"You must be running a high fever!"--An Information Technologist's Guide to College and University Presidents and Chancellors Copyright 1993 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 1993. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear,and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information technology in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission.For further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu "YOU MUST BE RUNNING A HIGH FEVER!" AN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIST'S GUIDE TO COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS AND CHANCELLORS by Richard A. Detweiler ABSTRACT: How can you help your president or chancellor engage in meaningful and successful leadership when it comes to information technology? Start by understanding his or her perspective, and then consider adopting a few other ground rules. When a colleague and I approached the president of Drew University[1] more than a decade ago with a proposal to provide every person on campus with a personal computer system (computer, printer, and software), he responded, "You must be running a high fever!" This response was only his initial reaction: within three months he enthusiastically took this proposal to the board of trustees for approval, kicking off a pervasive implementation of information technology which began in 1984 with every entering student (as well as faculty and staff offices) receiving a personal computer system. A network system (data, video, and voice) linking every person in residence halls and offices was in place by the late 1980s.Many steps involving virtually everyone on campus, including a compressed but full review by the curriculum and budget committees of the faculty and a meeting followed by a secret ballot on the proposal by the College faculty, occurred during those three months. However, it was clear then as it is today that without a president's understanding, enthusiastic support, and leadership, not a great deal happens with implementing information technology on a campus. Indeed, this is the root of recent pleas to college and university presidents and chancellors from organizations involved in information technology (including CAUSE and EDUCOM) to take leadership on this issue. Having been involved in information technology for a decade as a faculty member, college administrator, and now as a college president, and having spoken with my colleagues about this issue, I have developed a number of perspectives. This article is an information technologist's guide to college and university presidents and chancellors. Its purpose is to help people involved in information technology on college and university campuses understand how to engage their presidents and chancellors in meaningful and successful leadership on this issue. It is easy to play upon a president's ignorance, or perhaps even fear, of information technology and have short-term success. Presidents are not supposed to be ignorant, and are not allowed to be afraid, so a clever strategist can exploit these "flaws" if they exist. But if one really cares about the role of information technology in higher education, this is a real mistake. Longer-term effective im-plementations will occur because the president understands the role of information technology in the future of the school and expresses the same passion for information technology as when discussing the addition of a new academic program or changes in state and federal support for education. The premise of this article, then, is threefold. First, if information technology is to realize its potential in higher education, then every president must take leadership on this issue. Second, most college or university presidents have not taken leadership because they do not know why they should, nor do they understand enough about information technology to do it well. Third, while most information technology professionals express frustration over the lack of understanding and support they receive from the top, and marvel over the good fortune of their colleagues who have presidents who "understand," they can help their presidents take leadership if they better understand a president's perspective. The balance of this article is a simplified presentation of a president's perspective and its relationship to information technology. Obviously, the generalizations and "rules" for effectiveness here will have to be adapted to individual institutions and people. THE PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE ON LEADERSHIP Every college or university president has a single purpose: to have his or her institution succeed. This purpose is clearly good for the institution, is believed to be good for the future of humanity, and is personally gratifying. Good leadership and institutional success are assumed to go together. Accomplishing this purpose is complex because of the different ways success can be defined and because of the complex interrelationships among the factors a president seeks to manage. There are three factors a president thinks about: Stakeholders: faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, community people, government officials and agencies, trustees, donors. Each of these stakeholders has different definitions of success and different needs that must be fulfilled. Some examples: for faculty and staff, reasonable salaries may be important and will be part of their definition of institutional success; for trustees, their legally mandated "fiduciary responsibility" means that financial health must be a part of any definition of institutional success; and for students, having a stimulating and enjoyable educational experience and a good job after graduation may be the definition of institutional success. Educational good: to what degree do programs and policies have educational value, both in the short and long term? These considerations can be relatively straightforward (e.g., "How good is the psychology curriculum?" or "Is there a demand for a mechanical engineering program?") or complex (e.g., "What is the relationship between faculty research and teaching effectiveness?" or "Does a liberal arts college have to have a department of classical languages?"). They can be short term ("If we don't replace Professor Jones what will happen to the quality of the biology curriculum?") or long term ("Will the future demand for environmental scientists be sufficient to justify the creation of a new program?"). Societal need: how will our society and world be affected by the things we do? Since the time of Jefferson, the importance of an educated citizenry has been a part of our value system; the thousands of colleges and universities started