Category: Life at SXU

SXU’s Deficient Approach to Program Review and Elimination

March 29, 2023

The question of program elimination can be an opportunity for stakeholders with opposing or varying perspectives to come together, conduct discussions, and work toward consensus of some sort—whether it be for conservation, elimination, or something in between involving new configurations and agendas. Parties may articulate their concerns, their plans, their aspirations.

So far, we haven’t had that kind of discussion. 

We’ve been in crisis mode, rushing here and there, putting out fires. We’ve also been attacking one another, an unfortunate dynamic that often arises in conflict—faculty attacking administrators, and v.v., and worse, faculty sometimes attacking other faculty. I’ve noticed in my 30 years in higher education that faculty can be snippy. Administrators can be smarmy. And vice versa, and everything in between. There are egos, and a lot of intelligence, an occasional dose of peacockery, many instances of immaturity—and really a whole panoply of foibles and character defects that beset any group of adults needing to rely on one another and to problem solve together in stressful conditions.

If we are to reorganize programs around “humanities,” as opposed to our current, traditional departmental arrangement, with its multitude of disciplines, a good first step would be to invite all the disciplines to some kind of planning/brainstorming/retreat-type experience in which there were guarantees of safe and non-threatening discourse, perhaps some food and drink, and some visible effort at securing both goodwill and honest sharing/analysis. That discussion hasn’t happened—at least in any kind of formal way. Collegial friendships among faculty across disciplines has, at times, led individuals to envision possibilities for new kinds of program building—at least in a sketchy, or conceivable way. 

In our own case, there are natural synergies between English and Communication, particularly in the area of rhetoric and writing; likewise, synergies exist in the realm of language, textual analysis and cultural studies—a space where philosophers, historians, sociologists, linguists, and literary scholars all feel at home. We could work together towards new programs that truly draw on the considerable strengths of our current faculty in the disciplines.

We have not had such discussions in any kind of formal way because we have been busy doing our jobs. We have been teaching full loads, which only relatively recently were raised to a 4-4 load, with increased course caps; we have been building assessment plans and conducting assessments; we have been writing reports and meeting to build programs within our current frameworks. We were doing these things in an era of unprecedented stress and uncertainty, caused in equal measures by Covid (whose impacts are still in evidence), and the administration’s aggressive and toxic approach to conducting business.  

The plan to eliminate our major was not on our horizon because, frankly, our numbers met all the published criteria for acceptable thresholds. In English we have 56 majors. Most (37) are English Secondary Ed—but these students are required to complete the same curriculum as the other tracks, so there seemed to be no danger in regards to the question of the demand for coursework in English. Also, our department’s contribution to General Education has historically been strong. Even as course caps were raised (to 30) we had good fill rates, and our cost per credit hour numbers for the institution made us, along with other CAS programs, a real bargain for the university.

In short, once the talk of program closing was introduced earlier this semester, many of us felt blindsided. I’m inclined to ask, belatedly, “Can we talk this over?”

Usually such talk involves curriculum committees, perhaps a task force, perhaps a sequence or series of meetings in departments and chairs council and other kinds of meetings. Instead, the process consisted of the provost and dean requiring chairs to fill out an unexpected program report, a quasi-program review with a turn-around of little more than a week or two (this report was requested despite the fact that our department had recently submitted a 50-page program review, along with a 3-page report from an external reviewer—neither of which received any acknowledgement or response from the administration, but which you may read here, once I have a moment to post the documents). As a follow-up to the new report, departments were invited to discuss “program evaluation and elimination” (the two terms yoked together in this way in the very first meeting). This meeting was suddenly announced during Spring Break, appearing in our calendars to take place the Wednesday after Spring Break—essentially giving us a 3-day notice. 

This is the fire hose of life at SXU—no time for deliberation, consolidation, consensus building, and calm planning. And the experience of the meeting was not any more collegial than the manner of calling it.

The Department of Language and Literature was only one of the several departments to be brought in for an “evaluation and elimination” discussion. The consensus among the departments was that the discussions did not go well. Our debriefing included descriptions of breakdowns of every kind; a full summary would require more testimony than I can provide here. Suffice to say, the discussions were not productive.

