Speeches

Humanizing the University

I am honored to join you at Ohio State University today for the annual Lena Baily Leadership Lecture. Dr. Bailey was a kindred spirit who believed that "The greatest skill of a leader is human relations." My topic for today, humanizing the university, is about putting people first.

Humanizing the university, it turns out, is not an uncomplicated subject. Thus, in the interest of being politically correct, I have removed all controversial material from my remarks. So...thank you very much and good day.

I have been associated with universities, either as a student, faculty member, or administrator, for 33 years. I am fortunate as a university administrator to have the benefit of an academic background in family sociology and human development; this has perhaps given me a leg up on understanding the complexities of the interrelationships between work and people. My administrative posts have given me a platform from which to try making university settings more caring, more humane, more responsive to students and employees, and more productive.

Universities are microcosms of society, and as such, we have the opportunity to observe the range of human issues affecting society within our own workplace; conversely, we have extensive opportunities to be responsive to them.

Although there is an ample list of virtues that might motivate attention to such issues (benevolence, compassion, and magnanimity among them), let me also point out for the more bottom-line oriented that humanizing the university is good business.

Society today is growing increasingly impersonal. There was a time in history when one could reasonably expect to meet fewer than 100 people outside of your family in an entire lifetime. I know that some days, I meet more than 100 people in an afternoon. Typically, unless we live in very tiny communities, all of us will not know even casually the majority of people we meet in a given day.

Yet humans have an overwhelming need for the intimacy associated with personal contact. And for most of us, that comes from interactions at home or at work or at school. Most of us spend about half of our waking hours each week preparing for work, commuting to and from work, or on the job itself. Our students, ideally, commit a commensurate amount of their time to school work and extracurricular activities. That puts a heavy burden on universities to be responsive to our needs as humans and to have a campus environment that matches our needs as members of a learning community and as people.

There are a number of stressors that work against collegiality and humanity in the university: escalating expectations and competitiveness; increased litigiousness on the part of faculty, staff, students, and the public we serve; collective bargaining that sometimes puts us in adversarial roles; budget cuts and the occasional employee terminations and shifting workloads that result; oversight and accountability to government agencies, boards of trustees and taxpayers; and conflicting social agendas.

In contrast to such negative forces is the spirit of an institution -- the soul if you wish. This is the force that so often enables us to overcome obstacles and move forward. To the extent that all who are associated with a university care deeply about it, take ownership of a shared agenda, and take an interest in campus community life, the sum of what is accomplished together will far surpass any individual expectations.

Humanizing the university is an important means to this end. I wish to focus my remarks on four points of leadership in humanizing our institutions: the role of faculty; administrative policies and procedures; campus climate; and the academic agenda.

Faculty leadership

Nationwide, there is a conversation occurring about how to get faculty to be more actively involved with their universities. Many faculty members are really independent operators who are only marginally tied into the life of the university. Their allegiance is not to the institution for which they work, but to their discipline nationally and internationally, an orientation that tends to be reinforced by the academic reward structure. Hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions are based in the department or college, and the department's strongest frame of reference is its academic discipline viewed globally. This phenomenon, of course, can also be an impediment to fostering multidisciplinary and collaborative teaching and research.

An experience I had early in my presidency at Penn State illustrates this point. One of our deans called me, concerned that one of the college's best young faculty members, a rising star, was about to leave for another institution. "Please call and convince this person to say," the dean asked. I get such requests occasionally, and I always do as the dean asks. I invited the faculty member to meet with me. I can be persuasive, and I certainly tried to be here.

I learned that this recently tenured associate professor had an offer from a top-ten department, whereas our department at Penn State was currently ranked in the second ten. The salary was going to be the same, so that wasn't an issue. We had given a huge amount of support during the faculty member's tenure at Penn State, favorable teaching assignments, release time to get a research program going, and lots of nurturance and encouragement. No complaints. I then proceeded to hear an analysis of the comings and goings of the people in the field, an analysis of likely future ranking shifts due to retirements and hires, and other variables that reflected an undebatable, yet cold-blooded logic about academic hierarchies. The move was viewed as important to the faculty member's career, but the analysis gave me the chills.

By the end of our conversation, I was almost glad this person was leaving. Why? Because I found, in listening, no attachment to Penn State after eight years, no feeling of gratitude for all that departmental colleagues had done, no expression of emotional attachments to Penn State students - in short, no compelling reason to stay. The faculty member was, for all intents and purposes, unconnected to Penn State. The individual's psyche was attached only to the discipline, to a personal research agenda, to a national network of similarly situated colleagues.

Must this be viewed as an "either/or" struggle? I believe an allegiance to one's university, pride in a shared mission and stature, commitment to students, and loyalty to colleagues can be entirely compatible with standards of academic excellence, prominence as a scholar, and national recognition as a department. Balance is the key.

In finding that balance, faculty must be challenged in particular to get more involved in the lives of students. Our nation's research universities have spawned two faculties: those who do and those who don't - those who believe it is their responsibility to engage fully with each cohort of students and those who do not see this as their primary responsibility.