by religious denominations is further evidence of this cultural value. Some thinking is ultimately influenced by this factor (e.g., "What is 'liberal arts' and why is it important?" or "What responsibility does a college have to use its own resources for financial aid for historically educationally disadvantaged groups?"). The president engages in an optimization process, seeking to allocate resources (human as well as monetary) in ways that create the best possible outcome, both real and perceived. Depending on the issue, the president, and the institution, different aspects of these factors may be operative. Decisions are made within constraints and seek to exploit opportunities; the educational good may be for the shorter term or the longer term. From a president's perspective, successful leadership is defined as the degree to which one can optimize success. At times leadership will entail simple trade-offs; at other times it will entail moving the institution significantly in a direction believed to be important to its long-term success. RULE I: Seek to understand and to adopt your president's perspective. This will not be simple, because you probably never will be able to fully appreciate the sometimes nightmarish complexity and interrelatedness of issues on a myriad of levels as they come to the president from a daily barrage of meetings, letters, phone calls, faxes, and e-mail messages. Recognize that a president is constantly and simultaneously thinking short term and long term, is considering stakeholder perspectives as well as educational good. Most importantly, understand that while a few presidents are doing what they do for personal or political gain, most are doing it because they want to make a difference, they believe they have useful leadership talents, and they believe that education is an important way to contribute to society. A PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY How is information technology "sold" on most college campuses? 1. "It is wonderful." 2. "It will save us money." 3. "We will reduce staffing." 4. "We will be able to do all kinds of important things we were never able to do before." 5. "We will lag behind other schools if we don't." 6. "We won't be able to attract good students and faculty if we don't." 7. "Department X can't do its work without it." What have the actual experiences been like? 1. It is complicated. 2. It is expensive. 3. Staffing needs increase, both in technology operations and in departments; salaries must be raised to attract and retain technology- competent people. 4. We can generate all kinds of data, but are overwhelmed by information glut and the most useful or wanted data are often hard to get; we perpetuate complexity and bureaucracy. 5. We never seem to catch up with other institutions because people keep asking for more and keep pointing to other schools that are farther ahead than we are. 6. We may be more attractive to students, but demographic and economic trends certainly mask the effect; many schools are looking at faculty reductions so it is not clear how attractive we need to be. 7. Productivity does not seem to increase after technology implementation. While every good information technologist worth his or her salt is now appropriately arguing with each of the above assertions, remember three things: 1. Little or no compelling data exist which prove that, as a general rule, information technology as implemented saves money, decreases costs, and increases effectiveness in higher education. 2. Information technology is often a pain in the neck and is resource intensive. Even the most user-friendly computer and network is complex and requires significant expertise to manage reliably, user training is needed, procedures must be changed if information technology is to be effective, etc. 3. Information technology changes so rapidly that yesterday's decisions seem stupid or extravagantly expensive given today's alternatives.I offer the following challenge: if an information technologist can persuade a panel of five objective college presidents that these assertions are incorrect at their own school, I will award that person a $1,000 cash prize. RULE II: Don't sell what you can't deliver; or, alternately, sell as little as required to get approval, and then deliver a lot more. You must be seen as a person in whom your president can place absolute trust when it comes to technology implementations. Deliver as promised (on time and under- or on-budget) nearly always, even if it kills you; when mistakes occur acknowledge them quickly and openly, giving reasonable explanations but not trying to explain them away; and when the president makes a request, get it done correctly and immediately. Otherwise your credibility will suffer and your ability to get support next time around will be diminished. RULE III: Think of technology as a people business--be realistic about what is required to deliver the technology to the desktop and to have it used effectively. Effective use probably requires a staff for continuing software development and hardware support, extensive and ongoing training, curricular integration specialists, and process analysts who can helpredesign office functions to effectively use the technology. Most importantly, you must have the ongoing interest and support of the people using the technology if you are to be successful. Information technologists are usually competent people who believe in what they are doing. There are two problems with this, however. First, information technology people speak a foreign language that few presidents can or should need to understand. Second, they are missionaries for technology, evangelistic about information technology's importance. As a result, using a language which doesn't make much sense, information technologists try zealously to sell something which many presidents do not believe in. Would you buy a car from a person who tried to convince you of its virtues using only acronyms and jargon? Why then should a college president support investing millions on such a person's say-so for equipment that will be worth virtually nothing in two or three years? RULE IV: Learn how to speak without acronyms and without technical terms. Learn to substitute meaningful terms or phrases, even though it takes longer to say the same thing (not "FDDI" or "ATM" but "very high speed networks which allow a great deal of information to be transmitted"). You can afford to maintain words that are in common usage and have lots of appeal (e.g., fiber optic), though be aware of the longer-term risk of selling the president based on not-fully-informed understanding of such tech-appeal words (e.g., what will the president think of you if you decide to put