Change is difficult. When the proponents of that change are not trusted or, as troublesome, the stake holders of that change fear the change will not address their needs or negatively impact them, then the change becomes dangerous. I’ve kept entirely apart from the drama that encircles the community college district where I work. The thing has become political, and by that I mean that it has become a fight to both get attention and control public opinion on the issues involved. The issue is that the college system is changing and in some ways modernizing. How it is changing is what has so many people up in arms because of the issues I highlighted in the opening statement. Faculty feel they have been robbed of their voice and power, administration feel both at risk and as though there is not any legitimate oversight of employee groups. When I read the theme for the international PTK Honors Project, I thought I was staring down the barrel of the work we’ve been doing at the college and others like it for the past few years.
Transformations: Acknowledging, Assessing, and Achieving Change
In essence, the conversation happening at the college level is filtering through the consciousness of a number of groups who recognize that change is coming hard and fast to higher education, but lack any idea of what that change will or should look like. There is also the longstanding belief that change–actual change in action–is pre-governed by the genetically hardwired philosophy of self-preservation. Nobody is going to cut their own job. They’ll cut around it like a gerrymandered voting zone. Therefore any real change is mitigated by the reality of personal need. The people with the power to change will deal with their own needs first. If those needs don’t match what the populous thinks, you get the kind of friction I see each day in my profession. Change hurts.
Absolute change hurts absolutely.
Some Thoughts:
- When Chris Paul is your leading rebounder you get beat by 40. That’s just the facts, yo.
- When my kids are not with me I do not generally communicate with my kids. I don’t like that. It makes me feel like a part time person in their lives when I know that not to be the case… Or is it?