MOOA Massive Open Online Administration?

Here is an interesting observation by Benjamin Ginsburg. During my time as Academic Senate President, I attended many meetings where they were just copying what other schools had done to pass Accreditation. At the time some faculty wanted to reinvent the wheel, whereas I let my inner Economist take over and sided with the Administration in wanting to get it done.
Reading this essay the following section jumped out at me: 

Ginsberg pointed to the realm of strategic planning. He said that thanks to to the best practices concept, hundreds of schools currently use virtually identical strategic plans. Despite the similarities, however, these plans cost each school hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to develop. The MOOA would formalize the already extant cooperation by developing one plan that could be used by all colleges. Ginsberg estimates that had the MOOA planning concept been in use over the past ten years, schools would have saved more than a half billion dollars.   See more 

insberg pointed to the realm of strategic planning. He said that thanks to to the best practices concept, hundreds of schools currently use virtually identical strategic plans. Despite the similarities, however, these plans cost each school hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to develop. The MOOA would formalize the already extant cooperation by developing one plan that could be used by all colleges. Ginsberg estimates that had the MOOA planning concept been in use over the past ten years, schools would have saved more than a half billion dollars.  "One way to look at it," he said, "Is that through their tuitions students paid about $500 million for strategic planning that might have been used for curricular development or other educational purposes."  The MOOA plan, he declared, would end such wasteful duplication. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/06/forget_moocslets_use_mooa.html#sthash.lmqg9EcP.dpuf

Ginsberg pointed to the realm of strategic planning. He said that thanks to to the best practices concept, hundreds of schools currently use virtually identical strategic plans. Despite the similarities, however, these plans cost each school hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to develop. The MOOA would formalize the already extant cooperation by developing one plan that could be used by all colleges. Ginsberg estimates that had the MOOA planning concept been in use over the past ten years, schools would have saved more than a half billion dollars.  "One way to look at it," he said, "Is that through their tuitions students paid about $500 million for strategic planning that might have been used for curricular development or other educational purposes."  The MOOA plan, he declared, would end such wasteful duplication. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/06/forget_moocslets_use_mooa.html#sthash.lmqg9EcP.dpuf

Ginsberg pointed to the realm of strategic planning. He said that thanks to to the best practices concept, hundreds of schools currently use virtually identical strategic plans. Despite the similarities, however, these plans cost each school hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to develop. The MOOA would formalize the already extant cooperation by developing one plan that could be used by all colleges. Ginsberg estimates that had the MOOA planning concept been in use over the past ten years, schools would have saved more than a half billion dollars.  "One way to look at it," he said, "Is that through their tuitions students paid about $500 million for strategic planning that might have been used for curricular development or other educational purposes."  The MOOA plan, he declared, would end such wasteful duplication. - See more at: http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2013/06/forget_moocslets_use_mooa.html#sthash.lmqg9EcP.dpuf

MOOAs: Another Massive Idea

Massive Online Open Administrations!  From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Study after study has shown that the people at the top—the deans and vice-presidents and other Grand Poobahs of bureaucratic reproduction—have grown far faster than faculty in the past couple of decades. And their salaries are far higher, over all, than those of professors. As a study from the conservative Goldwater Institute pointed out:

Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research, or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student grew by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent.

So if we could find a way to put administration online, to create Massive Online Open Administrations or MOOAs, we could really cut some fat and reap some serious rewards.

And this:

It’s possible that administrators won’t immediately see how revolutionary MOOAs would be, but faculty and students must help them understand that MOOAs would be good for all of us. Really. The first colleges to start MOOAs can sell their superior administrators to institutions with more B Team administrators. B-Team-admin sorts will be let go. All the colleges can reap the benefit of cut administrative salaries and share the costs of MOOAs, thereby allowing them to cut tuition. So it is that MOOAs will make higher ed more democratic and accessible to all.

Administrators of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your salaries.

The link. 

An Economist On Shared Governance

Skip Seventeen (17) minutes into this video, and find out why the Faculty and the Classified staff at R.. Hon... (I do not want to get into trouble again) fight to have a say in the running of the school. Listen to the argument being made and will quickly discover the students and the surrounding community will win by allowing faculty and staff to participate in governance of the college.

