(Written about 1980)
One critical activity which every organization needs to conduct with some regularity is sharing visions of the organization’s goals. Briefly set forth here is a panorama of goals relating to Brigham Young University.
The university itself, BYU, as a whole, has two main purposes. The first is to be proficient in education, in fact to become the most proficient educational institution in the world. This is a way of saying that an effective combination of great teachers, great teaching, great students and great learning will produce people of intelligence, refinement and attainment such as is not accomplished as well in any other institution. This process will turn free upon this earth alumni who will be effective in establishing and spreading the Savior’s kingdom upon the face of the entire earth, both temporally and spiritually. The second purpose of BYU is to show forth an example to the world of what good things being a servant of Christ can bring to pass. BYU could become a showcase of excellence in the way it is organized and governed, a model of effective educational process, a harmonious community of professional and non-professional people working delightedly together for common ends, a place of beauty, cleanliness and propriety. In its showcase role, BYU would also be a center of creativity in matters of intellect and heart, idea and art—a model of ingenuity successfully applied to pure and practical research to produce creative solutions for both personal and social perplexities. As a light unto the world, BYU would be an unashamed partisan promoter of everything in the world which is virtuous, lovely, of good report or praiseworthy, demonstrating the sanctity of families, the glory of freedom, the intelligence of faithfulness, and the possibility of a pure heart.
These lofty institutional goals gain both meaning and credibility when associated with comparable visions of what their components would necessarily become were those goals to be attained. Key components are students, faculty, department chairmen and deans. Let us examine the potential and ideal role of each of these in turn.
The ideal BYU student is a person who is a covenant servant of Jesus Christ, who has dedicated himself wholly to living by every word that proceeds forth out of the mouth of God. While not perfect in attaining that consecration as yet, there is a willingness to obey and a hunger for excellence that turns every exposed deficiency into an opportunity for grateful repentance. Creativity for such a student is not measured in muttering defiance of the dress and grooming code, but in exhilarating discovery of the manifold paths available to insight, understanding, ability and ingenuity that open to energetic searching. Learning is not measured by grades, credit and degrees but in ability to solve problems and to bless others. Education is seen as neither a hurdle nor an attainment, but rather as a process of continuous daily creation of a new self as the soul enlarges in heart and intellect in a life-long endeavor to rise to the opportunity of our human situation. This ideal student would come to BYU with some solid learning and training, but more importantly with willingness to work hard, with the flexibility to reform, with the determination to endure to the end.
It is obvious that this ideal student is already a paragon. But that is not unthinkable nor impossible. All that is asked is that the majority become like the present best students. That will happen in the same way we have attained the blessing of our present best students. How did they come into this excellence? Some gained this by being born and raised in the homes of faithful Latter-day Saints who themselves had all those virtues.
But where do these parents come from? Hopefully they are former BYU students, or persons who have enjoyed a similar opportunity. But chickens and eggs notwithstanding, how do we affect this cycle to get it going? That is where the faculty comes in.
The ideal BYU faculty member is also first and foremost a dedicated Latter-day Saint. He or she has been amply nurtured with the words of Christ, and being a believer, is well on the way to enduring to the end, living constantly in the precious hope that makes that end desirable and in the firm faith that makes that end attainable. Through relying solely upon the merits of the Savior, all good things are at hand or are attainable by such a one.
Of the good things to lay hold of, the ideal BYU faculty member has, without exception, taken a firm grasp of the learning of this world. Conversational ability in the language of faith and the language of learning has led to a thorough but selective mastery of good things to be found in the realms of intellect, art, science and technology. Being versed in the basics of many subjects, we say that this ideal mentor has an admirable general education, thus being ready for further learning and further thought in an exciting horizon of interests and abilities. Having selected at least one subject for intensive and thorough investigation’ the faculty member tries to become acquainted with all that is good and all that is going on in that subject. This is a continuing mastery, one which is updated, reviewed and renewed constantly through the reading of scholarly journals, talking with knowledgeable people in the field, attending selected conventions, and a lot of pondering of the subject.
This happy combination of extensive general education and intensive mastery of a major field of interest we denominate as scholarship. A scholar is one who is well-schooled, knowing something about nearly everything and a lot about something. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of being a lively, continuing scholar. This is the sine qua non of the ideal faculty member. His life and mind are a treasure-house of good ideas, good understanding, good skills, and good will which have been broadly sought, carefully selected, intensively prized and masterfully crafted into an intelligible and communicable whole.
