotiation with departments, with tenure system appointments in the collaborating units. The model for this approach has been successfully employed with Jewish Studies.

 

As long as agreements and customary procedures are in place to secure the long-term viability of inter- and multi-disciplinary initiatives, there is no particular advantage to arguing one reorganization option over another to promote them. The College believes that such agreements and procedures are readily at hand but need more articulation and visibility.

 

2.      Overcoming Roadblocks to Collaborative Work: The CCR report frequently alludes to difficulties faced by faculty in establishing collaborations with other units in curriculum or research. However, in my interactions with faculty from other institutions, I am regularly told that MSU seems exceptionally supportive of interdisciplinary efforts--much more so than their own institutions. Indeed, many faculty and programs at MSU are collaborating quite successfully across college borders. Of course, there are always ways we might increase interdisciplinary collaboration still further, but we should not lose track of the fact that we do this remarkably well already. When problems do occur here, their source is largely independent of university structure or organization. Experience shows that where difficulties exist, they reside primarily in personal differences among the parties, lack of proximity, financial issues, or lack of communication. Two possible actions that may help:

 

·        Collaboration is slowed by requiring consultation from infrequently meeting committees. MSU could streamline the process by utilizing electronic communication techniques more effectively.

 

·        Quite often university metrics drive competitive rather than collaborative behavior regarding productivity. Administrators must refrain from measuring unit success primarily by local SCH generation, numbers of majors, and research dollars generated and must instead moderate the negative impact of those measures on collaboration by utilizing others that demonstrate the value and significance of collaborative efforts by faculty and students.

 

3.      More responsive curricular collaboration: This is a complex issue, but again one that will not get better or worse through reorganization. Faculty must remain responsible for the curriculum, and our goal in curricular review at all levels must be better informed decision-making. This is especially critical when curricular initiatives span several colleges and cultures, each with slightly different educational values and objectives. The College of Arts and Letters is prepared to assist in the establishment of cross-college ad hoc curriculum advisory committees, staffed by select members of regular College and Department curriculum committees, to help promote more informed and speedier reviews, curricular innovation and cross-program cooperation and to head off misunderstandings and false expectations. Such advisory committees will be able to ensure timely reviews and approvals.

 

University metrics that reward protectionist generation of SCHs to the detriment of collaborations that might reduce SCHs for a particular unit, for example, should be modified in order to encourage collaboration. In general, metrics that tie funding with student enrollment must be balanced by metrics that tie funding with collaborative curricular endeavors.

 

Examples of curricular collaboration:

 

·        Arts & Letters faculty whose teaching, research, or outreach are broadly concerned with issues centering on design have begun working with other design faculty across campus to share curricular offerings and to determine other possible forms of collaboration. (see Attachment 1).

 

·        College faculty members are also engaged in discussions that are leading to mutually beneficial revisions to proposed new international studies degrees (see Attachment 2).

 

·        The Department of Philosophy is developing a cross-college specialization in Ethics and Development (see Attachment 3).

 

·        Second Language Studies has developed a collaborative curriculum for doctoral students in four College units.

 

·        Global Literary and Cultural Studies is currently engaged in a similar process at the graduate level, sharing courses and instructors.

 

·        Professional Writing has  established interdisciplinary masters and doctoral degree programs. These are poised to incorporate additional support from units and faculty in CCAS.

 

·        The Certificate in Humanities Computing has been providing instruction and workshops in both training in instructional technology for humanities graduate students across the board and the critical study of technology’s impact on our scholarly lives.

 

·        In light of History’s move to the College of Social Science, we are reassessing the usefulness of expressing degree requirements in terms of whether a course or program is within or outside a college (e.g. Arts & Letters) and seeking other descriptors to indicate the applicability of a course or program to an A&L major. This same approach is also encouraged when units seek faculty outside the College to serve on doctoral guidance committees or on departmental search or review committees. The important factor in selection should be appropriate expertise or the possession of relevant material or information rather than undue consideration of administrative boundaries.

 

4.      Reinvigoration of Programs especially noted in the CCR Report: As noted in the CCR report, each of the following programs has been especially hard hit by recent budget reductions and by declining faculty and staff morale.