While there are many faculty who reach out to students outside of class, there also are many who have backed off for a variety of reasons ranging from time pressures to a negative reaction to the growing consumer orientation of their students to fears that taking a student for a cup of coffee or an ice cream cone might be seen as inappropriate contact. All legitimate concerns, of course. But we can do better in transcending these obstacles. Attending commencement, awards ceremonies and banquets, participating in student activities, and having lunch in the dining halls are some simple but meaningful ways to be supportive of students and involved in campus life.

The transformation of teaching now underway gives added impetus for faculty involvement with students. The increasing diversity of learners calls for greater sensitivity and responsiveness to individual differences in student needs. The expanding knowledge base and the new tools of information technology put increased emphasis on active and collaborative learning. More and more, learning takes place outside the classroom. Service learning is coming to the fore. With these developments, faculty must serve as facilitators, mentors, and coaches, roles that personalize the process of teaching and learning as never before. The quality of education our universities provide for the future will be highly dependent on this individualized attention.

Administrative Leadership

The leadership of the faculty has much to contribute to humanizing the university, especially for students but also for one another and staff colleagues. Yet the solution must be seen as a two-way street. Those in administrative positions must do a better job of assessing potential faculty and staff for their proclivity to become a larger part of the university community. We also must do more to reward such efforts and to make faculty and staff feel better connected.

There are dozens of ways to foster such ties: Orientation programs for new faculty, including social opportunities for them and their families; acquainting new faculty with each other and the communities of their state; human resource development programs; and faculty/staff clubs are some examples that come to mind.

Responsiveness to work and family needs also pays dividends in today's society. And that responsiveness pays off at all levels of employment, not just for specific groups of workers or particular genders. There is ample evidence, both anecdotal and supported by research, that family-sensitive employment practices increase worker morale, reduce absenteeism, promote teamwork, and help workers, particularly women, advance in their careers.

All workers need to be productive. It behooves the institution to maintain its investment in trained employees by keeping them on the job. It also helps the institution to have a well-deserved and well-known reputation as a good place to work. For example, I am able to cite dozens of cases where the institutions I have served have had hiring coups because of open, positive, and supportive university policies that were sensitive to the needs of dual career couples.

What are the barriers to family friendly policies? Part of it is lack of leadership. Those of us in administrative positions need to be advocates for these policies.

So what kinds of things can we do? First, such efforts must become an institutional priority. That's where leadership from the top is key. Universities and other major employers really must care about their employees, and they must want their employees to care about each other. And it's not good enough just to show that you care. We must be screening people when we hire them to ensure that we are hiring folks who are compassionate.

The hiring practices at institutions tend to focus solely on how rich a person's resume might be: the number of publications, the breadth of their prior experience, their potential as grant getters. These are, of course, very important matters. But the current generation of America's administrators have been schooled to steer clear of the personal.

I contend that it is not inappropriate to look at potential colleagues as people. We have been scared off from considering our future coworkers on a personal level. Frankly, when I hire someone, I consider carefully their ability to communicate, their openness, their interpersonal skills, and their warmth. In short, I want to know if they really care about people. There are ways to judge a person's level of commitment to others that are not intrusive nor violate hiring guidelines.

A second helpful strategy for administrators is to set a good example. Be human yourself. The advice in some books about how to be an effective university president, for example, is to set a royal tone. Be in command, they say. Be a bit aloof. Keep some distance. I just don't agree. This style may work for some people. It doesn't work for me.

As a president, I take my children with me to university athletic or arts events. I include my family in official university functions when it is reasonable to do so - or I might otherwise never see them!

I'm open to attending informal events of every imaginable variety. I am the Nittany Lion around campus on Halloween, play racquetball with anyone at the campus recreation center, and do magic shows for all sorts of campus groups. One way I got to know folks in my building when I first arrived at Penn State was to take donuts to a different office in the building each morning.

Be accessible. I have a published e-mail address. And believe me, I hear from just about everybody who has an account and an opinion. Yes, you might get run ragged from a few folks with frivolous complaints. But they aren't frivolous to them. As leaders we sometimes forget that some people in the bureaucracy tend to merely rubber-stamp the decisions made below. You may be an individual's last recourse. Sometimes you need to listen because no one else has. Timely responses are exceptionally important, even if the answer is "no" or "we will make a final decision later."

Most employees don't expect you to always agree with them; they just want to be heard. One word of caution: Don't be afraid to say "no" to an individual or group because they argue that compassion should dictate a decision favorable to their viewpoint. One must work from a set of principles that is broader than just compassion alone, and all decisions should follow from the question: What is in the best interest of the university?

Let me list briefly a few programs that may enhance the responsiveness to work-family demands within universities and other employment settings.

I've spoken already about programs that are responsive to the needs of dual-career couples. Successful programs have features ranging from assisting the spouse in looking for employment to temporarily hiring the spouse. Office space and library, computing and other privileges may be extended to help a spouse continue with his or her scholarship or to look for permanent employment. Because not all academics are married to academics, the best such programs reach out to other employers in the community.

