Chancellor Perdue,
As you know, there has been much criticism of you getting this job. I and other faculty pointed out your lack of experience in higher education administration. Students rallied against you as well, saying you are a threat to higher education.
Yet, here we are. What is done is done. Faculty, staff, and students across the state’s 26 public institutions are deeply pessimistic, afraid, and tired, but you deserve a chance.
There will be a window of opportunity this semester for you to meet head-on the criticism and cynicism. You need to be seen and heard across this state’s higher education institutions. You need to visit campuses, classrooms, faculty senates and staff meetings. You are already doing this, and I applaud that and ask for more.
In those meetings, you need to veer from the platitudes about public service you have used so far to speak to many issues that the University System of Georgia (USG) faces and tensions your appointment brings into sharp focus. Here are some I would like to see you address.
Credit: Peggy Cozart
Credit: Peggy Cozart
One, the system’s independence. A chancellor with your political history must show he can maintain the needed distance from the governor and other influences. The past is often a prologue and we all should remember the era in Georgia when a governor fired professors and replaced regents to get what he wanted. You are the beneficiary of a similar move by our current governor.
Two, the system’s reputation. Nationwide public opinion of higher education has tanked. And in Georgia, while many love their UGA national championship and assorted alumni banners, some lawmakers and the constituents they represent -- parents of many of our students -- falsely think professors are running indoctrination factories to brainwash students into hating America. Add the recent censure from the nation’s most prominent faculty group -- the American Association of University Professors --and you can see the USG is in a perilous place.
You need to clarify the answer you gave to this newspaper in June when you said you wanted to bring conservative “values” in our higher education system. How you define that could push the USG toward an arm of a political party or toward its goal as an education system with a strong reputation for research and teaching.
Three, the system’s relationship to the private sector. As governor you created a commission to build a new Georgia, studying issues and problems with help from the private sector. Sadly the regents who passed the tenure policies that got the USG censured showed private sector thinking won’t always work best in higher education. Yes, like what you did at the USDA, the USG can get better at customer service, flexibility for all types of students and meeting the workforce needs of a growing and diverse state. But if you want to define the state’s values concerning higher education, turn to faculty, staff and students first, not CEOs.
A chancellor’s job is to advocate for higher education, at times against the cultural and economic headwinds that come from the statehouse and the private sector. Higher education works best - both in the classroom and in its administration - when its work is shared amid a community of respect. Georgia higher education doesn’t need a CEO. It needs a chancellor.
Finally, the system’s future. I don’t know how long you plan to stay in this job. There is an election for governor coming up. And as you know, the governor has a powerful role in the selection of the chancellor. I urge you to avoid politics of any kind and of any perception. Yet the system’s future doesn’t merely hinge on the next election. It must answer to an increasingly divided public, but also seek to change that public through its work. We all have been told how your friendships with lawmakers may make it easier for the USG to get bigger budgets. I’ll take a raise and a few more colleagues, if you want to get that done. But some of those same lawmakers eager to fund buildings and programs are attacking higher education, seeking to erode its most basic principles. Will you stand up for us? Will you chart a future based on a broad civic education - humanities, science, business and areas targeted by these lawmakers? Or will it be a system designed merely to produce workers?
More broadly, there is a crisis of information in our nation and state. Will you stand up for facts, research and the democratic process as a leader of a system that you say has as its purpose to build productive citizens? Your experience will give you a managerial foundation for the job. But to be a chancellor, like a faculty member, you have to profess truth and not give any credence to lazy thinking and false claims.
Chancellor Perdue, the USG is at a crossroads. Help us understand where you want the system to go.
Matthew Boedy, Ph.D., is president, Georgia Conference, of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). He is an associate professor at the University of North Georgia.
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