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External Evaluation and Departmental Planning
Michael J. Galgano, Editor With this issue, the Newsletter inaugurates a series devoted to helping history departments evaluate past performance and plan for the future. To guide the discussion, we will focus on the OAH/FIPSE Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), in this the tenth anniversary following its inception. From the outset, one of the Project's primary purposes was to design and offer appropriate outside consultation to departments interested in evaluating their graduate programs and in stretch- ing available resources. As Project Director William H.A. Williams notes in the first essay, consulting teams of four historians and a staff member would visit a department for two or three days to conduct interviews with faculty, students, administrators, and, in some cases, members of the local business community. After the visitation, the team would produce an ex- tensive written report for the department summarizing their observations and offer a series of recommendations to assist the department. To supplement its interviews, the project team submitted separate questionnaires to faculty, students and alumni. Further, each department was asked to complete an extensive self study based upon specific concerns. During the course of the project, which concluded in August 1987, fourteen departments across the country hosted visiting teams. Since then, the OAH has compiled extensive reports and files relating to evaluation activities and is presently preparing a packet of materials to aid departments just beginning the process. The next few Newsletter issues will relate directly to the problems and rewards of evaluation. The first introduces the visitations from two perspectives: the project team and the academic department. Introducing the discussion is Dr. William H.A. Williams of the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities in Cincinnati. The former director of the OAH/FIPSE Project, he organized and accompanied teams to history departments requesting consultation. He offers a broad overview of the procedures followed, explains the reasons departments seek external evaluations, and discusses the usefulness of the experi- ence. In the next two essays, Deborah Baldwin, Chair of the history department at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and W. Kent Hackmann, Chair of the department at the University of Idaho, reflect on OAH/FIPSE Project team visits to their respective institutions, suggesting both the importance and difficulties associated with the evaluations. We hope to open a dialogue on the subject of evaluation and planning. Future issues will assess particular aspects of the proposed OAH materials for departments and compare evaluation practices from institutions not directly associated with the OAH/FIPSE Project. We welcome your reactions, comments and ideas. Department Self Study and the Role of the Visitation Team William H. A. Williams A history department might undertake a self-study or engage in the planning process for several reasons: Exploration. At times a department may feel the need for revitalization; a rethinking of its mission, its goals and objectives, the direction and rationale of its curriculum. Crisis. Drastic budget cuts, the sudden loss of significant faculty members, or a severe drop in departmental enrollment could initiate a departmental review. Problem/Opportunity Review. In this case, the impetus to plan comes from a single factor an impending change, positive or negative, that presents a set of apparently well-defined problems that must be addressed: an endowment; the gain or loss of a faculty line; a new program; or an administrative mandate to assess the major. Mandated, Periodic Review. The ``three-year'' or ``five-year'' self-evaluation. These may or may not coincide with crises, opportunities, or a general desire to explore new horizons. In some of these instances, it may be tempting not to evoke a formal planning response. Our natural tendency is to focus on our specific, obvious problems and to address them as directly and efficiently as possible, allowing us to get on with the business of teaching and scholarship. However, since the department is a ``system'' and responds to change in a systemic manner, it is often wise to look at impending change from the broadest perspective. ``How will this affect the overall mission and performance of the department?'' Even the routine periodic review should not suggest a routine response. With what time frame should the departmental review and planning process be concerned? Should it be two years, five years, or even ten years? It is often tempting to deal just with the immediate future and not to speculate about what may happen ten years from now. One of the problems with the regular periodic review is that it may encourage only short-term planning. It is essential for a department occasionally to take the longer view, to try peering beyond into the year 2000. Once the decision is made to engage in a formal review, then the question of a visitation team may arise. Why invite a team of visitors to your department? After all, there are many things visitation teams cannot do: supply money for new faculty lines or for the library; fire the dean; or gently but firmly retire ``certain'' faculty members. Since so many problems are beyond a department's direct control, why would or should it call in a team of visitors? For objectivity? Not really. All academics have their pet peeves, their ``sure-fire'' solutions, their favorite