SHIFT CHANGE - preview from Mark Dworkin on Vimeo.

Flex Day Respect is a Two Way Street

Respect is a two way street

I am not a positive person and I am always looking for flaws to improve. However, I was impressed with the tone of the flex day this year. There seemed to be a theme of working together. Every speakers' message was how we faculty, staff, and administrators can work together.
The Academic Senate Leadership was surprised by a unilateral change by administration but kept their displeasure with this unilateral decision under wrap. Did you notice the unilateral change which violates AB1725?
In the past due to disrespect of the previous administration toward faculty and staff,  the Academic Senate would be in revolution mode and the whole proceeding would have broken down. However, this year with this new team of Administration, the Academic Senate leadership was upset but decided to keep it quiet till they investigate the issue further.
I would like to congratulate President Dreyfus for surprising this old grouch!
Please NOTE that I am speaking as an individual faculty and not as a representative of the Academic Senate

Javaman Response to Anonymous

comment on the December 17 Post

 After reading the above comment I decided to research their efforts on this important issue of Information Competency. I found the following page on our library page. Also I searched the class schedule under Library and got the following result

Class Schedule Search of Spring 2013  for Library Classes. Notice NOTHING is Offered!

During the last seven years at Rio Hondo I have had the pleasure of speaking  to various Librarians at Rio Hondo and know that they have created excellent programs to support the mission of educating our students.  My post from a few days ago was NOT criticizing the Librarians but the system.
We may have a great product to offer our students. However, if it is not presented to students and not supported by the entire system, it is doomed to failure.
There is a need to offer these classes and have all faculty in every discipline to include an online module or an assignment on this topic in their class. How can we accomplish this?

1. Build various assignments and modules through collaboration between faculty across various disciplines and our Librarians. 
2. The school needs to support information competencies by offering such classes and encourage students to sign up for them.
3. We need a Librarian to post on this blog, so their latest ideas can come to the forefront of discussions on our campus. (Any Volunteers?)

Dr. Wetsman Emails Administration

Today  Dr. Wetsman (better known to his friends as Adam) emailed all Administrators and the Academic Senators.

The subject of the email was: "Academic Senate Motion"
 
The text of the email was as follow:

Hello everyone,

On Tuesday, the Senate passed the following motion:

Whereas Rio Hondo College, like other colleges across California, is facing severe budget cuts;

Whereas the administration, faculty, and staff are committed to finding budget cuts in a manner befitting shared governance;

Whereas all members of the administration are taking on extra duties, some performing the duties of multiple positions;

Be it resolved that the Academic Senate commends the college’s administration for their dedication and leadership during these difficult times, and directs the Senate President to forward this commendation to appropriate college leaders.

Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to the college.

Adam Wetsman, Ph.D.

Professor of Anthropology

President, Academic Senate

Rio Hondo College

 Adam and Vann are the senators responsible for this motion which was fully embraced by the entire Academic Senate.

The State Academic Senate President Explains...

Here is an excellent video that explains the importance of participatory governance.

Numbers vs Faces The Balance

The most important concept I learned yesterday at our flex day activity was in a speech by Teresa Dreyfus.  Yesterday in her Flex Day speech, she told the story of some program. 
She told the story of how looking at the food budget for some program she saw it as too much and asked the Dean H. to cut the catering budget for that event. However, when she attended the event and saw that as the result of the directed cuts each student only would receive one apple and one slice of cheese pizza, she felt guilty and told Dean H. to increase the budget for this event next year. This shows me that this hard headed number cruncher has a heart.
She impressed me further by disclosing to us that she has directed all Administrators to go and see  what is going on around the campus. She was open and honest about her realization that each of those little numbers on a ledger are people with dreams and ambitions.
In my opinion, we the faculty who are dealing with students on a day to day basis and do not see the little numbers in the ledgers but see the faces behind those numbers and various bureaucratic forms and act more from the heart.
I would like to invite any administrator to come to my class so they can see the faces of our students and hopefully they will realize why sometimes this particular faculty member (trained in the rational dismal sciences) acts more from the heart than  his brain.  I know that makes me a lousy economist but who cares. I only care about the faces behind those numbers.

