Throwback to junior year of undergrad! That leadership and management class that I loved covered many of the same topics discussed by Bolman and Deal (2013) in this week's readings. Unlike that class though, the management and leadership styles of Frederick W. Taylor and Max Weber were presented in somewhat of a positive light in the text. Of course, such rigid and highly mechanized organizational structures have their drawbacks, but Bolman and Deal presented a much more balanced look at the potential benefits of such a structure.
Many of this week's readings made me think of our organizational chart project in EDHI 698, as we were tasked with re-ordering the Division of Student Affairs at our undergraduate institutions. Much of the knowledge shared in this week's readings could have helped create more effective organizational charts. I think what stood out to me the most, however, were the sections on the difficulties of restructuring. As you see so many higher education administrators come into new positions and try to restructure, it's interesting to see how difficult this can be. I also appreciated the structural dilemmas presented in the Bolman and Deal text, talking about differentiation versus integration, gap versus overlap, etc. One thing I've personally seen is underuse versus overload, having come from a small institution where nearly everyone was overworked and then coming to a larger institution where some people are definitely underworked. In the Schloss and Cragg (2013) text, I enjoyed the overview of so many systems of self-governance and university committees. I have served on university-wide committees before, and I intend to continue doing so throughout my career. I was interested in the part where the text talks about balancing committee responsibilities with individual position responsibilities, as this is an area of potential conflict in all such roles. In particular, I would like to serve on a planning and budget committee. Such committees rely heavily on assessment to guide evidence-based decision-making, which would blend many of my interests in assessment and budgeting. Surprisingly, the readings I liked the best were from Manning (2013). Generally, I have not really appreciated this book, as it seems to reiterate much of what we learned in EDHI 698. However, I liked viewing higher education through the perspective of faculty. I have always been one to be frustrated by tenure and not really understand academic freedom, but this reading brought greater clarity to both topics for me. Additionally, the following quote really stood out to me: "Academic capitalism is objectionable because it erodes the belief that higher education and education in general is a public good. As higher education institutions adopt the practices of the corporate world and reject the practices of nonprofits, arguments for higher education as a private good, one that should be paid for solely by the individuals, are strengthened" (Manning, 2013, p. 49). Coming from a conservative family that has always viewed higher education as a private good, this is a concept that I have struggled to fully understand. However, this excerpt explicitly described the logic against academic capitalism and clarified it to me in a way it never has been before. It makes sense, of course, that an educated society is a better society. Therefore, all people should want and support the education of individuals.
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This week's readings covered everything from frames of organizations to organized anarchy structures of educational institutions. I especially enjoyed the Bolman and Deal (2013) reading about various frameworks for organizations and common fallacies in explaining organizational problems. The fallacy that stuck out the most to me was the tendency to blame people whenever something goes wrong. I believe we see this in so many different contexts and with so many different organizations. Rather than focusing on fixing an issue, everyone often looks for someone to point the finger at when thing go awry. When this happens, time is wasted and opportunities to move forward are left unseized. I think we see this most often through the firing of upper-level administrators. When a university has significant issues (e.g. declining enrollment, major sexual assault scandals, extremely poor-performing sports teams, etc.), governing bodies or chief officers look for someone to fire. University presidents, vice presidents, deans, athletic directors, and head coaches have all been made scapegoats in situations such as these. However, if an institution is ineffective in further addressing the issue after firing someone, nothing at all will be accomplished. This directly ties into the reading from Schloss and Cragg (2013), which talks about key leadership positions and expectations. Expectations exist for these leaders to perform well, resolve issues, and help an institution advance its mission.
