Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood article

Another article, "Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" in Inside Higher Education on Oct. 16th is an example of the Structural perspective. Harvard University wanted to build a new student dorm and instead of having a design and hoping the surrounding neighborhood would approve they decided to ask the neighborhood first. The neighborhood actually came up with the design of what they wanted things to look like. Getting input from the environment- I think that is the structural perspective- unless I am mixing things up.

College Sports and Sybolism (cont.)

Apparently not everybody see big-time college athletics as a way to enhance their identity. Rutgers is infusing new life into their football team, including a $102M upgrade to their stadium to hold the throngs they hope to entice with their revamped program. Meanwhile they are undergoing a fiscal crisis; facing budget cuts (10.8%), an economic downturn and rising financial costs, which have made a number of groups on and off the campus question the wisdom of the move.

Various constituencies of the university are choosing sides. A group called the “Rutgers 1000,” consisting of alumni, professors and students, has come out against the increase in the athletic program budget, calling it a misuse of funds that could be better spent on academics. Tuition continues to rise (6.5% in 2008), and other facilities are in need of attention, critics say. The balance between athletics and academics is being upended, they contend.

Others, including the administration, are not giving way, saying that the payoff will be in increased applications and prestige, if nothing else. Rutgers has always played in the Ivy League, where football is almost looked on as an afterthought. Their ambition is to become a football powerhouse along the lines of the Big Ten and other dominant conferences. According to the New York Times story, the president of Rutgers, Richard L. McCormick, while acknowledging that the university needs to reshape its oversight and ethics policies and that it faces a severe cash crunch that is likely to scale back the stadium project, says that turning back from big-time sports is not an option.

HR at a Global University

This article "HR at a Global University" in Inside Higher Education, Oct. 15th made me think of the Human Resources perspective. Basically the article was saying that Unviersities are good at applying a Human Resource perspective (focus on people) in the US, but when campus' are opened abroad they have trouble applying that perspective. The article said that instead of having policies, like in the US for faculty going abroad, they have a "non-policy" approach that has led to people not wanting to go abroad. This non-policy approach has led to problems of salaries and decision making.

ax murderer

Speaking of the political frame:

Interesting article in the chronicle about how people/parties will coalesce against politically wounded co-workers for little or no reason. It is written about faculty, but could easily be applied to any organization.

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2008/10/2008101501c.htm

I was thinking when we were discussing it, that the political frame was (not the HR frame ironically) the most human or maybe just the most animal-like: Anyone who has owned a pet cat may be familiar with how they will sometimes catch a mouse only to play with it then leave it for dead. I see similar behavior in co-workers. Some people seem to fuel a situation just for the sport of it, just to create gossip, entertainment, etc.

Political animal

Nothing like the current budget crunch to see excellent illustrations of a "political organization." I sat in a few meetings last week and enjoyed watching the the agendas and alliances reveal themselves! BUT - I did not look at them as cynically as I would have last year, especially since I am part of the wranglings myself!

Hegelian Thesis

Okay, so my vocabulary level was tested by the article written by Joanne Martin. I also enjoyed reading some of her sentences back to my husband so I could laugh at his confused expression, i.e. page14 - "Hegilian thesis-antithesis-synthesis is a more sophisticated variant of linear thinking." Anyone else challenged with this article?

Budget Cuts (continued)

"Goals and decisions emerge from bargaining, negotiation, and jockeying for postion among competing stake holders." (B&D, p. 186)

If this didn't hit so close to home, it would be fascinating to watch the struggles going on at NVCC. I'm sure the dealmaking has already started. Unfortunately, like most political decisions, everything will happen behind close doors. As observers, we will eventually find out who the "winners and losers" are, but we won't get to see HOW they won or lost. I once heard this refered to as the "a$$ kissin' and arm twistin' " part of the political process.

State Budget Cuts

FYI...I was just watching channel 4 news and they had a peice on Gov. Tim Kaine's state budget reduction plan. Today he annonced that all public educational instutions will have a 5-7% budget cut. 570 state employees will be laid off and 800 currently unfilled positions will remain that way. The 2% salary increase will also be postponed (booo!). He also noted that 2010 will be even worse!

Within the past 4 months my office has completly reorganized/restructured and there are 2 fulltime positions and 1 part-time position that will remain unfilled.

I was suprised to see that the statement about "international reputation" was at the bottom of the list of goals. I believe it used to be at the top, which emphasized its importance.