Special Board Meeting Last Night

Last night there was a special Board meeting studying the Budget and the Presidential Search Process.
During open communication, two persons spoke. A representative of the CSEA spoke, and I spoke for my self. I said the following:

My name is Mike Javanmard and I am a Faculty member at Rio Hondo College. I am speaking for myself and do not represent any group on campus. Although I am a faculty member, I am here to declare that I stand united with the classified staff at Rio Hondo. Without the Janitors our classrooms would not be be a suitable place for learning. Without the grounds and mechanical staff important infrastructure would crumble around us. Without the classified staff in Admission and record, Financial Aid our students would not be able to sign up for classes taught by the faculty. Please consider this as you are making the tough decisions.

  Our Interim President informed the Board that we need to cut $7 million. We will cut 1500 FTES about 500 sections for a saving of $2.3 million.  That leaves another $5million for a cost cutting task force to come up with . There was a discussion as to the make up of this task force. Teresa reported the last cost cutting task force recommendations were.. (I could not hear her)
She would like to see a smaller task force consisting of 3 classified members, 3 faculty, 3 managers, the VP and one student. These members will have to commit to attending all the meetings and will not be allowed to miss a meeting.
The Board President Ms. Norma Garcia asked for Board members to report their top priority so the cost cutting task force will have some direction. Her top priority was the partnership programs and wanted to protect these programs.  Trustee Gary Mendez argued that "we can not have any sacred cows." This was followed by a tense debate between the two.
Finally, I was truly impressed by Trustee Vicky Santana when she asked for figures and asked for time to consider the various choices and think about this request by the Board President to prioritize.  Trustee Shapiro echoed the same sentiment.
"Time to  consider and think!"  I was impressed by Ms. Santana. Bravo!!
The topic switched to the presidential search process. At this point I left the room and can not report on it. 
  

RIO HONDO COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Special Meeting, Monday, July 16, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

3600 Workman Mill Road, Whittier, CA 

AGENDA

I.          CALL TO ORDER

 

            A.        Call to Order (6:30 p.m.)

B.        Pledge of Allegiance

            C.        Roll Call

            D.        Open Communication for Public Comment

Persons wishing to address the Board of Trustees on any item on the agenda, or any other matter, are invited to do so at this time.  Pursuant to the Brown Act, the Board cannot discuss or take action on items not listed on the agenda.  Matters brought before the Board that are not on the agenda may, at the Board’s discretion, be referred to staff or placed on the next agenda.

Persons wishing to make comments are allowed three minutes per topic; thirty minutes shall be the maximum time allotment for public speakers on any one subject regardless of the number of speakers at any one board meeting.

            E.         Study Session

·         Discussion on the Budget

·         Presidential Search Process

II.         CLOSED SESSION

Title 5, California Code of Regulations, Section 59328-59338: Administrative Determination implementation from Discrimination Complaint

Pursuant to Section 54957

·         PUBLIC EMPLOYEE DISCIPLINE / DISMISSAL / RELEASE

III.        ADJOURNMENT

Date of Next Regular Meeting: Wednesday, August 8, 2012, 6:00 p.m. (Rio Hondo College, Board Room, 3600 Workman Mill Road, Whittier)

Breaking Down The Silos At Rio Hondo

Yesterday I saw the post by Dr. Vann Priest titled Where Should We Teach? During my drive home I heard a story on the show Market Place on "How the U.S. can fix its political infighting". Toward the end of the story the speaker recommended that our legislators be forced to drink together.

Dubner: The other idea I have is a little bit easier, probably more fun: re-institute mandatory bi-partisan cocktail hour, every night of the week.
Ryssdal: We could do beer. Beer would be all right.
Dubner: We could do beer.