What would productive discussions include? We need to put our heads together on our goals, our resources, our opportunities—perhaps in the usual SWOT and similar-type analysis we’ve engaged in for strategic planning in the past. But for analysis to work we need a less toxic environment than the one we currently find ourselves in. We need trust. We need time and consideration. We need to believe that if the faculty votes down curricular changes, the Board of Trustees will not simply override our decisions and make the changes anyway—and refuse to speak with us about it when we have questions or concerns. All of that has been happening in recent Board actions, repeatedly. The breakdowns in communication between the Board and faculty has become near absolute. All this, as the Higher Learning Commission is slated for a site visit next January, with the express purpose of following up on, among other things, their mandate that the Board of Trustees to undergo a development program in the area of shared governance.

There were times in the past where there existed established lines of communication between the Board and faculty. Ex officio faculty members served on various Board committees and attended meetings. Trustees were present at campus events. There was camaraderie and shared experiences, values, and understandings. Such no longer is the case—but maybe some practices can be resurrected? 

What do we need to do to remedy SXU’s deficient approach to program elimination? Please write your suggestion in the comment area.

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.

Disciplinary Content Needs for Teachers

March 22, 2023

[Note: This blog entry critiques SXU’s proposal to reduce content area requirements in several of its secondary education programs. The SXU proposal justifies its move in terms of a recent State rule change that reduced the minimum number of semester hours in a secondary-level content area from 32 to 18 hours. The blog entry below presents the example of the English program, but the critiques relevant to English apply to all secondary programs at SXU, which, as of 2019, must align to national disciplinary standards.] 

Secondary education programs may be housed, typically, in content areas (English, math, history, science, and the like), where there is a focus on disciplinary knowledge and methods along with pedagogy courses, or in education departments, where there is a focus on pedagogical principles and practices with a “concentration” on the disciplinary content.

I argue that, given current standards in Illinois—and the reality of program structures across the state—this dichotomy is a “distinction without a difference.” That is, the amount of discipline-based course work that is required by pretty much every program is more or less the same whether the program is “owned” by the disciplinary department or the education department. Programs housed in education departments do sometimes have fewer required disciplinary courses, but not that many fewer. 

An institution at the lower end, for instance, would be National Louis University, whose requirement in English courses (beyond first-year composition) totals 45 quarter hours, a number which converts to 30 semester hours. This allotment of hours is in the ballpark of a “major in English,” even though the program characterizes the English portion of the program as a “minor.” The bottom line is that to support the program, the university has to fund and supply instruction in English at essentially the same level that a major requires. While National Louis does not call their teacher preparation program a “double major,” it essentially is a double major. SXU’s current program is not called a “double major” either, but it essentially is one. So, let’s not get lost in semantics on this key question, and let us be wary of the damage that might be caused by framing the current proposal as a move away from a double major—the proposal’s key selling point.

Here is where SXU’s proposal is critically misleading. The proposal cites the State minimum of 18 hours as justification for eliminating the English major—but the reality is that no approved program in Illinois comes close to such a low number of required content area courses. In meetings, the provost has brushed aside discipline experts’ concerns for the dearth of content coverage by claiming that “the number, 18 hours, is not settled on; the education and disciplinary colleagues will work together to find the right number of content hours—it may be 21 or 24; that will be discussed and the number agreed to.” [I’m paraphrasing Dr. Othman; those weren’t his exact words, but they do reflect the spirit of his comments at our March 15, 2023 meeting.]

But 24 seems to be the upper limit in the provost’s comments to date. In former times 24 hours was a minimum for an endorsement in a secondary area of endorsement (secondary in the sense of “subsequent to an initial license,” not “secondary” in terms of educational level; please note that up until the recent change, the content area requirement for the initial license was 32 hours). To judge from the new state (i.e., national) standards, 24 is too low a number; 30 may be too low a number—but the current discussion would be more comfortable from a disciplinary perspective, if the provost’s angle of “we’ll work out the details collegially” were framed in a range of 30-45 semester hours.

Our current program is 45 semester hours in content. While we could provide arguments attesting to the leanness and efficiencies of those 45 hours, we should also be willing, I’d maintain, to entertain new configurations that cut down some of those hours—but not to 18 or 24 or 27. However we proceed, let’s adjust the parameters for content to the range of 30-45 as a starting point.

