Over the course of several weeks in October, 2003, the Faculty Senate’s Planning and Resources Committee organized town-meeting format assemblies to enable faculty members from throughout the campus to hear and comment on the performance plans for the five schools, as presented by the academic deans. Through these meetings, the Planning and Resources Committee collected a variety of faculty input on several issues, and found, according to the documents produced by four of the five meetings, that “the concentration of resources in the Rensselaer Plan thrust areas appears to be threatening vested, widely respected Rensselaer programs—programs with which many faculty strongly identify.”
Some administrators around campus have suggested that the statements reflect only the views of fringe groups of the faculty, or may even be entirely incorrect.
“I’m concerned when something like this document is produced, because I don’t think it accurately reflects what’s going on,” said Dean of the Lally School of Management and Technology Denis Simon. “I think there’s some misperception of what’s going on with the faculty.”
“Our intent is to set forth faculty questions and concerns about the performance planning process,” said Planning and Resources Committee Chairman Roger Wright. “If a dean visited a department, they’d probably hear the same thing.” Wright described that from what he saw at the meetings and his interactions with faculty, these concerns are indeed widespread, and not a fringe group as others have suggested. He defended the reports by saying that there are some very dedicated people on his committee who would speak up if they felt that the documents did not reflect the committee’s “objective role.”
Wright went on to suggest that there may be some resentment originating from resources being devoted to the new programs that might otherwise have gone to the “traditional areas” of research. His committee is among the Faculty Senate groups currently examining budget and hiring trends over the past few years for evidence of bias toward the new programs. They are still collecting data, and thus do not have conclusions at this point.
The input reports mention the Rensselaer Plan several times throughout the summary section authored by the Planning and Resources Committee, including criticism on “confusing and sometimes impractical implementations” of it. The report also mentioned faculty feeling left out of the process “except for unpredictable and constraining diversion of their professional practice resources.”
“There is widespread concern amongst faculty that the current diversion of resources to the thrust areas threatens the survival of Rensselaer’s foundations,” the documents read, “in such areas as undergraduate education in engineering practice, graduate program advising and administration, and our traditional, widely-respected leadership role with industry.”
Dean of Engineering William Baeslack said that he proposed a program that is already in place that seeks to draw faculty who are in the “mature” areas of research into the new thrust areas. He detailed how there is a great focus in all areas of technology of late, including in funding, on interdisciplinary approaches to solving problems. He added that faculty have to recognize this and join the new initiatives.
“The ones who feel like they’re no longer the mainstream are the ones with those concerns,” Baeslack said. “The key is figuring out how to encourage them to continue to contribute and support.”
President of the Faculty Senate Cheryl Geisler cited several concerns that faculty hold that did not appear in the documents.
“One of the things this points to is the overall impact of the concentration on Biotech and IT on traditional areas, particularly in the School of Engineering,” Geisler said.
Geisler went on to describe that faculty members have a variety of concerns about the state of the Institute and the new concentrations. Among those she has heard are that new faculty hires are being concentrated in the thrust areas, that graduate TAs are not available for non-priority courses, and that there recently has been limited publicity for the traditional programs.
“It would be nice to develop all plans, but we have to pick priorities, and I think by and large the faculty understands that,” said Dean Joe Flaherty of the School of Science. While he supports the Plan, Flaherty said he recognized the concerns of the faculty.
According to Dean Alan Balfour, the School of Architecture has benefited from the vision the Plan put forth, and said that he doesn’t see a legitimate cause for concern. He described that while the emphasis on projects such as Biotech and eMPAC is taking up resources, it is not being done in such a way that it is weakening the School of Architecture. “You can be concerned, but is it the case that you haven’t been able to do things while these other things have been going on?” he asked. “No, it’s not.”
Provost G.P. “Bud” Peterson stood by the Rensselaer Plan and its progress to this point. “We’re going to continue to do things that we do well, and continue to strive for excellence,” he said. “But clearly we can’t continue to do everything we’ve been doing and keep moving forward in those and new areas.”
Peterson went on to cite numbers of new faculty hires in all schools. While the highest number of new faculty members is in H&SS at 12, he said, the numbers in Management, Engineering, and Science are not far behind, with 10, nine, and eight, respectively. The School of Architecture hired five new professors in that time.
Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences John Harrington said that while the resistance to the new course the school is taking is to be expected, it should not be dismissed. “It’s change, and there’s always resistance. But it’s a check on foolishness, the resistance. It should be paid attention to.”
