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Re: strategic plans (arrghhhh!!!)



On Sun, 17 Nov 1996, Rauber, Joel Phys wrote:

I eavesdropped on your note

I'm wasting my Sunday responding to yet another version of the "University
Strategic Plan" which has reached new highs for redundancy, vagueness,
fantasy, and/or just plain "Duh-ness." I guess I just needed to vent.

god, I hate dealing with those types of things. Administrators seem to have
to much free time on their hands; its the only explanation I can come of
with for why all this garbage is there; and your description seems to be
dead on the mark of what these things seem like at our campus as well. I
sometimes think that administrators must go to workshops to learn how to do
these things.

Joel,

I don't think anybody is cashing in on your workshop idea yet. (Hmm;
gives me an idea!) The problem appears to be that they all read the same
books (based on business models that are usually discredited even within
the business community within a year of their appearance) and completely
take leave of whatever academic sensibilities they might have once had. If
you want a REAL stomach turner, take a look at the first ten or twenty
pages of "The Monster Under the Bed." This book is being touted in
administrative circles for its incisive look at the way Business is
beating the University at the game of education. It distinguishes between
"knowledge" (which is created and valued by business and which serves to
accommodate rapid change in business practices) and "facts" (which
are, of course, the domain of the University.) As one example, it points
to "knowledge"-based systems such as those used by Fed Ex to tell them
where your package is.

Sigh.

John
----------------------------------------------------------------
A. John Mallinckrodt email: mallinckrodt@csupomona.edu
Professor of Physics voice: 909-869-4054
Cal Poly Pomona fax: 909-869-5090
Pomona, CA 91768 office: Building 8, Room 223
web: http://www.sci.csupomona.edu/~mallinckrodt/