causes. They do not leave them at home when they go off to consult with another department. What visitors can provide, however, is a fresh point of view. Of course, they can also bring particular kinds of expertise and experience, all of which may be very helpful to a department. Still, the team's real potential value lies in the outsiders' ignorance of, or better yet, freedom from the department's own well worn track of assumptions about itself and its institution. Moreover, the walls of noncommunication that envelop some departments do not exist for visitors. Peculiarly innocent of the context of a department's daily existence, visitors may talk to anyone about any topic. In instances where a department's problem is not the lack of ideas but an abundance of competing visions, the visiting team's report may help to break the logjam by throwing its weight in one direction or the other. Here is where the team must be most careful, however. If the team has done its job, its members will become aware of conflicting agendas within the host department. The team must consider which approach may be most helpful to the department: to make specific recommendations or to lay out the pros and cons of the issues in such a way as to promote depart- mental consensus. A visiting team's primary contribution may be its accurate reporting of what it sees and hears. Since this is usually what everyone else sees and hears, the visitor validates reality. This can be very gratifying as well as useful, as when the team praises the dedication of the faculty, the quality of the teaching, the solidity of the curriculum, etc. (especially when the dean will read the visitor's report). Departments know what they do well, but it is also nice to know that its strengths are evident, even to outsiders who spend only a few days on campus. Most departments also know their weaknesses, many of them being beyond its immediate power to rectify. The visitors' report may not result in more money for faculty development or research support, but there is a certain satisfaction in having outsiders reinforce for the dean the department's concern about faculty morale and scholarship. Unfortunately, there may be other types of problems that emanate from within a department: lack of collegiality; indifference toward students; sexism or racism. Such problems will not look pleasant in print, no matter how diplomatic the team's choice of words. While a team's visit is short and its schedule rushed and crowded, it will seldom fail to discover the most serious under- lying problems that may plague a department. It is for this reason that a department should be honest with itself and its visitors. Unless the department is prepared to deal forthrightly with its own internal problems, it should not extend an invitation to a visiting team. Happily, most departments do not face serious internal problems. A department usually wants the team of visitors to help it assess its present position and its possible directions for the future. Indeed, the solutions to a department's problems are usually found within the department. While the written report may contain some new suggestions, most of the team's important ideas will probably have come from their interviews with the members of the department. These ideas may have already been discussed by the department without a consensus having been reached. Or perhaps governance within the department may not facilitate the development and discussion of new ideas. In such instances, the team can report to the department (and to the administration) what its own members are thinking. Communication is the most critical and often the weakest link within any organization. A department's problems will often manifest themselves in or even be traceable to poor communications among its members, between the leadership and the rest of the department, or between the department and the administration. A good visitation team will focus on communica- tion problems and will make the appropriate recommendations. A department does not have to wait for the submission of the written report before responding to the visitation. The visitation itself, especially the interviews with faculty, will have already sparked ideas and concerns. In its exit interviews with the department head and with the faculty, the team will probably have voiced its principal concerns and perhaps its major recommendations. Thus, the department can begin responding to the visitation so that by the time the written report arrives the faculty is already in a positive mood to engage in the process of change. Evaluation Visitations: A Departmental Perspective Deborah Baldwin The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) requested an OAH review in 1986 and received the consulting team in March of 1987. Department members were fairly confident that they would not be found wanting, so they hoped to use the review to not only verify their worth, but also to negotiate with the administration for more hires and a larger budget. The concluding report was predictable in some respects, however, surprising in others. And while the entire process was valuable, it has weaknesses. The UALR visiting team consisted of four historians. We were consulted on the specialties of those selected and could reject any of those we found objectionable. The team consisted of a chairperson, a public historian, a specialist in women's history, a U.S. historian, and an OAH representative who acted as coordinator for the review. Initially, this seemed to be an appropriate distribution of specialties; however, we neglected to foresee how our casual