Design-Induced
Pilot Error
Airplanes get designed by
groups of people who know about flying, as well as mechanical, electrical,
manufacturing and aeronautical engineering. In the course of designing even a small
personal aircraft—which is still a complicated system of technologies that must
be integrated not only to work, but to fit into limited spaces involving as
little excess weight as possible—certain imperatives related to the integration
of the various technologies must be honored. At some point, in order to take off, fly and
land the plane safely, while simultaneously managing the separate demands of the
various technologies, the pilot is required to perform a certain series of
tasks in a certain window of time. And if the required number of tasks is
sufficiently large, and/or the window of time sufficiently small, the plane may
crash, and the cause¹ is likely to be attributed to “pilot error.”
The Cheyney Story
On July 4, 2014 the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story² with
the following headline: “Cheyney president out, acting president to step in
Monday.” The first sentence reads:
“Cheyney University abruptly announced on Thursday [July 3, 2014] the
retirement of its president, Michelle R. Howard-Vital, and said her successor
would take over Monday [July 7, 2014].”
With just one work day between Thursday and Monday, and Friday being July
4th, leadership transitions can’t get much more “abrupt” than that.
Even when such announcements provide no details regarding the reasons for the sudden transition, abrupt “retirements,” by their very nature, unconsciously suggest to the objective reader the almost certain existence of serious if unspoken misdeeds on the part of the retiring president.
But this July 4th article gives details that go beyond a suggestion of presidential transgressions and gets close to the edge of a public accusation by Robert Bogle, Chair of the Council of Trustees at Cheyney University, who is quoted in the article as follows:
“Bogle, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Tribune, said Vital chose to retire after discussions with Frank T. Brogan, chancellor of the 14-university Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.”
“Cheyney has struggled with low enrollment and deficits for years, as have many historically black universities. When Vital began at Cheyney in 2007, the deficit was between $4 million and $6 million, Bogle said. By last September, it had risen to $14 million. Bogle was unsure of the latest figure.”
The take-away from these two quotes would seem to be that President Howard-Vital retired abruptly because Cheyney’s deficit more than doubled during her 7-year tenure as Cheyney president. Even the following “supportive” quote from Mr. Bogle implied at least a partial criticism of the president:
“I think that Dr. Vital was absolutely an academician who did a lot of good things at Cheyney,” said Robert Bogle, chair of Cheyney’s board of trustees. “Some of the things this university does face, has faced, will face, she certainly could not control. She tried to grapple with and overcome these issues. Some she could, some she couldn’t.” (Emphasis added.)
The “University as Airplane” Metaphor
Imagine flying a plane in which the pilot can’t control some things the plane faces, such as the need to turn the plane on command to avoid mountains, or the need to descend when approaching airports!
And while that metaphor may seem to be too far-fetched to be a fair comparison to the underlying situation that led to the Cheyney article, let’s consider a fairer comparison: “Does the Cheyney president—the metaphorical pilot—have control over the Cheyney University “deficit?”
The answer to that question is “Not really!” While surprising to many, including new presidents who join PASSHE Universities initially believing otherwise, that answer is absolutely no surprise to PASSHE presidents who have been in the job for at least a year or two. The best evidence for that assertion is seen in the news reports of the five PASSHE universities—Clarion³, Edinboro⁴, Mansfield⁵, East Stroudsburg⁶ and Slippery Rock⁷—that have already announced financial distress, ballooning deficits and layoffs of tenured faculty, in the year before the Inquirer article revealed Cheyney’s financial distress.
The policy-driven financial situation facing all 14 PASSHE universities has in recent years become so dire that my March 24, 2014 blog post⁸ described it with this headline: “PASCU President Says PASSHE Universities are Trapped in a ‘Death Spiral’ Not of Their Own Making.” That blog post cited news reports of the then five, now six, PASSHE Universities that have publicly proclaimed serious financial distress.
That same dire financial situation was described in Privatization Without a Plan⁹ in September of 2013. In turn, that book grew out of an invited keynote presentation that I gave before members of the PASSHE Councils of Trustees, the Board of Governors, and the PASSHE Presidents in October of 2010—predicting both mission failure and imminent bankruptcy for the 14 PASSHE Universities—if certain PASSHE policies were not changed. Despite ample evidence of growing financial distress among a growing number of PASSHE Universities, those problematic policies unfortunately still remain in effect, suggesting more financial distress for more PASSHE universities in the future.
¹ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7098337/aa-blog-post-12-system-failure-february-18-2013-pdf-160k.
² http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/265762741.html.
³ http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/08/clarion_university_restructuri.html. Penn Live, August 16, 2013.
⁴ http://www.post-gazette.com/education/2013/09/11/Edinboro-University-plans-faculty-program-cuts/stories/201309110152. post-gazette.com, September 11, 2013.
⁵ http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/09/mansfield_university_becomes_t.html. Penn Live, September 26, 2013.
⁶ http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2013/10/30/East-Stroudsburg-is-fourth-state-owned-Pennsylvania-university-to-announce-cuts/stories/201310300139. post-gazette.com, October 30, 2013.
⁷ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/6756902/tribune-review-december-24-2013-slippery-rock-university-facing-10-million-deficit-possible-l. Tribune-Review, December 24, 2013.
⁸ http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11702245.htm.
⁹ http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=angelo%20armenti.
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