A Faculty Manifesto

The primary purpose of the College is to facilitate student learning. All other goals and structures (including administration) derive from and support this function.   Learning is a sacred trust between a knowledgeable teacher and a willing student. It is not a commodity to be thoughtlessly packaged, promoted and sold.   Learning is a complex undertaking that requires careful and critical thought, an open mind, painstaking study and a true desire to understand oneself and the world. It requires specific conditions and expert facilitation.   We teach students, not customers. Excellence in teaching, learning and counseling cannot be formulated within retail-based customer service models.   Teaching is the facilitation of learning. Teaching is not entertainment or the simple provision of learning material.   Technology is a tool, not an end in itself. Technology must serve teaching and learning needs, not vice versa.   Effective teaching requires academic freedom and professional autonomy. It is the right and responsibility of faculty to claim those conditions necessary to promote effective teaching, learning and guidance.   Authoritarian governance is antithetical to academic freedom and collegiality. It is evidence of a profound misunderstanding of how to effectively manage an association of professionals.   Collegiality is based on shared governance. In order to perform their function, faculty require authority in matters related to the effectiveness of instruction, counseling and student learning resources. When this authority is not respected, collegiality is sheared at its root.   Education is not a business. A college president is not a CEO. Teaching success cannot be effectively measured and managed according to industrial-era standards of assembly-line efficiency, production and market competition.   It is the function of the Board to oversee the educational process, establish standards and policies that maintain educational quality, protect the prerequisites of effective teaching and learning and direct the administration in its proper role-support of the teaching and learning process.

February 2003