Saturday, May 31, 2008
Giving Childers and Lowe the business
As a business and marketing person, I appreciate Childers and Lowe’s attempts to incorporate strategic planning into the administration of writing centers. However, both authors ignore a couple of basic steps in effective strategic planning: begin by considering those you wish to serve, and include strategies for affecting the institution(s) and discipline(s) of which you are part. Failing to address these steps reveals their traditional hierarchical view of business management that a strategic plan is only a management tool for the WC. In reality, it can be much more, especially if we consider it not something that’s done once a year, but an ongoing strategic examination of the WC. This leaves room for considerations like racial diversity raised by Weaver and attends to the collaborative business of relationships as Peters, Fitzgerald and Stephenson suggest.
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Childers directs the WC at private Christian boys boarding school in Chattanooga, Tenn. and while her ideas about the need for strategic planning and the how-to she offers are straight out of business best-practices there is an overall tone that dehumanizes the WC as being driven solely by institutional administrative goals, especially budgetary concerns. Since her WC is in a private school, I understand the focus on helping funders understand the need for the WC, but I think this context should be included with the essay so the unknowing reader doesn’t just assume this is the way all WC directors think. I admire Childers general understanding and use of business acumen, and find it especially useful in breaking down the strategic planning process (although Appendix A is certainly lacking in detail, only some of which she offers in the text and other appendix). I especially like the sequence/progression idea and allowing people to “discover” the importance of a WC (57), and I think her “swimming pool” idea (59) is an apt metaphor. However, Coogan would have a fit with the underlying thread that WC goals are driven only by institutional goals. This theme begins with her discussion of audience, which focuses on external audiences, especially administrators and funders. There is little mention of the strategic plan as an internal document, as a foundation for communicating with and managing staff/tutors, making decisions, and developing relationships with the primary audience: students. But what really alarms me about Childers is that when she finally gets around to students, she talks about them rather than considering them the primary audience. Goals One and Two (68) are especially revealing. The first is a strategy, not a goal,which might seem like a business nitpick, but it’s a common misunderstanding that can make a business plan soulless. My question to a goal like this is Why? There is no audience or rationale attached. Goal Two is downright terrifying in its assumption of a need for improvement. This article was written in 1991, so the debate of WCs as remedial was still going on, but the editors of this 2006 journal decided to include it. Such a decision seems to say that all this lovely theory and research on what student writers really need is fine, but we must be practical, and that means “fixing” students and their writing.
Yes, it's still me. Lowe offers lots of practical advice; however, he leaves out the basic business pillar of “who do we serve?” For example, in breaking out the idea of mission statement, he says it’s a matter of “defining the organization’s business, stating the goals, and stating the philosophy (74). Perhaps he assumes that the “who we serve” question is part of the philosophy, but I don’t see much in the rest of the essay that indicates this is true. And while I like the way he breaks down the different institutional environments in the SWOT analysis, I take issue with listing the technological environment first (75) and the assumption that technology is driving the WC instead of being used to serve its mission and goals. Moreover, I wonder where the educational environment is on his list (or is this, again, assumed?) He also oversimplifies the planning and implementation aspect, saying it is “simply the conversion of the strategic plan” (77). As someone who has spent decades implementing strategic plans, I can say that it is anything but simple. Necessary, but certainly not simple. I also disagree that successful implementation is all about leadership; this is traditional top-down management that assumes the “followers” have no power and just do what they are told. Trends in business theory and research that I’ve seen in the last ten years (maybe longer) recognize that everyone from the director to the receptionist must have a sense of agency in a strategic plan’s development and implementation. Lowe also introduces the meta-argument that WC directors should not assume that academic administration is “out to get” them (72), but I don’t think he really addresses that argument in the rest of the essay. It would be helpful if he used this point to discuss how WCs are not just justifying their existence and funding, but that their work should inform the institution’s mission, goals and strategic plan.
Okay, I'm done.
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