Mixed Metaphors, Leading Questions

Last week, I visited Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. Nestled on the Upper West Side, the campus is a lush reprieve from the city---connected, yet protected.

In the case of Harvard, Cambridge and the campus, while distinct, ebb and flow, melding into one another.

Northwest Corner Building at Columbia.

From the top floor of Columbia's soon-to-be-finished Northwest Corner Building, the near entirety of New York City stretches out below---you can even see the cranes hulking over Columbia's second campus.

Spanish architect and former Harvard Design School faculty member Raphael Moneo designed the Northwest Corner Building, a large glass and steel structure dedicated to interdisciplinary science and engineering.

Laboratory of Integrated Science & Engineering at Harvard.

Moneo also designed Harvard's Laboratory for Integrated Science and Engineering (LISE), a building which is impressive because of its depth (5 stories live underground) and its melding with the less than television-perfect Gordon McKay Lab.

From the outside, both buildings look like stretched, grayscale Rubik's Cubes). From the inside, both share interiors that seem whisper quiet, subtle, and almost soothing. Let's face it, modern research is very cool.

The dean of Columbia's SEAS (noting unlike us, they have applied science rather than applied sciences), Feniosky Peña-Mora, accompanied a group of other ivy deans (and their communications counterparts) on a campus tour of the new building---as well as the campus as a whole.

Columbia U engineering dean Feniosky Peña-Mora.

I learned that Columbia's engineering program has around 11 departments. Harvard's has no departments---but instead, loosely affiliated areas (that well, are becoming more department-like).

Dean Peña-Mora mentioned the challenge and opportunity of a truly interdisciplinary building (not owned by one school or a given academic area). The Northwest Corner Building houses neuro, nano, and if I recall correctly, a lot of imaging, all fields that draw on faculty across science and engineering.

I nodded in understanding, as LISE was designed as a shared research facility and the newer Northwest Building---500,000 square feed of interdisciplinary science goodness---houses Harvard schools, departments, and institutes from all realms.

(And yes, two Northwest buildings on two ivy campuses is kind of funny. If Princeton opens one then maybe that hints that all the ivies plan to merge. Moneo did, however, build their neuro/psychology complex.)

In an academically freeform building, the questions of who-goes-where and who-gets-what are live wires for the newish Columbia dean (he's been on the job for about two years). I didn't have the heart to tell him that these questions remain many years after the buildings are completed and occupied. Meaning, the Rubik's Cube metaphor is accurate, as there will be a constant shift of people and research. Yet the perfect geometric solution (solid color on each side) is not the end goal or even a desired objective.

Almost if on cue Dean Peña-Mora said, "Well, you know, working with faculty is like herding cats." (Even better, he said this among a group of his fellow ivy engineering deans.) A quick search reveals that the original use of that phrase was to describe the difficulty of managing programmers (dating to the mid-1980's). As it has gained cultural currency, EDS even used it in a Superbowl commercial.



Georgia Perimeter College English professor Rob Jenkins has riffed on this metaphor at length.

Thanks to the quest to quantify the qualitative, some sociology researchers went one step further, exploring what kind of catnip might be required to get faculty aligned.

A paper titled “Social Rewards Perceived By Faculty in Their Relationships With Administrators” provides an interesting look at just what kinds of interactions fall short in the eyes of professors …

Department chairs and deans who visit them in their offices periodically? Not important, said the bulk of professors surveyed for the study that was detailed in the paper. Deans who engage them in problem solving? Thanks, but no thanks, the professors said. What if deans or department chairs make an effort to know their families? That doesn’t really matter to faculty members either, the report says.

So department chairs, if you’re reading, here are some of the things that 90 percent or more of the respondents consider “important” or “extremely important”: Demonstrating respect for them as colleagues, showing appreciation for their professional abilities, considering them an asset to the department, respecting their opinion, responding to phone calls and emails in a timely manner, and understanding their scholarly interests.

Also important to professors: 85 percent of them want department chairs to hold them in high esteem, and, in a nod to collegiality, 77 percent said it’s important to be acknowledged by their department chair in passing.

Full article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://bit.ly/kWOwbi

Upon first reading, the study suggests that faculty simply want to be told how utterly fantastic they are ("Wow, you not only deserved tenure for your creation of transparent aluminum, but how about some box seats at Fenway!"). They want to be glorified (as in, "I absolutely get why your research on quantum entanglement is the most important research in the universe."). They want to be, like tech-savvy tweens, texted back immediately ("OMG! We will send someone to fix your leaking air conditioner immediately!")

Obviously, this is a very one-dimensional and inaccurate assessment of faculty at any institution. The study, alas, seems to celebrate a wrongheaded view of academia---the ivory tower of overprivileged intellectuals in need of constant ego-boosting.

I sent this excerpt to a group of our administrators as an FYI. Our former dean, Venkatesh "Venky" Narayanamuti, stopped by my office for a chat.

Ever wise he remarked, "You know, the study doesn't reveal anything that is all that surprising. What faculty really want is for someone to really listen to them. And even if just at a surface level, have a basic understanding of what they are doing."

That, he said, goes a long way toward earning their trust---critical when difficult decisions need to be made and even more critical in an age of interdisciplinary buildings (and mindsets) where the rules are always shifting to keep up with research that has no natural boundaries.

While I cannot think of one right now, we need a new non-cat metaphor for leading faculty at 21st century research universities.

For the turner-of-phrase, fame surely awaits.