A Personal Case Study in Career Development – Part 7

Check Your Career-Development Toolbox

As I considered what was needed to launch my climb up the career-development ladder from a tenure-track assistant professor position, I counted three major tools that were available to me: 1) The Villanova University Faculty Handbook provided me with an official set of the rules regarding the granting of tenure as well as the granting of promotion in academic rank; 2) I already possessed the motivation to try to play better than anyone else, thanks to my Haldane Associates training plus some inborn personality traits; and 3) I had benefitted very much from information interviews with successful academic administrators at Temple University and elsewhere.

From George Johnson, I learned to view all situations in the harsh light of absolute truth.  From Richard Stavseth,      I learned always to ‘play it straight.’  And from Marvin Wachman, I learned that a key to success was learning as much as possible about the functioning of universities before attempting to manage one.   

Learn to Volunteer and Volunteer to Learn

Within weeks of starting my new job at Villanova University as an assistant professor of physics, a fellow faculty member who had an office close to mine popped through my open door and said there was a science faculty seat open on the Curriculum Committee of the College of Arts and Sciences.  He also said the Committee met every Tuesday from 12:30 to 1:20 PM and that, so far not one of the 80 faculty members from the science departments at that time were interested in serving on the Committee.  He asked if I was interested in serving.  I told him I would think about it and let him know the next day.

Good Habits Save Time and Reduce Stress

Note that, based on a habit I learned from my Haldane training, I asked for some time to think about my decision before giving an answer.  Normally one might feel pressure to respond immediately, so Haldane Associates’ advice is good advice for anyone engaged in a career-development process.  Based on another habit I acquired in high school, I consulted a dictionary and looked up the word “curriculum,” and there I found reasons why my answer the next day should definitely be a yes.    

Dictionary.com, for example, defines “curriculum” as “the aggregate of courses of study given in a school, college, university, etc.”

Since the aggregate of courses of study in any curriculum lies at the heart of the academic interaction between faculty and students, it was obvious to me that learning how the curriculum comes into being and evolves over time would be vital information for an aspiring academic administrator and, for that reason, I happily volunteered to serve on the Curriculum Committee and did so for the next two years.

The only downside was a lunchtime meeting every Tuesday, but the upside turned out to be huge.

I learned many things I previously knew little or nothing about.  I learned for example, based on hundreds of years of history, tradition and broad agreement by and among scholars of education throughout the world, that the academic curriculum is seen primarily as the province of the faculty.

The most compelling evidence for this is the standard practice at virtually all universities by which the faculty votes by secret ballot to approve any new curriculum or major changes to an existing curriculum.   Clearly someone must decide what things the students must learn and therefore faculty must teach in order to qualify for graduation with a particular degree or diploma.  The consensus which has emerged in all of higher education is that the faculty must own and take responsibility for the curriculum.

The most learned and senior faculty members from various academic disciplines across the institution are typically elected to serve on a curriculum committee.  Their charge is to discuss and recommend to the entire faculty for its approval, a host of issues ranging from large questions such as whether a totally new curriculum is needed, to very small questions such as whether a new course being proposed by a faculty member meets requirements for a course in the major, a major elective, or a general elective. 

Since the total number of credits for any degree program tends to be fixed, largely for financial reasons, a zero-sum game immediately emerges, meaning that adding a new course to the major usually requires deleting an existing course from that major.  Hence curriculum committee discussions invariably become political to some degree, with the various academic departments working hard to ‘protect their turf.’ 

Proposing a new “elective” course generates less resistance since the curriculum usually contains many more elective options than students can possibly fit into their degree programs.  Offering a variety of elective options is seen as an opportunity for students to enrich and customize their degree programs.