This essay will be published in the forthcoming book Academic Ethics Today: Problems, Policies, and Prospects for University Life, ed. Steven M. Cahn (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). This collection of thirty-one new essays will focus on ethical questions raised by institutional policies of colleges and universities. As a service to readers, over the next several months the APA Blog will publish four of these essays in their entirety, including articles on the role of adjuncts (Alexandra Bradner), assessing publications for tenure (David Shatz), student discipline (David Hoekema), and the responsibilities of administrators (Karen Hanson). All materials are copyrighted by the publisher and reprinted with permission. The entire list of topics and authors can be found online.
Why would a member of a college or university faculty choose to become an academic administrator? Assuming one is drawn to the professoriate by passion for a field of inquiry and a desire to share that field with students, the move to spend a considerable portion of one’s work time neither pursuing the issues of one’s field nor teaching students to do likewise can seem a bit puzzling. Leave aside the avaricious motives that might be attributed to a newly appointed administrator by some uncharitable academic friends, or former friends, and colleagues. A more honorable motive, and one that typically does in fact move faculty to join administration, is the hope that one can both steward and shape an institution dedicated to enabling the teaching, research, and service that the professoriate prizes. That hope is not unrealistic. There are indeed things that can be achieved most readily, most effectively, and sometimes only by those who are willing to take on responsibilities at the institutional level. What sorts of things are these, and how are they pursued?
Policies and practices that shape the entire institution, that structure many of its core activities, are usually a product of what’s called “shared governance,” but specific academic administrators typically have a larger role in initiating, developing, and refining those policies and practices—and, perhaps more crucially, the institution’s general overall agenda—than do individual faculty members. This can be understood to be mainly a matter of the scope of influence and authority. Given the prospect of greater impact, seizing the opportunity to forward the best aspirations of the academy at this larger scale seems a worthy endeavor—not just unobjectionable but perhaps even praiseworthy from a moral point of view.
But are there also new moral hazards, given the broader scope of authority and the new ranges of responsibility? More neutrally, are there new intellectual and moral challenges that face the academic administrator, challenges that go beyond those faced by a regular faculty member? And if there are, what is required to address them successfully?
Consider first whether the administrative decision-making process itself is really any different from the one employed by a faculty member in, say, structuring a course syllabus or helping to design a major. Isn’t the administrator overseeing curriculum and instruction simply employing, at a higher level, roughly the same processes of evaluation as the faculty member building a course—pursuing, perhaps on a larger scale, roughly the same general goals? Sometimes this does seem to be the case. The same categories of excellence pursued by faculty as they design and revise their courses are pursued by the provost who sets in motion a committee to review and revise the general education requirements. The dean or provost who expels a student for repeated cheating is safeguarding the same values of honesty and academic integrity as the professor who gives the student an F for plagiarizing a paper.
But there may also be other sorts of issues, decisions to be made where the guidelines that typically structure individual teaching and research would seem to need thoughtful supplementation. Consider a problem of university capital planning: Suppose both the chemistry department on a regional campus and the foreign language departments on the main campus of a public university make good cases for rehabilitation of the buildings in which they are housed, citing the deleterious impact of their current facilities on their work and the specific enhancements to teaching and research that could be expected from capital improvements to their spaces. The academic administrator who must prioritize one of these building projects over another—say, the new chemistry building instead of a new home for the foreign language departments—sometimes needs to draw on evaluative considerations quite different from those motivating the immediately conflicting demands for new buildings. There may be political considerations that favor the regional investment—for example, the likelihood of securing support from more members of the legislature, particularly those less interested in, perhaps even hostile to, the main campus. Or the political considerations may be more long-term: the chemistry building project would be a highly visible sign of engagement with communities beyond that in which the flagship is located, which might in turn build outstate goodwill and foster greater support for the university as a whole in the future. Even the planned disciplinary foci of the buildings might make the difference between securing the funding and not getting it, as, at some times and places, key legislators and other funders may more readily accede to the importance of chemistry and fail to see the urgent need for language study.