Scholarship is thus the beginning, the necessary foundation of all other good things which the faculty member might do as a teacher. On this foundation three additional attainments of note might be built. These are excellence in teaching, creativity and administration. We will briefly delineate the articulation of each of these scholarships.
Scholarship is the basis of good teaching. No matter how lovely the landscape, the dry spring and the empty well will not, cannot quench the thirst for knowledge. The copious flow from an ample scholarly mind will bless many an inquiring shrub of reaching tree, moisten and bring to life many a meadow of community, provide sustenance for multitudes of faint souls. The power of a great teacher is renown for the influence of such a one multiplies and spreads from generation to generation. But it seems that the real and principal difference between the great and the not-so-great teacher is in how much they are able to inspire their students to want to learn. It is true that techniques of pedagogy, the ability to teach with examinations, the ordering of iterations, and the mastering of media all enhance the teaching-learning process. But it is also true that the massive enhancement of ability to teach comes with attainment of the stature of a great scholar. Then the other things become important. Without scholarship they are as tinkling brass and a sounding cymbal.
Though scholarship is fundamental, teaching and the ability to teach well comes next and hard by in the scale of values for the ideal BYU faculty member. We must not forget—nor make apology for the fact that BYU is primarily an undergraduate institution where exemplary teaching is the main mission of the faculty. The quality and quantity of excellent teaching are the accomplishments to be most greatly desired and rewarded at BYU as capable faculty scholars apply themselves to their mission. While it is admitted that this perspective on the importance of good teaching has not been operative in many past administrative decisions, there is now a clear intention to place the importance and worth of such teaching in its proper effective place in the university system.
What then of creativity and research? Are they to be downgraded? No, they are not. The emphasis on enhancing the creative and research accomplishments of the faculty, taken both individually and collectively, will continue apace. For creative effort has not yet reached its rightful place in the collective faculty repertoire. Many individuals will continue to foster, encourage, guide and stimulate the majority of faculty members who have yet to achieve the exhilaration of genuine contribution to the knowledge and accomplishments of mankind.
This emphasis will continue because creative effort also has a rightful and necessary place in the institutional life and goals of BYU. This place is vouchsafed by several factors. First, creativity is service to mankind. Thus artistic, scholarly and scientific creativity are ways to bless. Creative drive when based firmly on solid scholarly attainment, motivated by righteous desires and quickened by the divine gift will produce much of value. It is the business of a university and especially of this university to produce beauty, intelligence and solutions to problems that will assist in building up the kingdom of the Savior. It is desirable that every member of the faculty master the discipline, the scholarship, the desire and the faith in Christ which will enable them to make a contribution in a creative way. For this reason: We are trying to teach our students to have discipline, to become scholars, to desire to bless, and to find the faith that will enable them to become righteously creative. There is no better means of teaching righteousness than to demonstrate it, for it is infectious.
In addition to blessing mankind in being creative, this effort also builds the builder. More than teaching, creativity gives immediate challenge to the scholarship of the would-be creator. Students may suffer silently when the intellectual stream is thin; but matter and nature yield only to sufficiency of effort and attainment. Though flexing intellectual muscles on students is interesting, it seldom is overwhelming. But the creative challenge is always sufficiently overwhelming to cause us to grasp and to grow. And while one can parlay phrases into unrighteous dominion in the classroom, the Holy Spirit transmits the light only to the honest, and more abundantly to the pure. In short, teaching is a mastery which may be counterfeited, whereas genuine creativity cannot. Thus creativity is the hammer, and scholarship is the anvil which shapes and molds a great teacher into the real thing.
Yet teaching remains paramount. Teaching is the end at BYU, with scholarship and creativity as essential means to that end. The fact that neither scholarship nor teaching and creativity has reached full fruition in the past at BYU does not bind the future. The important thing is that we know where we are going. The ideal teacher at BYU is a continuing solid scholar, a creative contributor to the intellectual and spiritual wealth of this world, and a master-teacher of young Latter-day Saints. All three.
