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STATEMENT BY THEACTING ACADEMIC VICE-PRESIDENT
I.
Introduction
My remarks on the state of SFU and its administrative structure
are based on observations I have made during the past five months as Acting
Academic Vice-President. I would like to preface these remarks by stating
that on April 9, I sent a letter to Acting President Strand in which I
expressed my desire to resign immediately from my position as Academic
Vice-President. Nothing which may
or may not happen here tonight will change
my position and my remarks can therefore not be construed as an attempt to
feather my own bed.
II.
The Nature of University Administration
As
I
see
it there are three conceivable systems for administering
a university: authoritarianism, participatory democracy and representative
democracy.
(a)
Authoritarianism - The idea of an autocratic system of University
administration is repulsive to me. This system is characterisad by a
number of Board appointed and selected administrative officers whose
responsibility to their constituency is minimal or non-existent.
SFU was close to this system in 1965 and it might be argued that the
extreme centralization
of
decision making which
the authoritarian system
implies was desirable at that time. However, as a continuing system
of administration I cannot condone autocracy at a University and for
this reason I have been one of the strong supporters of the
conversion
of departmental headships to.chairmanships. An autocratic system of
University administration does not use the universities' resources to
the fullest extent, stifles creativity and initiative except for a
select few and produces undesirable substructures (dukedoms) within
the University.
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(b)
- This is the
system
under which everybody
has a direct hand in everything. This system is characterized
above all by an incredible inefficiency. In the words of
Mr. Fotheringham of the Vancouver Sun it is "democracy-running
wild". Participatory democracy is unacceptable to me both from
the point of view of a University administrator and from the point
of view of a faculty member. This system reduces the role of
the administrator to that of a paper pusher and it involves the faculty
member in too many activities which are not related to his primary
interests in teaching and research. In the long term, this system
will adversely affect the quality of scholarship and teaching at
the institution. In my view, participatory democracy is the
system which most closely describes the present situation at SPU.
I shall illustrate this later.
(c) Representative Democracy - Under this system the decision makers
(President, Deans Chairmen, Senators, Committee members) are chosen
by their constituencies. Their selection is a mandate to get on
with the job. If in the view of the majority the job is not well
done, you replace the decision maker by someone else. In my'
view, this is the only viable system of University government and
one which SFU must adopt immediately, if we are 'to stop spinning
our wheels
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and if we are to be successful in finding capable
senior administrators. I'will elaborate on this later.
III.
Policies and Procedures
(a) Policies - As a result of the rapid growth of SFU
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und as a result
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of the nature of the original SFU
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administrativ structure, we
presently find ourselves in the position of having virtually no
established policies. This situation would be cause for alarm
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at any university, but represents an outright disaster at a
trimester institution. The trimester system produces a great deal
of turnover in the administrative bodies of the University.
Continuity can only be provided through established policies and
these are lacking at SFIJ. How are we to work ourselves out of this
dilemma? Clearly we need to establish the missing policies.
I do not think that we can do this by having everyone participate
in the generation of first approximation policies. This process
will take too long and in the interim more ad hoc decisions will
have to be made and the gap will never close. I prefer this task to
be tackled by the administrative decision makers and I know that they
will .not produce a perfect set
' of documents. I am, however, of
the opinion that imperfect policies are better than no policies
and it could be understood that the first approximation pdlicies
so generated would be subject to early review and modification.
(b) Procedures
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When I agreed to stand for .
election to the offte of
Acting Academic Vice-President I included the following paragraph
in a statement circulated to all faculty:
"In the past, I have at times been frustrated by
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the manner in which the faculty has conducted its affairs.
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I am of the opinion bat meaningful discussion and
common sense have often taken second place to
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procedural wrangles. If elected, I would attempt to
reverse this trend by calling upon the good sense of
faculty rather than calling on the "rule book". This
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approach has served me well in the past and I would
only abandon it with great reluctance".
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I believe I have succeeded in avoiding procedural wrangles
in a number of areas but Senate has notably not been one of
these. In my view, Senate would function more effectively if
Senators would refrain from demonstrating their intimate knowledge
of Robert's Rules of Order. These rules, presumably formulated
to encourage the orderly conduct of business, are now being used to
disrupt business. I would favour 'a system o rulings from the
Chair, with the understanding that these might be challenged -
on the basis that they appear unreasonable to a majority, not on
the basis that they contradict Mr. Robert.
IV
Implication of Senate Action, April 8, 1969.
At its meeting of April 8, Senate had before it a discussion paper
on Academic Planning initiated by the Acting President. In its wisdom,
Senate decided that it could not discuss this issue before the matter
had been referred to the faculties. The item inquestion was part of the
report of the chairman - a standard agenda item. Frankly, I viewed this
as the President's first real opportunity to provide some philosophical
leadership on a matter of great importance to SFU. I urged the Acting President
to speak on this subject and I felt certain that Senate would ceicome
the opportunity to corñe to grips with this issue. I suggest to you that
something is wrong when the President, as chairman of Senate, cannot bring
before that body a paper on academic planning as part of his regular report.
Consider for a moment the implications of this kind of situation on the
search for a permanent President and/or permanent Acaderaic.Vice-Presider1t.
Do you really believe that under these circumstances, we can hope to attract
good persons to these positions? The possibility of providing philosophical
leadership is one of the few attractions of a presidency or vice-presidency;
remove this possibility and you will not find and need not look for
outstanding candidates.
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I have tried to make my views known in words of one syllable.
I believe that it is high time we abandoned our present chaotic approach
to governing ourselves. We must be critical in selecting those who will
make decisions on our behalf and we must allow these people to get the job
done - they are doing it for us.
R.R. Haering
April 14, 1969.
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