FINAL REPORT OF THE EXTERNAL REVIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF TRENT UNIVERSITY
Otherwise Known As
THE ARTHURS LORIMER REPORT
(March 20, 1997)

I. INTRODUCTION

• how to ensure that Trent's administration meets the standard of best practice within the Canadian university community, and
• how to initiate a process which will over the long term promote constructive relations amongst students, staff, faculty, administration, the Board and other bodies concerned with the governance of the University.

More particularly, our advice was sought concerning:

• the appointment, tenure, authority and responsibilities of the President and Vice Chancellor
• the adequacy and appropriate organization of the University's senior administrative offices, the powers assigned and support provided to them, the procedures by which they are filled and the means of ensuring their effectiveness and accountability
• the administration's role in developing financial forecasts, implementing budget strategies and otherwise ensuring the financial stability of the University, and
• the relationship of the administration to the governance structures of the University.

We have addressed all these matters as fully as we could - given the limited time available to us - as well as related matters which emerged during our consultations within the University. Scores of individuals helped us to gain an appreciation of the current situation, its history and context, and of how the University might work its way towards constructive solutions to its problems. In all we met with, interviewed or received briefs or communications from over 100 groups and individuals, including representatives of all significant campus groups and governance bodies. We are immensely grateful, as the University itself should be, for the outpouring of information, analysis, concern and good ideas which we encountered from everyone who spoke or wrote to us. Due to pressure of time, we were not able to meet everyone who offered to speak to us, nor were we able to acknowledge the many written communications we received. For this, we apologize to those citizens of Trent whose contributions went unacknowledged or unheard.

In part II of this report, we offer a summary of what we heard, in effect holding up a mirror so that Trent can see itself. In part III we examine structural issues relating to the senior administration of the University. In our Interim Report of February 27, 1997, we provided advice concerning the appointment of a transition team of senior administrators for the academic year 1997-98 and now, in part IV, we propose a process by which a whole new ongoing administrative team can be put in place as of July 1, 1998. Part V suggests how the University may be able to move forward by establishing a consultative process to address an agenda of issues which we have identified as particularly pressing. In part VI, we offer some general conclusions.

Trent University has seen its share of conflicts in the scant thirty five years since its foundation. So have other Canadian universities. However, few institutions of any age or size can rival Trent's claim to provide its students with high quality, small-scale, innovative, even affectionate, instruction, a supportive college system and a rich extracurricular life - a claim which has deservedly won it the deep loyalty of its graduates, the respect of the community, the dedication of its faculty, staff and Board, and the accolades accorded it as "Canada's finest small University". Trent's reputation for undergraduate education, over the years, has come to be complemented by the growing reputation of its carefully crafted graduate programs and its important centres of interdisciplinary scholarship.

All of the qualities in which the Trent community takes justifiable pride have so far survived intact, despite the University's recurring crises of governance, administration and employment relations. But such crises, over time and especially in the present environment of cutbacks and changing public policies, may ultimately affect the capacity of the University to sustain its high academic standards and its character as a community. These crises tend to impair the University's reputation and consequently its capacity to attract and retain students, faculty and staff, to make its case to government, and to maintain support from its friends, the community and the many volunteers who work so hard for Trent. And worst of all, they make life and work at Trent far less pleasant and productive for all members of the community, especially those who are most deeply attached to it, and almost intolerable for those who find themselves at the epicentre of conflict.

II. THE TRENT COMMUNITY'S SELF-DIAGNOSIS

In the process of conducting interviews with specific constituency groups, listening to the opinions expressed at open meetings and reading the numerous written submissions made to us, two things became immediately clear to us.

Despite Trent's relatively short existence, its builders have managed to generate a remarkable university spirit. All those who communicated with us share a profound pride in the distinctiveness and the excellence of the university. It was immediately apparent that faculty, staff and students have an intense commitment to preserving and carrying forward the academic vision which inspired its original creation. Everyone we encountered greeted the review process in a constructive manner, and was anxious to offer their best assessment of where problems lay and what might best be done about them.

Commitment to the institution, however, does not necessarily translate into a sense of community. Like any university, the Trent community contains numerous constituencies within it. The opinions offered to us as to the nature and the cause of Trent's administrative ills varied and, in some cases, directly contradicted one another. These differences, to some extent, reflected the fact that the community had barely come out of the faculty strike before a new crisis was thrust upon it. In effect, we were asking the community to enter into self-diagnosis while it was still in a state of stress not conducive to such activity.

