Texas A&M University officials are finding ways to scale back the budget by cutting lecturers and offering buyouts to tenured professors, but not everyone thinking of packing up their desk and leaving the university is doing so for budgetary reasons. Citing corruption, a lack of joint-governance, and frustration with suggested reforms, one source called the relationship between faculty and administration “superficial and meaningless.”

“Too often administrators get by with ‘trust us, we know what we are doing,’” said Peter Hugill, president of the American Association of University Professors Texas chapter and tenured geography professor at Texas A&M. “The row over current cuts at TAMU stems largely from genuine faculty worries that they are being treated like mushrooms and that the administration has a hidden agenda which may have been set for them by the Board of Regents.”

Hugill is referring to the A&M System Regents’ support for reforms that, among other things, would hold tenured professors more accountable, split teaching and research budgets and treat students more like customers. The list of seven suggested reforms were presented to regents from around the state two years ago by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank whose 14 board members have collectively donated nearly $1.5 million to Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign fund.

TPPF board member Phil Adams was appointed by Perry to the A&M Board of Regents in 2001 and re-appointed in 2009.

“The business of treating students as ‘customers’ did not originate within the university, and I have seen no sign that the university administration subscribes to such silliness,” Hugill said. “It’s a political trope emanating from places like the Texas Public Policy Institute, who have no real understanding of the complex nature of modern universities, especially tier-one research universities.”

Frank Ashley, vice chancellor for academic affairs for the A&M System, has been charged with the task of overseeing the implementation of the reforms. Ashley, a university professor himself for some 18 years, sees merit in the reforms but admits it all depends on how one looks at it.

“From a teacher’s perspective I look at evaluations -– whether it is coming from students or peers — as a way to get better. But from that same vantage point I’m also able to understand the professors’ concerns. If we treat students like customers and find that all they want is the easiest ‘A,’ then that is going to compromise our academic standards,” he said of the potential benefits and difficulties of incorporating the reforms.

Ashley believes only a small number professors are upset with the reforms and encouraged constructive feedback. “The purpose of tenure is to protect freedom of speech. If we stop listening to professors eventually we stop listening to students, and that’s no way to run a university,” he said.

Listening is one thing, but acting on them is another. Tenured philosophy professor Christopher Menzel says Texas A&M “scores pretty well” when it comes to one’s academic freedom and the right to speak out on political, religious and ethical matters, but Menzel feels complaints often go unrecognized, saying “the problem of shared governance, or rather the lack thereof, is a very serious problem indeed.”

One tenured faculty member who was only willing to speak on condition of anonymity said the “administration has made decisions with minimal input from the faculty or decisions that fly in the face of the faculty’s recommendations, which is even more frustrating,” and cited issues over the past two years starting with the handling of the resignation of former university president Elsa Murano.

“There is a perception that a joint-governance is lacking,” the source said. “And joint-governance is one of the hallmarks of an academic institution as opposed to a proprietary organization.”

Hugill continues to be convinced the problem is not university administration, but the board of regents, all of whom were handpicked by Gov. Perry.

“I believe that the more serious problem is that the current Board is filled with political appointees who have been chosen because they will unhesitatingly do whatever the Governor tells them to,” he said. “A thoughtful and competent Board would have the best interests of the university at heart and pay attention to the complex problems they should be dealing with to ensure that TAMU can move to the next level. This Board of Regents appears to have abdicated all responsibility.”

Everyone who spoke with the Texas Independent believes that faculty unrest is still in a nascent phase and that the majority of professors at the university are generally content. But as long as dissatisfaction is allowed to fester the more risk the university takes.

“Once an institution has got a bad rap and things are ugly, it gets out in a hurry in the right circles,” said the anonymous source. “The institution is going to have a much more difficult time getting the real high-quality people they want, especially the young ones, because they’re going to go where they have a good shot of achieving academic success and tenure, and then they can go where they want to go. Professors are pretty savvy. They aren’t stupid people.”

(Photo: Flickr Creative Commons/StuSeeger)