A word needs to be said about proportion. Proportion and propriety are companions, especially in the gospel framework. While there can be no universal formula because of our individual differences, a pattern may nevertheless be useful. It is suggested that the steady state phenomenon for the paradigm faculty members would be one-fifth of time and energy devoted to the scholarship of keeping up in one’s field and in enhancing one’s general education; one-fifth might also be devoted to the love and labor of creative production; and three-fifths, the solid majority of heart and mind, be attuned to the kindly delivery of students from the prison of ignorance, undisciplinedness and irresponsibility. This outlines the mission of a faculty member at BYU.
Though the paradigm is complete, yet one more talent commands our attention. Also necessary to our community is the ability to administer. It is a curious twist of our language that this noble word which once meant to serve and to bless now has the connotation of governing or lording it over someone. The phrase “good administrator” does not touch the heartstrings as does the phrase “good shepherd.” For the administrator is now seen as a driver, a demander, an exacter, a worshiper at the idol of efficiency. It is plain however that in the Gospel context “administrator” ought to be first a leader who finds green pastures. Such should nurture, build, bless and encourage. Such a one should protect, reassure and cherish, perhaps these even along with reproving betimes with sharpness but then showing forth an increase of love.
The LDS administrator is not sent to lord but to love—without guile or hypocrisy, but in pure knowledge, long-suffering, persuasion—and with a clear vision of where the flock is to be led. Such a one is sensitive to what one’s stewardship is and is not. Towards those to whom such a one reports there is loyalty, creative support, and untiring diligence in making the plan a reality. Towards those whom such a one leads there is loyalty, sharing of vision, encouragement to the enlargement of self, tenderness with fearful venturings, commendation for triumphs, and consolation for trials. Ever is kept in mind the image of the Savior, he who is successful and at once faithful Son and faithful Father, he who is a great example, the Way, the Truth, and the End.
It is also of paramount importance that BYU have good leaders, leaders whose hearts are pure and whose efforts are fruitful. To be such a leader of faculty demands first that unquenchable thirst for righteousness which brings one to the Savior. It demands next that one be a scholar in his own right. These are necessary. But leadership must needs be supported by the full faculty paradigm: Creative contributions and mastery of teaching make the complete fisher of university men and women.
To all of this must be added that component of administrative effectiveness which relates to personal technique. To control one’s own time, to prioritize projects, to eschew procrastination, to conduct an orderly system of paper flowing and filing, to be wise in counsel, to be fiscally prudent, to be able to communicate effectively, to form thoughtful agendas and to conduct meetings that have desirable velocity—these are the sorts of skills and habits which mow down detail without becoming trapped in trivia. Taking necessary drudgery in stride is the giant step which enables us to address appropriately the substantive issues of our opportunities.
What is the needed place of administrative skill in the university? It is something that everyone should cultivate and prize, just as everyone should prize grammar and spelling. It is ideas that are important, but bad grammar can dam the flow of ideas. So it is effective programs and communications that make an organization go, but ineptness can slaughter the noblest of causes. Every person associated with the university has something important to administer, beginning with himself and his relationships with others. If everyone would prize and pursue such skills, our real business, education, would flow surely as the water in a concrete canal, quietly delivering a burden that the debris-choked winding stream can never but approximate.
All of which brings us to the role of department chairman. What is the model to which we might look?
Historically at BYU, the department chairman has been on average an office manager. He has wrestled budgets, class schedules, catalog and curriculum materials, student complaints and faculty requests. Occasionally turning to matters of paramount importance, he works to find top new faculty and to resuscitate poorly performing professors. His role has been established by precedence, and the pattern often has taken the channel of least resistance. Perhaps it is now time to change that pattern in many cases.
Consistent with what we have illuminated as the paragon professor is the concept of the department chairman as exemplar and mentor to the faculty of the department. Suppose a department chairman were chosen because that person best exemplified all the fundamental faculty virtues: dedicated servant of the Savior, solid and excited scholar, classic example of the able and caring teacher, creative continuing contributor to the professional field and sure-footed administrator. Would it destroy such person to make them department chairman? Would this be a waste of rare talents? Indeed, this would be a disaster if their mission were construed to be to push papers and make peace.
But suppose the charge was to continue to be an example of all these good things and then to give personal encouragement and counsel to each member of the faculty to do likewise. Rather than assuming that all faculty members come fixed and formatted to all eternity, why not assume that a faculty appointment is a special opportunity to grow towards perfection under the kindly example and guidance of one who is far ahead in their things and under the rigorous realities of the necessity of professional production in the classroom and in creativity. Without the gospel all of this could be so threatening as to devastate good intentions. But because we have an eternal perspective and a framework of values that is special, all of this becomes possible and desirable.
