Lemuel Watson, dean of the NIU College of Education, greets faculty before delivering his speech at last week's all-college meeting.
Paul Kelter and Lynette Hemphill, chair and assistant chair respectively of the Department of Teaching and Learning, chat before the start of the all-college meeting. Click on the image for a larger view.
by Mark McGowan
In his first official address to the NIU College of Education since becoming dean earlier this summer, Lemuel Watson frequently urged his colleagues to “step up to the plate” and congratulated those who already had done so.
The new dean, who proclaimed himself “first among equals,” told the packed ballroom of Altgeld Hall last week that his administration is a participatory one.
Watson asked everyone in the room to submit one or two pages of their ideas and innovations. He announced that he will ask some professors to attend dinners with donors so they can discuss their research and outreach initiatives.
Even the meeting adopted his attitude: Watson later turned over the stage to Associate Dean Carol Logan Patitu, six department chairs and two representatives from the Provost’s Office before opening the floor to questions in an open forum.
“It’s time to step up to the plate to reclaim our place here at NIU, in the region and across the nation,” Watson said. “The issues facing us are daunting, but we will face those challenges with grace. We will face them with creativity. And we will face them with innovation.”
Chief among the issues: meeting the economy’s need for workers with at least some postsecondary education while coping with problems of the access to and affordability of college.
According to 2004 statistics Watson presented from the U.S. Census Bureau, 60 percent of the U.S. population ages 25 to 64 has no postsecondary education credentials. Forty percent of college students will take at least one remedial education course. Thirty-four percent of white adults have obtained bachelor’s degrees before age 30, but those numbers dip to 18 percent for African-Americans and to 10 percent for Hispanics.
Meanwhile, Watson quoted from a 2004 census that average tuition and fees rose 51 percent from 1995 to 2005 when adjusted for inflation. At private colleges, however, those costs climbed only 35 percent during the same period.
“We’ve romanticize about the notion that as academicians we can just pursue knowledge and not worry about funding,” Watson said. “Gone are those days.”
The growing demand and need for accountability also poses anxiety.
P-12 schools, some of which are NIU’s partners and many of which are employers of current and future alumni from the college, are under great pressure to meet the stringent federal “No Child Left Behind” legislation.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings also is on the offensive when it comes to higher education, said Watson, who displayed quotations from Spellings on the ballroom’s big screen.
“There is little to no information on why costs are so high and what we’re getting in return. Over the years, we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and just hoped for the best. We deserve better,” Spellings said. “No current ranking system of colleges and universities directly measures the most critical point – student performance and learning.”
Unfortunately, Watson said, educators aren’t always at the decision table with the policymakers. The higher education community is in a struggle for control of its future, he said.
At the NIU College of Education, he said, accountability must come from within.
Watson announced the college will continue to follow former Dean Christine Sorensen’s “PRIDE” agenda: partnerships, research, innovation, development and diversity, and evaluation and assessment.
He also unveiled his own vision for “A National Premier College of Education” that prepares professionals who are focused on P-20 issues:
The dean said he plans to spend around 40 percent of his time involved in finding and securing external dollars; his “invisible” leadership style with his leadership team will keep the ship sailing steadily when he is off campus.
For their part, faculty must examine themselves and the practical value of their teaching contributions.
“This is a business – and you need to know what your business is,” Watson said. “You need to ask yourself, ‘Am I delivering what I’m saying I’m delivering?’ ”