CHANGE ISN’T EASY, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE
Richard Van Loon looks at the recent turmoil at the University of Saskatchewan and offers suggestions on what the administration can learn from Carleton University’s experience.
As events this week at the University of Saskatchewan have shown, restructuring a major university is a difficult — even dangerous — process. Still, such changes are sometimes necessary. Their successful completion is rare. But it can be done.
In 1996 Carleton University began a series of major changes. Fortunately it turned out well. There are some important lessons to be learned from Carleton’s success, and they may be applicable to change in any large and conservative institution.
First, perhaps foremost, it helps immensely if the institution really believes change is necessary. It isn’t easy to get universities to believe that, but in the Carleton case it wasn’t so hard.
The university was deeply shocked in 1992, when it showed up dead last among major Canadian universities in the first Macleans survey of Canadian schools. Then enrolment began to drop — uniquely among Ontario universities. From a high of almost 17,000 in 1993 it fell by 2,000 students in the next two years and bottomed at 12,700 in 1998. First-year enrolment collapsed from 7,200 in 1992 to under 4,000 three years later. Then the Mike Harris government cut funding per student by almost 20 per cent.
The result was a financial collapse — probably greater than afflicts the University of Saskatchewan — but one which paradoxically made change easier to achieve. By 1996, my first year as president of Carleton University, the accumulated operating deficit was $18 million or about 15 per cent of our total operating budget and by 1998, with the costs of restructuring, it had peaked at $30 million. Rumours abounded that the province might force a merger with University of Ottawa — a proposal viewed with utmost horror on both campuses.
To add to Carleton’s woes, the quality of the student body was a big problem. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Carleton had a very open admissions policy. It routinely accepted students with low high school averages, then, to keep up the quality of graduates, flunked out first-year students in droves. (Rob Ford was one of those early departures.) In 1992, the overall entry average was 72.2 per cent, nearly 10 percentage points below that of more highly ranked Ontario universities. And faculty found it difficult to teach. The good students were held back. The poor ones were a major drag to deal with.
By 1995, under the urging of two senior faculty members, Sharon Sutherland and Glen Williams, this problem had been recognized by the university senate, and the recruitment process became much more selective. The entry average rose almost 10 per cent over 12 years. The initial drop in enrolment reversed as more good students began to apply.
That this change was put forward by senior faculty members and
There are some important lessons to be learned from Carleton’s success, and they may be applicable to change in any large and conservative institution.
mandated by the senate illustrates another highly important factor in successful change: people within the organization have to take responsibility for its success. And in a university, this also means that the legitimate decision-making bodies, the senate and the board of governors, supported by senior faculty, must be deeply involved. Carleton did not use outside consultants. They may or may not help elsewhere. But if the leading members of the institution do not feel it is their process, it will fail.
In 1996, we immediately established a small task force made up of senior faculty members and led by a former dean, Stuart Adam, who later became our provost. It held meetings across the university, then produced a draft report. The draft proposed a major restructuring of the faculties, like that envisioned at University of Saskatchewan. It also recommended an emphasis on public affairs and management and high-tech as well as renewal and some reductions in the core disciplines. It was very controversial. But it was taken to each faculty’s directing council and discussed there in meetings attended by the president and all the task force members. Then it was revised and published as Steps Towards Renewal and taken to the senate and the board of governors.
Simultaneously by early fall in that first year, we produced a financial plan, one that foresaw significant reductions and some faculty layoffs. This went before a general meeting of the university faculty where, in spite of the possible dire consequences for some programs and faculty members, it was surprisingly calmly received.
By mid-year, senate had received and debated Steps Towards Renewal. This was a difficult and emotional, but essential, meeting where everyone who wished had a say. One result was the recommended termination of the faculty of arts and social sciences. Not surprisingly, the dean of that faculty was opposed and said so privately and in senate. But in the end, the senate and the board of governors agreed to the restructuring. The dean was a dean no more, but remained with the university in his tenured position until he retired.
The senate itself, with lots of encouragement from senior administration, then mandated a review of every program in the university, setting out criteria by which a program would be considered for enhancement, retention, or potential elimination. Not surprisingly, even establishing the criteria was contentious, but again was done by a legitimate decision-making body.
The review was led by the senate academic planning committee led by the then acting provost and arguably the most popular professor in the university, John Apsimon. It sharply criticized several programs and took its results to sen- ate. Programs at risk of closure were given a second chance, but even then, some such as religion, several modern languages and undergraduate physics did not, in senate’s judgment, produce viable plans. Meanwhile, there were demonstrations and letter writing protests on behalf of the programs that were at risk. I attended all the demonstrations, whether invited or not. I was yelled at a lot. Visibility of the senior administration is important in controversial situations, even if it is uncomfortable.
In a tense and highly emotional session accompanied by tears and sadness but a sense of necessity, senate voted to close the programs as recommended by its committee. It did so even knowing that the faculty involved could be laid off — albeit with very generous severance packages. (In the end most of the affected faculty retired or found other positions.) This was a wrenching process, not at all happy and strongly opposed by the faculty union, but it was done by the legitimate decision-making bodies. While it might have felt more comfortable to make the decisions in a more covert way, the process almost certainly would have foundered.
A parallel process looked at all of senior administration. We eliminated all positions labelled “associate” and several more. Aside from important cost savings, this process also made it clear to the academic side of the university that senior administration was equally implicated in the renewal process.
The building blocks of renewal were all set out within 18 months of the start of the process in 1996. Full implementation took two or three more years, but in the end the accumulated deficits have been eliminated, enrolment targets are consistently met, the quality of the student body is comparable to the best in Canada, the overall financial situation of the university became and has remained among the soundest in the province and, both in my time and subsequently, the campus has been physically transformed.
So. Changing a university is never easy, but it can be done without disaster. The institution must be ready for change, not always an easy thing to achieve in a university. It must be convinced that it alone is responsible for its own destiny. The legitimate decisionmaking bodies must be deeply involved. Outsiders are not always helpful. The senior administration, president, provost and vice presidents must be highly visible and must listen and talk to everyone who wants to participate. They must be prepared to navigate very choppy waters with considerable patience and they must not seek to avoid controversy. Major restructurings are painful and noisy exercises in these most democratic of institutions, but they can be done.