Dave was kind enough to find something looking like I can write and blog about it yesterday. He has taken up my challenge to find 3 good management initiatives out of SIUC in the last 5 years. I'm fairly sure he can't do it, but maybe he can?
I'm going to give him one for free. Recently, the DE published a series of stories and editorials about a Professor-Student mentoring program like the one that the College of Ag has already has started. I don't know if it will work, but it is a good idea. Congratulations to the Dean of Ag for kicking it off and proving it might work. The real problem will come if it doesn't workout, because I'm fairly sure that no one at SIUC is capable of monitoring a program like this and pulling the plug if it fails.
I know that students who get it, are already forming these kinds of relationships with their professors. The SIUC professors have published office hours and it isn't hard to visit with them as much as you want. But maybe the students don't understand this and just need a push?
4 comments:
Hi Peter,
The following list comes from the office of the chancellor: Management Initiatives that have been instituted by over the past five years at SIUC. There are many more. These are internally funded through tuition and fees; we have had no other increases. They support academic excellence.
I don't think you get it. Throwing money in a stupid way at things isn't a management inititive, it is throwing money. If SIUC was a business it would fall apart from mismanagement in 6 months. They are playing a game of moving money from one line item to a different one, and calling it an improvement or initiatives. I can't even call these things initiatives, much less good ones.
Management is about figuring out a better way to do things, inspiring the people in the organization to do better with from the same resources, inspire your customers to join with you because you offer something unique and valuable. Can you tell me anything in your list that does this?
I think that maybe funds raised from outside grants are up in the last 5 years, but since these numbers aren't published who can tell. I don't think that numbers of published papers is up or numbers of patents and inventions in anyway that isn't a rounding error. We know for sure that the number of students is down. We know that what the students pay is way up. We know that every other university like SIUC has enrollment numbers way up. You see it, when you attach any kind of metric to this thing it looks really bad.
The employees of SIUC are waiting for leadership to happen, not line item budget management. Maybe this is to difficult to understand? It seems simple to me.
You're right, Peter. I don't get it. I don't get why the university doesn't hire you as a consultant.
Probably the chancellor's office did not understand what you were wanting. So I will forward your response, and hope for a response.
Maybe your blog will be the engine that transforms the university.
For what it's worth, I spoke to an employee of many years who said she and others do not feel that its "our university" anymore, but she thinks WVW is doing a good job. I think he is too.
I know for a fact that -- like you -- he works very hard. But you are saying that he isn't working smart. Is that it?
What's the first thing he should do? iyo. . . . (kill all the lawyers!?)
Imagine if you wanted to race hamsters and bet on the results. If you placed one hamster in his shute ready to go and in the next shute was an identical hamster in a exersize wheel. You start the race and the hamster in the wheel doesn't go anywhere because he is mismanaged.
I'm going to blog about this now, but we should talk about this sometime. It is important.
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