Why does our program consist of 45 hours? The short answer is “to be compliant with national standards.” Our national standards have been developed by our “Specialized Professional Organization” (SPA)—the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)—and they are quite rigorous. As of the recent (2019) change in State law, all secondary teacher preparation programs must now be aligned to national (i.e., SPA) standards. The State’s reduction of disciplinary content to a minimum of 18 was made possible by its prior tethering of all secondary programs to national SPA standards. The two changes happened close in time, but it’s noteworthy that the standards change—that is, the holding of programs to rigorous national standards—came first, by a year or so, thus protecting teacher education in the state, presumably, from a misguided approach of drastically reducing content coverage under the banner of the allowable reduction to 18 hours.

At Saint Xavier, it is important for us to be as efficient and as productive as possible. The “18 hours—no major needed” framing of the current proposal opens a door to the cancelation of the entire English program, in a way that misses the efficiency and synergies that currently characterize our three English tracks (secondary education, literature, and writing).  The number of English majors has ranged over the past decade or so from a low of about 40 to a high of about 80. Currently the numbers are growing, primarily in secondary education—but we have also experienced growth in our writing track. The characterizing of majors in terms of “tracks” is misleading because all three tracks are seamlessly interrelated, and each is mutually supportive of the others. The requirements for the tracks are essentially the same, and so it would be more accurate to characterize the major as one major, rather than in terms of its tracks.

Currently we have 54 majors, 35 of whom are English Secondary Education and 19 of whom are literature/writing majors. If SXU reassigns the 35 English Secondary Education students to be Education majors, the remaining 19 English majors may be too small a number to support a program. Hence there is talk of/justification for eliminating the English major. But the 35 newly-minted Education majors will still need, essentially, an English major. Without an English program, that major will not be available. So, 19 students will be cut off from pursuing a major that meets their needs, and 35 students will be left scrambling to complete program requirements and licensure needs in ways as yet undetermined, and not at all foreseeable.

Talk of cutting programs is both premature and reckless. It represents a movement away from the mission of SXU as a liberal arts institution—a movement that might be necessary or possibly desirable—but not at this extreme and destabilizing pace. The programs currently under consideration for cutting are all large enough, efficient enough, flexible enough, and diverse enough to have growth potential—especially if we could collectively engage in program design or re-design, something that has been talked about endlessly, but in a top-down and reactive way—often a threatening way—and without support, without collegiality—all in an environment where shared governance has been spotty at best. 

No compelling evidence has been produced that justifies such a radical departure from studies in English, Spanish, history, sociology, math—and even religious studies and philosophy (these latter two being programs, now cut, that were highly efficient in structure and synergy with general education and outside program interdependence). In so drastically eliminating majors in these areas, the university will be losing a critical mass in humanistic options in teaching and learning that, in the opinion of many, provide a foundation for all degree programs, and in highly cost-effective ways, and with demonstrated excellent outcomes for students—in both professional and academic arenas.

Letter to Provost Othman

March 16, 2023

Below is the letter I wrote to Provost Othman following his meeting with the Department of Language and Literature on March 15, 2023. The meeting was the second one our department had with the provost. The first was near the start of the academic year on September 26, 2022. This second meeting was called suddenly during Spring Break (to take place the following Wednesday); it was called without any indication of topic or agenda. Both this meeting and the prior one in fall semester were tense and resulted in many followup discussions among colleagues about the challenges ahead of us in working productively with the administration.

Provost Othman did not respond to my email. I had not intended to post my letter to him at this blog. Given however, the fast pace of the provost’s plans to eliminate programs (with a planned Senate vote on April 11, 2023), and the special faculty meeting called on March 31, and the need I feel for a more or less complete record of our difficulties to plan curricula and programs, I am posting this entry on the morning of March 31, 2023–prior to our faculty meeting (but with a time stamp of its original deliver to the provost).

March 16, 2023

Dear Saib—It was good to meet with you yesterday, and to receive an invitation from you to have future conversations, perhaps with coffee. Such pleasantries—standing invitations for an open door and spontaneous conversations—can no longer be assumed at SXU; but we can work together to rebuild a campus atmosphere where we are all more connected.