Manning (2013) talked about organizations that follow an organized anarchy structure. This concept was hard for me to fathom, as the metaphor of “anarchy” is so strong. However, as I came to better understand it, the concept of organized anarchy certainly grew on me. I have always valued smaller institutions because of the opportunities afforded for collaboration and for each individual to have a greater voice in university proceedings. I believe organized anarchy structures would be most successful at smaller institutions because of this. The best parts of this structure, in my opinion, are the opportunities to think critically and creatively and to create change. Along these lines, one quote in particular resonated with me: “While institutions constrain action they also provide sources of agency and change. The contradictions inherent in the differentiated set of institutional logics provide individuals, groups, and organizations with cultural resources for transforming individual identities, organizations, and society” (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008, p.101 as seen in Manning, 2013, p. 21). This all relates back to Bolman and Deal’s (2013) peculiarities of organizations, which have slight implications of organized anarchy structures. They identified complexity, surprising happenings, deceptiveness, and ambiguity as features of organizations. Within this section, I was struck by the quote, “The solution to yesterday’s problems often create future obstacles” (Bolman & Deal, 2013, p. 30). This is something I believe we will run into time and time again throughout this class as well as throughout our careers. It is a never-ending cycle, where we pride ourselves in being innovative only to learn we are creating more problems. A negative response to this would be to question whether attempts at innovation and solving problems are actually worth it. However, I remain optimistic that, although a solution may bring about new problems, there is at least a little lasting progress with each turn of this cycle. Well, it is now semester two of my three-semester graduate program in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education. It is time to once again write some reaction papers to class readings, so I figure I will stick to what I love: modern-day journaling, a.k.a. blogging. This time, the class is Administration and Finance in Higher Education, and I can not wait to get started.
Overall, this week’s three readings reminded me of readings from EDHI 698: Principles and Practices, which was a class I really enjoyed. Much of the first reading, from Organization and Administration in Higher Education by Schloss and Cragg (2013), was repeated information from EDHI 698. However, it really got me thinking about private vs. public control of universities. Ball State is the first public school I have ever attended, and I have become fascinated about the differences in how this affects an institution. Most interesting to me was how different states have different authoritative bodies determining tuition. Whereas private universities always have control over setting their tuition, public universities may not have that ability. I can foresee this being both a blessing and a curse. Learning that Indiana allows individual institutions set tuition helped me put in perspective my seminar from last semester about out-of-state tuition discount programs specific to Ball State. At the time, I had struggled to understand why one public institution would be granted the ability to launch so many discount programs when other ones within the state were not; this reading helped me better understand that. I LOVED the reading from Reframing Organizations by Bolman and Deal (2013) – and not just because it cited Malcolm Gladwell (#bae). How an organization’s structure influences its performance is something I have always been interested in, since I was in student leadership positions and restructured my own organization until recently when I just completed the EDHI 698 organization chart project. This reading also had me thinking about leadership philosophies. I cannot pinpoint exactly what part spurred my reflection on this, but the reading made me consider an experience I had advising a student organization last spring. The student organization was struggling with member attendance at meetings and events. The president wanted to fix this. Prior to me stepping in as advisor, she implemented several attendance policies. For example, she required every member to attend at least 12 meetings and 8 events per semester; failure to do so would result in a warning, then a meeting with the president, then dismissal from the organization. When I became the advisor, attendance was still an issue, so I challenged the president to consider other ways to address it. Together with her executive board, they decided to take an incentivizing approach rather than a disciplinary one. Minor improvements were made. When a new person became president, her and I talked at length about trying to create more meaningful experiences for members that would benefit them just as much as the organization so that they were more motivated to attend meetings and events. Within just one year, this organization saw three pretty different styles of leadership. Throughout this course, I am excited to learn more about the effectiveness of various leadership styles and how changes in leadership can affect an organization. The last reading, from Organizational Theory in Higher Education by Manning (2013), discussed many of the same things as the second reading but applied them specifically to higher education. I really enjoyed reflecting on the historical and current tensions in higher education as listed on page 2. I am an advocate for a liberal arts education, so I knew right away which way I lean on the conflict of specialization versus integration. Additionally, coming from a small school with limited human resources that necessitated widespread collaboration, I also know I lean more toward collaborative approaches rather than competitive ones. However, throughout this course, I am positive I my preferences will be challenged and I will learn that certain situations may call for an approach of which I am not fond. I am looking forward to being challenged in this way. |
Kristin KreherMy happiness comes from meaningful interactions, the outdoors, thrift shops, and saying "thank you." Archives
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