agreement to these individuals (and their particular talents) would shape the final report. We did not intend to arrange for a review of the Women's Studies Program, but the first draft of the report contained this. It did so because of a misunderstanding; the kind that is likely to occur in a two or three day visit. The director of the Women's Studies Program was a historian. The program, however, was not under the direction of the department and the budgets were separate. We assumed that the final report would critique the department's role in women's programs or how effectively women's issues were addressed in existing courses, but we did not expect a review of the program. The confusion is easily explained. The director's time was divided evenly between women's programs and history. The distinction between these roles was difficult to discern during such a short visit and the report critiqued the Women's Studies Program more than the history department's participation in these activities. Ultimately, the department requested that this section be removed from the report and the review team complied. Despite the elimination of this information, the OAH experience clarified some of the ambiguities in the relationship between history and women's studies. The historian is no longer director of the pro- gram and the college is presently evaluating the scope and role of women's studies at the university. The women's studies issue came from misunderstandings about the composition of the review team. The most startling observation in the final report, however, resulted from interviews over the two day period. The team wrote that the department was ``too democratic'' and suggested that difficult decisions were not being made as a result. While I do not doubt that department members expressed frustration, I do think that the review team's conclusion neglected to weigh past experiences in their final judgement (this is one of the weaknesses of the brief visit). In 1980 the UALR Department of History held a retreat to review and discuss newly written governance documents for the department. These were written as a reaction to previous years in which individual department members had little formal role in decision making. The new document established a system of committees and a set of policies that placed control and responsibility for the department with faculty. Although widespread agreement existed for this move, it often meant more work for faculty. More participatory decision making does take more time and faculty do complain, but few prefer to relinquish the control they have acquired. In fact, all department members were surprised to read in the final report that our governance procedures were ``too democratic.'' Most faculty commented that they had not been asked if they preferred a change from the present system. All agreed that in spite of its problems, they preferred to maintain the democracy. The implication that department planning was ineffective because of cumbersome decision making procedures probably generated our most productive discussions about the report. Although department members generally disagreed that the democratic nature of the department contributed to ineffective planning, it was recognized that department planning documents had not been used to directly benefit the department (with one notable exception). The department wrote a ``Distinctiveness Plan'' for the university administration that was funded to support special historical projects. Nonetheless, other planning documents have been less effective; therefore, we decided to begin a process that would result in a ten-year plan for the department. This plan, when completed, established a set of goals in research, teaching, and service as well as specific objectives for implementing the goals. The objectives define activities for the department, the dean's office, and the central administration. They also reflect decisions that were difficult, but necessary to make (e.g., historical fields for new hires, library purchasing plans, and an extended contract for the graduate coordinator). As a result of the OAH review, the department has not only clarified its goals, it has also used the planning document as the basis for annual budget hearings. This plan is now an accepted vehicle for monitoring department, college, and university progress toward department goals. Although the OAH review resulted in some debatable conclusions and some unneces- sary work, it prompted the department to confront difficult decisions and to write an effective departmental plan. The OAH/FIPSE Evaluation of the University of Idaho W. Kent Hackmann In this essay I present my views, not those of the department, regarding the OAH/FIPSE Project team visit on February 1-4, 1987. The visitation took place at a time of intensive institutional activity: in the weeks between the chair's annual evaluation of faculty and the determination of salaries for the next year; at the outset of a national search to fill a vacancy; and concurrently with the preparation of a defense of the department's graduate programs. When the team arrived, it entered an atmosphere supercharged with curricular concerns and anxieties over personnel matters. The team members responded with appropriate professionalism. They were, in addition, un- derstanding and compassionate colleagues. The team's detailed written report offered suggestions and recommendations for change. Although the department has not yet acted on all items, its experience should encourage others to take advantage of an external evaluation. My praise for the team and its report