On Thursday morning, EVC Button emphasized to me and my colleagues that the proposal to eliminate our department was an evidence-based decision. I imagine he also emphasized this to the departments of Statistics, Community and Regional Planning, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Landscape Architecture, and Textile, Merchandising, and Fashion Design.
I have taught educational leaders to make evidence-based decisions for nearly a decade. One of my constant refrains to my students– aspiring principals, superintendents, and higher education administrators–is, “Show me the receipts.” And yes, I want them to show me the data in a graph or a chart, but to pass my class, they also need to explain how the data were collected and analyzed and make sense of the numbers in context.
So far, I give the budget process an F.
We have received Z-scores. Just Z-scores. For those who, like me, may have avoided math in college, Z-scores create standardized scores on the assumption of a normal distribution of data. Our standard scores place us in the bottom 25 of programs. Here is the thing about rankings like this: there is always some number of things at the bottom.
We did not receive any information on the data used to calculate those scores beyond a recitation of the AAU metrics. Where did the data come from? How were the data collected? We don’t even know whether our new faculty are included and whether people who have retired have been removed.
We were told the metrics were weighted equally between teaching and research. Why? When we weight survey data, it is to make the data more representative of the sample. My teaching and research apportionments are not equal; why would they be weighted that way? My apportionment is 55% teaching, 30% research, and 15% service (editing a journal, serving as your AAUP president, etc.)
In many academic fields today, it is common practice to share data in a manner that allows others to verify the data analysis. In our publications, concealing the sources of data or the process used to analyze it is not going to get through peer review.
We were told qualitative metrics were used as well, to put our quantitative data in context. I am a big proponent of that, my students will tell you. We were not told what they were or how this qualitative evidence was collected. They certainly didn’t ask us. I bet they also didn’t ask the other departments.
Putting on my journal editor hat, I would desk reject this budget process.
There has been no transparency and no way for the departments identified for elimination to make our case without knowing the data on which we are being judged.
The Faculty Senate voted to push the administration to provide more transparency. We must all push for transparency because maybe it wasn’t your department, but it probably was your friend’s or your neighbor’s, the parents of kids your child goes to school with. And,if it was not your department today, it could well be in the next round.
And at the end of the day, who suffers the most when the public flagship university closes programs and eliminates degrees? The people of Nebraska. And not just the ones who choose to pursue degrees at UNL, but all of them. UNL is an economic engine in the state and a major employer in the city of Lincoln, and once it has been stripped for parts, it is not coming back.
Sarah Zuckerman is an associate professor of educational administration and president of the UNL AAUP chapter