New GMU Mission Statement

The Board of Visitors just approved a new GMU mission statement:

George Mason University is innovative and entrepreneurial in spirit and utilizes its multi-campus organization and location near our nation's capital to attract outstanding scholars, faculty and programs. George Mason will:

• Educate the new generation of leaders for the 21st century - men and women capable of shaping a new economy in a global community with vision, justice and clarity.
  
  
• Encourage freedom of thought, speech and inquiry in a tolerant, respectful academic setting.
  
  
• Provide undergraduate, graduate and professional courses of study that enable students to exercise analytical and imaginative thinking and make well-founded ethical decisions.
  
  
• Nurture and support a highly qualified and entrepreneurial faculty that is excellent at teaching, active in pure and applied research, capable of providing a broad range of intellectual and cultural insights and is responsive to the needs of students and their communities.
  
  
• Maintain an international reputation for superior education that affirms its role as the intellectual and cultural nexus among Northern Virginia, the nation and the world.

What do you think?

class role play sparked discussion

This morning I was telling my boss about the role play activity we did in class and since I work in the Finance Dept of CVPA budget cuts are always on our minds. Anyway it sparked a discussion of costs involved with faculty and staff and another discussion on how decisions are made. Just thought I would share.

article about adjunct professors

The Chronicle (Oct. 3, 2008) had an article article regarding adjunct professors getting fired for something they said in class or wrote. It made me think of Tim's organization problem of cap's on how many classes to teach. The article is called "Adjuncts Fight Back Over Academic Freedom". Another example of the lack of support for adjuncts.

I was trying to figure out which organizational framework this might fit into. I don't think it is a Human Resource framework because the focus definitely is not on the people. Maybe a political framework because of the power the university has over adjuncts?

Hard time summarizing the organism lens

Did anyone else have a hard time summarizing the lens? I just felt that there was a lot aspects of a system to mention, that my summary part was much longer then in the past. Was anyone able to summarize it in 5-7 sentences and if so what did you write? Maybe it will help me in the future if we have another lens that is complex.

Organizations as Human and Collegial paper

For those interested here is my paper that we got back yesterday. As you can tell I changed my organizational problem. Sorry it's kind of long and lost some of the formatting when I cut and pasted it.

Organizations as Human and Collegial
Organizations in the human resources perspective focus on people and their relationship to organizations. The first assumption of this structure is that organizations exist for the people. In this framework an environment is created that benefits both people and the organization. The people are exploited for their talents and the organizations are exploited for the human needs they provide, for example salary and career opportunities. In a human resource organization if the fit between the people and the organization is good it creates an environment of flexibility, autonomy and teamwork. When the fit is poor it causes a breakdown with one or both entities. The challenge of this structure is that it works better in smaller organizations and it includes a strong reliance on a good fit between people and the organization. As stated above, a poor fit will result in a breakdown in one or both components. Similarly, a collegial organization is a type of human resource organization. A collegial organization includes a culture of norms that is not written down but shared by all and relies heavily on creating an environment that is a good fit between the people and the organization. This framework works better for smaller organizations and the fit between the people and the organization determines how well each responds to new ideas and challenges.
Applying the Human Resource perspective to a law allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition in the state of California has numerous effects. In the following paragraphs the immigration law will be analyzed through the human resource perspective.
According to the human resources perspective organizations exist to serve human needs. In the case of this particular immigration law the organization sets a policy to help undocumented immigrants get an education and provides opportunities for affordable education. This law serves a human need for education and increased career possibilities.
The human resources framework includes the premise that people and organizations need each other. In this situation, the immigration law provides people with an education and organizations get more money and students. This law would also empower illegal immigrants to seek an education which is also a benefit to the organization because it invests in the people, exploits their talents and promotes diversity
The next human resource assumption deals with the fit between and organization and its people. When the fit is poor, one or both suffer from that breakdown. An influx of students into an overburdened public school system, an increase in illegal immigrant families trying to find jobs and possibly an increased need for social services is an example of the poor fit between the organization and the people that this law has caused. There are several other examples of a poor fit from a human resource perspective. This law would have an effect on the universities because students would need more academic support services, especially for students that are the first in their family to go to college. Finally, the real breakdown would occur when these students graduate from college and they cannot get a job because they are undocumented.
On the other hand when the fit between people and the organization is good, from a human resource perspective, this immigration law would provides new opportunities for a whole new population of people.