Let me list just a few more family friendly options:

• Family leave policies.
• Employee benefits programs that are flexible and offer an array of items, including mental health benefits.
• Employee assistance programs.
• Tenure interruption policies.
• Flextime and holiday policies.
• Synchronizing the university calendar with the public school calendar.
• Twelve-month to nine-month conversions for office and managerial staff.
• Day care on campus.
• Employee tuition remission programs.
• Salary equity review programs.
• President's commissions on the status of women, racial and ethnic diversity, and sexual orientation equity.
• Administrative internship programs that bring junior faculty and staff into administrative positions where they can test drive whether administration is of interest to them.
• Diversity training and education.
• Administrative review policies that provide for more in-depth review of administrators at regular intervals, promoting accountability and self-study.
• Participation of faculty and staff in the annual reviews of administrators.
• Child-sensitive policies that allow children to attend events with their parents.
• Rethinking the approach to student services to make them more service-oriented and less daunting.

I think that universities should promote an environment that is sensitive to the interrelated demands of work and family. It's compassionate, good social policy, and good business. Changing demographics, declining resources, increased productivity demands, and changes in the way we do our work all have an impact on the workplace and the family. A number of programs can and should be implemented, some at very reasonable cost, to support our employees. We will all come out ahead.

Campus Climate

Campus climate has many dimensions, of which family friendliness and student centeredness are just two. I wish to mention two others that are of central importance to my theme. They both underscore that humanizing the university is not solely the responsibility of the administration or the faculty. Everyone has a role to play in creating an open, sensitive, understanding, and responsive campus environment.

The barriers of racism, sexism, sexual harassment, homophobia, and a level of intolerance in general toward people who are different call for leadership at every level of the university community. This intolerance can come from inside and outside the institution. I say with deep conviction based on more than twenty years in university administration: Do not underestimate the profound negative force these attitudes and behaviors can have on interfering with and eroding your ability to humanize a university.

The single most important key to opening the doors wider to all people is to create an environment in which everyone feels welcome. All members of a university community can promote greater understanding and work toward the goal of civility and acceptance of increased cultural diversity and sensitivity. While leadership at the highest levels is essential in articulating priority for this goal and putting appropriate policies and programs in place, the everyday actions of faculty, students, and staff are also true leadership efforts that establish the norm of openness we espouse for our university communities.

The other dimension of campus climate I wish to mention more broadly involves character, conscience, citizenship, and social responsibility among students. Promoting these qualities is among our most important educational objectives. Yet this is among the greatest challenges for higher education today.

No aspect of this challenge is greater than the problems associated with binge drinking. Surveys have adequately demonstrated that excessive alcohol consumption has become normative among university students. There are unmistakable consequences of such behavior for our communities, for our learning environments, and of course, for our students. Academic problems, uncivil behavior, crime, and, tragically, death, are some of the consequences. We simply cannot ignore them and say we care about students.

Changing the norm to one of academic and social responsibility is not easy. It calls for a multifaceted approach and a long term commitment. I am pleased to say that presidential attention to the problem of excessive and underage drinking is accelerating and that campuses nationwide are putting a wide range of initiatives in place. These include more clearly articulated and enforced academic expectations, educational programs about alcohol, social and recreational programming to provide an alternative to alcohol-centered events, and enhanced prevention and intervention efforts. The complexity of this challenge requires the involvement of administrators, faculty, staff, and community partners. Student leadership - peer leadership - is particularly important. At my university and many others, I am pleased to say, students have stepped up to the plate.

Humanizing the Academic Agenda

Let me turn now to another dimension of humanizing the university, one that is a very

important component of our institutional leadership for society. At a time when political winds tend to reflect societal storms that emphasize economic development, we must never forget that our universities have an important commitment to fostering social and cultural development of our society. The role of the humanities, education, the social sciences, the fine and performing arts, and allied fields warrants the same level of institutional and societal commitment that we have so dutifully and proudly focused on science and technology. Our role in promoting human and cultural development is critically important to the contribution we make to the quality of life. In giving this role priority in the academic agenda, our universities look beyond the strictly economic and engage more fully with the range of societal needs. These are the needs of the spirit, the family, the community, the disenfranchised -- in other words, the people who build the future.

A commitment to children, youth, and families is a special concern. One of the greatest challenges of our time is to strengthen families, enhance the development of children and youth, and build caring, safe, and healthy communities. The quality of life in the future will be deeply affected by the success with which we marshal the forces of our universities to address the impact of sweeping changes in families, to improve the quality of elementary and secondary education, to reduce substance abuse, violence, and other behaviors that jeopardize the health and safety of children and adolescents, among other concerns. Collectively, the many challenges faced by the children, youth, and families of today divert substantial resources, detract from economic competitiveness, and deeply affect the lives of individuals and communities.

Universities have substantial expertise to address these concerns. But to do so effectively requires a transformation in the way we do business. It's been said that universities have disciplines while people have problems. We are characteristically slow to respond. We tend to dispense expertise without opening ourselves up to the wisdom of those who seek our help. Those institutions that engage in this way cannot help but be sensitive to the people side of progress. And they will find endless opportunities to make a difference.

In summary

In summary let me say that the varied points I have touched on today are unified by their focus on people and a concern for quality of life, both within our institutions and for the public we serve. I don't believe there is a more worthy goal than humanizing the university.