The last Faculty Newsletter included an article authored by Roger Levy and me explaining many of the facets of The Pulse. As we go deeper into our tenure as the keepers, we are working to improve several aspects of this tool. First, however, one should look at the similarities and the differences between The Pulse and the FNL, both of which are tools for the faculty to express their opinions, raise issues, and be an impetus to discussions among faculty members. In addition, both venues can bring faculty issues to the attention of senior management.
The FNL allows each faculty member to express an opinion, subject to minimal editing. In fact, many of the opinions have been inflammatory, and yet this is a vehicle for such opinions. What the FNL does not enable is reasoned debate and respectful exchange of opinions – the bimonthly schedule and the academic load on the faculty mean that there is no room for quick and timely exchanges.
By its very nature, the FNL typically reflects the opinion of a single faculty member or a small group. In that, it is similar to a newspaper opinion page. This, however, is not the only function of the FNL. At its best it informs and raises issues which can be then taken by the faculty governance and debated in faculty meetings. At its worst, it masquerades as the “opinion of MIT faculty” by allowing articles by the Editorial Subcommittee, which can be perceived as the “official MIT faculty voice.” It also betrays its own rules by allowing unsigned articles to be published, sometimes by non-faculty members of the community.
The Pulse is a different tool. It does suffer, however, from some of the same drawbacks of the FNL. For example, the platform does not enable reasoned debate on issues of interest for the faculty. At its best, The Pulse can elicit what a good majority of the voting faculty think about an issue. Of course, the higher the number of participants, the more representative the votes are of faculty opinions. Amazingly, some questions get a high number of participants and a clear vote, leading to a “voice of the faculty” result. For example, 2/3 of the votes regarding teaching evaluations agree that they are useful (196 votes). Similarly, 87% of the voting faculty thought that students should be forbidden, in general, from taking classes that meet at the same time (187 votes). In other cases, opinions are split. 40% of the voting faculty thought that MIT should avoid faculty meetings during school vacations, while 37% thought that the dates should stay; (177 votes, with 26% abstaining or not finding an opinion that reflects their views). A high percentage of abstaining votes, like in this example, probably reflects a question that is not well formulated to include other options. The weekly cadence of The Pulse allows for quick responses, and the little effort required for voting results in respectable faculty participation (although we would love to see more).
Many of The Pulse questions are not well-formulated and thus lose their potential value to the community. This is an issue of proper survey design, but it is not clear which way to go with it. On the one hand, the original intent of Peko and Mike, the founders of The Pulse, was to allow faculty members to pose whatever question they have in mind, subject to no editing (but, the ability of the keepers not to move questions to prioritization or a vote if certain guard rails are crossed). This policy encourages participation in submitting questions. Yet, a better survey design means that the Keepers will have to edit the questions as well as add context and explanations. The first problem with this is that The Pulse was conceived to be anonymous. Unless a person who poses a question contacts the Keepers, there is no way for the keepers to get back to the person and negotiate edits. Thus, the editing will have to be done without consulting the submitter. (A few submitters do contact the Keepers and negotiated edits do take place.)
A second issue is that many questions require background material. For example, the question about transparency of salaries is something that management specialists have written and debated extensively. It would be useful to provide some arguments with reference material explaining the pros and cons of various levels of transparency. Unfortunately, this may detract from the immediacy of the responses (for example, how many colleagues want to spend 15 minutes reading reference material before voting on a question?).
In addition, the Keepers are not experts in survey design. Yet, some questions cry for edits or changes. For example, a question about increasing faculty compensation would surely get a majority of votes, but it is meaningless. A more balanced question should include what faculty are willing to give up in order to achieve this without taxing the Institute’s finances. For example, do we prefer increasing the overhead, stopping need-blind admission, or cutting staff? Such a balanced question may have a chance of being taken up by the administration. In addition, some question submitters are not aware of MIT procedures (for example, for setting compensation) or ongoing efforts by various committees.
Implementing many of these ideas and more requires staff time, which The Pulse does not have. We are in discussion with the administration about this. We have also contacted a faculty member whose field is survey design to give the Keepers a rudimentary education on the subject. Yet the question of whether the keepers should edit faculty-submitted questions remains.
The role of explaining how MIT works is something where The Pulse and the FNL can provide complementary functions. For example – when the Keepers identify a question that demonstrates a lack of knowledge of Institute procedures, pressures, regulations, or whatever – they can contact the provost, who will assign the appropriate senior administrator to explain the issues on the pages of the FNL. (To be fair, even the provost does not have extra staff . . . .)
The one element that I wish the FNL would adopt, is The Pulse process of the transparency of the choice of the Keepers. Currently both Keepers are voted by the faculty in open elections. (We are thinking about staggering the service period of the two keepers so there is always one veteran and one new Keeper.)
In any case, Roger and I enjoy the feedback we get (which is sometimes unpleasant but always helpful). We hope faculty members will increase their participation by voting and submitting questions, and also keep telling us how bad we are doing.
