Context on Faculty Concerns on Restructuring and Program Elimination

March 24, 2023

Stakeholders of Saint Xavier University, be they current students or alumni; faculty, staff, or administrators; trustees; colleagues in higher education; or other interested parties, will likely have questions about the heightened tensions surrounding discussions of program elimination and restructuring at our institution. This entry presents a kind of abstract of the faculty’s concerns on such matters, which seem to have entered the fast track in Spring 2023, soon after the announcement of Dr Joyner’s decision to leave SXU.

Admittedly, the characterizations below are largely one-sided and reflective of my views (though I have been in extensive discussion with many like-minded colleagues). The long opening listing of grievances and complaints, to be proved, would require much more presentation of facts and testimony to support the claims, both explicit and implicit. Such facts and evidence can be posted elsewhere. In the interests of fairness in regards to the current entry, I’ve left the comments on. Whoever you are, please feel welcome to post contrary or supportive or just varying viewpoints to help advance the discussion. [Note: because of bot-spamming, comment moderation is on, so there will be a delay before your comment can appear. All legitimate, human-generated comments will be approved for posting.]

In a nutshell, and in no particular order, here is a list of faculty complaints about restructuring that I have gleaned from colleagues:

The current administration’s plan for restructuring is weak in its research and its rationale. It is based on faulty premises about its viability and its necessity. It is riddled with flawed assumptions about the interests and needs of contemporary and potential students. It omits data, or misuses data, or cites questionable data processes to cast aspersions on programs that are strong—either in current reality or in obvious potential. It has been developed without faculty involvement in general, and, more specifically, outside the orbit of faculty governance processes (curriculum committees have been side-stepped). It has not gone through curricular review processes that could vet its premises, its possible advantages, and its potential pitfalls. It doesn’t take into account current or past students’ views of the value, purpose, and possibility of an SXU education. It plays games with simple counting of majors, dividing up obviously connected and supporting programs in ways to minimize the appearance of student need of course work in the areas targeted for discontinuation. It provides no data on savings, or costs, or any information that should inform program closure decisions. It shows only marginal and selective awareness of State laws governing program requirements in education programs. It shows a contempt for a liberal arts education, proposing to gut programs to unsustainable levels, up to the point of non-existence. 

Communication of their plan, when it has been presented, has been sketchy, often unannounced (as documents gradually appear on the portal), often posted late or last minute just before a meeting, often incomplete, and rarely open to dialogue. At meetings where dialogue is permitted, there is rarely any movement of positions—just digging in, with increases in volume on both sides. Some faculty have characterized the provost’s rhetoric as a mixture of gaslighting and recrimination and bureaucratic deflection (his general message being: these proposals have all been discussed and you can read them at the portal and the process has been followed, and now it’s time to move forward, and did I mention for the good of our students? etc., etc., etc.). A recurrent theme in his presentations to faculty is the rancorousness he perceives in discussion; faculty, on the other hand, view their asking of questions as an exercise of due diligence, but some admit coming into such meetings with an agenda to resist.

The stakes are high and tensions are taut on all sides—all the more reason for more and better engagement of all members, and more charity on the part of all involved. The provost’s repeated calls for respectful dialogue will lead, I hope, to respectful dialogue. But the provost’s implied accusation in such repetition should not cause faculty to hesitate in critiquing proposals that are flawed and potentially damaging. In its current proposals, the administration is attempting to restructure this institution in a radical way that will alter the character of a Saint Xavier University education, perhaps irreparably. Should we not talk this over—according to proper governance processes—and come to a consensus? The room for error at SXU, particularly after the very controversial and highly divisive presidency of Dr. Joyner, is minimal. But the opportunity for rebuilding, and on the basis of a shared purpose, perhaps, has never been greater.