 

• Classical Studies

 

• Areas within the visual and performing arts, namely Theatre, Art and Art History

 

• Religious Studies

 

• MSU Museum

 

Reorganization by itself will not suffice to help these units rebound. Instead, program faculty must continue to engage in frank discussion about each program’s future, based on their evaluation of student enrollments, student placement, faculty productivity, connectedness to other programs across the campus, and community engagement. The requisite reinvestment must be responsive to these faculty-led discussions.

 

Initial discussions have taken place with Classics faculty to assess ways to establish curricular collaborations that will strengthen and eventually reinstate the major.

 

In the case of Art and Art History the studio faculty are engaged in discussions with the cross-college design initiative and are prepared to assume major responsibilities for delivering gateway courses to that program. It is also reassessing how it delivers foundation and 3-D instruction to our students and evaluating the impact of requiring portfolios for admission to the major. The History of Art faculty are working on cross-departmental programming in visual literacy.

 

As part of the visual and performing arts core of the university, AAH, Theatre, and Music continue to seek ways to collaborate with one another and with the Wharton Center to make the best use of faculty and resources and to offer integrated as well as more traditional artistic experiences for our students and the broader community. I concur with the CCR Report that these programs are “irreplaceable . . . The performing and visual arts must be a center of excellence at the university in order for liberal education in all corners of the university to flourish.”

 

Reassessment of the cuts affecting curatorial services in the MSU Museum must be undertaken as well as the effectiveness of administrative oversight now in place. Strategic planning must be finalized that maintains the strong cultural research and outreach component of the Museum mission and attends to a more integrated and vital research agenda, grant program, and instructional application for the natural science collections.

 

5.      On-going Cross-College Collaborations:  Well-established cross-college, collaborative initiatives have prospered under the current structure and I expect their viability will increase as the university encourages and rewards such initiatives. The following list of examples of such initiatives is illustrative but not exhaustive:

 

·        Teacher training in the arts and humanities in collaboration with the College of Education and as freestanding graduate programs;

 

·        Ethnic studies areas (African and African American Studies, American Indian Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies, Asian American Studies), whose teaching and research emphases range from analysis of social status and change to the literary and artistic expressions of these communities;

 

·        The interdisciplinary areas of women’s studies, religious studies, American studies, Jewish Studies, museum studies, language studies, and film studies;

 

·        Cognitive science, including faculty from the College of Social Science, the College of Human Medicine, the College of Osteopathic Medicine, Engineering, and Communication Arts and Sciences;

 

·        Bioethics, in partnership with the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences;

 

·        Writing Across the Curriculum efforts as led by the Writing Center;

 

·        Research collaborations with the ISP area studies centers;

 

·        Writing course development and staffing for the MSU College of Law

 

·        Peace and Justice Studies, including faculty from the College of Social Science, the College of Education, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, among others.

 

6.      Developing Cross-College Initiatives: Other new collaborative initiatives have begun under the current college structure that connect faculty and students across the university in the following areas:

 

• A recent example of an initiative that has given rise to faculty/student identification and commitment is the new Global Literary and Cultural Studies Cluster. The idea for this initiative was generated by faculty with national reputations in their fields in partnership with students. The program, which received five-year start-up funding to do its work, includes faculty from four departments within Arts & Letters and, as a result of on-going discussions (e.g. with Anthropology), will soon expand to include faculty from several colleges. Members of the group are highly supportive of each other and are engaging in collaborative teaching and research; their early success is already being mentioned across campus as an example of innovation and opportunity. This initiative was prompted by the reorganization discussion but arose and can thrive within the current college structure.

 

• Second language studies, including speech science faculty in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences.

 

• Technical and digital writing, including faculty in the College of Education, the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, and the College of Social Science.

 

• Practical ethics (including medical ethics, bioethics, and a major new initiative in the areas of agriculture, natural resources, and ethics and development).

 

• Design, potentially including faculty from the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Engineering, and the College of Social Science (see Attachment 1).

