editor’s letter
PERIODIC REVIEW OF academic units is a standard practice in academia. The goal of such review is to contribute to quality enhancement by
providing the unit and the institution
with a clear assessment of the unit’s
strengths and weaknesses. Typically,
such a review consists of a thorough
self-study by the reviewed unit, which
is followed with a visit by a commit-
tee of experienced academicians. Af-
ter the visit, the committee submits
a report, which combines an incisive
analysis with sage advice for unit im-
provements. Then what? Usually, not
much, I am afraid. It is rare to see such
a review resulting in a truly significant
quality enhancement.
I recently had the opportunity to
be a member of a committee that reviewed all 17 computer science programs in Israel. The 17 programs range
from graduate programs at world-famous research institutions such as
the Weizmann Institute of Science,
to small undergraduate programs at
small colleges such as Tel-Hai College
at the Northern Galilee. The review
project was carried out over a period of
a year and a half, included three visits
to Israel, and was, overall, a considerable effort. (The reports are available
at http://che.org.il/?page_id=34025.)
Then what? Not much, I am afraid.
Why is it that academic-unit reviews
accomplish so little in spite of the significant effort both by the reviewed
units and reviewing committees? And
why do we continue to conduct these
reviews in spite of their meager results?
The answer to the second question
is clear, I believe. Unlike businesses,
which can be measured by their bot-
tom line, academic institutions have
multiple, difficult to measure, and of-
ten conflicting goals. They are unified
by the nebulous concept of academic
excellence. The pursuit of excellence
must be visible, and academic-unit re-
views serve this purpose. But why do
they accomplish so little? There are
three main reasons, I believe.
Cultural Barriers: Culture is defined as “the way of life, especially
the general customs and beliefs, of
a particular group of people at a particular time.” Each academic unit has
its own unique culture. Culture usually creates social cohesion by means
of shared expectations, but it can
also be a barrier to change. Quality
enhancement requires an academic unit to change the way it runs its
business, but culture is persistent
and change is difficult. Israel has
become famous as the “Start-Up Nation,” with a thriving high-tech sector. The computer science programs
in Israel create the educated work-force that underpins the Israel high-tech sector. Yet computer science
units in Israel are generally spin-offs
from mathematics units. As a result
they tend to be highly theoretical in
their research focus. The Review Committee’s report called for a better balance between theoretical and experimental research, but such a change
runs against an entrenched culture.
Institutional Barriers:
Academic-unit reviews typically focus on low-level units, such as departments.
But departments do not operate in a
vacuum. Departments typically belong to schools, and the operations of
a department must be considered in
the context of the school in which it
is housed. But reviews almost always
focus narrowly on departmental operations, missing the bigger context.
Furthermore, academic units have
multiple stakeholders—academic
staff members, administrative staff
members, students, and higher-level
academic administrators—with di-
verse sets of interests. Almost every
proposed quality-enhancing change
runs against the interests of some
stakeholder. Thus, there are institu-
tional barriers to change. It takes very
strong institutional support for quality
enhancement—as well as committed
leadership at all levels—to implement
recommended changes. For example,
in one institution in Israel we found
five distinct computer science pro-
grams and called for an institutional
reorganization to increase synergy and
efficiency. But such reorganization
runs against several institutional in-
terests and is unlikely to happen.
Follow-Up Process: The reviews produced by review committees often offer
insightful diagnoses of the weaknesses
discovered. They usually also offer recommendations for improvements, but
they usually do not offer detailed action
plans, as reviewers lack the intimate institutional knowledge required to develop such plans. But most institutions
do not have a robust follow-up process
to ensure that a detailed action plan to
deal with the recommendations is developed by department and the school,
is carried out to completion, and then
re-reviewed to ensure actual improvement. Thus, academic-unit review reports mostly gather dust rather than
affect change.
So what is to be done? Should we
abandon the ritual of academic-unit
review? I view the pursuit of academic
excellence as a hallowed academic value, and reviews can serve an important
role in such a pursuit, but they should
not be undertaken without utmost
commitment to the process and fortitude to carry it out.
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Moshe Y. Vardi, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Copyright held by author.
The Ritual of Academic-Unit Review
DOI: 10.1145/2945075 Moshe Y. Vardi