"Seeing through Different Eyes": A Series of Conversations, Spring 2008

Diane Craw opened our conversation this week by describing the lessons she learned as the staff representative on the presidential search committee. As the single representative of the largest permanent constituency on campus, she at first felt isolated; because of the committee's confidentiality agreement, she could not talk with any of the staff members she was representing. She had high praise for the way in which the chair of the committee "didn't let people hide," but made sure that every member contributed. In contrast, Diane was asked no questions by the candidates themselves. The process worked very well, overall, because all the members of the committee could see the outline of clear goals and expectations up front, and then were flexible in adjusting and asking for input.

Liz McCormack explained that, along w/ one staff representative, there were 7 trustees, 4 faculty members, two students and a chair on this committee. Drawing on the arguments of a book called The Fifth Discipline, which looks at organizations as learning communities that can "generate their own evolution," she said that this group worked together up front to be flexible and responsive. Their initial task, writing a description of the position, was a clarifying, collective digestion of a wide range of imput, and served as a perpetual reminder of their organizing principles and collective understanding. The group also came to know one another during informal meals together, which helped them break down pre-conceptions and see beyond official roles and tiles; they made a commitment, too, to show up to all of the meetings.

Liz offered two examples of this responsiveness. The first one had to do with community frustration about the infrequency of communication from the committee; they were strongly criticized, first by a student reporter and then @ a faculty meeting, for not making the selection process more transparent. As a result, they needed to adjust their assumptions about how effective and satisfying their reports were to the campus as a whole. The second example of how well the group functioned occurred when one member found herself struggling with her constituency; the committee acknowledged that this was a problem for them all, so they all attended an extra meeting with that constituency.

Diane and Liz then asked the group to speak about their own experiences in times of change: what are the sources of anxiety or fear, and what can contribute to a shared sense of trust? It was suggested that "if there is an elephant around the table, it should be named": perhaps a conversation that appears to be about one thing--for example, a question about procedure--is really about another high level emotion that is not being acknowledged; the community member might not even be aware of the real source of her emotion. How can we work with such a dynamic?

There is of course always the challenge of communication--of information that is "put out there, but not seen." There was some debate over whether laying out "principles and practices" (with regard to the revision of the graduate program, for instance), and then asking individual programs to meet those goals, is "landing well." It was noted that these principles have not been circulated to staff, which certainly has contributed to fear, mistrust and rumor. Who is responsible for making such communications?

It is the nature of change that we will fear it (although we learned a few weeks ago that IT people assume change in a way that librarians--for instance--may not); but must mistrust be part of the process? How can we assure that everyone shares expectations about a good, collective vision? How can we get folks to participate early in the process, when there is time for real discussion to take place? What about the problem of raised expectations: if someone is invited to participate, they expect that their concerns will be addressed, and this is not always the case.

But is it really effective to define outcomes and then work backwards? It was asked whether having "shared goals and a flexible process of meeting them" really addresses the diversity of aims in this community. There is in all educational settings a tension between structure and freedom, between autonomy and integration, between mainstream voices and those of the "outsider society." Othering always occurs; might it be that we do not--and cannot--agree on a mission?

Can we nonetheless learn to be better engaged? Might we do so, if we could count on influencing--if not determining--the outcome of a process? There is a theory that all organizations need people with overlapping skills. But sometimes we do not have a common--or even an overlapping--language for our many different worlds. And then there is the "human nature side": how can we help one another set aside ego, and learn some humility? It was suggested that family gatherings often work best when there is "a guest at the table," who calls out our better behavior!

We stopped with many ideas still unexpressed. We also ran out of time before we were able to take on the task Diane and Liz had hoped to facilitate: constructing a memo to the leadership on campus. What form might such a memo take?

And what further steps might we take--and tasks might we take on--as we end this year's worth of conversations about taking risk from a variety of different positions?

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?

We began this week's discussion by describing the various ways "we locate Bryn Mawr": as a city on the hill, near the train station, by memory, in a suburb near Philadelphia, in an enclave outside the city, in relation to our homes and the "other campus," in comparison to the status of other small liberal arts colleges in the country, in a great public school district, in an area with a boring history (and a dull present?), "at the end of the sidewalk" (it's "a deathtrap for pedestrians"!). Then we compared our own descriptions with those locations provided on the internet by services such as AAA: "mid-Atlantic states," "middle states," and the "northeast section" of the country. It was noted that we are an "uncompassed campus"; that is, none of the buildings are orientated towards the directional markers of north, south, east or west.

Zeroing in, we were then asked what associations we had for four specific buildings on campus: Taylor, Ward, Guild and Wyndham. These buildings "cover the campus," geographically, and represent the range of services offered here--administration, facilities, computer access and hospitality. Our associations evoked many other dimensions of campus life, including some of the tensions between "being seen from the outside, and how it feels on the inside." Looking @ "how we felt" when we entered each building evoked the full spectrum of power and hierarchy that operates on this campus. Our discomfort with being served in one location, compared with our comfort in asking for service in another, revealed something about how each of us thinks we "know our place" on campus. When can we ask others for their expertise, and when do we hesitate to do so, thinking that we should be able to handle the problem ourselves?

Where do we feel most uncomfortable? In which of these buildings do we ask ourselves, "what do I do next?" In which of them has "the building been replaced by relationships"? When "what goes on in the building is working," that work may actually be invisible to us. But sometimes our assigned roles get blurred. This may be a good thing, part of a healthy re-envisioning of ourselves as a community. But then who is really the administration here? Who is serving whom? When are we paying, in real costs or a social price, for that service? What might it mean to be a facilitator who can bring different sorts of people together in these spaces?

How much does our origin determine how we see the campus? Do we assume that others see it the way we do, or do we assume that we all come from different worlds? Our accents are another way we locate one another, not just geographically, but in terms of race and class; academics often distinguish themselves by the "lack of accent." How might we re-draw the "conceptual maps" each of us has of the campus?

The conversation concluded with a cool visual representation of the space where we were meeting, Dalton 212, seen from a variety of increasingly-distant levels: in the building, on campus, in the township, in the state, in the region, in the country, on the globe, in the universe. How might we use these aides to re-envision this space, to recreate the campus as one where we might all be comfortable, and make others comfortable as well?