A long standing frustration of mine is how professors in higher education knuckle under the the browbeating of administrators. Whenever someone tries participitory democracy and gives voice to concerns about how the campus community impacts quality of education and work life, colleagues sit in uncomfortable silence waiting for the meeting to be over while administrators chant the mantra that "a college is a business." The habitual compliance with whatever administrators consider is "good for business" is what college students learn through observation. This learning is evident in low voter turnout among young college grads, poor critical thinking in the work place, and unsustainable habits of consumer spending.

That's my rant. What are your thoughts?

I have no inside track on administrator-faculty interactions. But I do have a son in college and, through his trials and tribulations with a few professors, he often hears the refrain "but this is policy." His father and I encourage him to pursue what he feels is right and he has met with some success. But, you are correct; there is little to no attempt to engage students in critical thinking, or (God forbid) discussion or debate. It's rather like the parent who says : "Just because I said so" rather than taking the time to explain the rationale and allow interaction.

I made the comment the other day that I regretted having told only one Dean to stuff it. In 1969
I took a job at one of the State Universities teaching Developmental Psychology and Individual
and Group Counseling skills. I still had my crew cut from the military and was a gungho
overachiever. After two years, my Department Head wrote a Grant to open a new Department
at the University level to help other professors write Grant Application. I became Department
Head. He took the special National Defense Education Act funds the Department was getting
to increase the number of Career Counselors and the Department Secretary and I ran the Department with student workers. The Department provided instruction for an undergraduate
Psychology Degree, all the ed.psy. and development psy. for the School of Education and Master's and Specialist Degrees in Counseling. The department was growing very rapidly but
the Grant Getting Department was taking all of our supplementary funds and budgets are
based on last year's enrollment figures. During this same peorid of time the drug problem
and student revolt was reaching the southern states big time. I helped the students organize a telephon crises center and getting it accepted generated some conflict for me. After struggleing aong with these conditions for three years, one day I found out that I was expected to teach a counceling skill practicum with 30 graduate students and the Dean had turned down my request to grant a one year extention for my very best instructors in the department because he had
not finished the requirements for a PH.D. I said, "Dean, you take this job and shove it!"

In the process of finishing an advanced degree and then getting tenure, there is an adaptation of keeping a low profile, developing a cronie network of stuffy colleagues, and publishing stuff that very few people read. Speaking up in faculty meetings or advocating for reforms and innovations, or making genuine connections with students puts a huge strain on these crony networks needed to get tenure or inveigle into an administrative role. Few administrators or Deans today have had that much teaching experience. They see themselves as enterprenuers or corporate managers. In this climate education becomes a process of jumping thru hoops to get credentials. The only vital sense of community on campus is the fleeting ambiance of partying and athletic participation.

But it Fu***** Doesn't Have to be this way...Nor Does K -12 have to stay the way that 70%
of it is!...Like in the Middle East, if the Extreme Christian Influence would back off a Bit, a
more balanced Social System could emerge, with less loss of Blood and Dollars to all concerned.
Learning Democracy is an Experiential Activity. One Teaches Democracy by Applying Democracy,
at the levels of:Self, Family, Community, State, National and International.A large part of this process may be mapped as Hiearchial Levels of Interpersonal Skills (Applied Concepts and Operations) Across Domains of Life Activities. If this (or some other) Model were made more explicit, it would be easier to Teach and Learn as a particular psycho-socio-eco-political
Ideology, to be compared with competing Models.

Sorry about overlooking this post for six months. Please pick out an alternative model and discuss why you think it might work.

By the way, I had a "shove it" talk with the Dean yesterday morning. Underscored all of the above, but especially lack of transparancy. Reading too much from the Audacity of Hope. Since the Dean's name is Hope, I gave her the book as a peace offering. Still working this morning. Got to go.