Earlier this year I attended a scholarship dinner aimed at raising funds for a local community-based organization. The venue for the dinner, like the organization itself, was in the center of a low-income/working class, Latina/o community. This particular organization focuses on making higher education accessible regardless of immigration status. As I took in the powerful stories and community activism that permeated the event, I looked around and realized that there were people sitting at each table who have been active and present in my own educational journey since my transition as an undergraduate student at the University of Arizona. These same people remained active, present, and engaged over time and were here supporting another equity-based educational cause. And the network has grown; this dinner included supporters from multiple education institutions, professionals in the community, family members, and children.
Fast forward a few months and I found myself back in this
same community collaborating again with a university-based outreach program
that works with K-5 families to provide college access information in an effort
to cultivate college-going practices. The program partners with a local school
district, once again rooted in a low-income/working class, Latina/o community.
I quickly realized many of the same people who are responsible for the
development and sustaining of this particular outreach program were also in
attendance at the scholarship dinner. The program has cultivated
cross-departmental collaborations inclusive of faculty, staff, students, and
K-12 administrators in ways rarely seen in higher education organizations (see
Kiyama, Lee, & Rhoades, 2012). Jenny Lee, Gary Rhoades, and I have termed
these groups “critical agency networks.” These networks are relational,
activist in nature, cut across different department cultures and administrative
silos, and work towards organizational, equity-based change.
The particular outreach program referenced above is in its
12th year and has served over 1000 families. The program must patch
together resources and operates on a minimal budget that has not increased over
the 12 year period. In an interview with a school district administrator, she
emphatically declared that this college outreach program has transformed the school
district as students at every grade level have the aspirations and knowledge to
make college a reality. My reflections left me with many questions. How does a
program with minimal resources sustain this type of impact over time? Likewise,
how does a program of this sort sustain within a rapidly changing
organizational context? More importantly, what do the lack of financial and
human resources allocated to outreach efforts signal about the land-grant
purpose of this public institution?
It is no longer shocking news to hear that state aid for
public higher education has been drastically reduced. Earlier this year
Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin revealed the plan for a $300 million cut in
state support for higher education. Arizona also proposed major cuts in state
support, drastically reducing funding for the flagship universities and
eliminating funding for some community college systems. It is no surprise that
institutions are exploring new ways to generate necessary revenue as a
response. In an era of drastically diminishing resources and an abundance of
neoliberal practices, how do we sustain the public, land-grant missions of
these institutions?
There is no arguing that financial resources matter.
However, within the particular institutional and community context that much of
my research has been situated, there exists a critical, collectivist network.
These collaborations continue to sustain outreach and equity-based programming
despite these drastic state reductions in support, despite increases in
market-like behaviors, and despite the organizational changes that have
occurred at the institution over the last 10 years. Oversight for the program
comes from mid-level managerial professionals (Rhoades & Sporn, 2002), yet
faculty play a key role within the network.
This leads me to more questions. Are collectivist, critical
agency networks one response to neoliberal policies and practices? Collective
action around a need for organizational or political change is not new. In the 1960s and 70s, the women’s liberation
movement and women’s consciousness-raising groups were focused on the need for
political change (Weiler, 2003). Astin and Leland’s (1991) research points to
similar examples of the networks women created through professional organizations
to fight for gender equity. Similarly, Hart’s (2007) work establishes the
powerful role of women academics and their collective partnerships with
university and community leaders to transform the academy across academic
disciplines.
While the narratives above highlight individual outreach
efforts, the research that I’m doing underscores the role of the networks
associated with sustaining these outreach programs and the necessity of
consciousness-raising through collectivism, not only for political change but
for organizational change and organizational survival. These collectivist
groups are developing and growing because of grassroots, bottom-up efforts (see
Kezar & Lester, 2009, for more on grassroots change and leadership), all
with the common goal of equity and social change in education. Given the
cross-disciplinary role of faculty in these networks, I’m left wondering, will
we see enhanced collective efforts on the part of faculty in response to
reduced support and increasing market-like demands? What might this look like
across different faculty lines and across different institutional types? Can
critical agency networks and collective action become sources of support, a way
to cultivate consciousness-raising, and ultimately, a means to demand
organizational change?
Earlier blog posts by Ryan E. Gildersleeve (January 2014)
and Jay Dee (July 2014) emphasize the need for a broader focus of research, one
that explores issues of higher education organizations, administration, and
leadership. Sam Museus (February 2014) called upon the importance of coalition
building and collective action. Likewise, Gary Rhoades (2014) has stressed that
collective agency needs to be part of a larger research agenda on professionals
as “collective agency is central to catalyzing institutional change” (p. 925). Thus,
together with my colleagues, Ryan E. Gildersleeve, Sam Museus, Gary Rhoades,
and Gerardo Blanco Ramirez, we will explore some of these issues in an upcoming
AERA session. We aim to talk not only about a broadening research agenda, but
the impact of neoliberalism on faculty life, and the responses to it. We hope
that you will join us for: Neoliberalism and Faculty Crises in Higher
Education: The Market State, Knowledge Economy, and Professoriate (Sat, April
18, 10:35am to 12:05pm, Swissotel, Event Centre First Level, Zurich D). We will
be live tweeting during the session using the hashtag #facultycrises.
References
Astin, H.S. & Leland, C. (1991). Women of influence, women of vision: A cross-generational study of leaders
and social change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Dee. J. (2014, July 13). Organization, administration, and
leadership: Addressing the relevance gap in higher education research.
Community of Higher Ed Scholars, blog of AERA Division J.
Gildersleeve, R. E. (2014, January 16). Building a research program
of consequence in the study of higher education (or, thinking beyond
student-focused research). Community of Higher Ed Scholars, blog of AERA
Divison J.
Hart, J. (2007). Creating networks as an activist strategy:
Different approaches among academic feminist organizations. Journal of the Professoriate, 2(1),
33-52.
Kezar, A. & Lester, J. (2009). Promoting grassroots
change in higher education: The promise
of virtual networks. Change, 41(2), 44-51.
Kiyama, J.M, Lee, J.J. & Rhoades, G. (2012). A critical
agency network model for building an integrated outreach program. The Journal of Higher Education, 83(2),
276-303.
Museus, S. (2014, February 4). (Re)envisioning a collective
agenda focused on systems and transformation in higher education. Community of
Higher Ed Scholars, blog of AERA Division J.
Rhoades, G. (2014). The higher education we choose,
collectively: Rembodying and repoliticizing choice. The Journal of Higher Education, 85(6), 917-930.
Rhoades, G. & Sporn, B. (2002). New models of management
and shifting modes and costs of production: Europe and the United States. Tertiary Education and Management, 8,
3-28.
Weiler, K. (2003). Freire and a feminist pedagogy of
difference. In A. Howell & F. Tuitt (Eds.), Race and higher education:
Rethinking pedagogy in diverse college classrooms (pp. 215-242). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Education Publishing Group.