I think this will work at Rio Hondo too. The previous Administration tried to separate us  into various silos of Academic Senate and Faculty Association, CSEA and Faculty, Management and everyone else. We can break down these silos and get to know each other once again by sitting together over a glass of beer or wine. The question is where?

Advice for Our Trustees and Future Administration

 How does it feel emotionally to be wrong?

or

How does it feel to realize that you are wrong?

Answer: It is uncomfortable! However, true leaders ignore this uncomfortable feeling and listen to those annoying people who are challenging their views. 

This is why questioning by pesky little faculty and/or classified staff is important. Do NOT assume that your workers are ignorant and/or idiots.

In my experience the staff at Rio Hondo love this little college on the hill and are always striving to improve it. They question new ideas not out of malice but because they want to protect what they have built.

September 14 Board Meeting

Hannah Pastrano

 Alumnus speak in support of Hannah

ASB President asks for the voice of students to be heard.

The BASS Dean Finishes Unit Plan

I took the picture in frame one on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The second frame was taken on Thursday (thanksgiving day). Yes we the faculty of Behavioral Social Sciences lock up our Dean till all assigned tasks are completed. Dean Henderson managed to finish the Unit Plans in time to spend thanksgiving with her family.

Solving Two Out of Three Problems with SLO

As promised here is the post on why “S” in SLO stands for Spurious, the “L” stands for Loathsome, and the “O” stands for Odious.

Let us start with the biggest problem with SLO the Spuriousness of the data. The standard methodology in statistic is when collecting data for comparison a single set of data should be collected. One should not compare apples to oranges. The current SLO assessment allows each instructor or group of instructor to decide how to measure the outcome. Depending on how it is measured and who is doing the measuring you will come up with different results. The only way around this problem is to standardize the outcome and the assessment tool. This works well when assessing outcomes in the vocational fields such as nursing and auto technology where the outcomes have concrete results. However, it does not work in fields where there is disagreement about the conclusion of the study. Example from economics include should taxes be raised or lowered. The answer to this question depends on your perspective. If you are a long-run thinker you will concentrate on the deficit and debt left behind which will hamper growth. If you are a short-run thinker you will concentrate on creating jobs to pay the bills. The choice depends on your current position and your personality. One can argue that we can write an outcome that measures this exact point. (if you continue reading you will see that faculty are already doing this!)

But how will we assess this point when emotions are involved. How useful are such assessments? Did the student miss the question because they could not separate their personal beliefs from what was being studied in a rational manner versus they did not get the concept completely. We could break the question down to study it at the granular level but then this can not be done in a simple manner. I as Economics instructor when assessing students to assign grades go through this process. (I told you we the faculty are already assessing our students!) Basically the faculty are being asked to duplicate their work and this leads to the “L” in SLO which stands for Loathsome. It is loathsome in that we are forced to duplicate our assessment and take time away from instruction.

The Administrators and non-experts in order to make the process less Loathsome for the bureaucracy and easier for the non-experts to understand the data we are asked to measure uses a simple assessment tool with Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory. So ease of Data collection and tabulation for bureaucrats leads to more work for the instructor and worst unreliable data. (Basically they are asking us to enter useless data so they can have another form that collects dust!)

Another field the assessment can be counterproductive is in fields where creativity is valued. Creativity and standardization are two different things. So Standardization which kills creativity leads to the “O” in SLO which stands for Odious. How are we to standardize our students’ tastes?

The only way around these problems, with the exception of creativity (The Odious Problem), is to adopt standardized tests created by a panel of experts and use them when assigning grades. If we are going to do this right lets Standardize the assessment. Basically, our grades and assessment scores will be one and the same. This solution is still odious due to the problem of Academic freedom. But the people who work in the intellectual gutters of universities, better known as Schools of Education, will come up with some other bright idea to solve this problem of academic freedom. I will confess that I am willing to teach to some standardized test such as CLEP instead of wasting my time reinventing the wheel by creating new questions, and wasting more time assessing students twice. The current set up asks the instructor to assess once for the grades they assign and once for the purposes of SLO. Next the current system asks us to waste even more time discussing it with other faculty who may or may not be in our field. These discussions usually lead to changing the assessment questions which leads to the problem comparing two different sets of data across time. This is basically comparing data for apples in one year to data for oranges in another.