should be seen in the context of my role in the department's recent history. In 1984 when I became chair my primary concern was a smooth transition from a cohort of retiring senior faculty to a cohort of new appointments at the assistant and associate professor ranks. Transitions in a department's life are one of the classic reasons for a team visit. In the particulars of Idaho, the department's success in recruiting a new faculty of outstanding teacher-scholars increased greatly the level of energy and expectations. New faculty appropriately questioned the rationale for existing policies and practices and in several cases were frustrated by a perceived inertia. During the course of the 1985-86 academic year, several faculty persons spun out ways to remake the department and the university during brown-bag luncheon meetings. The invitation for a visit came out of that group. In April 1986 one of the members proposed taking up the OAH/FIPSE Project offer. Without a great deal of discussion, the department agreed to begin negotiations. Unanimity in the vote obscured a mixture of motives. One person on the verge of early retirement had little interest in the process. Some thought that the visit would be an excellent way to complete an internal review of the graduate program, which had been pending for over two academic years. Another group hoped that the appraisal by an external agency would hasten the process of redefining the department. While I shared both positive expectations, I also wanted to be surprised by the team's findings and suggestions. Perhaps in principle the faculty should have reached a formal consensus. Most likely a major divergence in expectations could have been harmful to the process. Overall, the faculty were united in the belief that the visit would have positive results. The department had five months to get ready for the team's projected visit in early November 1986. Local arrangements, orchestration of many schedules, and, most important, the preparation of a database for the team's use fell to me during the summer months when most of my colleagues were away for research. Collecting the desired information became my summer session project, which I handled concurrently with prior commitments to summer session courses. My research program came to a halt. At first I resented the intrusion, although later I appreciated the value of a thorough profile by which I saw the department in a fresh light. I also appreciated professional interaction with Dr. William H.A. Williams, then OAH/FIPSE Proj- ect Director at OAH headquarters. The visit, originally scheduled for November, was postponed until early February because of substitutions in the team's roster. The new dates coincided with unanticipated developments. Early in 1987 the State Board of Education/Board of Regents preempted the in-house review of the graduate program by challenging the department of history, as well as many other departments, to justify the continuation of M.A. and Ph.D. programs. The State Board had frequently reviewed programs. In 1987, however, the commitment to program elimination was so strong that one administrator told me that while I should defend the Ph.D. program, my effort would be futile. In any event, with strong backing from the department faculty, I successfully defended the program. I had the sympathy and support of the visiting team, which I appreciated at the time, and I can only speculate on how much stronger my hand would have been if the visit had taken place in November. The team's report the product of a major investment of human and financial resources proved to be a valuable document. On a personal level, it affirmed my efforts as chair to use the transition creatively for change in the department's professional profile. Team members and the report also offered suggestions about my leadership style and ways I could use it for greater effectiveness. The recommendations were valuable because they were more insightful than anything forthcoming from the uni- versity's administration. The report's suggestions on policy and operations spoke to faculty concerns. A revision of the department's policy on promotion and tenure defined standards appropriate for the more aggressive faculty and lessened some complaints about the role of student evaluations in personnel decisions. The faculty also revised the structure of the graduate program and in the process, gained a positive sense of shared responsibility. Working out a way to strengthen the graduate programs through closer ties with Washington State University, seven miles to the west, should prove equally productive. The report gave me encouragement on two matters. In response to student concerns about life-work planning, one was to be more conscientious about scheduling very successful meetings between sophomore and senior history majors and the director of the Career Planning and Placement Center. The other was scholarly resource management in which I had already undertaken experiments to reduce the standard teaching load of three courses each semester. I am pleased that currently most members of the department, apart from directing graduate programs, teach only five courses over two semesters. Gaining the concurrence of the administration for reduced loads has not been easy and recently involved a major skirmish with the college dean. In all, two years after the OAH/FIPSE Project visit the department is a stronger collegial body. It is also stronger in the respect it commands broadly across the colleges and professional schools. The positive changes cited above were cost-free. As for other project team