In order to address the future it is sometimes necessary to revisit the past. Doing so has been difficult for us. We were not part of Trent's past. We were not mandated, nor did we have the time, to undertake the kind of detailed inquiry which could sort out conflicting recollections and interpretations and produce a judicious assessment as to who did what to whom and why. We also believe that it is not constructive for the University to enter into an extended exercise of precisely assessing responsibility for its current problems. What we have chosen to do instead is to summarize, in as neutral a fashion as possible, the representations made to us. This has enabled us to define an agenda of controversies and concerns which need to be addressed. We received numerous submissions which expressed the hope that our report would serve the function of "holding up a mirror" to the university community, so that it could clearly perceive its problems and move on to a constructive resolution of them. This section of the report is written in that spirit.

We were struck by the frequency with which those who communicated to us grounded their analysis of administrative problems by reference to what they perceived to be the founding vision, or at least the initial working practice, of the institution. Trent's founders had a clear vision of the academic objectives of the university. It was to be a largely undergraduate institution committed to educating students in small classes, reinforced by close academic mentoring and the college system. The suggestion that colleges should have greater academic autonomy and make academic appointments, was moved by a committee on the academic role of colleges in 1965, but rejected.

On the governance side, the Trent University Act provides for a conventional bicameral structure. The responsibility for the "government, conduct, management and control of the University and of its property, revenues, expenditures, business and affairs" is vested in the Board of Governors.
[Trent University Act, section 10]

Senate, on the other hand, "is responsible for the educational policy of the University, and, with the approval of the Board in so far as the expenditure of funds and the establishment of faculties are concerned, may create such faculties, departments, schools or institutes , or establish chairs as the Senate may determine...."
[Trent University Act, section12]

The Act also established the Council of the Faculty of Arts and Science with provision for subsequent faculties which might emerge over time.
[Trent University Act, section 14]

None subsequently did.

In its early days, with only a small number of faculty members, Trent was able to define itself, and largely to operate, as "a self-governing community of scholars." While it is unlikely that the University ever did in fact operate on principles of total consultation and inclusivity, there is a strong perception that faculty were involved in all decisions, via Senate and its committees or the College Councils. Administrative offices were scattered throughout the colleges, and administrators were frequently encountered in the Senior Common rooms, and were personally known to all the staff and students.

Trent has been lucky enough to have a body of faculty and staff who are deeply committed to its particular approach to teaching, learning and governance, and who have committed their careers to the University. Long service in an institution, however, can sometimes breed resistance to necessary change, and the University itself has changed. It now employs some 224 full-time and 100 part-time faculty, close to 400 staff (full and part-time), and has an enrolment of over 5,000 full and part-time students (as of November 1996). It has also added to its original undergraduate focus new graduate programs and a considerable level of research activity. Moreover, in addition to the pressures of growth and diversification, Trent - like every other university in the province - has had to respond to more and more interventionist policies by successive governments of differing political orientations, with differing preoccupations regarding reporting, accountability, equity and excellence. The only common thread of government policy in the last twenty years has been the virtually uninterrupted reduction of per capita funding support for higher education. In this environment, it is hardly surprising that Trent - a small university, especially victimized by the funding formula and committed to an increasingly undervalued vision of undergraduate liberal education - has experienced considerable tension.

The fractiousness which has characterized the Trent community for over two decades, we suggest, reflects very real and unresolved internal conflicts. These conflicts are manifest in debates over governance structures. There is no consensus as to the appropriate representation of different constituency interests in the governance structures of a radically changed institution. Trent's formal allocation of decision-making responsibility between the Board, senior administration, Senate, Faculty Council, departments and colleges and management resembles provisions elsewhere. However, in practice, Trent appears to have translated the informal habits of earlier and smaller days into a politically fragmented system, which, while properly anticipating widespread consultation of all constituencies, has no clear means of moving on from disagreement amongst them. This system, described to us as a system of "multiple vetoes", is particularly problematic because of the difficulty of balancing the priorities of different constituency interests in a climate of economic stringency.

Three particular conflicts were the subject of representations made to us. They involved:

• the workings of the current administrative structure and the performance of its incumbent officers
• the role of the Board of Governors. Senate, and the Faculty Board
• the management of labour relations

The Current Administrative Structure and the Performance of Incumbent Officers.

Given the recent spate of resignations and the fact that all but one (or, at most, two) of the University's senior administrators must be replaced in the next 12 months, we received numerous representations on perceived problems with Trent's administrative structure, the qualifications of its administrators and their leadership abilities. It was pointed out to us that 19 people have rotated through five senior management positions in 13 years. Those who spoke to us attributed this remarkable inability to establish any continuity or longevity in tenure of administrative office in part to the demands of Trent's administrative structure, in part to the institution's failure to correctly identify what qualifications were needed for particular positions.

