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I've ranted occasionally that I think academics should their relationship with admin as explicitly adversarial, and I want to unpack that a bit (albeit on the fly, so it'll be rough). For this framing, I don't think "adversarial" is synonymous with "antagonistic" 1/
Rather, the core point here is "characterized by conflict." We can have productive working relationships characterized by conflict! You can negotiate through conflict, find compromises. But you can't do that if you ignore that the parties involved have conflicting interests. 2/
Obviously bosses in general have gotten better at convincing employees that their interests don't *truly* conflict, they're a "team," but at least IME most folks don't fully internalize it. You want higher wages, your boss wants to pay you less, everyone knows that basic fact. 3/
But, again IME, the idea that presidents/provosts/deans and faculty/students have conflicting interests (much less, god forbid, faculty and students might have conflicting interests) is either taboo or at least rarely spoken of openly? 4/
Sure everyone will joke about obnoxious deans, but the idea that what they want the university to be is *truly* in conflict with what you & your peers want it to be. Their core goals & interests, at least a significant proportion of the time, directly conflict with your own. 5/
And again, I don't think framing this as conflict must necessarily be destructive! I think it can be actively constructive! What I think is destructive is ignoring the fact that these conflicts exist, in part because I don't think the administrators deny this. 6/
I think they know from their end that this is absolutely true, and that it's extremely useful for them to have an opposition that doesn't even realize it's an opposition. It's very easy to extract value from people who won't even admit they're being extracted from. 7/
In case it isn't already obvious, I believe that this is one of the biggest reasons higher ed admins hate unions, whether faculty, staff, or student - unions definitionally recognize this conflict of interests and seek to take it seriously. 8/
It also relates to the erosion of shared governance, to the point that votes of no confidence or overwhelming opposition from united faculty and students can have essentially no impact on outcomes (U Iowa's current president is perhaps the best example). 9/
There have been massive, very visible conflicts of interest within universities about what to do in response to COVID. Across the country, presidents, regents, and trustees have formed taskforces, held town halls, asked for public comment... 10/
... and then 90% of the time done whatever they had already decided anyway, maybe with a few minor tweaks to placate faculty. Hell, the chair of Cornell's UA openly said in August that our shared governance bodies could only affect the reopening plans "around the edges." 11/
And somehow, most faculty I know don't see that as a *major, core* problem with their relationship with admin? That everyone basically knew a handful at the top of the chain could decide whatever they wanted and ultimately no one's input would meaningfully change the outcome? 12/
This one's local, but we *know* that admin edited our Research Reactivation cmte's report to weaken protections for junior researchers, presented the report to the community without acknowledging that it was edited, and I've literally only seen grads openly upset about it. 13/
Even if those edits were necessary, they should have been explicitly acknowledged and stated as the work of admin above the original cmte! We only know because a member of the cmte compared versions and saw the changes. Should be a fundamental trust problem, somehow it's not. 14/
It's hard to keep participating in these committees and public comments, seeing how the contributions of many (especially students) are ignored over and over again. But they invited a student rep, they allowed public comment, 15/
so they can say they worked with the entire community whether or not the final policy incorporated anything that was said.
I did openly with the word "rant," and I'll admit this has been a bit unfocused. Hopefully the central thread is clear. 16/
I did openly with the word "rant," and I'll admit this has been a bit unfocused. Hopefully the central thread is clear. 16/
None of the above is a new original thought to me, the criticisms of powerless committees and taskforces that suck up energy and have no real impact in particular have been raised especially by Black student organizers around the country for decades. 17/
To *try* to tie it all together a bit, I know faculty sometimes worry about unfair demonization of/hostility towards admin, and I imagine some of that is just practical. You have to keep working with administrators even if you don't love them. 18/
But I think we can acknowledge conflicting interests exist without necessarily being hostile or antagonistic. I think doing so can help us claw back shared governance from decades of power consolidation at the top, can help us support each other and our students. 19/
Because let's be honest, 2020 has made it clear that assuming everyone has the same shared interests isn't working. A *lot* of what has been unsafe this year (hi @geo3550) has been propped up by faculty assuming everyone shared the same interests and good faith. 20/
I keep trying to find a place to wrap this up and accidentally extending instead, and I should have wrapped up 10 tweets ago, so. Core point: your relationship with your boss is adversarial, like it or not, academia is not immune to that. Admitting it out loud might help. 21/21
