Point Loma Nazarene University Strategic Goal 1
A.I. 2. To Fully Develop a Model for Graduate Programs and to Develop a Multi-Year Growth Plan
- The tension between two different organizational viewpoints.
The directors believe that all staff persons need to report directly to them. The number one concern on their part is that the formula for their success (as it relates to student services) has been building a strong community of staff persons that then spills over to a strong connection to the local students. Directors feel that if a staff person reports to someone at another location, the staff person will not have sufficient motivation and personal ownership to contribute significantly to community-building activities. The concern is that location-operations will turn into a collection of somewhat autonomous individuals who are not particularly connected to each other and who do not feel obligated to adequately cover for each other when the director is not their supervisor. In addition, there is also a concern on the part of the directors that staff performance issues may not be detected and corrected at an early stage when the employee and supervisor are not at the same site
Individuals who oversee Admissions, Records, and Student Financial Services on a system-wide basis have not necessarily felt the same way as the directors on this matter. Here is their concern. There have been very significant compliance problems in the past, that are caused to no small degree by either the lack of expertise of the director or, in some cases, perhaps a little doubt about whether the issues were really as significant as they (i.e. the directors) were being told. With respect to the former, it is quite clear, that directors cannot be expected to have expertise in the fine details of, for example, student financial services. In regard to the latter, (i.e. the directors’ doubt about the essentiality of certain called-for practices) sometimes, the directors were correct to doubt, and in the end the procedures were unnecessarily burdensome. In retrospect to this second issue, this is exactly what we might expect to happen when an institution, which has been primarily focused on undergraduate programs, working with 18 through 22 year olds, all of a sudden has to place adult students and graduate programs into a mold that was struck specifically for a very different type of student and program. PLNU has been primarily an undergraduate institution and the expertise of the support services staff was based upon an undergraduate model. Having said that however, there have been other times when the centralized support services staff were absolutely correct, and PLNU was truly out of compliance with accepted practice in universities of quality, or even, in some cases, the legal requirements of the federal government. The reason these situations occurred is, in no small part, caused by the fact that when an operation exists as a tiny entity that is quite peripheral to how the university functions, it is easy to get into habits of practice that seem to be inconsequential. Whether they are inconsequential or not when the unit is only one percent of the operation is beside the point, but one thing for certain, they are not inconsequential when the operations as a whole approach 15 to 25 percent or more of the operational effort of the university. It is because of some of past non-compliance issues that the system-wide administrators frequently believe there needs to be direct accountability (and thereby direct reporting lines) linking together system-wide supervisors with those at the sites responsible for compliance-related issues.
During this time of transition from a primarily undergraduate college to a university with a significant number of graduate students, the two different management philosophies, that of directors and that of support services supervisors, have existed in a state of tension---usually friendly, but tension, nonetheless.
2. Will the other sites develop into multiple-discipline graduate centers? Implications for organizational structure.
At this point in time, with the exception of Mission Valley, the programs at each location are restricted to Education and each of the directors only has experience in heading up Education programs. Ultimately if the locations grew to include several programs and two to three times its current student base, these sites would probably become “mini PLNU’s,” each with their own small Records, SFS, and GAS office. The director would not necessarily have expertise in Education, but could come from any of the disciplines. If a location were to grow in that manner, then each of the mini-offices (i.e. SFS, GAS, and Records) would report in a direct manner to the appropriate system-wide person in San Diego. However, here is the important point: None of our locations are currently in that situation and it is not clear that any of them will be any time soon.