Is there anything wrong with administrators turning to these sorts of considerations to determine what they will put forward as the institution’s capital priorities? In this instance, before the weighing of public relations and political considerations, the prioritization of one building over another looks as if it might as well be subject to a coin flip, as academic needs and values are, by hypothesis, roughly evenly balanced. Given that, the addition of purely political calculations can seem not only excusable but prudent—perhaps even wise. It might be plausibly argued, after all, that attending to the long-term best interests of the university requires this sort of political calculation, as the material basis for the conduct of teaching and research will thereby be most effectively sustained and augmented. The university and the administrator seem above reproach if they engage in such a calculation. The constitutive values of the institution are honored as its vital operations are supported and enhanced.
But would this sort of political calculation still be defensible if the immediate academic needs were not so evenly balanced—if, for example, there were few successful science students at the small regional campus and the language labs and classrooms on the high enrollment flagship campus—a campus still renowned for the breadth and excellence of its language departments—were conspicuously dilapidated, impeding instruction and negatively affecting the recruitment of new faculty? We can imagine a set of administrators reaching a well-grounded conviction that, even in these circumstances, when the academic considerations weigh heavily in favor of the language building, a request for funding for foreign language facilities simply would not succeed this year—not with this particular state legislature. But there is a chance that the new chemistry facility would be supported. With these informed political assessments in mind, the administrators might decide to assert—may we say falsely?—that the chemistry building is the university’s highest priority.
Are they stepping over to the wrong side of a moral line as they make this pitch? The administrators may assuage any twinge of moral discomfort by rehearsing silently the terms and circumstances of the legislative request: The university perennially seeks state funding to support its core activities, and what resonates with the legislature varies; legislators’ receptivity to the university’s request may, in the long run, as political circumstances change, align better with what are truly the institution’s greatest needs. Better to get a small slice of the pie right now, rather than none at all—even if the pie is the wrong kind and even if what was really needed was not pie but meat and potatoes. Perhaps those can be prioritized in a future year.
So in saying that the regional chemistry building is the university’s highest priority, the administrators feel they are not exactly lying. They are saying out loud, “This is our highest priority,” but also sotto voce and really only to themselves, “among the requests we believe we have some chance of your granting.” The audible assertion will, though, take a toll on the administrators’ relations with the language and literature faculty on the main campus, for that will of course be all they hear. They will find this prioritization not just utterly wrongheaded but also dispiriting. It will seem that the administrators either didn’t understand or didn’t care about their space and equipment needs, perhaps even that they don’t really care very much about languages and literature at all. The despair and estrangement can be profound: as the language faculty talk to their colleagues and ponder the institution’s stated priorities, they begin to say among themselves that perhaps the administration simply doesn’t value the humanities.
The administrators can’t explain their public prioritization by saying to the faculty privately, “We didn’t really mean that; our public assertion was shaped by a political judgment.” First, there is no such thing as a “private conversation” between the administration and the faculty; and second, even if there were, the language faculty, deeply cognizant of their own needs but less attentive—appropriately less attentive—to the vagaries of legislative dealmaking, are still likely to feel that the argument based on academic needs and values should win, would win, if it were put forward forcefully enough. The administration will be judged to be either unenlightened or cowardly or inept.
An administrator may feel absolutely confident that this is wrong, that it is naïve. The administrator may even be right about that. But shouldn’t one worry that an unattractive cynicism may be bolstering that confidence? And shouldn’t one worry further that, with every instance of an avowal of priorities compromised by political calculations, the administration’s capacity to discern true priorities may be slightly degraded? As administrators deploy, as they in fact privately embrace and foreground new evaluative concerns—for example, the likelihood of securing more rather than less overall construction funding in a given year—are they not actually putting aside some of the academic values that the faculty prize most dearly?[i]
There are innumerable circumstances where administrators may be wary of discussing publicly all the considerations determinative of an institutional position and perhaps even more occasions where they are reluctant to disclose fully their own personal positions on an issue. Some of these difficult situations are perennial and present themselves in many shades of gray. For example, a dean may court a potential donor whose social or political views she finds repellent. She tries to avoid engaging on those topics, even when the prospect makes stray comments she dislikes, and even when silence can seem like agreement or acquiescence. She keeps her own views to herself, and, so long as the prospect isn’t publicly associated with politically problematic statements or actions, she continues to cultivate the potential donor for institutional support.