In sum, the role of the department chairman would be to do the following things: To assist in the selection of able, new faculty members; to encourage and counsel in effective teaching; to encourage and guide in significant creative contribution; to bring the department faculty together to function as a team, so that the scholarship, teaching and creative work of each fits into a pattern that strengthens every other faculty member and makes possible a community of complementary scholarship, teaching, and creativity wherein the whole is clearly greater than the arithmetic sum of the parts; to give vision and leadership to department curricular programs; and to bring students to appreciate and deeply partake of the special offerings which a united department provides for them.
Looking past the department chairman, we need to round out these great expectations by contemplating the nature of the office of the college dean. It is plain that paragon professors and charismatic chairmen need special deans.
The ideal dean would first have been the ideal faculty member, then the ideal department chairman, for the dean is a leader, and one can scarcely lead where he has not been. It takes a good one to tell a good one, but more importantly, only paragons can raise up paragons. The major function or role of the dean is to choose, inspire and lead to greatness the department chairmen of his college. The other parts of his assignment—to coordinate the departments within the college and to coordinate the college with the rest of the university are made infinitely easier if he succeeds at his principal task first.
Now it is unlikely that any dean will find chairmen who are already perfect faculty members and who cannot improve in their administrative performance. The administrative structure of the college ought to be built then with two main things in mind: opportunities and means for strengthening department chairmen, and opportunities and means for lifting from them unnecessary administrative trivia. One way these two helps might be delivered is as follows.
The dean might procure the services of a full-time administrative assistant who would facilitate the paper flow of the college. This person might be responsible for preparing and expending budgets, completing necessary reports, filling out forms, meeting deadlines, etc. this person would not be a decision maker. All judgment matters would yet rest with department the department chairman and the dean. While all drudgery work could not be shifted, much of it could be, freeing the dean and the chairmen for the weightier matters.
The dean might himself serve or appoint someone to serve under his direction to encourage research and creativity in the college. This person, working with the department chairmen, could make regular rounds to visit with each faculty member. In the mouths of two witnesses there could be commendation for work well done, encouragement for new ideas of worth, counsel to avoid pitfalls, help with resources to foster fledgling success, programs to unite people with complementary talents in team challenges. Were this person a master of imagination, laboratory techniques, mathematical and statistical manipulation, research strategy, or whatever else is pertinent to creativity in the field, what a great work might be done in supporting the department chairmen. This person might also be the graduate coordinator for the college.
Another role which the dean might himself fill or to which he might appoint someone would be a curriculum and teaching specialist for the college. Knowing that good academic programs don’t just happen but are planned, evaluated, revised, evaluated, adequated to need, evaluated, etc., such a person would be constantly engaged to bring all possible intelligence and technique to bear on the adequacy of the courses and programs of the college. Working carefully with each department chairman, there would be a sense of propriety, efficiency, and educational soundness that would guide all deliberations. The professional consensus of faculty and administrators would yield, through time, programs magnificent in concept and execution.
A most important part of that execution would be the teaching effort of each faculty member. This college administrator, working with the department chairman, both master teachers, could inspire and enthuse individuals to build pedagogical expertise on the foundation of the individual’s scholarship. Fostering caring about students as individuals, planning class and examination sequences into models of value added would be an ongoing delight for all participants. What happens for the student is the pay-off for the existence of the entire university.
Perhaps there are other special programs and functions to which the dean would address himself or assign someone. These persons together with the department chairman might form a council to transact all of the judgment matters of the college. There is strength in counsel, as there is in coordination. Community of vision and effort foster success if leadership can provide the proper values and the proper persons for such participation.
It is to be remembered that the picture printed above is an ideal. It is one possible ideal among many. Only as any such ideal is simultaneously correct, wise, and shared, can it be effective as a change agent in our institutional life. It is plain that we need ideals for we are not yet perfect. We need to be united in the cause of our Savior and seek to establish his righteousness. Everyone needs to learn his duty and to act faithfully in that office. We need to be as one in heart and in mind. It is hoped that the consideration of the ideals here portrayed will in some way bring us closer to the reality of those grand goals.