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University leadership
like ‘Planet of the Apes’

So, what's this euphemism termed "university leadership"? Does it exist, or is it, like military intelligence, an oxymoron? We've seen "big heads" legitimately roll these past few years. Is there a deeper meaning to this?

University leaders mostly come from professorial ranks. But where do the professors come from? They come from exotic and traditional fields of study, have often slaved years to get their Ph.D.s and have developed a keen expertise in their areas of specialty. Now, have they acquired a keen sense of administration and management, cost control and project planning, law and business planning, finance and politics, quality management and reengineering, innovative management and can-do attitude that are essential for a university administrator? The answer, by and large, is a flat and factual no.

Professors have had no formal training in these areas. What they learn on the job when thrust into management and quasi-management positions comes nowhere near the level of intensity of motivation schemes, leadership models and conflict management understood through formal training. The military has learned the importance of leadership the hard way, and requires all its senior leaders to have taken courses on leadership while still in junior positions. Moreover, generals and admirals learn war strategies, since they must perforce apply them. Our university administrators, in contrast, have had no conscious training in tools they must use.

And talking of what the professors learn, let's also mention that besides some two to four hours of ad-hoc, nonmandatory teaching workshops thrown at them during their lives, our professors have never been properly taught how to teach. How are the administrators, then, to know what's good for education? Professors are supposed to develop teaching skills "innately." How would it be if we sent in soldiers to war without formal training, expecting innate knowledge on fighting and survival? We would be like Saddam Hussein's army, wouldn't we?

The biggest problem of university administrators can probably be pinpointed as personality and judgment problems, where they are unable to see proper visions, motivate effectively, or negotiate, mediate and resolve conflicts efficaciously. Basically, their administrative skills often reflect what people might learn off the streets. What's worse is that they could bring the street mentality to the university.

This is often true when we observe how professors hunker down in their trenches of tenure and fire destructive salvos at each other within departments and colleges and behind closed committees. We can often observe how perfectly they and the administrators have applied their intelligence to develop flawless machinations, caring less for education, their own professional advancement, building research support or maintaining facilities efficiently.

The worst is when administrators successfully break faculty morale rather than building it. So much is written and known about organizational behavior, but it has all missed being truly imbibed by university administrators.

For those who realize it at UH, there is a chance to begin to initiate remedies. It requires a vision that spans decades wherein we seek to build a cadre of educational administrators starting from the junior levels of their career. Without this revision to our vision of education, I am convinced that we display characteristics of the "Planet of the Apes," starring Charlton Heston (1968), where university administrators (portrayed as apes) behave autocratically, irresponsibly and unwisely. It is time to take the bull by the horns.

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