Even here, though, where this administrator may be thought to be exhibiting some form of “prudent reserve,”[ii] the restraint involved in maintaining silence still seems slightly corrosive. If a truly offensive remark is made in ordinary conversation in a purely social setting, one would not, should not, refrain from expressing disagreement. If the dean refrains, bites her tongue, because she fears angering or annoying the prospect, she demonstrates a loss of faith in the power of dialogue and the search for mutual understanding that might be understood, at least since Plato, as foundational to the academy. Seeking support for the academy, she is at the same time exhibiting a lack of confidence in its methods and strengths. That is an uncomfortable duality, one that should stir disquiet in the dean’s soul. If this concern seems a bit precious, or too focused on the integrity of her character rather than on whether her behavior is flatly wrong or right, it should at least be clear that the dean is beginning to treat this prospect as primarily a means to the end of a donation; and given the generally sociable circumstances—or faux-sociable circumstances?—of prospect cultivation, that is not a particularly attractive mode of human interaction. We do not even have to assume the dean’s political views are “better” than the potential donor’s; we just have to notice that there is a deliberate lack of sincerity that taints the dean’s conversation.
There are yet other situations confronting administrators that are highly fraught and so irredeemably complex that an administrator may decide to refrain from articulating a clear position—even if she has one—because she counts on the fullness of time to help settle or at least lower the heat on some contested issue. Consider recent calls for police reform, and consider, in particular, calls from some university communities to eliminate university police forces. A president navigating such a call may know that immediate elimination of the university police force will simply make the university dependent on the surrounding city police. She may believe, let’s say with reason, that the culture of the university police department has been carefully and genuinely shaped by an ethos of protection and service that is rather different—let us say more community-friendly—than the police department of the surrounding city. She may fear, however, that simply rebuffing student and faculty demands to eliminate the police will seem insensitive to their justified outrage about nationally prominent cases of serious, deadly police misbehavior. She may also and equally fear that simply acceding to the currently pressing student and faculty demands will provoke outrage in sectors of the public—and perhaps the legislature—that could harm the university financially. She may also sincerely believe that the campus will be less safe without its own police department, and she knows that a campus that is or even seems unsafe will face additional difficulties in student and faculty recruitment. Mulling these thoughts, she may find it attractive to engage with the controversy in a way that in fact postpones a decision, wrapping the issue in many layers of public discussion and “governance” processes, in the hope that some of those expressing the sharpest sentiments will grow tired and distracted—or simply graduate and move on.
Let us leave aside the hard—perhaps unanswerable—question of whether it would be right or wrong in a given case to eliminate the campus police force. Let us notice instead that so many of the considerations upon which this particular president is ruminating are ones that she would be unlikely to want to voice publicly, to own straightforwardly, as pertinent to this decision. Does she want to be, or want the university to be, the face of implied opposition to the city police department? How difficult would it be, on the one hand, to manage predictable public outrage at what will be seen as a politicized elimination of the campus police force, and how difficult, on the other, to manage student and faculty agitation if demands for elimination are flatly rebuffed? For any president immersed in this sort of situation, these questions are pertinent—one might even say it is an obligatory part of the president’s university stewardship to consider them—but publicly foregrounding such considerations is likely to make a tense situation worse. Making a decision on the basis of these sorts of considerations can seem unprincipled—as if one is not even looking directly at the crucial issue and trying to determine the morally preferable course of action but is instead looking to the side and over one’s shoulder, looking at public relations, for a solution that will play well, for now, with the broadest public, or play well with the public that matters most at this moment.