twisted-pair wiring to every desktop instead of fiber because of the advances in transmission speed and lower cost of this medium?). You may lapse into jargon periodically when other technologists are around to demonstrate your competence, but not too often. RULE V: Sell the philosophy of technology, not a technology philosophy. Talk about the concept (e.g., the value and importance of "having everybody linked with everybody else, and being able to access information from anywhere"), not "client-server architecture." While client-server is clearly hot right now, other architectures were certainly hot in the past and it is equally likely that client-server will be replaced with some other philosophy/architecture at some point in the future. If you have sold the architecture you must make a new sale sometime in the future when things change; if you have sold concept (which is less likely to change) you won't have to resell. RULE VI: Have a broad perspective and avoid unnecessary distinctions among types of technology. People with computer training talk about computers and networks, and often reflect disdain for voice and video. Likewise, video folk obsess about downlinks and the number of 6 megahertz channels available on a broadband system, and telephone people think and talk voice switching and transmission without attention to data protocols. Ultimately these technologies are all the same--they all involve the transmission and processing of information over some medium. All are, in fact, network technologies. Each is increasingly computer processed. While different wires are commonly used for the different types of signals for pricing reasons currently, that will not be the case for long. A broad perspective--seeing information as information and processing as processing--is a significant conceptual simplification of importance to the technologist and to the president. RULE VII: Sell education and institutional quality, not technology. Become a missionary for your institution and secondarily talk about the ways that information technology can help accomplish institutional (and the president's) goals. Be sincere. Technologically ignorant as presidents may be, we know snow jobs when we see them. RULE VIII: See technology as a tool--focus on people and how they can be more effective in accomplishing their purpose, not on how wonderful it is to have lots of technology around. Always remember that except in relatively few environments (engineering, computer science, and other technology-focused departments) technology is supposed to serve people's needs. It is people who matter, and technology must be brought to them in their learning and work environments in ways that make sense to them. Without their enthusiastic and effective use of systems, no technology implementation will ultimately be successful. RULE IX: Demonstrate conceptually clear and compelling technology implementations. Because so much of the promise of information technology is difficult to grasp without seeing it, be quick to put on small and frequent demonstrations. Don't make it sound difficult or inconvenient to set up, and always have a redundant system in case of failures (again, admit the failure if it occurs but show your foresight in having redundancy at hand). Put on dazzling demonstrations of technology for senior officers, trustees, or campus visitors, but talk about it in very human terms. Seeing-- and seeing manageable chunks frequently so that the president can develop a reservoir of anecdotes (the grist of the fund-raising mill)-- is more valuable than all the words you can word process. CREATING THE NEW PERSPECTIVE: FROM INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO KNOWLDEGE SYSTEMS This is, in fact, probably the single rule which summarizes all of the above and leads one to the next step. Information technologists must stop thinking about technology and begin thinking about the real role of technology in the future. RULE X: Don't think Information Technology, think Knowledge Systems. We have been through various eras in this business which have carried various titles: computing, computing and networking, information systems, telecommunications, and information technology. It is clear that the future brings increased integration of types of services (voice, data, video), increased connectivity among types of devices and services, and much improved tools for accessing and processing information. These developments will result in the technology itself dropping into the background, and the value of the technology for the thinking person coming into the foreground. There is some parallel to the development of the automobile: in 1915 one saw and heard the engine and had to have some idea of the mechanics to keep it going; current automobiles hide the functional technology and more effectively transport people in a manner they have come to rely upon. This perspective also makes clear the ultimate purpose of knowledge systems on campus: if our purpose is to educate people so that they are to be effective and contributing citizens in the world of their future, then they must learn to be effective everyday users of these systems as they go about the process of thinking and learning. They must use these systems as tools for the development and communication of their own knowledge. Likewise, we must use these systems institutionally to increase the effectiveness of what we need to do to keep ourselves well managed and meeting people's needs. Information technologists must become implementers of knowledge systems. They, like their presidents, must be advocates of higher education, seeking ways to enhance the purposes of the institution among and for its many stakeholders, to provide for the educational good, and to advance society. This perspective links one more closely with the fundamental goal of the typical president, and helps educate the president in a way that allows effective advocacy with the board, donors, faculty, and others who have a critical stake in the future of the institution. ======================================================================== Footnote: 1 Paul Hardin, formerly Drew University president, is now the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ************************************************************************ Richard A. Detweiler is President of Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. A social psychologist by education with a PhD from Princeton University, and a specialist in intercultural relations, he previously spent nineteen years at Drew University as a professor and vice president. He is chair of the 1993 CAUSE Current Issues Committee. ************************************************************************