In April 2019, administrators at the University of Tulsa (where we’ve both taught for over 30 years) announced a floor-to-ceiling reorganization called “True Commitment.” The plan eliminated 40 percent of academic programs, most of them in the humanities and natural sciences. Technical and vocational programs such as accounting, computing, cybersecurity, and health sciences were identified as growth areas. Administrators also sought to replace academic departments with “divisions” organized around fashionable topics, create a large general-education curriculum for freshmen, and combine the business school, law school, and health-sciences school into a single “professional super college.” The reorganization plunged the university into chaos.
The “reimagining” of higher education taking place at the University of Tulsa is part of a nationwide trend away from a traditional understanding of education — one that emphasizes lifelong learning, the importance of the examined life, and the need for a discipline-based organizational structure — and toward professional training and skill certification that cater to the needs of businesses.
Even before Covid-19 accelerated the trend, small private institutions like Hiram College and McDaniel College announced that they were cutting the liberal arts, their stock in trade, while creating new programs in such areas as criminal justice, health science, and sports management. Larger public institutions, including the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, did the same. After Stevens Point said it would eliminate 13 programs, primarily in the liberal arts, enough faculty members resigned or retired that the university was able to “adjust” those programs in career-friendly ways rather than cut them outright. Last year the university introduced new undergraduate degrees in areas such as finance, graphic design, health sciences, and social work.
What follows are suggestions drawn from our experience — things we wish we’d known before the announcement of True Commitment. This information would have given our faculty, staff, students, and alumni a head start on efforts to prevent the enormous damage that an uninformed and ill-advised reorganization plan has inflicted on our university.
First and foremost, heed the warnings. It’s a bad sign if your president, your provost, or both create a task force to engage in a thorough curricular review, especially if its members are hand-picked and required to sign nondisclosure agreements. Pay attention to the language of top administrators. If they say that the institution must adapt to meet the “headwinds” presented by a rapidly changing economy and demographic challenges, and that they are looking for “thought leaders” who understand the shortcomings of “siloed departments” and are willing to make “bold” decisions that “reimagine higher education,” beware.
Even before those things happen, you should take pre-emptive action. Start an American Association of University Professors chapter. Create a faculty senate. If a senate already exists, ensure that administrators serve ex officio. Choose the members or officers of those bodies wisely. They should be respected individuals who are willing and able to defend higher education, properly understood, against an ostensibly more marketable but substantively hollow model.
Use the AAUP chapter and faculty senate to develop and follow a meaningful conception of shared governance, one in which faculty members have a substantial say in the selection of upper administrators and the determination of all matters affecting teaching and learning. Those bodies must act to ensure that there is transparency in the college’s use of education consulting firms; that faculty members are involved and are able to select their own representatives in any effort to change the college’s mission or curriculum; and that any proposed reorganization must be submitted to, and receive the imprimatur of, the faculty senate.
Do not neglect the board of trustees, which may not be legally obligated to consult the faculty on major decisions about academic matters. Boards should see the wisdom of consulting the faculty on the selection of their own members and leaders. Furthermore, trustees should not have potential conflicts of interest in performing their duties. The board must also include people with a background in higher education, and people who do not live in the same city as your institution.
Make every effort to educate all college stakeholders. Do not assume that they already understand the indispensability of a liberal education to maintaining the health of American democracy; the importance of robust departmental cultures organized around traditional disciplines; the reciprocal relationship that exists between teaching and research; or the practicality of imparting knowledge applicable across a range of occupations (as opposed to skills that are useful only to obtain a first job).
Don’t assume competence or good faith on the part of the administration or the board.
You also need to do your homework. Read your institution’s governing document on faculty rights and responsibilities. Research the process by which the faculty might organize and conduct a vote of confidence or no confidence in top administrators or the reorganization plan. Study the products that higher-education consulting firms make available to administrators. And keep an updated list of departmental alumni. Don’t rely on your development office to provide you with contact information for alumni.
Once the takeover attempt has begun, get organized and go public. Seek the aid of disciplinary associations and professional organizations such as the American Political Science Association and Phi Beta Kappa. Start an online petition against the reorganization plan. Establish a group of concerned faculty members to work in tandem with the AAUP chapter and faculty senate. Get student journalists to report on the situation. Start a social-media page where information on resistance and appeals for help can be posted. Write articles, op-eds, and letters to the editor, and post them to a website that will serve as a clearinghouse for all information critical of the reorganization effort. Create an alumni-for-responsible-reform website where graduates can vow not to recruit prospective students, and not to contribute to the college, until administrators abandon the reorganization plan.
Finally, don’t assume competence or good faith on the part of the administration or the board. Insist that any documents to which administrators refer as a justification for the reorganization be made available to the college community in their entirety. Anticipate that administrators may bring ethics charges against vocal critics of the reorganization effort; bully or intimidate vulnerable contract faculty members, students, and lower-level administrators who oppose the reorganization; attempt to co-opt student governance bodies; use the distribution of resources or the power of appointment to try to split the opposition; confiscate student publications that report information that is embarrassing to the administration or critical of the reorganization plan; and claim that faculty opponents of the reorganization are selfish and disloyal to the institution.
While faculty members, students, and alumni of the University of Tulsa have made some progress in pushing back against True Commitment, the leadership responsible for this debacle remains largely intact. Had we organized earlier along the lines indicated above, we would have stood a better chance of avoiding much of the damage our university has suffered. We would also be less worried that administrators might now use the pandemic to attempt further ill-advised reforms. So, learn from our experience and prepare. The future of higher education in this country depends upon it.