Again, there may be ways in which one can rationalize this sort of administrative thinking so that, if the case is truly and fully described (as this example, a mere sketch, admittedly is not), a decision that is shaped by private rumination about material consequences and public perceptions is one that actually satisfies the moral demands of the moment. Still, there is something worrisome, something morally burdensome, about the practice of keeping these largely consequentialist concerns private. Keeping these calculations to oneself or hashing them out with only a small circle of trusted fellow administrators seems at odds with the reverence for free and open inquiry the university consistently avows and claims to honor. A whiff of duplicity arises if all public pronouncements on a contested subject omit considerations that really did influence an administrative decision. The conscientious administrator should at least begin to ponder whether “prudent reserve” here really amounts to dissembling.
These last two examples—courting the obnoxious donor to secure institutional funding and obscuring the processes used to reach institutional conclusions—can seem like pale versions of the “dirty hands” problem.[iii] If so, they are very pale, for it is not obvious that the administrator is really, for the sake of a great good, doing something that is clearly and unequivocally morally wrong. She is, though, doing things that may depend for their success on a level of secrecy, insincerity, and social manipulation that is somewhat disconcerting. We might worry about the character of a person who finds it easy to treat people as mere means to an end, even a worthy end, or the character of a person who is determined to distract interested stakeholders earnestly trying to engage directly on a matter of manifest importance.
Of course, the administrator may not find these things easy. She may struggle with what she feels called upon to do in order to act in the best interests of the institution. She may well recognize that most of the complex situations she faces are ones where different and often contending values are at stake. That is perhaps no different from the complexity of much of adult life. But her understanding of her role responsibilities—stewardship at the institutional level—may canalize her choices along paths that prioritize the material necessities of institutional survival or, less dramatically perhaps, institutional flourishing, all things considered. Attention to more delicate moral issues may, because of those responsibilities, fall by the wayside.
Again, all complex jobs may require some distasteful compromises, and one should probably not expect a job at this level to offer only easy choices and clear pathways to solutions that completely harmonize all contending considerations. What may be importantly different here, though, is that the academic administrator may too frequently be called upon to sacrifice some of the core values to which her job is ostensibly dedicated. The university avows its allegiance to free and open inquiry, to examining ideas on their merits, unconstrained by political fear or favor. The administrator may in private, or with a small circle, engage in robust inquiry, a thorough examination of available options for some administrative action or policy adoption; but if all the considerations in play really cannot, for good prudential reasons, be brought beyond that inner circle, the administrative decision will not seem, will in fact not really be, a product of open inquiry.
That administrative practice sometimes seems to demand this retreat from openness can be a significant source of tension not only between administrators, on the one hand, and faculty and students, on the other. It can also be a source of disquiet within the soul of the administrator herself.
The foundational ideals of the modern secular university are essentially epistemological. The university is dedicated in both its teaching and its research activities to the search for knowledge; and, in principle, that search involves open processes of inquiry, a commitment to robust and unconstrained interrogation of both received opinion and novel ideas. We know individuals can have other, less high-minded interests propelling their research and teaching. Some professors may want the fame or the patent rights that accompany a scientific breakthrough, the social admiration or disciplinary renown that stems from a successful book. Some students may be focused most intently on the market value of a degree rather than valuing for their own sake the concentrated inquiry and knowledge acquisition the degree is supposed to certify. But whether or not these sorts of personal goals and motivations are thought shallow or base, individuals spurred by them can, in being thus driven, push full-throttle into research and learning. These personal interests or needs are not inherently in conflict with the epistemological presuppositions of the university.
