When Faculty Are Seen as the Enemy
Attacking, Ignoring, Undercutting
Nobody disputes that these are hard times for higher education. Budgets are tight, programs are cut, positions are downgraded, tenure is put at risk. And, as I’ve written before, because there are similar issues across the entire enterprise of higher ed, it’s easy for administrators to point fingers at the school down the road or in the news and say “things are tough all over”.
I don’t want to overly romanticize what faculty life was like when I began my career in the early 80s. There was always a suspicion of faculty from administrators. In many cases, particularly for administrators who didn’t come out of academia, they just didn’t get it.
But it feels like things have gotten worse. Presidents are hired to be transformative leaders, often shorthand for cutting programs and whipping faculty into shape. And what was a lack of understanding of faculty starts to become outright antagonism.
Wednesday’s Chronicle of Higher Education1 told the story of Robin Capehart, president of Bluefield State in West Virginia, a historically Black institution. Like many smaller schools, especially HBCUs, it has had a struggle with finances and enrollment. Capehart identifies himself as “the Campus Maverick” (which is pretty weird when you are at the top of the organizational chart!).
Since he took over the financially struggling historically Black college in the mountains of southern West Virginia in 2019, Capehart has limited professors’ input into several major policy decisions, including new learning objectives and an overhauled post-tenure review process.
The university’s governing board, meanwhile, dissolved the Faculty Senate, and replaced it with an assembly subject to new rules and greater oversight from the president.
What makes the Bluefield story different is that Capehart had a public facing SubStack newsletter (no longer active). He used this public venue to attack a group of faculty members that he saw as “a small oligarchy.” He described them as:
“those individuals who are chronically miserable — and aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy.”
They “feel entitled to everything,” “don’t hold themselves accountable,” and are “ungrateful” for all of the good things happening at the university, Capehart wrote.
The faculty didn’t take kindly to these attacks and complained to the Higher Learning Commission2 about the breakdown of shared governance. Capehart blamed the long-term (and likely senior) faculty as having had their chance but who were now unwilling to deal with the changes necessary for long-term institutional success.
The Board backed the president, with the board chair saying
“If you share the vision, jump on board,”….“If you don’t, maybe consider moving to another college or university.”
Capehart’s opposition to faculty voice certainly doesn’t look like the historic idea of an institution of higher education, with faculty having control over academic matters. But perhaps Capehart’s background explains his maverick stance:
Like a growing number of college presidents, Capehart’s background is not strictly academic: He earned a law degree from West Virginia University and a master of laws from Georgetown University. For most of his career, Capehart was a prominent figure in the state’s political and legal establishment, including as secretary of tax and revenue from 1997 to 2000, chairman of the state’s Republican Party, and a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2004. (He finished third in a close primary.)
He is certainly the most egregious example I’ve seen of a president who doesn’t respect the faculty within his institution. But I fear he has much more in common with other institutional leaders. It’s just that he put his sentiments in writing.
I have to confess that I understand from whence his frustrations arise. I was the chief academic officer in two different private colleges. In both institutions, I had groups of faculty members who were suspicious of administration in general and change in particular.3
Sadly, I too often gave in to the temptation is treat those faculty groups as oppositional forces to be strategically managed and not as colleagues who cared about the future of the institution as much as I or the president did. Today in retirement I wonder how much stronger those schools could have been if I had seen them as the resources they were.
Higher Education is in a tough place and far too many want to blame faculty. Faculty are accused of indoctrinating young people, of blocking progress, of hiding behind tenure, and failing to make the changes necessary to improve the bottom line.
Meanwhile, institutions rely more and more on adjunct faculty. Not only are they cheaper and more expendable than full time tenure track faculty, but they really aren’t involved in governance and lack the long-term perspective that shared governance requires.
Tenure is under threat, often with the shibboleth that it protects faculty members who are uncooperative or incompetent. Legislators without educational credentials (and proud of the fact) make decisions making higher education more difficult.
All the while, administrators make decisions according to their own lights, leaving faculty out of the loop. Yesterday, Inside Higher Education reported on fallout from the amicable divorce at IUPUI. It’s not surprising that separating a joint venture over a half-century in operation would be difficult. What is surprising is that faculty members are the ones put at risk by the realignment.
Good administrators would have involved impacted faculty in a conversation about the implications before implementation. Unless, of course, those implications were intended and not unfortunate byproducts.
This pattern of seeing faculty as extraneous at best and enemies at worst seems to be part of the daily news in higher education. Whether we talking about the newest departures at New College of Florida or the bungled attempt to hire Kathleen McElroy at Texas A&M, the common pattern seems to administrators acting capriciously and leaving the faculty out.
When challenged, the administrators fall back on the same trope used by the Bluefield board chair — if you don’t like it, leave. Of course, any faculty member knows how tight the job market is, so they hold on a little longer. They hope things will improve, but there is little to substantiate that hope.
I’ve linked to a PDF of the story to get around paywall issues for readers.
As it happens, there won’t be a newsletter on Monday as I have an HLC visit.
I have heard it said that “faculty are those who think otherwise”.
Thank you for this article. I was a faculty member at Bluefield State under Capeharts Reign. His practices of no shared governance almost lost our HLC accreditation which would have shut down our institution. We provide an education to a largley underserved region. Without accreditation, we would have lost federal aid. So thanks to the faculty who fought tooth and nail to correct this tyranny, the University is still standing and moving toward a much much brighter future.
I understand the problem with administrators and their tendency for soul-less, bottom-line thinking. But faculty are not necessarily innocent. Where I (as a faculty member) draw the line is when the "oppositional" faculty are not fighting the fight for the students, or the institution, but for their own self interests. They want to teach the same courses in the same way they did 30 years ago, despite dropping course enrollment and mediocre evaluations. They don't want to do much research, which is reflected in the declining quality of their courses. They don't want to engage in college initiatives that students see as top priority (research, internships, travel, etc.).
It can actually be a good time for faculty in higher ed., if you are creative, innovative, engaged with the students, willing to think outside of the box, preserving what is good about higher ed. in a new and flexible manner. I've found that administrators are open to engaging and negotiating in this context. And the outcomes can be good when higher ed is not us versus them.