Nested authority at TWU September 6, 2006
Posted by mwj as governance, politics, twu, twusa. trackback.I met with Dr. Raymond yesterday. I’d booked 45 minutes but his secretary had cut it down to half an hour and he was 10 minutes late, so I had to be understandably pointed in my approach. We were going to have dinner with him as an executive tonight, so I figured we could save the pleasantries ’till then.
It wasn’t the first time we’d met. I stopped by his office a week ago on the chance that he was around, and we had a lovely chat about behavioral epidemiology, a phrase he’d coined in the 80s. He’s always the teacher, and sketched for me a fascinating diagram of the whole concept, which I’ll share at some point. But I digress.
The meeting was short, but I think it was illuminating for both of us. I shared with him my vision for creating a student association that actually adds value to this university and a newspaper that isn’t decaying with neglect. He shared with me some of the operating assumptions of this university, namely that we operate in “nested authority.” So that means the board defines all policy, the president’s cabinet works within that policy, student life works within P-Cab policy, TWUSA within the Student Life bureaucracy (i.e. the elected representative of the students, Norm, reporting to his supervisor and head of Student Life, Ken Kush), and then Mars’ Hill within that.
We also had a great discussion about freedom, and the necessity of limits for any freedom to take place. He said, and I very much agree, that any operating body needs a clearly defined authority structure within which to function. He called it an ecosystem in which an organization can live and prosper according to certain rules. I replied that this is true, although the authority that defines this ecosystem has a huge responsibility to maintain the delicate balance between freedom and limit. A river is only a river because it has banks: without them, it would be a swamp. But if those banks are too close, and too impassable, the river will dry up. I cited two examples of such barren consequences brought on by the failure of the administration in their role as care-takers of our university ecosystem.
Imagine a number of cardboard boxes, each stacked on top of each other, representing the different levels of authority. If we were to place a thirty pound stone top of those boxes, they would all be destroyed. This is what has happened at TWU.
The first was the responsibilities of membership. They were crafted many years ago to promote and protect a certain environment that has long disappeared from this campus. You cannot run a premier academic institution like a junior college. Our “covenant” fails to promote a positive learning environment because it isn’t followed by the majority of students, and it isn’t fairly and transparently applied by those who administer the accountability process. Both the responsibilities of membership and the method of their application are wrought with problems that need serious and loving repair. We can no longer rely on their mantra of “if you don’t like it, leave,” because obviously those who don’t like it aren’t leaving, and no one can do anything about it. You can’t expel over half of your student body just because they have “possessed alcohol or tobacco in any form.”
The second was the operational guidelines of Mars’ Hill. These guidelines are now seven years old and have received little or no modification throughout their existence. They have a very ill-defined logic, no amendment process, and are highly unclear on a number of points. One would be the relationship between TWUSA and the communications committee (headed up by Ken Kush), the two bodies on campus that take on the burden of defining policy for Mars’ Hill. Furthermore, the only person recognized as having any authority within the whole newspaper is the editor-in-chief. There are some suggestions towards the end that he or she hire one or two editors to help with the job, but this is hopelessly outdated: last year I had almost one hundred people on my staff list. This has led to editors getting mono, hating student life, and a newspaper that is constantly at odds with one of the main newsmakers on campus, Student Life.
A third would be the horribly written bylaws of TWUSA. These documents suffer from a double portion of inefficiency. First, like any bylaws, they must go through the contortions of democracy before enough support is garnered to modify them and actually get the changes passed. But then, if that ever happens, they must sit before the President’s cabinets for months before they deign to take a look at the proposed changes. If these are accepted, they must go back to the student body for a referendum and a change. At this point, the year is over and a new council has arrived, clueless as to the tinkerings of the previous year.
The concept of nested authority can no longer work. The burden of caretaking our delicate ecosystem cannot rest on the shoulders of one group alone, like the board of governors. A suitable visual metaphor: imagine a number of cardboard boxes, each stacked on top of each other, representing the different levels of authority. If we were to place a thirty pound stone top of those boxes, they would all be destroyed. This is what has happened at TWU. We have become a top-heavy that was nearly flattened by the events of last year.
I promised Raymond that a solution is in the works at TWUSA, that this is not all just complaining but rather a step towards a goal, towards finding a way to harness the strength of the student body and allow them to shoulder some of the burden. I must leave you at the present with no more than that promise and the vision that we crafted as a council this year to meet our goal:
The vision of the Trinity Western University Student Association of 2006/2007 is that we can make this university better for students. We will do this through a renewal of our purpose as the legitimate representative of the student body.
Comments»
This is a good discussion. Defining the language by which to execute discourse is half the battle, I think. Two of the useful linked up phonemes (I read aloud) that I noticed were:
a) nested authority - discussed that way, what are other viable models? I personally think you should suggest an egged authority model to naturally succeed the current.
b) university ecosystem - Would Cajun cooking be as good without the Bayou? While I think the newspaper could suffer more constructive pressures than the one it has been right now - it is definitely not floundering. It is a contender. (I think it one first last year in some competition somewhere - know anything about that?).
It takes everybody to bring dimension to the nests. Since I hear from Jamie that you are into marriage analogies, I see that the nests rising into a layered Wedding Cake. The only question is who is supporting or squashing whom? Is the individual student (organization) on top or the ugly mass of students suffering on the bottom layer?
When I spoke with him on Monday, he used the analogy of a horse being free to roam in a pasture rather than being tethered to a stake.
That pasture, the policy framework, is being developed as we speak. In Raymond’s words, the Board’s job is to state policy in “as broad terms as possible.”
So my question is how big is the pasture ?