Establishing a new undergrad and grad programs

[mamselle]

Or, maybe, he understood why the dean disagreed?

Engineering is more specific, unless it's like something that's called, say, 'chemical engineering' or one of the other basic sciences that sometimes has an applied component and teaches that concomitantly with the engineering program, I can see how there would be pushback.

Which gives rise to the question, was the proposal ever vetted with engineering faculty before it was tendered?

I don't recall that being addressed upthread.

M.   

[ciao_yall]

To echo mamselle's point, when I ran our Extension programs, everyone had some ideas on how we could create a new revenue stream off of a new program that was tangentially related to one of our academic programs.

My lucky job was to crush all these innovative ideas. Because (1) The academic program did a pretty good job of preparing students already; (2) Typically the idea was to cover all the students who couldn't get into an oversubscribed academic program due to lack of faculty, but... where were the faculty going to come from if the academic program couldn't even find them; and (3) There wasn't much value-add for the student to sign up for our version of the program.

Some of these ideas came from ersatz "academic partners" who had some affiliation with large companies such as Facebook, Google, etc. But when you got under the covers these basically used these big company names. The college spent all the money and time, and took all the risk, while making the corporate partner look like they were actually doing something, when they hadn't done a darn thing except give us a *.jpg of their logo.

[Hibush]

Some of these ideas came from ersatz "academic partners" who had some affiliation with large companies such as Facebook, Google, etc. But when you got under the covers these basically used these big company names. The college spent all the money and time, and took all the risk, while making the corporate partner look like they were actually doing something, when they hadn't done a darn thing except give us a *.jpg of their logo.

Is this a different grift from the one HotChalk used to suck Concordia Portland dry?

[lightning]

Thank you, lightning! yes, it did hurt but hey that's academia (I feel pity on 2 other faculty who did the majority of work!)! It is amazing how department chairs shift their opinion quickly based on the higher hierarchy! The chair did not support faculty in the meeting once he understood the dean disagreed!


STRANGE world, isn't it?!

STRANGE, but not surprising. That's why I said to line up powerful allies first.

[Vid]

lightning; You are right! I think those 2 full prof did line up some big folks, though. the Associate Dean for Research liked the idea but when the dean said NO and so did the chair, the Ass Dean said I cannot do anything if these two disagree.

Anyway, lesson learned; mind your business and focus on your goals and release others to experience whatever is meaningful to them!

I appreciate your feedback, folks. Love Fora and its great people!

[Ruralguy]

I don't agree on what you say is the lesson learned, Vid.  In fact, if everything is as you say, the lesson learned is quite the opposite. Speak up, try new things, but realize that just because you and a couple of semi-powerful people like an idea, it doesn't mean that it will be accepted by all the powers that be or the rank and file.
Some will work, some won't, and then you move on. Its important, but difficult, to not get too emotionally attached to fighting for an idea.

[mleok]

To me, this seems like a bit of a rookie mistake. One should always be aware of potentially stepping onto another department or college's turf, and making sure there is buy-in from these other stakeholders before investing too much time on this. If nothing else, this reduces any potential duplication of effort and resources, allowing the program to be initialized with a smaller start-up cost.

[Ruralguy]

It might be a good time, Vid, to ask yourself if any of this can be salvaged as a program that your school can manage without stepping into someone else's turf. I don't know what that would be, but it might be possible.

[mleok]

It might be a good time, Vid, to ask yourself if any of this can be salvaged as a program that your school can manage without stepping into someone else's turf. I don't know what that would be, but it might be possible.

Or reach out to the engineering departments to see if they would be interested in collaborating on the program.

[Vid]

Thank you, mleok and Ruralguy. The School of Engineering is not going to say yes, despite the higher projected jobs for our proposed engineering program which is going to grow %7 till 2030 (significantly higher than 2-3 current engineering programs at the School of Engineering).

Yes, it is really difficult. It needs a lot of socializing (humans are social animals, we seek belonging).  I think the main problem was the dean did not want to discuss this new engineering program with the dean of Engineering, why, not sure!  

RuralGuy: "Its important, but difficult, to not get too emotionally attached to fighting for an idea." 100% agree with you, what a wise word. this is the reason why I told to the Associate Dean for Research that I am going to stay away from any discussion focusing on this new engineering degree and instead focus on my research. Now dean told to another full prof to develop the same degree but without "engineering" title and Associate dean for Research wanted me to work with this full prof on this non-engineering program...anyway, I respectfully said I am going to leave this in X, X full prof hand.

I play good politics (or try to) but once I smell bad politics, I pull myself away from that situation. Is it a good strategy? 

Thank you, folks. Happy Friday!

[mleok]

In general, I think the primary responsibility of a tenure-track assistant professor is to earn tenure, program building is very far down the list of things that departments and universities value when it comes time for evaluating you for tenure, so I think it's sensible to leave this effort to more senior faculty.

[Ruralguy]

I partly disagree, Mleok. I think Vid seems to have started the ball rolling. That doesn't mean he's obligated to lead any efforts forever, but withdrawing suddenly after the first setback is not a great look. It sounds like someone else has taken this on anyway, so, maybe the best path is to show interest, but not along the lines of taking it over.  Of course I do agree that Vid's primary concern needs to be getting tenure, so that should definitely be the focus. But part of that is navigating the minefields.

[mamselle]

So, actually, I re-read the thread to see who instigated the idea and that's not actually addressed, either.

Vid, can you outline the order of operations in this? Did the dean/chair/FTT folks/someone else ask you to participate/carry the ball/spearhead this initiative?

Or did you start it on your own?

I'm leaning in mleok's direction here, if the latter: not your job until you're tenured to do stuff like this.

If you were asked to do it, and didn't manage to say, 'No' from the outset, then ruralguy might have more of a point, in that you don't want to upset others too much (but they really shouldn't have asked, if you're not yet tenured, that's potentially lethal to your tenure bid, seems to me).

An interesting question with broader applications since so many places are trying so hard to stay afloat, these questions may arise more and more.

M.

[mleok]

To me, the operative question is what role the Associate Dean of Research might have in Vid's tenure bid. I'm also curious as to why the Associate Dean of Research would even care about the creation of a new undergraduate and graduate program, since that's typically not in their realm of responsibility unless the graduate program includes a PhD program.

[Vid]

mamselle: Yes, long story short. A full prof first started establishing another non-engineering program 2 years ago, it wasn't attractive to the college as it contradicted with another degree program in the college. This full prof is the same guy who is now trying to establish a non-engineering program!

My chair gave me a green light to do some research on this engineering program. I got 9 letters of support from full prof in big engineering schools in Europe and US and formed a Professional Advisory Board. The mistake my chair made (in my opinion) was he went straight to the dean and talked about this engineering program when we weren't ready and we were in the initial stage of preparing documents, etc. and the dean said "NO" to him! Our dean is a visualized leader, meaning that he has to see some math,  successful examples, numbers, net gain, etc. to believe that this program would be successful! like other institutions, there is a lot of politics going on here and maybe the dean didn't want to deal with the internal politics.

 Anyway, I am staying out of this bc I don't feel my contribution/effort as a TT matters (or appreciated) until I get tenured!

Ruralguy: yes, I agree with you that "withdrawing suddenly after the first setback is not a great look"...but you know what you have to LOVE yourself enough. if they don't celebrate you, appreciate you you have to love yourself enough and move on!

Thank you, folks. Grateful for your comments.