Letter to the editor: Guilford Edge
Guilford College is embarked on a risky experiment – a top-down, imposed curricular redesign – that violates the college handbook as well as the principles of shared governance and commonsense leadership.
Across higher education, including here, faculty have authority over the curriculum. Yet, our faculty neither approved nor recommended switching to the 12/3 semester structure. When polled by the Clerk’s Committee, most departments raised objections. In a later Faculty Meeting, faculty voiced numerous concerns over how this proposed structure would affect our students. Neither then nor subsequently did President Fernandes offer any response. A month later, she decided the college would implement the new schedule, citing her authority over “calendar decisions”.
The faculty concerns remain unanswered by the Administration. They’ve offered no argument for how this change will better meet our students’ needs.
Various faculty have been tasked to implement this massive change in the least disruptive and most effective manner. They’ve worked prodigiously and astutely. Yet, their work cannot correct an essential flaw – this imposed curricular structure lacks the support of a plurality, if not majority, of faculty.
We believe we’re capable of doing better. Our students, present and future, deserve our best, not some flawed experiment.
We stand in opposition.
Bob Williams
Garland Granger
Ben Marlin
Richie Zweigenhaft
And 6 other faculty who offer anonymous support.
Bill Stevens • Sep 29, 2018 at 12:30 pm
This faculty letter is obviously accurate on its face.
But the 12/3 semester is simply one example of an underlying problem that currently exists at Guilford, that has nothing to do with faculty governance. That problem is that new ideas like the 12/3 semester are debated as if they are known to be right or wrong by proponents and opponents, when everyone is just guessing.
The historic fact is that most ideas DON’T work. Over 80% of new businesses fail. A large portion of athletic team changes in offense don’t improve the number or size of victories. The great majority of media advertising fails to increases sales more than to cost of the ads.
Given this reality, the failure of those implementing new ideas is NOT that the idea doesn’t work. The problem is planning and implementing such ideas without thorough prior research and without a plan to conduct small scale, low cost experiments to test the idea before pursuing it whole hog.
Successful advertisers know that and place a limited number of new ads and measure to what degree they increase sales. That’s why you see some unsuccessful ads only a few times and successful ads seem to be repeated endlessly.
But that approach required one essential quality among the promoters of new ideas – humility – which appears in short supply at Guilford today.