A chancellor's challenge: UMass needs a strong leader who will champion education

By Daily Hampshire Gazette/Created 08/23/2008 - 09:27

When the search for a new chancellor began last fall, there were many people who said that the Lombardi-Wilson debacle would lead to a failed search and that the campus would be in limbo for a couple of years. They were wrong.

We recruited you, Chancellor Holub, and despite some very frustrating times with the governor and Legislature, we can still say that you have arrived in what could become the "best of times" for a new chancellor. Though the governor's dismissive attitude toward higher education employees is disturbing, he has started to fulfill part of his commitment to be the "champion for public higher education in the corner office on Beacon Hill." In the past few months, we saw the release of a visionary report for all of public education, including a commitment to free community college, a billion-dollar life sciences initiative, and a $2 billion capital bill. You arrived at the right time, Chancellor Holub: With much skill and some luck, you could lead a decade of growth and improvement for UMass.

Remember Where You Came From

I despise resume fetishists, who think that the prestige of where you went to school or taught is a sign of your abilities. But what matters with you, Chancellor Holub, is that you bring with you the example of what the finest public research university in America does, how it works, and what it takes to build such an institution. No one expects you to turn UMass into Berkeley (although we like to say that in any given election, as Amherst goes, so goes Cambridge and Berkeley). But we do hope that you will put to rest the perennial question asked even by the governor: "What does a flagship do? Why do we need to invest in the flagship?" You are at UMass now, but you should not shy away from describing what the very best public research university does - how it educates undergraduates, how it pays and supports faculty, how it pursues research, and how much it contributes to the intellectual, social, cultural and economic life of the state. Educate the commonwealth about what a Berkeley on the Connecticut would do for the state.

Big Plans

Faculty, staff and students love this institution but we have been exhausted by the rollercoaster of funding that has prevented UMass Amherst from becoming one of the very best public research universities in the country. Massachusetts spends more money incarcerating its citizens than supporting its public colleges and universities. The state spends less of its state budget on public higher education than virtually any other state. By a wide margin, our commonwealth spends less per student at the flagship campus than Connecticut and New Hampshire. For decades, this state has failed to invest in UMass Amherst in a way that would allow it to achieve its potential. We hope you will move beyond begging for a few more dollars in next year's budget, or squeezing slightly more financial aid out of the broken financial system, or merely slowing down the decline in the number of staff and faculty. Faculty and staff want you to be a chancellor who will fight for dramatic new reinvestment in public higher education.

Embrace Democracy

John Lombardi (and his sidekick, Michael Gargano, whom he took with him to Louisiana) had an awful experience here with student activists because they showed little respect for the important role student organizations and leaders play in the life of the university. Tom Cole was so successful not simply because he "listened" but because he recognized that student protests - such as over the dramatic increase in fees over the past decade - were products of legitimate outrage about local and national problems.

Similarly, we hope you will respect that this is the largest unionized work site in New England, with over 6,000 unionized workers. The unions at UMass have not simply represented their members; Amherst faculty and staff unions have led campaigns to improve funding for public higher education. They should be your partners in fighting for a better UMass Amherst.

We hope you will support student and faculty governance, and the long tradition of unionization and political activism that characterizes UMass Amherst. We hope you will follow the tradition of running the university like we would hope our students will run our society - open, fairly, and with a firm commitment to our shared principles.

Champion the Flagship, and Love the System

That is not a contradiction. The flagship will only flourish if it leads to a well-funded system of public higher education. The system - community colleges, state colleges, and UMass campuses - will only get the funding it deserves if there is a truly top-ranked research university at the helm. We have operated for a couple of decades under the principle of a zero sum game: If X (put in your choice of Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell or Worcester) gets something, then Amherst suffers. The zero sum game is a loser for everyone in public higher education. Only when we insist that each sector and each campus gets what it needs to fulfill its mission will Amherst become the university it deserves to be. It is no accident that California has the best community colleges in the country as well as the best national research campuses (it has not one, but five).

