If you were dean of the law school, what would you do differently? I've thought about this a fair amount over the past couple days. It is easy for us to sit here and criticize the Administration, but what are the solutions?
Personally, I'd stop in on a few classes each week, talk to students after class about what they thought, arrange more meetings with student leaders and try to get a feel for how CU Law can improve. This suggestion applies to all deans. In short, stopping in on classes would improve alumni connections with the school because graduating students wouldn't be totally alienated.
Connected alumni = more donations and better employment rates because people feel obligated to give and hire fellow alums.
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Here's what I'd do:
1) Place budgetary authority firmly in the hands of DR.
2) Focus on fund-raising for faculty salaries. We have difficulty hiring good profs because we can't afford to compete with other institutions.
3) Hire competent administrators (which has happened to a limited extent) and lose those that cast a bad light on the institution.
4) Communicate openly and honestly.
5) Spend less time in meetings and more time listening to students. There's too much group think in the Dean's office, and a lot of ideas beyond those four walls.
6) Spend less money on poorly designed "strategic plans."
7) Replace ineffective assistants. (And by this I mean at the secretarial level)
8) Quit playing shell games with the budget and make the process more transparent.
9) Perform at the talent show.
I just wanted to add that I am aware of several human kindnesses done by deans/admin. Just because they don't "blow a trumpet" before themselves (an unabashed biblical reference) doesn't mean that there isn't genuine concern for the students of CU.
Have you (generally, not specifically) ever heard of the Milk-in-the-Fridge phenomenon? It is seen often in teenagers, but has application to others. Most of the time, when a kid in a family goes to the 'fridge to pour milk on his cereal, the milk is right where it is expected. The kid pours the milk, puts the milk back in the 'fridge (hopefully), and shuts the door again without any comment. But that one morning when the milk isn't there, boy is there a moaning and a groaning and a complaining at the absence of the milk. You would think he was deprived or neglected or something. Amazingly, the next day, there's milk in the 'fridge. He opens it, pours it, puts it back. Not a word.
There's nothing wrong with vocalizing a concern, a complaint, a rant, a funny... but we all probably would do well to remember that the reason the concern, complaint, the rant, the funny sticks out so much to us is that those conditions represent the unexpected, the surprise. They aren't the day-to-day experience.
"Connected alumni = more donations and better employment rates"
I think the fridge has been missing this milk for awhile. And cereal doesn't taste as good with water.
Coffinberry, my post was intended to spur constructive suggestions for improvement. There's a lot of pent up animosity right now, but not much in the way of suggestions on how to improve things.
How do you balance the need for published, accredited faculty (who, in a broad generalization, are more prone to be more focused on publishing and less focused on students) with student-centric faculty who are truly teachers? If the administration can solve that puzzle, we will be on the right track
Simple: Paul Ohm.
Fair 'nuff.
My suggestion... know the students on sight by name. And not just the student leadership.
That is the thing that makes folks feel so warmly about Clarice and Cindy, is the sense that those two know each of us individually.
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