I think the biggest obstacle to having a standardized test will be the Administration and K-12 teachers. Administrators will not like these standardized tests because they will see all of the students who will fail these standardized tests, thereby causing enrollment to fall and graduation rates falling as fewer students pass college level courses. The K-12 teachers will fear these tests because it will highlight the fact that our high schools are passing and graduating students who are not prepared for college.

In conclusion, if we are truly serious about SLO in the Social Sciences we should just buy the tests from CLEP for various disciplines (click here for a list of classes we can standardize) and use them to determine our students’ grades. We as faculty will teach to these tests and at the end of the semester our discussion will be based on truly reliable data, and not a waste of time discussing something spurious.

Found An Interesting Report

I found the following report by the California Performance Review. What is the California Performance Review? The website states the following:

The California Performance Review (CPR) was created by Governor
Schwarzenegger to systematically review and make recommendations to cut wasteful spending in government operations, increase services to the states taxpayers and rationalize the overall structure of state government. Between February and August 2004, 275 of the most seasoned state government employees compiled more than 1,400 recommendations to meet these goals.

The section of the report that caught my eyes dealt with modifying the 75 Percent Full-Time Community College Faculty Requirement. If you wish to read this section of the report click here.

My Weekend Reading

This weekend I realized that I hate long weekends. No school Monday and I am going crazy. I started reading various economics blogs which linked out. One story was about Gisele Bundchen wanting to remain the world's richest model and is insisting that she be paid in almost any currency but the U.S. dollar. This story made me think about how I wish I could be paid in Euro$.
Another story that caught my eyes was from Forbes about prediction market software. As the story points out most businesses and organizations 'under-utilize the value of one of their most coveted assets: the institutional knowledge of their employees, business partners and customers.' It made me think about our customers, the students. Is there a survey of our students? If yes where can it be found?
The Prediction markets work by soliciting input across a diverse group of "traders" inside and/or outside the organization. This sounds like shared governance.
The following are the steps for implementing such a system:

The first step in implementing a prediction marketplace is identifying the risk factors you want to monitor and the questions you want to ask about those risk factors.

The second step is deciding who will participate in your prediction market. Typically, you want as large and diverse a group as possible. Even departments traditionally not involved in decision-making processes may have a perspective that is useful to capture. If confidentiality of information is an issue, find a platform that lets you limit access to some questions and grant wider access to others.

Giving you time to address risk factors before they become serious issues is a key operational and competitive advantage. Prediction markets help cut through the clutter inherent in any large organization by revealing what people really think to ultimately create a more transparent environment where problems are known earlier and therefore addressed more effectively. Though managers may be uneasy about losing control over information they could once spin, most leaders agree: It is always better to know about a problem early on and put a plan in place while it's still containable. The alternative, as we have all learned, is crisis communications.

The article seems like a sale job. It is a commercial posing as an article but I looked at the Inkling Markets website and found some interesting ideas (I just may be really bored and think they are interesting).
For example I liked the following idea:

Idea Box / Idea Database / Idea Wall: A special email address, database, or physical space is set up to collect ideas by anyone in the company. Typically the ideas collected are reviewed on a periodic basis or are forwarded to an expert or manager in the area the idea pertains to. Metrics may be collected that measure the number of ideas created or the internal department or group with the most ideas and employees are measured on how often they've contributed.

But the idea I liked best was the following from their Build community page:

...what if you could make your users part of the content equation with a minimal amount of effort on your part? What if they could pose questions about the topic area they are already interested in and have others predict what's going to happen? Suddenly there is an entirely new channel of content available to your users that is completely self generating.

This new channel can be purely entertainment or can be designed for your customers or business partners to make them feel they are helping to drive product development.

I imagined a section on the Rio Hondo website where students, faculty, and classified staff can make suggestions. Then others can hit a buttons with Great idea or Terrible idea.
However I am back to reality now and can not wait till Tuesday when I go back to school to fight against terrible ideas and enjoy the good ones too.