There was no agreement on what constituted an appropriate cadre of administrators for a university of Trent's size. While some felt that Trent had too many senior administrators, others argued that the demands upon the President, Vice-President (Academic), Vice-President (Administration) and the Dean of Arts and Science were far too great to allow them to exercise their responsibilities effectively. We took particular note that the thoughtful interim report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Administration (the Hillman Committee), appointed by Faculty Board, identified the need for Trent to "design an administrative structure which would not only serve the needs of the university but which would encourage capable individuals to present themselves to implement it."

The representations made to us indicated that Trent's expectations of the presidency are especially contradictory. One commentator suggested that Trent's attitude to its presidents "alternates between ancestor worship and cannibalism". We were frequently informed that Trent's president must be "accessible", "visible", "hands on" and personally known to all members of the University community. At the same time it was generally accepted that the president must give top priority to pressing Trent's case externally and must therefore spend a good deal of time off-campus.

Many commented on the physical isolation of the senior administration from the University community, characterizing the administrative offices in the Bata Library as an "administrative bunker", and recalling the dissemination of the senior administration throughout the colleges in the early days. We were also told, however, that the location of the Vice-President (Academic) and the Acting Dean of Arts and Science in Lady Eaton College robbed the President of valuable opportunities for consultation and informal exchange of views with his administrative colleagues.

Similarly there was no consensus on the kind of training necessary for the responsibilities of senior academic office. Some felt very strongly that practising academics, with no training in management, were not qualified to hold these positions. Those who advanced this position also felt that academics in senior administration had an inherent conflict of interest. They argued that it was too easy for them to return to teaching and scholarship if they felt that they had made a mistaken career move, and that they were unlikely to make hard decisions regarding faculty when they might themselves return to the professoriate. Administrators with training in corporate management were preferable, in this view.

On the other side, some felt that senior administrative positions had been filled with people with experience of corporate or college management but no understanding of university structures. Other voices pointed out that the University provided no in-service training for any of the senior administrative positions and that there was no natural progression from one level of responsibility to another. It was commonly felt that senior administrators should have training in the management of labour relations in a university setting.

The relations between administration and staff appear to have been affected by frequent changes to reporting lines. We were informed that there had been a constant and unsettling reshuffling of reporting lines for middle management. Rightly or wrongly, we were informed that the senior administration did not provide adequate direction or supervision for middle management.

There is general agreement that there is no institutional support structure for long-term institutional planning in budgeting, staffing and student enrollment. Our own investigations suggest that data gathering and analysis is reactive and sporadic, and has not been adequately computerized. The administration has no means by which to generate data to inform complex decision-making.

While there is clear evidence that academic planning initiatives of recent years have not been completed, the causes for this appear to lie in disagreement over what constitutes a proper consultative process and how decisions are to be implemented. Many observers pointed out that Trent had made numerous attempts at academic planning, but that successive administrations had failed to implement the recommendations which had arisen from it. President John Stubbs had established the Presidential Planning and Priorities Steering Committee (PPPSC) in January 1993 "to ensure an on-going overview of planning that recognizes financial realities and draws on the financial and planning expertise available within the University". PPPSC was mandated to set an annual planning agenda, to name study groups and tackle planning projects, and to ensure that study groups consulted widely and moved ahead with developing proposals. The Steering Committee was to report to the Senate and the Board of Governors following consultation with Faculty Council. Three study groups were formed in January 1993. The College Review reported in May 1994; the Committee on Colleges accepted some, but not all, of its recommendations. The study group reviewing Curriculum reported in February 1995; its recommendations were not well received. A report on Approaches to Teaching and Learning was submitted in March 1995, and another on New Technologies and Multimedia in September 1995; parts of these two reports were sent to various bodies for action, but there was apparently little or no follow-up. PPPSC met for the last time in January 1996. While closure was achieved on the matter of college structures, no resolution was reached on other issues. The entire process appears to have failed to move in a fluid way through the academic bodies of Faculty Council and Senate, and the budget priority-setting process.

The Role of Established Governance Bodies

The tensions within the Trent community are clearly reflected in perceptions of the role and the adequacy of its established governance bodies.