I know your introduction to SXU has not been smooth. Such are the times we inhabit. Tension abounds for so many reasons—the pandemic, the changing culture of the institution, the changing administration, the changing faculty, the changing students. When you arrived, you were entering a traumatized community, and so I think you encountered a lot of skepticism and wariness. There were many causes, no doubt. Dr. Joyner’s leadership was a big one. Over the past six years, we have devolved, in my opinion, into a community of divisions and distrust. Morale is bad, to say the least. So many faculty and staff have left the institution, leaving gaping holes in needed structures and programs. Many—most, I would say—of those who remain are embittered, and for different, but related, reasons. Many faculty, not just a noisy few, feel that war has been declared on the faculty as a whole, and that communication has broken down, irreparably so. Many have given up, and most who remain active feel weighed down by hopelessness.

These negative effects cannot all be blamed on Dr. Joyner. But I would say that she has pursued an agenda that inevitably led to our current climate, or at least the climate you found upon entering the institution. Many, I realize, respect and praise Dr. Joyner for her effectiveness in cutting expenses, paying down bills, and generally improving the financial footing of the institution. And perhaps the skillset needed for accomplishments in this area requires the kind of steely resolve, parsimoniousness, and management style Dr. Joyner exemplified. I would argue, however, that she is leaving the institution in a state much more imperiled than what she found upon entering it. From my perspective, we currently lack the will and resources needed to rebound. Without hope, without talent, without a collective resolve, without a community, I and many colleagues feel that we are teetering on the brink. Until we are able to rebuild a climate of genuine respect (and doing so takes more than emphasizing at meetings that we need to have respectful discussion), we will lack the wherewithal and capacity to rebuild. 

I have said many of these things directly to Dr. Joyner, and I have written at length in my blog about all these thoughts—so there’s nothing new here, and nothing I feel uncomfortable sharing or having others share. What is new is your current role. As the highest-ranking administrator of the institution, you have an opportunity to turn things around, even if only slightly. As I wrote often to and of Dr. Joyner, I hope you succeed. Your success will raise up all of us. 

It’s clear you and I have very different views of what is needed for turning things around. Be it curriculum, or contemporary trends in education, or prognostications about the future, or ways to interpret data, or even just what we view as “good for students,” I think we have many points of contention. I don’t view that as a problem, and I don’t think you do either, as I do think you are committed to transparency and reasoned discussion. I don’t expect to achieve persuasion on many matters, but I do have hopes for the building of mutual respect and commitment to some shared understanding of working towards the common good, at least in its basic outlines.

At our meeting yesterday, I felt some doors were open to dialogue, or perhaps the conditions of dialogue. The past administration did not articulate its views for programs, or numbers of faculty, or for commitments of investment in faculty and academic processes. We were asked, essentially, “What are our plans—to do more, to do better?” Of course, those should be standing questions. But they shouldn’t be the only questions. Without being stated, the humanities and general education were being phased out. If they need to be phased out, let’s have an honest discussion about that process. The indirections used by the Joyner administration, in my view, were dishonest and obnoxious. Her techniques of micro-managing and employing good-cop/bad-cop dynamics didn’t help, and neither did her use of the Board to run roughshod over votes of both the faculty and Senate. But I digress. 

At our meeting yesterday, [one of our colleagues] did a good job identifying moments when some of us—you and I included—became very entrenched in presenting our positions, sometimes repetitively, sometimes with increasing volume. I have noticed this tendency in me, and yes, in you, too. In our defense, sometimes the repeated efforts to clarify are called for. And, just because we are committed to clear, transparent, possibly emphatic, explanations of positions that we hold, it does not mean we cannot change our positions. You said yesterday that [a colleague at the meeting] changed your mind on at least one matter. I don’t know if you and I will change each other’s minds—but I do hope we can enhance the contexts we draw upon and build in our discussions. I’m not a fan of the “agree to disagree” resignation (that has been a mantra of the Joyner administration), at least when it’s resorted to as a first option. The phrase does name a respectful recognition of difference, provided all the engagement leading to the statement is both honest and thorough. 

In writing frankly to you, I hope I am not closing a door to ongoing discussion. I hope I am sending a message of earnest commitment to the project ahead of us—fixing SXU. I also hope I am conveying that we’re at a point where unusual discussion like this is arising. We’re at a point where, at this very late point in my career, I have not much else to lose, so why not do my best to urge new collaborations, new paradigms, in as honest, and vulnerable, a voice as possible? Barring unforeseen developments, next year will likely be my final year at SXU, so I wish to do what I can to ensure the program I have helped to build will continue to exist—not merely for its own welfare, but for the good it is doing in high schools across the state and elsewhere. So many program-building faculty will soon be leaving SXU—this year and next, and many of us quite prematurely. The climate is so inhospitable, but perhaps, with some tweaks and new dynamics here and there, something can be started soon to energize new blood, in a new collective, with new commitments around our mission. 

Thanks again for meeting with us; I hope we can achieve a little more consensus—both on the programmatic issues and the larger agenda for the university. Be well—Angelo

The End of English Education (at SXU)?

March 15, 2023

Today we, our Department of Language and Literature, meet with the provost and interim dean. We were called into this meeting in a calendar appointment email, sent during Spring Break last week, without any agenda or topic or description for the meeting. Upon a request by our department chair we learned from the provost’s secretary that the purpose for the meeting was a discussion of the “evaluation and elimination of programs” in our department.

We shouldn’t read too much into the impersonal delivery or the laconic nature of the message; current technological tools and practices have a way of dictating much these days in the nature of our interactions and communications. So, the defects in the style and substance of the invitation may stem from the limitations of the scheduling software. But there have been breakdowns in our ways of relating at SXU, particularly between faculty and administrators. Arguably the mysteriousness, brusqueness, and emptiness of the invitation are symptomatic of deficiencies in our relationship.

Many in the department, and in other CAS departments, have anticipated that programs will be cut. There has been signaling of such moves. Talk of “data,” numbers of majors, national trends, student demand, and the like, has pushed a narrative and fanned fears that we are not meeting certain benchmarks.

Aside from the merits, the true or false bases of the facts and claims of such discussion, I lament the tension surrounding the whole dynamic here. I fear our discussion will trigger each of us involved in ways that will activate agendas and aggravate past grievances and new fears about current trajectories. Speeches will be made. We will be told about the need to take into account market forces and declines in the humanities—not only at SXU, but across the higher education landscape, as chronicled in the previous post on “The End of the English Major.” Defenses will be made; rabbit holes will be entered.

I want to argue for a win-win, a compromise that will bring in majors in multiple programs that synergistically support one another—English education, English, Spanish, and Spanish education with course listings that draw from all four groups, providing full and diverse classes economically.

I struggle to push the pragmatist line of thought, fearing that, as many have argued, the decision is in, fait accompli, don’t waste your breath. We do seem to have a large enough number of majors—nearly 100 between English and Spanish—certainly enough students to justify our continued existence, even if adjustments are needed. But if a closure decision is already settled upon, any number could be offset or recontextualized—explained away. Is any persuasion possible?

With the new provost and with the interim dean, who is our former colleague, there are minefields. How do we navigate? I want us to avail ourselves of our transitional moment. The departure of President Joyner opens the possibility of new modes of communicating and interacting. Will we turn the page? Will we be able to avoid the personal attacks and negativity—on both sides—that we seem inevitably drawn into in the climate that has festered under the departing president?

I have longed for a time when we all could be pulling together, in the same direction. What would proper program planning look like? I want to advise against facile citing of data tropes. The data are useless when they are employed casuistically, as many of us have judged to be the case. There are so many bases upon which competing courses of action may be advocated, defended, or torn down. ‘Twas always thus: it’s all arbitrary, the rationales and bases for them that we employ; “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Or data. We need some level of trust in order to get to that point where we realize, forgive, and step aside from the arbitrariness. 

As we look to the future, let us be cognizant of nuance—of trends that, were they given a critical component of support at the right time, could have developed, rather than fizzling out.

Our English Ed program has been growing the past few years, after sinking, post-2008, to its lowest ebb. It has been growing despite the institutional stress of the past 8 years; the loss of faculty; the institution’s precipitous disinvestment in its academic mission; and the near-complete neglect, by all, of program promotion, marketing, and recruitment. With a little vision and commitment, how far might all our programs—not only the education ones—grow and thrive?

I need to ask the provost: Is there room for discussion on program closure decisions? Is there a willingness to recalculate the data so as to envision new (or old) efficiencies? Or are we locked into a death march of program closures—whether that course be pursued for defensible reasons of market trends, performance, capacity, and mission, or for suspect reasons of bias, vengeance, and ignorance?