[Husker] Callahan's system, changes never clicked with Huskers (fwd)

[todd strong]

Mr. Reichenbach....may we have the "dummy" version of this post please, lol.

"Would the boy I was yesterday, be proud of the man I am today?"
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Nolan" <nolan at romaine.tssi.com>
To: <husker at romaine.tssi.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2007 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Husker] Callahan's system,changes never clicked with Huskers 
(fwd)


>> Mike, this reminds me of my unanswered question...Why does the A.D. 
>> report
>> to someone who is not in a position to make thorough assessments of the
>> A.D.'s performance?
>
> Isn't that true of other administrative units that report to the
> Chancellor's office as well?
>
> I think you also misunderstand the Chancellor's traditional role in
> an academic institution.  You think he's in charge.  (I'd use a smiley
> here, but it isn't funny, it's the truth.)
>
> Universities tend to consist of a somewhat hierarchical set of fiefdoms.
>
> Historically the person with the least secure seat has been the
> Chancellor.  (Compare how many Chancellors UNL has had over the past 30
> years with how many deans of, say, the College of Architecture.)
>
> As a result, 'thorough assessments' of performance are not done, unseating
> the lord of each fief is a difficult task, most chancellors quickly
> learn not to even try it and concentrate their efforts elsewhere.  Say
> what you want about Perlman, but he isn't a dummy.
>
> UNL is by no means the only academic institution with this problem, read
> Henry Kissinger's stories of his days at Harvard, about which he once
> said "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so
> small."
>
> And the problems aren't unique to academic institutions, either.  Look
> at organizations like Hewlett-Packard, a very well run company that had
> to fire its CEO a few years back.  (She was a woman, which undoubtably
> exacerbated her problems there.)  Look at Enron, at GE, at Apple, at
> Microsoft, etc.
>
> When I was in grad school I took several courses in organizational theory,
> the professor used to use academic institutions as teaching examples of
> how messed up organizations can get.  It may come as no surprise, but
> that professor is no longer at UNL.
> --
> Mike Nolan
>
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