Forty Years in the Academic Trenches: Change Comes to an American University

Following his retirement after 41 years of service as a Professor of Biology at the University of Rhode Island, while clearing out his office Dr. Frank Heppner discovered four file cabinets packed with university documents dating back to 1969. The University Archives suggested he rearrange these documents into "stories" outlining how university practices originated and evolved. As he was one of the few faculty still working who had started when the university changed from a sleepy agricultural college to a national research center, he was in a unique position to make sense of these documents. When he arranged the documents chronologically, these "stories" immediately jumped out, and gave an immediate insight into how dramatically the college had changed over forty years in almost every respect, and permitted Dr. Heppner to write a memoir illustrating how radically his profession had changed since he began his career. Particularly informative (and useful) were several examples of what has been called "bureaucratic constipation"- the phenomenon where an onerous practice is continued long past the time when anyone remembers why it was established. Many examples were provided, including the observation that in 1973, an application for promotion and tenure was 10 pages long, but in 2002, it was 200 pages long. Before the 1980's faculty regularly took "turns" serving as administrators, but at state universities the late 70's represented a turning point where state contributions were no longer able to cover rapidly increasing expenses. This led to increasing pressure on faculty to obtain outside grants (thereby reducing their time available for temporary service as administrators), decreasing emphasis on the humanities which were less likely to secure outside funds than science, engineering, and technology, and increased likelihood of admission of out-of-state students who didn't meet old academic standards, if their parents were able to pay full tuition. All of these pressures led to the creation of an ever-increasing administration corps whose priorities and policies might be different than those of traditional faculty. Also changing was a difference in the relationship of the college to the larger society. In the 1930's, colleges and universities were "Ivory Towers," isolated from the hurly-burly of the outside world, where ideas could freely be proposed and challenged no matter their source. However, the 1960's changed that relationship dramatically, The concerns of the outside world became incorporated into the nature of colleges, and eventually, started making demands on resources that formerly were exclusively dedicated to activities like teaching. All of these changes eventually came to affect the kind of person who was attracted to the professorate. When Dr. Heppner started his career, colleges and universities were the home for unconventional thinkers. Industry (with a few exceptions) was for hard working drones. Over time, this relationship turned around. Now if you want to think outside the box, go to Silicon Valley. Dr. Heppner concludes by making the case that bureaucracy in colleges started much earlier than is usually thought, and had more to do with decreasing ability of faculty to be voluntary temporary administrators than corporate presence on campus.