But there is such a conflict—a fundamental contrariety—when an administrator deliberately shields from public examination, discussion, or debate some of the considerations that are in fact shaping her decisions. It may be too harsh to think of this as an outright betrayal of the ideals of the academy, especially if the administrative maneuvering is genuinely meant to be in service to the university. And perhaps the idealized picture of the academy—as committed to open inquiry and democratized debate—is too idealized. Universities do have a business side; they do have to manage their finances. They are also social institutions; they affect and are affected by political processes.
The fact is, however, that it is precisely the idealized picture that draws most academics to the academy. They want to study, do research, and teach in an institution that is dedicated to open inquiry. The faculty member who then takes up an administrative role to manage and support the sort of institution where that ideal can flourish, but who finds herself unable to operate with the intellectual frankness and forthrightness that are prized privileges of an academic life, will be in an uncomfortable place. She has gone into this administrative work to preserve the conditions of discourse that support an ideal, but to achieve that goal she may sometimes judge it necessary—sometimes be required—to refrain from full and frank participation in common—democratized—institutional discourse.
We should assume, nevertheless, that people go into university administration with eyes wide open, knowing they will have a responsibility to be mindful of certain matters, including public relations and institutional politics, that did not much concern them in their faculty roles. We may also assume that an academic administrator may find her work fresh, interesting, and satisfying, and she may feel it enhances the development of certain executive virtues, such as self-control. If she is clear-eyed, though, she should notice that this work, dedicated as it may be to sustaining and fostering the conditions in which academic values can flourish, sometimes seems to narrow the options for her to exercise the very freedoms she now protects and that she formerly enjoyed in her professorial role.[iv] Her dedication to academic values may be a reason for her to take up an administrative role. It may also, in the end, after a time, be a reason to leave it.
That is not a bad prospect. There is great institutional strength in the common practice of faculty cycling in and out of academic administration. Each new administrator brings experience and perspectives derived from a particular disciplinary and generational position in the academic landscape. Those experiences and perspectives color the lenses through which the administration views academic issues, informing and refreshing the administrative outlook. That is a reason to bring new people in. If it is also the case, however, as argued here, that fulfilling administrative responsibilities not infrequently involves sacrificing the openness and epistemological transparency that should structure all academic inquiry, that is a reason for people to rotate out. An academic shouldn’t become too comfortable with these sacrifices. Even if such sacrifices sometimes have to be made in the interest of the institution, we do not want them to be made too lightly. We do not want a lack of candor to become routine. We do not want the university to be led by academic administrators who have ceased to care about openness and unfettered inquiry.
[i] There is also the practical danger that the kind of damage to faculty morale that can result from uncoupling budget priorities from academic priorities will lead to departures of the best faculty from the highly ranked but unprioritized department. If an administrator doesn’t consider and think through this possibility, that would be careless, a failure of stewardship. But the point here is that, even if the administrator does weigh this possibility, and correctly estimates its likelihood, the fact that her funding request is determinatively shaped by some strictly political considerations suggests that actual academic priorities are, for now, judged less weighty.
[ii] See Immanuel Kant’s Lectures on Ethics (“Ethical Duties Towards Others: Truthfulness”), where he muses on the limits of candor and, with the notion of “prudent reserve,” justifies our concealing truths from one another. The defender of the idea that we have a categorical imperative to “act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law,” to “act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end,” explains in detail why he still does not believe we are always obliged to speak our minds or tell the whole truth. (See Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals for a discussion of the categorical imperative.)
[iii] The philosophical problem of “dirty hands” centers on the question of whether someone can be morally justified in committing a bad act for the sake of a very great good.
[iv] Tenure was developed to ensure academic freedom for faculty. There is a good reason the job protections it provides for the professoriate do not extend to any faculty member’s occupation of an administrative post.
Karen Hanson
Karen Hanson recently retired from the position of Executive Vice President and Provost of the University of Minnesota. She was previously the Executive Vice President and Provost at Indiana University, where she had also served as Philosophy Department chair and then dean of the Hutton Honors College, as well as Rudy Professor of Philosophy.