 

Commentary and Critique of Option IV FAHS

 

1.      The Nature of FAHS: While the CCR’s sketch of a “Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences” seems to address many of the structural questions that the reorganization process has set out to remedy, (e.g., the Department of History containing both humanists and social scientists; the School of Music desiring organizational autonomy without the requisite funding or staffing to accomplish this; interdisciplinary programs that appear to be “stranded” between colleges), the philosophical rationale for the creation of the FAHS would have been persuasive if it had resulted in a comprehensive college of liberal arts and sciences. I find the uniqueness of the proposed structure troublesome. It would be possible to have a large hybrid unit, somewhat like a college, that provided new models for administrative interaction among units: a “head of faculty” overseeing units (not necessarily departments or schools), sometimes reporting fully to the head, sometimes not; some units having one budgeting model and one set of fund-raising expectations, others subsidized and dependent primarily on General Fund monies; some faculty being held to one standard for Reappointment, Promotion, and Tenure and salary increases, others held to another set. However, the management of such a unit may require even more infrastructure than is currently invested in the two colleges of Social Science and Arts & Letters combined. The CCR report stresses the importance of transparency in decision-making, but it is hard to imagine how faculty could easily understand their place and role in the proposed system vis-à-vis others given the complexity of their new unit.

 

The number of tenure system faculty in the new FAHS is impressive: 526 (Arts & Letters: 232, the College of Social Science: 294). The FAHS faculty would outnumber College of Natural Science faculty by more than 200 and would be 26 times larger than Nursing and 20 times larger than James Madison College. The disproportionate size might be justified if the college represented the main locus of liberal and general education at the university. However, additional supra-college structures (e.g. liberal arts and sciences council) would still be needed to provide a forum for the discussion of common issues across FAHS and the several other units involved in the liberal arts core.

 

Lastly, many of the administrative issues that underlie the CCR’s proposal of FAHS as one reorganization option can be addressed and have, in fact, already been explored within current college models. For example, Arts & Letters is studying a possible hybrid affiliation with a potentially independent School of Music. This hybrid model could provide Music with budgetary autonomy and a direct reporting line to the Provost while at the same time providing some essential services that are provided more efficiently at the large college level, such as administrative support for staff, personnel, computing, alumni, accounting, and reporting.

 

2.      Costs of Merging the College of Social Science and Arts & Letters into a FAHS: If one goal of colleges as administrative structures is to provide common identity for units with like academic interests, I agree with of the concern expressed in the CCR Report that this is not necessarily achieved with FAHS.  One can divide an “organizational pie” in a number of ways, each of which provides a sense of commonality and identity among faculty and students, each at a different level. We all are part of a large, international, public university. Within that university, some faculty feel they are part of professional education, others that they are part of the liberal education mission. At another level, faculty identify with a college that houses similar units. Still others identify with their department and discipline or research group. The creation of FAHS would require a shift in faculty identification beyond that provided by a liberal arts and sciences college, which is easily accommodated and understood. We would need to spend time thinking about and articulating the commonality that units within FAHS would share.

 

If another goal of colleges as administrative structures is to provide certain economies of scale and effective delivery of some services, it is difficult to see how the proposed FAHS would be an improvement on the structure already in place.  Given its proposed--and complex--organization, effective and efficient responses to departmental and program needs within FAHS would likely require the complement of staff currently in place in the two colleges. Managerially, with the increased complexity of subunit definitions and interrelations, governance, and budgeting models in the FAHS, the proposal appears to proliferate and complicate administration rather than reduce or simplify it. I do not support any move in such a direction. Further, the proposed FAHS in itself does not help consolidate the voice for liberal education at the university and additional supra-college structures would have to be established  to achieve that goal.

 

In short, I am not persuaded that the major structural change required to create the FAHS will result in benefits to faculty and students that cannot more easily be achieved (and with far less investment of time and energy) by providing the resources needed to enable the current structure to operate at its fullest potential. Through communication, good will, a new funding model, and policy modification, the current structure can well serve all needs. I agree with the CCR observation that Option II “places attention on the actual mechanisms for improvement of liberal arts and sciences, rather than hoping for the more indirect improvements that might be gained through reorganization.”

 

Responses to Other Areas of the CCR Report

 

1.      The Nature of Supra-College Cooperation in Liberal Arts and Sciences: The CCR report recommends that a sub-group of deans responsible for liberal education meet regularly to assess progress, problems, and opportunities. It also recommends a “faculty oversight committee” in conjunction with option II (a similar committee would be necessary with option IV, expanded slightly to include the College of Natural Science). This “oversight committee” makes most sense in the form of a select advisory group to the liberal arts deans and could be composed of select members of each College Advisory Council. Advising the deans and reporting annually to the faculty on the status of liberal education at the university would become part of the charge of each relevant College Advisory Council and members of the select advisory group. I do not support another governance committee that must deliberate on proposals before they can be adopted by Academic Council.