The Board of Governors

The role of the Board of Governors appears to have become a general focus of concern. Many people recognized that members of the Board were volunteers who wanted to contribute to the advancement of the University in some way. However, several observers were concerned that, as presently structured, the external appointments to the Board do not provide it with a diversity of viewpoint and experience. Some perceive that external appointments have been focussed on those with expertise in corporate management at the expense of community, regional and social representativeness. We were informed, rightly or wrongly, that this element of the Board is committed to driving through institutional rationalization without prior institutional analysis. On the other hand, we were informed that the Board, if it is to act in the spirit of the Broadhurst Report on University Accountability, must fulfil its responsibility to ensure that the University's management and finances are sound, and that this has required it to seek out individuals with business backgrounds. It was put to us that most internal board members - faculty, staff and students - perceived themselves to be "second class citizens" effectively, if not technically, excluded from the Board Executive, Audit and Finance committees and ineligible for the Human Resources committee. Internal members are also said to feel that they were inhibited from acting as representatives of the constituencies which elected them. External Board members, however, felt that while it was expected that internal members would bring the views of their constituents to the Board, their primary concern, as Board members, should be the overall best interests of the institution. We were also informed by some parties that the recent faculty strike had strained the established reporting relationships between the Board and its committees.

Concerns about the role of the Board also extended to that of the University Secretary, which has become a matter of controversy. During the strike especially, the University Secretary came to be viewed as a buffer or filter of communications directed to the Board from other constituencies. Moreover, the Secretary has come to be perceived as an active member of the University executive, rather than as providing support to its two governance bodies, the Board and Senate.

Senate, Faculty Council and Faculty Board.

If the Board of Governors, or at least certain elements of it, is perceived to be disharmonious and driven by inappropriate corporate management objectives, Senate is perceived to have ceased to function as intended under the Trent University Act. Only Trent's student senators appear to regard their participation in Senate with any enthusiasm. Other representatives stated that Senate has largely ceased to exercise any meaningful function as the senior academic-policy making body. Instead, Senate is commonly perceived to have become a form of "town hall" assembly where trivial non-academic matters like coffee carts and parking dominate the agenda. Consequently, we were told, it is difficult to find faculty members to serve either on Senate or on its committees. Moreover, the reformulation of Senate in the early 1980s reduced both the actual numbers and the percentage representation of faculty; now, faculty do not represent a bare majority as is common elsewhere.

Faculty consideration of academic policy has apparently devolved, by default, through the Faculty Council to the Faculty Board, a body mainly consisting of departmental chairs, which has largely inherited Council's functions. The Faculty Board claims a mandate to serve, among other things, as "an academic advisory committee to the President and his/her senior academic advisors". Its members would not disagree with the commonly held perception that the faculty has largely abdicated interest in Senate because they do not have a leading voice in it. Consequently, they rightly stress the importance of Faculty Board in filling the vacuum left by the absence of majority faculty representation on the senior academic policy-making body of the University. Staff and students, however, feel that some forum must exist where equal weight is given to the opinions of all constituencies on issues of general concern.

The Management of Labour Relations

TUFA

At Trent the relations between the employer and the Trent University Faculty Association have been embattled for more than a decade. A strike was narrowly averted in 1985. A strike took place in 1991 and again in late 1996. From TUFA's perspective, the Board's adamant stand on several key issues, particularly the question of the ownership of the surplus in the Pension Plan, has exacerbated relations between the parties. This has been compounded, in TUFA's view, by the inability of management either to negotiate knowledgeably and effectively, or to administer the collective agreement in a professional manner between negotiations. The Employer, on the other hand, feels that it has been demonized by the extreme rhetoric of the TUFA leadership. There is no consensus between the parties as to the University's financial position.

OPSEU

OPSEU members came within hours of a strike before the settlement of their most recent contract. We received many intimations that staff morale was very low. Downsizing has increased workloads while wages have been frozen. Constantly shifting reporting lines for middle management are perceived to have caused or exacerbated communication breakdowns between different areas and departments of the University. Senior staff feel that their experience is neither used nor valued. The job evaluation and classification schemes currently in place cause considerable dissatisfaction. The training courses administered by Human Resources are felt to be of little value. Under previous policies, the University subsidized the cost of degree or vocational courses both on and off campus; these have been scaled back. Administrators, staff and faculty were almost unanimous in declaring that the current management and policies of the Human Resources Department only serve to aggravate these problems.

The Administration and the University Community

Both TUFA and OPSEU believe that lack of labour relations experience and expertise in the senior administration has made the process of negotiation more adversarial than necessary. The last round of negotiations was soured by the employer's decision to move to conciliation early in the process. Both also felt that it would be advantageous for the employer to bring experienced outside negotiators to the table.

