Academic

Confessions of a faculty committee skeptic

By Tung Yin

I'd like to make a confession.  I'm one of those faculty members who's constantly agitating to reduce the number and size of faculty committees.  I tend to think that good administrative staff can take care of a lot of the business that's handled by faculty committees, and I chafe at how (it seems) committee recommendations get reviewed de novo at faculty meetings.

Having never served before on an Admissions Committee, I've thought in the past that this was a prime committee for downsizing and shrinking its mandate.  Instead of having faculty members read individual admissions files, why not have a small group of faculty come up with the broad direction of admissions -- i.e., let's try to have a diverse class, let's not have the LSAT median/average/25%/75%/etc. dip below X, let's preference students with 1-2 years work experience, or whatever else the committee thinks makes sense -- and then let the Admissions Director implement those goals.  Particularly challenging cases such as very high LSAT but very low GPA, or severe criminal convictions, or the like could be brought on an individual basis to the committee.

Now that I'm actually serving on the Admissions Committee, I must admit that I've changed my stance . . . at least, as regards this particular committee.

For one thing, unlike most other committees, the decisions of the Admissions Committee members are not going to be the subject of any kind of review, de novo or otherwise, by the full faculty.  That in itself makes the work considerably more satisfying.

In addition, I've come to see that it's probably not possible to give any meaningful kind of guidance to the admissions director for the midrange files that the committee reads.  There are the presumptive admits, whose LSAT/GPA profile is sufficiently high, but those aren't the files that we're reading as a committee.  We're looking at files in a fairly tight LSAT/GPA range where it's the rest of the application that really matters.  That's not to say that the admissions director couldn't admit the class from this range, but it wouldn't really be through any kind of faculty guidelines.

But the main reason I've come to change my tune regarding having so much faculty involvement on the Admissions Committee is that I've enjoyed reading the application files and having a hand in shaping our incoming class.  There are some really neat applicants with amazing stories who seem like they'll be great additions, hopefully here, but presumably somewhere.

Of course, this takes a lot of time -- every week, a few hours to review my share of files, and two hours for the committee meeting.  I think it's highly likely that leaving all of the admission decisions in this range of files to the admissions director would produce an entering class of the same LSAT/GPA range and general diversity of backgrounds (not just racial/ethnic, but work experience, college majors, etc.).  There would be individual differences, of course, but probably not so much in the aggregate.  It's a fair question whether, notwithstanding the points noted above, this is therefore a wise use of faculty time.

Maybe if the question is put starkly as, is it better for a faculty member to spend 5-6 hours a week on admissions matters, or on research or teaching, perhaps it's the latter.  But if the question is, given that service commitments exist, is it better for a faculty member to spend 5-6 hours a week on admissions matters, or on, say, the building committee, I would say the former.

Of course, just because I've come to see the value of faculty participation on the admissions committee doesn't mean that I couldn't hack away at committee structures in general . . . . 

(cross-posted at Prawsfblawg, where I'm guest blogging this month)

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on February 01, 2011 (boomark / email).