From maclean@email.unc.edu Wed Apr 12 11:45:50 2006 Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 11:44:04 -0400 From: Douglas MacLean To: Andrew J Perrin Subject: Re: Request for Information from Candidates for Faculty Office Andrew, Here are some quick answers to your questions. Please understand that I was asked to be nominated, so I am not coming into this with an agenda. Andrew J Perrin wrote: > To Whom it May Concern - > > I am writing to you as a candidate for Faculty Chair, Faculty Council, > or another important elected office. I realize this is a busy time, > but I and some other concerned faculty would like to learn more about > the candidates' ideas on several important issues before we vote. I > would very much appreciate it if you could provide responses to the > questions below. Feel free to add more ideas or information as you > like. I will forward your responses on to other interested faculty, > and I will also post them to an informal website for the purpose at > http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu/fg . > > Thank you in advance for your time. Since balloting begins this > Wednesday (April 12), I would prefer to receive your response by > then. If, however, you can't make that time, I'll be happy to post and > forward your ideas whenever you can get them to me. > > 1.) To what extent to you believe faculty interests differ from those > of administrators? I think faculty interests are often sharply different from those of administrators, and the interests of each to be clearly and strongly expressed to the other. I don't think the relationship should be adversarial, but faculty may be more sensitive especially to the intellectual needs of the university than administrators are. I also think administrators often have only a vague understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, and needs of individual departments. (And probably most faculty have little inderstanding of the financial and political realities that we have to face.) > > > > > 2.) How should we maintain academic integrity in the face of > increasing financial pressures? > >I don't have much to say in response to a question this broad. Financial pressures are real, but I don't think they are necessarily a threat to academic integrity. But I think the solution is to find appropriate responses to specific challenges. > > > 3.) What are your views on increasing inequalities within the faculty > based on, for example, tenure-track vs. fixed term appointments and > differing salary levels? > Salary issues are a big problem, which need much more attention and action than they have received. We have to compete with other universities to attract and retain outstanding professors, but we create real morale problems as the inequality of salaries increases. (This can be mitigated in other ways, by equalizing the burdens of teaching and administrative work, which I favor.) I am generally opposed to fixed-term appointments, and I look with disfavor on (while recognizing the necessity of) part time employees. It is crucial to maintain a strong culture of collegiality and to make clear the real costs of measures that threaten that culture. > > > > 4.) How would you respond on behalf of the faculty if you found out > that administrators had circumvented serious faculty consultation to > pursue major outside funding for a controversial new curriculum? > > I suspect that this is not wholly an abstract question. I did not follow closely the saga of the Pope Foundation's efforts to start a humanities program here, but my impression was that this effort was badly handled on all sides. I am not a purist about the source of outside funds (although I certainly would draw some lines), so long as we can assure that the funds will be used in ways we approve of. But I also think that if the administration were to pursue outside funding for ANY new curriculum wthout serious faculty consultation - whether the curriculum was controversial or not - it should be rejected. New curricula need faculty involvement at all stages. > > 5.) Would you prefer to see a faculty governance system that is > focused on prominent University issues (e.g., academic freedom and > educational policy) or one that is more focused on faculty's specific > needs (e.g., benefits and salary)? Or, alternatively, how would you > seek to balance the two? > This is a difficult question. Of course we need faculty governance that focuses on specific needs like salaries, responsibilities, and campus life. It would also be nice to have some effective faculty governance that focuses on the bigger issues we confront, such as academic freedom and educational policy. The problem is that I don't have any good sense of how to implement a governance system dealing with these issues that is both representative and effective. Many efforts to involve faculty in discussions of these issues strike me, frankly, as a waste of time. I tend to take a dim view of committees, etc., which involve serious commitments of time and attention, if they are not likely to have any real effects. > > > > > Once again, thank you for your time. > > Very best wishes, > Andrew Perrin > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin@unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu > Assistant Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_ > University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA > New Book: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/178592.ctl > -- Douglas MacLean Department of Philosophy CB#3125 Caldwell Hall University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3125 Tel: 919-843-4500 (office) 919-942-2759 (home) Fax: 919-843-3929