Shifting culture in the school causes alarm and anxiety

There’s not going to be a first year program anymore, off-campus studies will be scrapped — these are just two of the rumors F News has heard during the implementation of the academic and staff restructuring programs at SAIC (see page 4). These rumors, of course, are all untrue. The First Year Program, which is currently being reworked, was purposefully left out of the academic restructuring, as Paul Coffey explains, “because of its transitional nature.” The Off-Campus Studies program will only get stronger. The administration is currently considering having off-campus credit be a requirement for some degree-seeking students.

However, one concern that persists among students is the worry that because of the academic restructuring their degree won’t have the prestige SAIC currently enjoys. Depart-ments are now grouped together, and share administrative staff instead of having a deparmental assistant for individual departments. Students are unsure of how this will affect their degree and the quality of their deparment’s programming. Moreover, students, staff, and faculty alike are concerned about a perceived shift in the school’s culture — a worry echoed after witnessing the Continuing Studies staff given 48 hours notice that they were being laid off and hearing about the school’s fiscal crisis and the tension it has caused between staff, faculty, and the administration.

And what does it mean when the student population is the last place that information trickles down to? As it stands right now, the communication process at SAIC is akin to the “telephone” game we all played as children — a piece of information starts at one source, and by the time it passed through all the links in the chain, that information is highly distorted.

Craig Downs, assistant director of Media Centers, puts it this way: “The students seem to be on the last string of information around here, [and] I think the staff feel a lot of times like they're on the last string of information here. I went to a couple of meetings in the summer, and arguably the faculty often feel like they're kept on the last string. So the faculty, the staff, and the students all feel like they’re not getting information on time. We need to look at that.”

F News agrees and believes that this should be publicly addressed. The personnel cuts have caused the staff to feel angry and resentful towards the administration, who some accuse of fiscal mismanagement. When staff see their peers laid off, and are fearful that they will be the next to go, anxiety will only be compounded if information is not made available in a timely manner. Without adequate information, there is distrust among the staff and faculty towards the administration. To many, particularly staff members, it seems that their well-being is secondary to financial concerns and they feel as though the administration considers them to be disposable.

Does communication, especially regarding such important issues as the school's financial situation and the future of its academic programming, have to be this faulty? Dean Carol Becker said, “The faculty’s job is not to know everything about every permutation of the finances at the school, because if they want to do that, then they should become a financial officer. Their job is to teach their students, keep up in their field, make their work, be out there in the public arena ... you can’t be everywhere and know everything.”

This may be true, but there is a sense of fear, distrust, and frustration among staff and faculty that must be resolved to not only boost school morale but also keep the institution working efficiently. Film, Video, and New Media Chair Dan Eisenberg doesn’t find it helpful to name any area of the school as the source of distrust. He said:

“Trust is a really important part of being able to change, and that’s a two-way street, of course. Both administration and faculty have demonstrated their commitment to the institution, especially over the past few months. We're all equally enmeshed in a mutual set of faiths and that’s what makes community. You don’t necessarily have to agree with someone, but you have to understand that your well-being and their well-being are linked. And so everyone has to be able to make adjustments or negotiate and compromise accordingly. It’s really essential.”

Eisenberg thinks that the lack of structure, process, organization, and clear hierarchy at the school contribute to a feeling of mistrust at the faculty and staff level. Student Govern-ment Officer Kathy Havens expressed frustration about the lack of clear decision making structure at the school. “I would like to see some laid out detailed structure of the hierarchy of the school — who makes what decisions,” she said.

However, communication is a two-way street. Former Student Government Officer Lois Song explained that while Student Government officers attended administrative meetings that dealt with the school’s deficit, and took notes and made minutes available, students did not seek out the information. “I think SAIC students, we all know how to complain really well, we know how to talk. ... But when it [comes to] action, we just sit back and let someone else worry about it.”

Havens also noted a lack of initiative on the students’ part. Commenting on the accessibility of the administration, she said, “You can make a meeting with Tony Jones if you want to talk to him. You can make a meeting with Felice Dublon. You can make a meeting with anyone in Student Life. They love to hear from students. ... They try to make focus groups, they try to make anything to get student feedback.”

Discussing the limitations of Student Government, she added, “But it’s an unfair and heavy burden for us to have to speak for the [entire] student body. I don’t know what the entire student body has to say.”

Part of a lack of communication structure has to do with the architecture of SAIC’s campus. Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs Felice Dublon said, “Without a central place for students to congregate, it’s hard to find a central place to gather information. I’m really hoping that the [improved] e-mail system is going to work out so that it’s more appealing to the overall student body. ... But I’m personally interested in getting thoughts from students, and if they have ideas on how to better communicate, we can always use them.”

Although the administration is making efforts to more effectively use the bulletins broadcasted via the artic.edu Webmail system, students, as well as faculty and staff, want a greater face-to-face interaction. Havens said, “I would like to see an open student meeting [addressing the school’s financial plan] like there was a faculty meeting. ... But there wasn’t one last semester.”

If the communication problem is not successfully addressed, F News is not confident that the sense of fear and paranoia in the school will be resolved quickly, even with the announcement of the school’s capital campaign, which has already raised $18 million. The fear among staff members has come to the point where some SAIC employees are too afraid to talk to F News for this story, even on conditions of anonymity. Indeed, one staff member was actually told by his superior not to talk with F News in person and could answer only questions submitted in writing.

It is F’s belief that the administrators are working with the school's best interests in mind. The administrators interviewed by F repeatedly said that it was a paramount concern to not compromise the quality of the academic program in any way while examining cost-cutting and revenue-enhancing options. The academic program, it was repeatedly said, is what gives the school the prestigious reputation that it has.

The capital campaign is a major endeavor that has never been undertaken by the school before, and is certainly cause for celebration. However, the staff layoffs are what people seem to be focusing on. Perhaps this is a symptom of a larger problem regarding the culture of the school — people are so worried about culture of the school that such good news is eclipsed by anxiety.

Without pointing fingers, it needs to be recognized that this sense of frustration regarding the decision-making timeline and process is more than just this one story of the school solving its deficit problem — faults in the school’s community structure have to be seriously addressed. Although layoffs are never a happy business, and, as Craig Downs said, “someone has to be the boss,” the school should strive to achieve a better way of making decisions and distributing information to all levels. If staff and faculty (and students!) are dissatisfied, no amount of money can repair a damaged community. And that’s when the quality of the academic programming becomes vulnerable to compromise.