The recent faculty strike has pointed to potential rifts between employee groups and students. Students are deeply concerned for the future of their University and their educational programs, in light of labour-management conflict. The leadership of TUFA is viewed by all other employee groups as well-organized, militant and capable of pressing the demands of faculty at their expense. Part-time faculty have by comparison, poorer wages and benefits and feel themselves to be subject to insensitive departmental hiring practices. OPSEU members are deeply offended by the post-strike bonus given to NUG staff. NUG staff feel that they have been unfairly blamed for this administrative decision, and are concerned that they have no secure terms and conditions of employment.

The Loss of Civility

All of the forgoing points to a general loss of mutual confidence among the constituent parts of the Trent community. The essential purpose of a university is to promote the pursuit of knowledge. However, if it is to survive, it must have agreed, efficient arrangements for a board of trustees, senior administration, academic governance procedures, management and support staff - all of which must ultimately assist the academic enterprise to function. In these contexts, as elsewhere in the academy, disagreement is perfectly normal and often passionate. However, while it is counterproductive to persist in disagreement to the point of personal conflict, over the past year in particular, responsible and committed Board volunteers, administrators, faculty, staff and students have at times been subjected to, and have themselves engaged in, a process of demonization. Likewise, labour relations may well periodically descend into conflict, but conflict need not take the form of personal abuse. Both parties must be committed to the process of negotiation, and the resolution of conflict should bring with it a commitment to make the relationship work in a reasonable manner.

Whether at the level of the institution or of the individual, then, there must be a commitment civility. Civility requires that all parties accept some level of disagreement in order to arrive at tolerable and mutually beneficial working relationships for common goals. The Trent community appears to share a common belief in the value of the academic enterprise and even in civility, but it has not yet resolved how its component parts can articulate with one another in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

III. THE SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS OF THE UNIVERSITY

An important part of our mandate is to review, and to help to reconstitute, Trent's senior administration. We have heard a good deal about the University's senior administrative offices, have examined the relatively scant documentation covering these offices, and have reviewed job descriptions prepared by incumbents. In addition, we had the benefit of reading and discussing the interim report of the Hillman Committee which was appointed by Faculty Board to review administrative appointments and other matters. Unfortunately, its final report reached us as we were completing our own report, and too late for us to take into account all of its recommendations. Some of these are quite consistent with our own; others - including the recommendation for the appointment of a Dean of Science - we had not seen previously but seem to be heading in the same general direction we have taken; a few are inconsistent with our approach. The Hillman Report should be considered by the University along with our recommendations in the context of the consultative process we recommend in part V, below.

As noted, strong - and often contradictory - representations were made to us concerning what Trent expects from its administrators, and the kinds of personal qualities and credentials they ought to have. We have heard, for example, that the President is expected to be highly visible and accessible on campus, but also that she or he is expected to spend a great deal of time off-campus representing the University in its dealings with government, donors and the community. We have heard that under no circumstances should career academics be allowed to assume administrative office for a fixed term and then return to teaching, but also that all senior administrators should be from and of the academy. We have heard that the faculty espouses collegiality and civility, but that it extends neither of these to administrators or staff (nor, we are told, to each other). Most importantly, we have heard that the University wants imaginative, energetic and professionally competent leadership, but also that it also expects consultation and participation in decision-making so extensive as to amount almost to multiple vetoes. And other expectations exist as well: for a high degree of autonomy for academic departments, for devolved authority for administrative units, for academic coherence and administrative economy, for transparency and accountability and a willingness to make hard decisions. These are all reasonable expectations in themselves.

However, as Trent's experience shows, if all of them are brought into play at any given moment, the result is that senior administrators may be programmed for failure and University administration may be virtually paralysed. What is positive in the present situation, however, is that the Trent community seems to share a growing consensus about the need to resolve its administrative problems, albeit not yet about the solution to them. Here lies the possibility of moving forward.

Our own general conclusions about the senior administration can be summed up in four general observations.

• Trent is not "over-administered" at the senior level, keeping in mind the insatiable demands on senior administrators emanating from the University's ongoing academic development, from external events and government bodies, and from internal constituencies.
• The roles of the senior administrative officers, and of their relationship to each other, have to be better defined and more widely understood.
• Trent's senior administrators need a higher degree of professional competence, especially in the area of labour relations, and more professional support, especially in the area of institutional research.
Insufficient oversight of middle management is provided by the University's senior executives.

These are relatively non-controversial observations - even amongst University constituencies - although each might certainly provoke modest dissent in some quarters.

With a view to ensuring that Trent has adequate and effective administration, we next make several recommendations for the redefinition and reinvigoration of the senior executive. The purpose of these recommendations is to ensure clear understandings - by both incumbents and the community as a whole - of the functions to be performed by each senior administrator, a process to ensure accountability for the performance of administrative functions, and a better definition of the means by which senior administrators can work together as a team.