For example, even in Mission Valley, the MBA, Graduate Religion, and the MSN program are all small. Indeed it may be informative that despite the presence of the large host schools for these grad programs in San Diego, they have not grown significantly over the past several years. Will the other locations soon diversify in the way that they have in San Diego? It seems that it would be very risky to plan towards such growth. If it has not even been particularly successful at the host location with its large pool of faculty and 30 years worth of community contacts, there is reason to be skeptical about whether growth in these programs (at least one accompanied by high academic quality) will occur at the satellite locations. Thus, for the immediate future (say, the next five years), it seems quite possible that PLNU’s off-the-main-campus post-baccalaureate programs may be primarily restricted to grad and credential programs in Education. With that in mind, since most of the growth has been shown to occur from personal contacts within a single discipline (Education), it is likely to be prudent to have directors from within the field of Education. Furthermore, if indeed, out-of-San Diego locations are restricted primarily to Education programs, it seems likely that they won’t grow to be much larger than 400 to 500 students. In that case, perhaps a location would level off with seven to nine support staff persons---a little larger than the current size of Arcadia. In that situation, we can envisage a site having one credential analyst, two staff persons focusing on financial services, two on enrollment counselling and recruitment, two in payroll/class scheduling/enrollment management, one for IT/library resources, and perhaps one person serving in a general office manager role. This is three more than we have had in Arcadia in the past year serving about 350 students and five more than we currently have in Bakersfield serving about 300 students.
So should the reporting structure be changed if indeed each location can be expected to plateau at not much more than about 500 students and all within the field of Education? As we have grown and had a system-wide support base in San Diego with staff specialists whose sole role was grad/credential programs, each of the directors has become increasingly conscious of compliance issues as it relates to the catalog and government financial aid. Over the past three years, all staff at all locations have become increasingly aware of their obligations to the system-wide support specialists. Because of this change in perspective on the part of both directors and their staff, it seems increasingly likely that the dotted line relationships to the system-wide coordinators will work. If the director is to continue to serve as the immediate supervisor of all office staff at a location, then he/she will need to collaborate closely with the system-wide coordinator in each area to be fully informed of strengths and weaknesses of his/her office staff persons with regard to each specialized function. The system-wide specialist would also be in regular direct contact with the staff persons at a location within his/her specialty. But that relationship should be dotted line and not solid line. Within this model of a small campus of roughly 500 students, each location will continue to be a community that really does function as a unit---with a common set of concerns and interests. Individuals whose responsibility primarily lies with one area will, upon the director’s request accept other duties, as assigned. And the director will be able to ensure that all staff members are “looking out” for each other and for the good of the entire local operation. Finally, and perhaps most importantly the director can ensure that the staff function as a wholesome unit, and face-to-face contact with employees is necessary to ensure that will take place.
3. What about Mission Valley where system-wide specialist are in the same building as location staff persons?
The Mission Valley operation functions a little differently. The system-wide office and the site office are located so closely together, that there is probably no good reason why the person responsible for SFS issues should not report directly to the SFS system-wide supervisor. In essence, this person’s primary “abode” is the SFS office so it is logical that person will report to the SFS director. Besides, Mission Valley, unlike the other locations, does have grad programs other than Education, so there is no a priori reason why this person should report to a director of any one program.
It is different, however, with respect to marketing and enrollment services. In Graduate Nursing, there has been a single support person who has been responsible for marketing and enrollment services, and that person has reported to the Dean of the School of Nursing. The School has believed that there is so much Nursing-specific knowledge associated with recruiting and ongoing communication with applicants, that faculty within the School prefer this person work with them and not a general system-wide office with little knowledge of the Nursing profession.. In graduate Business, there is a person who plays a similar role, but this person reports to the head of Graduate Administrative Services and not the dean of the School of Business. This reporting-line has worked to the satisfaction of the School of Business, although it is important to note that the employee in question knows Business and the Business faculty well since she is a Business alumnus. In Education, the faculty and staff do much of the recruiting and enrollment counseling work within the School, although the Graduate Administrative Services office personnel do plan special events and oversee the production of brochures, etc. for them, much the same as they do for the other locations. Again, the feeling is that there are so many discipline-specific issues involved in drawing students into the Education program, that it is probably best that much of the work be done under the direct supervision of the Director of the San Diego School of Education. Certainly there is a need for an office that will provide expertise in areas such as brochure-preparation, print/radio advertisement, and assisting with planning certain publicity-generating events. But this is exactly the same way it works at the other locations as well, and there does not seem to be good reason for doing it any differently in San Diego.
The bottom line is that the current system of having support persons reporting to the discipline-specific director will work the best. The system-wide support personnel will work closely with the site-specific specialist, even though there is no direct reporting line. Any significant performance-related concern on the part of the system-wide overseer would be shared with the director. The director would either relay these concerns to the site-specific person or arrange for a three-way conversation, either by phone or in person depending upon the circumstance.