Our Journey, Day 66
It's day 66. I sat in on a department meeting at lunchtime yesterday. The historians and philosophers seem to be sticking together, hoping to form a four-person core of a new, larger humanities department that will probably include English, Political Science, and possibly Sociology/Anthropology. This grand consolidation of three colleges to two and 22 departments to half a dozen "schools" is designed to save costs: the Deans talked the administration down from 40-plus retrenchments to "just" 27 on the a promise they'd be able to trim at least $1 million by reducing department chair expenses. But there was also a hope that there would be a silver lining in the form of an increased ability to try new, interdisciplinary approaches to topics that had previously been hidden in separate "siloes". In the case of the history I typically taught, the anthropologist/sociologist also spent a lot of time teaching about decolonization and the perspectives of marginalized peoples, and we weren't even in the same college! We had chatted about the possibility of someday doing something together, but nothing ever came of it.
Of course, when people from different disciplines address similar topics, their approaches, ideas about emphasis and evidence, and methods can be quite different. This could be a source of creative energy or conflict, depending on how it is approached. And there are personalities involved too, as there always are, in academia! But in any case, if handled in a positive way, these searches for synergy and new ways of approaching students with interesting content. That could distract faculty (in a good way) from the inevitable anxieties over issues like how the new seniority rosters are going to be drawn and which former department holds the most power in these new "schools".
I can see ways these changes could be fun and exciting, if the faculty left next fall can become comfortable that they won't have to be constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop. It will depend a lot, I suppose, on how much progress they can make before the fall. It's not entirely clear the Deans' reorganization is even going to be successful, at this point. Rumor has it there's about 40% of the faculty that is supportive and actively engaged; 40% who are neutral and not engaged; and 20% who oppose it and are active trying to sabotage the effort. I'm curious what the reasoning of the opponents might be. I assume they have reasons, since they're presumably tenured faculty like the majority of the people who haven't been retrenched. Do they have an alternative they want to suggest? Are they just at a point where they're ready to burn everything down? I felt a little bad about how "salty" some of my early posts in this series were. But I never wanted to blow up BSU.
I'll be curious to see how this develops, and I'll report on it here. In the short run, I'll be missing another pair of reorganization meetings that the faculty senate and the Deans will be holding in a couple of weeks, because at the end of this coming week I'll be heading off to OE Global in Canada. That came up quick! I'll be carrying on with the morning posts while I'm there -- and I'll bring a better camera so the quality isn't as poor as the one I did while in Mankato!