Specific Concerns about the Organization of the Senior Administration

Several serious concerns about the organization of the senior administration were expressed during our visits to the University, and have been canvassed in briefs and communications sent to us.

The issue of having both a Provost/Vice President (Academic) and a Dean of Arts and Sciences has provoked controversy at various moments during the University's history, and especially during 1996. As the Hillman Committee has rightly concluded, the work load which would fall upon a single individual holding a combined vice-presidency and deanship would be far too heavy for most people to sustain, and for the optimal performance of all the tasks involved. However, there is a clear need to differentiate the jobs to be done by the Dean and Vice President/Provost respectively, and the relationship between them, which we have done, as we recount below, and as we have set out in Appendix 1.

Several individuals who spoke to us urged that the present position of Associate Dean (Research and Graduate Studies) should become a deanship, rather than an associate deanship. The Hillman Committee appears to be supportive of this change, which would bring Trent in line with other universities, including a number of smaller institutions. We agree with this change of nomenclature and the implied modest expansion of the University's commitment to the position. Indeed, in light of current developments in discussions concerning the financing of research at Ontario universities, more visible and vigorous advocacy for Trent's researchers is likely to be required. Finally, apart from reinforcing Trent's research presence and influence, and ending Trent's anomalous use of the title of Associate Dean, the appointment of a Dean of Graduate Studies and Research will reinforce the academic component of the senior administration as a whole, and do so at relatively little additional financial cost. We have provided an appropriate job description in Appendix 1.

The position of the Secretary of the University was the subject of numerous comments. This position is not identified by name in the Trent University Act, which refers only to a "Secretary to the Board". However, it is a position that is now found in most universities, reflecting a growing awareness that both Board and Senate are essential to the overall good governance of the institution. It is hard to imagine how the two University's governance bodies can function effectively, or work closely with each other and the University administration, absent a Secretary to provide needed information and other support services, maintain their institutional memory, and monitor implementation of their decisions. However, the combination of these functions with those of Executive Assistant to the President is not in accordance with general practice, and it would be better if the University Secretary no longer functioned in this capacity. Needless to say, all of the Secretary's tasks must be discharged with professionalism and discretion. A fuller statement of the responsibilities of the Secretary is found in Appendix 1.

We recommend that the position of Provost/Vice President (Academic) and Dean of Arts and Sciences be separated, that the University should appoint a Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, and that the University Secretary should support both the Board of Governors and the Senate, but not the Office of the President.

We have examined and generally approve the existing structure of the senior administration subject to specific recommendations (above) concerning the Provost/Vice President (Academic), the Dean of Graduate Studies and Research and the Secretary. A proposed organization chart, reflecting our recommendations, is found in Appendix 2. However, it is not enough to simply locate the members of the senior administration on an organization chart; it is important that the responsibilities of each member be clearly defined, and that the relationships amongst members of the senior administration should be clearly set out.

At the moment, there are no authoritative job descriptions for senior administrators at Trent. While this is not a fatal flaw - some universities get along without them; others have them and ignore them - the articulation of what jobs are to be done by whom, to what end, and in what relationship to other actors does present an opportunity for a new beginning for Trent's troubled administration.

We therefore recommend that the University accept the job descriptions in Appendix 1 as the basic job descriptions of its senior administrative officers. These job descriptions should be confirmed by the Board, subject to modification and amplification following the consultative process described below, in Part V of this Report. Furthermore, these job descriptions should be reviewed and made more specific by search committees seeking new senior administrators for 1998, and periodically thereafter, with a view to emphasizing which aspects are expected to be particularly important during the terms of office of the new incumbents.

The President's Executive Group

The President's Executive Group (PEG) is convened by the President, who defines its membership, agenda and collective functions. Clearly some form of senior coordinating group is needed, to ensure that the administration is working in concert rather than at cross-purposes. Such a group can also be effective in crisis management, "crisis" being defined to include positive as well as negative high-stakes short-term challenges facing the University.

We have heard suggestions that the PEG has not had an appropriate membership and has not functioned as effectively as it might. We are in no position to verify the latter point; as to the former, we believe that the President must have the right to constitute such a body according to his or her best judgment. However, we point out that given the recommendations contained in Appendix 1, the group of senior administrators eligible for participation in PEG has now changed somewhat. The President may wish to include all three vice presidents in PEG as a core group, expand it to include the two deans, and possibly augment it further by bringing in other individuals as members pro tem or simply for advice and information on specific agenda items. The University Secretary might well be asked to support PEG as its secretary or someone else might function in that capacity.