If none of this convinces you, perhaps this will: The person who benefits the most from the circular firing squad of inter-campus rivalry is none other than your favorite system president, Jack Wilson. He who holds the piece of meat over the hungry dogs has the most power. By fighting or begging for our scraps, we empower the Man Without A Campus (but with a budget well over $40 million).

Rebuild and Support the Faculty

Department after department, UMass Amherst can compete with the very best universities in this country. But there are simply too few faculty members to undertake the range and quantity of research that happens at the very best public research universities. Fifteen years ago we had over 1,200 tenure-track faculty - that is, faculty who conduct research as well as teach. With the very same number of students, we dropped down to a low just a few years ago of 875. The Massachusetts Society of Professors, the union of faculty and librarians, produced a report that called on the administration to expand the faculty by 250. To their credit, the last administration agreed and launched the "Amherst 250 Plan" with great fanfare. But two years into the 250 Plan, we have not made as much progress as we had all hoped: Today we have about 30 more tenure-track faculty members teaching and doing research than at the start of the plan. Chancellor Holub, we need you to fully implement the plan, which will allow for better teaching of our students and greater amount and quality of research that will benefit the commonwealth. Faculty cannot achieve their best without adequate support for their work. From startup funds for new hires, to salaries commensurate with our competitors, to travel and research funds, electronic classrooms, and a top-notch library, the new chancellor needs to make the case for the teaching and research support that defines a great research university.

Rebuild the Campus

In the late 1960s, buildings designed by the most important architects of the day rose from the fields of Amherst. This campus invested in the tallest library in the world, the massive Fine Arts Center, the Campus Center, and McGuirk Alumni Stadium, to name a few of the major projects of that era. At that time, the state recognized its responsibility for building and maintaining outstanding physical assets at its flagship campus. This ended about a quarter century ago. The state of our campus today hinders faculty in their efforts to provide top-quality instruction and conduct cutting-edge research. The new building program of the past several years is welcome and has contributed to a feeling of optimism on campus. The new chancellor must work alongside the governor and allies in the Legislature to accelerate the rebuilding of the flagship campus, and make sure that it is not all paid for on the backs of students, with ever-increasing students fees.

Even as you embrace the build program, do not drink the Kool-Aid offered by some in the administration who appear at times to wish that we could empty the place of students for a decade and let the construction crews take over. We already spend $40 million or more a year from the operating budget (i.e. the budget to pay for teachers, desks, pencils, books and computers) on campus construction, in addition to the hundreds of millions in bonds that have been authorized. You must continue to support and rebuild the faculty and improve the educational experience of students even as you improve facilities.

Ensure Access to UMass Amherst

One of the distinguishing features of this campus is the faculty's genuine dedication to the mission of a public research university: teaching, research and service to the commonwealth. A cornerstone of that mission is to train and educate the best students in the commonwealth regardless of race or class. As the combination of tuition and fees has skyrocketed over the past 10 years, UMass Amherst is moving out of reach of qualified working-class students. We need you, Chancellor Holub, to fight for dramatic new approaches to making UMass Amherst affordable and accessible.

Mobilize, Mobilize, Mobilize

The challenges and opportunities for you are great. But what we need above all is for you to be a leader who is prepared and committed to mobilizing the diverse constituencies that make up UMass Amherst. If the students, faculty, staff, parents and alumni can be organized to advocate across the state and on Beacon Hill for the investments to make this a top-ranked university, they will be an unstoppable force.

The University Is Not For Sale

Whatever else you do, please never talk about students as "customers" and faculty as "service providers" or the education we provide as a "product." This is a university, not a corporation. We do things differently here because we perform different functions than a for-profit company. We certainly do train people who become workers or businesspeople. We produce research that leads to economic development. But fundamentally, we train citizens to be educated and enlightened members of society, productive participants in a democracy.

Max Page, a member of the UMass faculty, is president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors and a member of the executive committee of PHENOM (the Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts).

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