 

2.      Advocacy for Liberal Education; Subgroup of Core Deans: The College is supportive of this sensible approach to greater collaboration among deans of colleges directly involved in the provision of liberal education courses and programs. The deans of Natural Science, Social Science, Arts & Letters, James Madison, and Communication Arts and Sciences all have an immediate interest in general and liberal education and should meet regularly as a subgroup of the Council of Deans to guide the development of policy and to monitor implementation in these areas. This subgroup would appropriately include the Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Education. I believe that a multi-dean group working in conjunction with the Assistant Provost will provide stronger advocacy within the university and in the broader community for liberal education than could a single dean invested with this responsibility.

 

3.      Unit and Program Identity: Within the context of the flexible structures of Option IV, the CCR report stresses the value of unit and program identity and the advantage of faculty assuming a variety of identities as they fashion their careers. I agree that the university should provide faculty and students alike with numerous opportunities to find strong academic homes in which they can be proud and with which they can strongly identify. The strength of units and programs and faculty/student desire to identify with them have much to do with a) professional reputation, b) financial stability and autonomy, c) size, d) a unit culture that is welcoming, friendly, optimistic, and intellectually curious, e) the degree to which faculty and student voices determine unit or program profile, and f) attention paid to them in university publications and by off-campus media. All features need to be attended to at various levels, but most are fully independent of a unit’s position in university administrative organization.

 

4.      Self-Determination of Units to Change Colleges or Become Independent: There are many reasons to review carefully and in advance requests of units to change college affiliation or to become independent. Academic governance is silent on these matters, and it would be wise to devise procedures to address such requests. Such requests should be evaluated on their intrinsic merit, long-term benefits for the unit and the colleges, and the integrity of institutional structural identities. It is important that the list of college functions (p. 4) are seriously considered in decisions regarding unit relocations that affect the integrity the arts and humanities at Michigan State University and their ability to enjoy a common identity and strong administrative advocacy.   

 

5.      Shaping a residential experience in the liberal arts and sciences focused on global and comparative arts and humanities informed by social science research and within a universal context provided by the natural sciences: (Please refer also to my earlier response to the NRCPPC Report, November 30, 2004.)

 

·        Encourage departmental curricular collaboration with the Residential Program curriculum as it develops;

 

·        Encourage current Arts & Letters faculty whose career goals are compatible with the Residential Program curriculum  and mission to apply for full-time appointments there;

 

·        Encourage reasonable joint faculty appointments or assignments between arts and humanities departments and the Residential program;

 

·        Adopt the principle of breaking down barriers to collaboration and innovative programming if and when they emerge.

 

Conclusion

 

In sum, let me applaud the CCR for advocating a reinvigoration of the arts and humanities at Michigan State University.  This can be done by strengthening their basic mission and through increased and active connectivity across the arts and humanities disciplines, the natural and social sciences, and the professional schools, all in the service of our university mission.  Recommendation 4 in the recent AAU Report on “Reinvigorating the Humanities” states that universities “should provide flexible structures for interaction and collaboration across humanities disciplines, and among the humanities and the social and natural sciences and the professional schools,” mirroring the CCR findings and recommendations perfectly.  The devil will be in the structural details of how to break down barriers to faculty and student interaction across the university, to curricular collaboration, and to collaborative research initiatives (much of which has simply to do with sorting and sharing information in a increasingly complex and information-rich world).   Faculty and units must be rewarded for collaborative work. 

 

The College of Arts & Letters will respond aggressively to initiatives where it can play a vital role in furthering the broad interests of the university in meeting its mission. I am  fully committed to vigorous arts and humanities education and research at Michigan State University leading to skilled professionals, better decision-making, and a better quality of life with the greatest possible impact on our disciplines, on our students, and on the broader community.

 

 

 

 

 

Patrick M. McConeghy

Acting Dean, College of Arts and Letters

January 28, 2005