suggestions, tight budgets presented an insurmountable barrier to change. Even before the team finished drafting its recommendation that the administration restore graduate assistantships lost in the budget cuts of 1979-80, the administration had told the department that it must not ask for new support for its graduate programs. The successful defense of the graduate program was thus a hollow victory. The University and the State of Idaho suffer the shame of having a first rate department offering graduate programs without resources to attract or retain students. The team understood the consequences of the fiscal impasse when it analyzed the administration's expectations for the department. They identified a dynamic tension on two issues. The first was the administration's statements of confidence and praise for the department and the reality that the administration has bypassed it in the allocation of new resources in the 1980s. The second tension was the administration's push for the faculty to service many sections of the history of world civilization course in the core curriculum, while at the same time expecting the faculty to be productive, grant-seeking scholars of strong regional and even national reputation. The tensions of 1987 are still present and await resolution. The tensions raise basic issues in higher education, especially those on the role and mission of a department of history in a land grant university. The team's findings and recommendations should have strengthened the department's hand during negotiations for more resources. In reality, nothing changed. The Dean discounted the team's report. The higher administration has remained discreetly silent. The fact that I was away from the university on a sabbatical leave and thus not present to keep pressure on the administration may be one reason for the lack of progress. My experience this academic year suggests that the administration, ostensibly for fiscal reasons, is unable to change the status quo. Although the discussion above suggests cause for despair, the faculty and I are optimistic about the future. Semester by semester course enrollments and numbers of history majors continue to rise toward the peaks of the 1970s, thanks, in part to teaching excellence. The department members are on track with their research programs, many of which are funded, and the annual record of publications is excellent. In the longer view, important personnel changes are taking place. In July 1989 the University will have a new president and the college will have a new dean. When the new administrators have settled in, the faculty and I will try again to end the stalemate. For future negotiations the OAH/FIPSE Project report will, I expect, have an important role. Miscellany It's Time to Renew Your Subscription! For those of you who signed on with us as charter subscribers back in late 1987, it's time to renew! (You are a charter subscriber if ``12/31/88'' appears on your label.) Please take a moment and send in your $5 check to extend your subscription six more issues through the end of volume two. (This is the second issue of volume two.) Your renewal is important to us! Please mention your subscriber number located on your mailing label when renewing. Our one-person production staff thanks you!! National Academy of Science Issues Reports Two recently-released reports from the National Academy of Sciences can provide history department chairs a wealth of information useful for recruitment of new faculty as well as career counseling for undergraduates and graduate students. The Summary Report 1987 provides demographic data on all doctorates awarded during the 1987 calendar year as well as information about postgraduate employment commitments and sources of support. Humanities Doctorates in the United States: 1987 Profile is a longitudinal study which provides data on cohorts of doctorate recipients, by field, over the course of their careers. It is particularly useful for determining, for example, the percentage of the history doctorate population by gender or racial ethnic status. It also compares median annual salaries of historians by cohort and by type of institution and rank. Copies of this report are available from the Doctorate Records Project, Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel, National Research Council, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20418. New Task Force to Study the Undergraduate Major The Association of American Colleges is cooperating with the American Historical Association to investigate undergraduate history majors. This project is a part of a larger project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the Ford Foun- dation, to review the undergraduate majors in American colleges. For more information, contact the task force chair, Dr. Myron Marty, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa 50311. Report Addresses Minority Scholars Meeting the National Need for Minority Scholars and Scholarship: Policies and Action is a report based on the November, 1987 invitational conference on meeting the national need for African-American, American Indian, and Latino scholars. The report is being circulated by Myrna Adams, Graduate School, State University of New York at Stonybrook, Stonybrook, New York 11794-4433. It contains recommendations on federal action to develop the minority council, to finance graduate students, and to create and maintain an accurate database. It also examines the policies and offers recommendations for professional associations, institutions, and faculty. |
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