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Scott and Laura initiated our conversation about the "tightope of faculty support" today by asking us to write answers to four questions:

• What aspects of the college are "academic"?
• What roles do faculty and staff each play in advancing the academic mission of the college?
• How can faculty and staff work together to help the college face academic challenges of the 21st century?
• What barriers might exist for this work and how can we remove them?

The discussion which followed was wide-ranging:

• Most spaces on campus "qualify"; most are "crucial"; Information Servies is "foundational" to the academic mission of the College
• what do we mean by "academic"? is that distinct from "adminstrative"? (=the "back of the house"?)
• can we presume that everyone here "cares about learning"? that we could all make more money elsewhere, but stay because of our commitment to education?
• from a student's point of view, not just what happens in the classrom, but "everything is educational"
• this is about acquiring life-long learning skills
• is the "merely academic" about conversations that "don't really matter," that "don't have consequences"?
• aren't we all "information architects"?
• isn't the educational mission founded and grounded on services provided by staff?
• we have to acknowledge reality: there are tiers in this (as in all) institutions; there are also loyalties to departments and fields that trump any commitment to the College
• a particular challenge for staff is offering support to faculty, who do not want to be taught
• what are the assumptions each of us works under?
• within the faculty realm, there is a hierarchy of primary courses (in the major and in one's speciality) and then there are "service" courses (aimed at non-majors)
• what is the hierarchy connoted by "Information Services"?
• according to Frederick Rudolph's 1990 history of The American College and University, faculty were once hired "in a service mode" (to teach and be moral models); then they organized/got themselves some faculty governance, and so created a status for themselves as researchers/developers of knowledge/entrepreneurs/independent contractors
• they came to understand themselves as "housed in the institution," but "doing their own research"
• this is the dominant model for Research-1 institutions: faculty who see themselves as independent workers contracted with the institution
• is this contrast in cultures problematic? i.e. staff see themselves in partnership roles with faculty, who see themselves as entrepreneurs?
• how far can the staff go in creating value for itself? (what happens when the word "union" is mentioned on campus?)
• is there a limit to the "entrepreneurial" quality of faculty? (for ex: the current plan to end the graduate program in Russian second language learning?)
• compare the way a state school thinks about its students as "customers" and its mission to serve the state (or its underrepresented minorities)
• is Bryn Mawr student-centered? faculty-centered? (no one suggested that it is staff-centered....)
• what are we offering for $40,000/year? an engaged environment where each individual student matters?
• can we imagine an environment in which all Bryn Mawr is responsible for your learning (in which a class senses itself as being supported by everyone on campus)?
• staff often feel as though they are "left guessing" @ what faculty need and want: it does not "feel like a collaborative process"
• is this a cultural issue? a communication issue?
• is this a contradiction of cultures? of entrepreneurs vs. a community that is trying to support them in the work that they do?
• is such tension tenable long-term?
• we are neither an R-1 institution or a teaching college; what niche do we fill?
• we are but one of a few "hybrids," trying to combine teaching with producing new knowlege
• can we create a "culture of respect" in the midst of this "culture of "anxiety," where so many faculty feel that we are "living on the edge" as we trying to produce new knowledge? a
• wrapped up in our own microcosms, can we seek out opportunities to meet others?
• can we make more opportunities for sharing our "back stories," about where we come from, who we are, and why we are here?
• how can we build on this series to change BMC's culture?