Bureaucracy Bingo

Recent events at my university have reminded me of my November 5, 2018 blog post about arriving to find one's desk covered in fallen plaster. And now they remind me of the points I made in an email message (below) that I sent to the Provost and Vice Provost on October 2, 2017. Each day's events give me more items I can check off from my list below (lack of transparency, poor communication, no reasonable options for getting problems fixed within the university,...), as if I were playing Bingo.

I'll give some context for the below email in later posts. The Provost and Vice Provost's (non-)reaction to my message below, and recent events, remind me that when UCI administrators receive a message they don't want to hear, they sometimes don't even acknowledge that they received the message.

From: Alice Silverberg

Subject: summary of 9/18 observations and suggestions

Date: Mon, October 2, 2017 at 4:30:32 PM PDT

To: Enrique J. Lavernia

Cc: Alice Silverberg, Diane O'Dowd

Dear Enrique and Diane,

In case it's helpful, here's a reminder of some of the points we discussed at our September 18 meeting, including observations about UCI that I hope will lead to improvements:

When I came to UCI, I found the difficulty in getting information, and a lack of transparency, to be especially striking. Rather than information being easily available, say on easy-to-find websites or via email to the group that needs to know, one learns things by word of mouth and knowing the right people, or at (sometimes sparsely attended) meetings.

Communications are done via the "telephone game" (through a chain of command), rather than directly.  This leads to misunderstandings.

Because of misunderstandings caused by poor communication, people unfairly demonize others. This seems to disproportionately impact women and minorities, who are more likely to be viewed as "the other".

Some decisions are made based on who people like or are friends with (which has a lot to do with whom they're similar to demographically), rather than using professional judgment. This also determines who does and doesn't get information.

It would be helpful to train chairs, hiring committees, and departments on "best practices" for hiring, and hold them accountable for following them.

Some people take positions of authority (chair, dean, etc.) in order to help their own group or themselves or push their own agenda (rather than to do what's right).

I suggest that committees be run using Robert's Rules of Order.

It's important for promises to be kept, including job offer promises and promises of confidentiality.

Some staff treat male faculty much better than they treat female faculty.

People need to know where to go to get problems fixed. People might decide that going to a lawyer or the media are better options than the options UCI provides. If UCI doesn't want that, it needs to give options that can be trusted to make things better rather than worse. Equity Advisors are not the solution; they say they have no leverage and cannot hold chairs or deans accountable.

I hope that's useful.

All the best,

Alice

Alice Silverberg

Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science

University of California, Irvine

http://math.uci.edu/~asilverb

asilverb@uci.edu