There’s a thought provoking piece today from neighbors to the north, in New Brunswick, Canada, regarding the government’s Action Plan for post-secondary education. C. J. Doran, a researcher, is urging caution, based on a similar reform that took place in Britain. The result there, he suggests, was that the bureaucracy grew rather much without rhyme or reason and hindered education.

An Arkansas State slide presentation that’s linked in the Resource Library, Public Organization and the Problem of Change, also addresses issues of bureaucracy and education, and how the wrong bureaucratic design can hurt the educational mission. It’s not that education and bureaucracy need necessarily be at odds. It’s a matter of what kind of bureaucracy serves education well, and not setting up a machine bureaucracy that’s incapable of measuring what is most important in educational endeavors.

I find it astonishing, and I fear common, that institutions of higher education often do not take time to find out, and make use of, some of the cutting edge work being done by their own students and faculty that could so well serve the kinds of administrative changes that would enhance the educational mission. It seems that C. J. Doran, a professor at the University of New Brunswick-St. John, may be just such a person. I don’t know as much, not being familiar with his work or even with the details of the situation and Action Plan, but it’s generally better to take one’s cues from the people actually doing the work and research—or at least to listen to them carefully.

Here’s to the best possible outcomes for higher education for my northern neighbors, rather than decisions guided by such factors as who has how much of what kind of power and when.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen