University, An Owner's Manual

Henry Rosovsky

Another critical virtue of academic life—I am thinking of tenured professors at, say, America’s top fifty to one hundred institutions—is the absence of a boss. A boss is someone who can tell you what to do, and requires you to do it—an impairment of freedom. As a dean—i.e., as an administrator—my boss was the president. I served at his pleasure; he could and did give me orders. But as a professor, I recognized no master save peer pressure, no threat except, perhaps, an unlikely charge of moral turpitude. No profession guarantees its practitioners such a combination of independence and security as university research and teaching. Let me amplify this point.

In the early 1950s, the University of California was plunged into grave controversy by the state’s insistence that all its employees sign an anti-Communist loyalty oath. Those were the days of McCarthy and the red scares. State and federal committees on un-American activities stalked the land. There was opposition to the loyalty oaths inside and outside the university, although in the end nearly everyone signed. A few professors refused and were dismissed.

The most interesting refusal was tendered by Professor E. K. Kantorowicz, a famous medieval historian and refugee from Hitler’s Germany. He did not particularly object to a loyalty oath requirement—I am not suggesting that he approved it. Rather, he had a deeper objection: he did not wish under any circumstances to be classified as an employee of the state of California...

The distinction held by Kantorowicz is most valuable. We professors have the income of civil servants but the freedom of artists. This imposes certain obligations. The formal duties imposed by our institutions are minimal, anywhere between six and twelve hours in the classroom per week during eight months of the year. Yet most of us work long hours and spend many evenings at our desks or in our laboratories. We do not tell students that this is our day off, that they must seek someone else with whom to discuss their problems. We do practice our profession as a calling, considering ourselves not employees but shareholders of the university: a group of owners. “Share values” are determined by the quality of management and the product. We seek to keep those values as high as possible. None of this is to deny that we very much enjoy the calling, and believe that we are engaged in activities of high social value...

Both professors and students have in their possession uninterrupted time. Time to write, read, think, dream—and to waste. A dean’s schedule—any administrator’s schedule—could not be more different...

As a group, academics are intolerant and critical. In their work, they are used to giving and receiving strong criticism. Precision of thought and expression is a quality that elicits admiration. Not surprisingly, professors have a certain contempt for politicians—compromisers, talkers, windbags. I do not believe that many deans share these simple-minded views. Over the years, I have developed profound sympathy especially for politicians attempting to survive in a democracy...

Governance is another area in which American universities are unusual... The American system is unitary: ultimately one person—a president—is in charge. Typically, educational policy—curriculum, nature of degrees, selection of faculty, admissions, etc.—is initiated by or delegated to academics. But budgets, management of endowment, decisions on new programs, long-range plans, and similar matters are in the hands of a hierarchy headed by a president who is responsible to a board of trustees. Two points are noteworthy in this system. First, chairmen, deans, provosts, and similar levels of senior and middle management are appointed—not elected—and they can be dismissed. This is crucial because academic elections tend to result in weak leadership. What professors in their right minds would vote for a dean advocating cuts in their subjects? Secondly, relatively independent trustees serve both public and private schools, giving considerable protection from political interference even to state universities. We have a system of governance that permits non-consensual and unpopular decisions to be made when necessary. We have learned that not everything is improved by making it more democratic.