Comments on: A skeptical audience for restructuring

By: GWP

GWP — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:22:04 +0000

For those who missed it, a fifth town hall meeting as been added to the schedule:

Tues., Sept. 22 4:00-5:00pm 1106 Mechanical Engineering
Wed., Sept. 30 4:00-5:00pm 180 Science Hall
Thurs., Oct. 1 4:00-5:00pm 1345 Health Sciences Learning Center
Wed., Oct. 14 12:00-1:00pm Ebling Center, 1st Floor, Microbial Sciences
Friday, Oct. 23 1:00-2:00pm 3650 Humanities

(To access 3650 Humanities, cross the pedestrian bridge over Park Street.
Turn right through the open area of the building. Immediately on the left
is room 3650.)

I think it is telling that only this belated addition appears to invite participation and feedback from our colleagues in the humanities who have at least as much at stake as anyone in the restructuring issue. The inferrence by many I have talked to is that the original “oversight” was either calculated or at the very least egregiously tone-deaf. Are there other possible explanations? If so, please share them here.

By: DTT

DTT — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:51:27 +0000

The posts above are right on. The provost has not made a compelling case for this change. One other thing that is disturbing is that sense of uppermost urgency; the provost indicates that this problem must be addressed now and we cannot afford to wait years. As was pointed out above, the process DOES matter. If this is so urgent, then the administration must provide evidence to the faculty, perhaps the ad hoc group or the faculty senate, but preferably to all of us, and allow us our voice. That is our right, as part of the shared governance of this great university.

By: Gregory Tripoli

Gregory Tripoli — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:50:55 +0000

I believe that our current structure is the secret to what has made our University a great research institution and that it would be a grave mistake to undermine our system with the proposed changes. Graduate education is about research and research is leveraged by graduate student participation. Together, and unabated by the bureaucracy and politics of the schools and undergraduate education process, we have been able to build many of the finest centers of research in the world and produce disproportionally large numbers (compared to many other institutions) of leaders over a wide breadth of disciplines. At the same time, our undergraduates have not only been given the opportunity to learn about the current state of the art from the perspective of those who are defining that state, but to also become aware of how that state is changing and the culture of and joy and satisfaction received by those who institute that change.

This all happens, because at the UW, research and graduate student education are treated as the symbiotic partners that they truly are. They are partners motivated by a common culture of innovation, growth and leadership that supersedes the politics of the moment and those of the basic education process. This enthusiasm bred in the culture of the Graduate School infects the other schools and colleges is a magical way…don’t ruin it!

By: Kirsten

Kirsten — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:03:27 +0000

I agree that the presentation wasn’t convincing. The problem wasn’t identified well, and the solution doesn’t seem to match the problem – which makes me think there’s something else going on here. I hate to say it, but this looks an awful lot like a power grab by the central administration.

The Graduate School has been very successful in many ways, and if some aspects of research funding management need to be streamlined, I don’t see any good reason that it can’t happen within the Graduate School. At the very least we should really explore that avenue before talking about breaking it up.

By: Lydia Zepeda

Lydia Zepeda — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:28:40 +0000

At yesterday’s forum, three things were clear:
1. a decision has already been made to implement this new structure
2. no data was collected and no analysis done to support this new structure
(anecdotes are not data and “thinking it over” is not analysis)
3. there would be a significant shift in resources to support this new structure

One would expect such a structural change would have to stand up to at least the scrutiny that any grant proposal would:
1. provide evidence (not anecdotes) to support the hypothesis, ie the change in structure
2. provide a budget and budget rationale that clearly shows the proposed work can be done.

By: A Concerned Student

A Concerned Student — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:03:02 +0000

I attended the Town Hall yesterday too. What struck me most, and what some speakers hit on immediately, was the seeming failure of the Provost to present the audience with evidence of due diligence concerning the SOURCE/SOURCES of the ‘cracks’ in the current organizational structure. The Provost did elaborate on the negative outcomes we have seen in the past six months that GWP noted above. However, the cause/causes for those problems are NOT AT ALL CLEAR.

I do not believe the Provost provided ANY EVIDENCE to suggest that the current structure (whereby the research and graduate education missions are administered through one individual, the Dean of the Graduate School) is directly responsible for those outcomes. There are clearly bottlenecks present in the current organizational structure, but those must be ascertained and diagnosed first, before prescribing treatment – particularly one as harsh as an amputation such as this.

Mr. Provost – I kindly remind you that correlation does not mean causation.

By: DRW

DRW — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:16:20 +0000

GWP has done a good job of capturing the mood and concerns presented yesterday by faculty. I attended both of the town meetings. The powerpoint presentation at the second meeting was changed since the first to address some of the concerns presented at the first meeting. It came across as lip-service. Provost DeLuca gives the AAALAC compliance example of the new WIMR building to address rodent research concerns at the Med School. It sounds like it was a Med School problem, not a campus problem. Biosafety compliance came under FPM. Why is the grad school being singled out when the problems existed in other divisions?

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:25:28 +0000

You are exactly right: PROCESS matters. How and whether we have adequate opportunities to shape any restructuring is critical. This thing looks like it got way too far before having real input from a broad group.