However constituted, the onus clearly falls on the President to make PEG an harmonious and effective body.

Institutional Research

There is a general recognition that Trent has not had at its disposal the amount and quality of institutional research which ought to support administrative, financial and academic planning, recruitment and enrolment management, collective bargaining and salary policies, and many other functions. We have been advised that new administrators taking office begin more-or-less with a clean slate, that they have neither expert advisors to turn to nor, in fact, can they find in their files well-researched analyses of the difficult issues they have to address, sometimes in their first days and weeks after coming into office. The decision to initiate an institutional research function two years ago - albeit on a temporary, half-time basis - was an important advance. Most people we spoke to, including the Hillman Committee, seem to agree that the University must now take the next step by establishing an institutional research unit which is professionally staffed at something above minimal levels.

We therefore recommend that the University establish an Office of Institutional Research (OIR), reporting to the Vice President (Administration) but working closely with the Vice President (Academic) as well. OIR should comprise at least one researcher, at least one systems analyst and one support person. Its mandate should be to produce timely, easily understood and generally accessible information and analysis, which is accepted as reliable by all elements of the University. OIR will respond primarily to requests for information and research originating with the senior administration. However, it should also respond - so far as it can, as a practical matter - to requests from the University's governance bodies to support their planning and legislative functions, and to requirements for information pertinent to collective bargaining and personnel administration. OIR will obviously supply reliable data; however it should collect and display such data, especially in regard to labour relations matters, according to conventions agreed with the unions. Finally, we see OIR as a potential source of information and advice concerning government policies affecting post-secondary education and research.

We believe that, to some extent, OIR can be staffed with personnel now performing similar functions elsewhere in the University, and that to some extent, the development by OIR of information systems will result in cost-savings resulting from a reduction in manual data collection and analysis. However, even if the University were to incur some new costs in establishing and operating OIR, we believe that this cost ought to be regarded as an unavoidable investment in a strategy to protect, and hopefully improve, the University's share of the provincial higher education envelope. Even modest success in this regard will pay for the cost of OIR many times over. And even absent such success, the notion that OIR might help to lay to rest some campus controversies which are now the result of misinformation or misinterpretation makes this an attractive expenditure, even in tough times.

Accommodation and support for the senior administration

If the senior administration is to work effectively for Trent, it must have adequate support and efficient working arrangements. At present, one of the Vice Presidents does not have a secretary; the President does not have an Executive Assistant, nor do some other senior administrators; the Vice President (Academic) is located some distance away from the President and the Vice President (Administration); the President's conference room has an uncurtained glass wall looking out on an area heavily used by students. No doubt there are good reasons - historic and symbolic reasons - for these arrangements. However, to the extent that they may impair the effectiveness of the administration, they ought to be revisited. Whatever may have been the advantages of Trent's tradition of physically dispersing its senior administration, and of limiting its support echelon, those advantages must now be weighed against the need to deal with the radically changed circumstances of university administration today. As the University has grown, as financial management becomes more difficult, as regulatory and accountability requirements proliferate, as relations with various university constituencies become more complex, and - we hope - as academic and financial planning become more sophisticated, the need for the senior administration to organize itself differently becomes more and more evident.

We do not propose to make any specific recommendation in this regard. However, we must at least confront the University community with the implications of continuing the present situation. It can continue to reap the presumed benefits - symbolic, psychological, political or practical - of forcing senior administrators to handle their own typing and logistics, dispersing them amongst the Colleges, or labelling attempts at consolidation of the administration as a retreat into "the Bunker". Or it can increase administrative efficiency, improve administrative coherence and reduce the risks of exhaustion in the ranks of senior administrators by accepting a consolidation of administrative offices and some very modest increase in support services for the President, Vice Presidents and Deans.

Administration and management

Rightly or wrongly, the senior administration is not perceived to be competent in discharging its executive functions, including effective control of the University's middle management. This has led to the belief, in some quarters, that all senior officers of the University should have professional credentials or experience for their positions, or should at least receive special training before taking up their positions. In its more extreme form, this position is expressed as a proposal that academics taking on senior administrative positions should abandon tenure and the pursuit of their academic careers.

We cannot agree with this extreme position: it is inconsistent with general Canadian university practice; it would prevent Trent from recruiting experienced senior administrators from other institutions; and it would deprive the University of leadership which personifies the academic culture, values and practices which are central to its mission. However, we accept that the issues of competence and control have to be addressed.

Ideally, senior academic administrators acquire administrative skills by moving up through the ranks from department chair to associate dean to dean to associate vice-president to vice-president to president. At each stage, the individual would be exposed to new and larger responsibilities, and would be moved upward only if she or he proves equal to the tasks at hand. Trent offers rather less opportunities for on-the-job learning, above the rank of department chair, than larger institutions.

To be sure, some individuals seem to have a greater natural aptitude for administrative work than others; some have inspirational or affective talents which more than make up for their administrative shortcomings; and some actually do arrive with, or subsequently acquire, relevant professional training. But most develop their administrative skills on the job. Universities pay a price for this pattern of administrative recruitment: frequent rotation of individuals through academic and administrative positions sometimes results in foreshortened on-the-job training, loss of institutional memory and momentum and, on the other side, much-resented interruption of academic careers. Nonetheless, on balance you pay that price. They find that filling senior academic administrative positions - specifically presidents, vice presidents (academic) and deans - from the ranks of the professoriate generally works well enough, and sometimes works brilliantly.

However, senior administrators appointed from the ranks of the professoriate are often supported, and where appropriate replaced, by career administrators and professionals in positions which are not directly involved with academic activities. Senior and middle management positions dealing with finance, administration, advancement, human resources, computing and physical resources are all cases in point. Moreover, most universities now provide adequate back-up and professional assistance to senior administrators with conventional academic backgrounds, in much the same way that government provides newly appointed cabinet ministers with a deputy minister and a staff of highly skilled civil servants. Trent has been somewhat delinquent in this regard, and to that extent, the competence of its senior administration may have been impaired.

This brings us, finally, to control which, as it happens, is very much an issue for the civil service as well. How are senior academic administrators to ensure that the professionals and career administrators are doing their job well, and achieving results which advance the interests of the University? Obviously, they must exercise control, at least to the extent of providing middle managers with clear direction and holding them accountable for achieving outcomes. It is clearly the job of the President and Vice Presidents to control those who report to them in the specific sense mentioned, but we have some sense that proper direction and accountability are not always provided at Trent.

Our conclusion, then, is not that Trent's administrative practices or systems have to be torn up root and branch, or that the University ought to veer away from conventional practice in hiring academic administrators. To the extent that the administration's performance is unsatisfactory, the cause is in part the University's failure to provide adequate support, in part the failure of members of the administration to take tough-minded and purposeful action to ensure proper performance by middle management, and in part, the failure of the governance bodies of the institution to hold the senior administrators accountable for their performance.

The principle of accountability, in a university setting, requires some discussion. Current management and political discourse emphasizes the need for accountability by public institutions, such as universities; the recent Broadhurst Report addressed the issue of how Ontario universities might best respond; and it is important that Trent should make every attempt to ensure the accountability of its senior administrators. However, accountability in a university is easier said than done. Universities are highly politicized institutions; they are decentralized and non-hierarchical, especially in regard to their academic functions; they lack agreed and quantifiable indicators for many of their activities - indeed, much of what universities do cannot be quantified or measured; and the importation from the corporate world of conventions and systems for gathering information, making decisions, implementing policies, monitoring outcomes and evaluating results may be inappropriate or unaffordable. For all of these reasons, it is important to devise accountability procedures which are realistic and appropriate to the setting in which senior academic administrators function; specifically, procedures applicable to administrators dealing with the academic affairs of the University are likely to differ from those applicable to administrators responsible for its financial and business-type activities. Nonetheless, to the extent that such accountability procedures can be devised, they should be.

We recommend that the senior administration of the University should be held accountable for their actions as administrators and managers. The lines of administrative accountability should run from Deans (or Directors or Associate Vice Presidents, in the case of administrative units) upwards to Vice Presidents and ultimately to the President. We further recommend that the senior administration as a whole should be held accountable to the Board and Senate for matters within their respective areas of authority under the Trent University Act. We further recommend that initially, and until more experience is gained with the operation of such an accountability system, the senior administrators should propose methods for the consideration of these two governance bodies and, with their advice and consent, implement them as soon as possible. As more experience becomes available, the governance bodies should periodically review these initial accountability arrangements, and revise them if necessary. And finally, we recommend that a special effort be made to construct modalities of performance evaluation appropriate to the very volatile political and institutional environment with which universities are increasingly confronted.

The consultative process we are recommending in part V of this Report will propose that the University develop permanent search procedures for senior administrative positions. These procedures will have to take account of the requirements of the Trent University Act, of appropriate arrangements for participation and openness, of the conventions and the realities of search processes as they have developed in Canadian academe generally and at Trent in particular, and of course, of the requirement that search committees work effectively and produce the best possible results. The existence of such agreed processes will help Trent get on with its searches in the future without running the risk, on each occasion, of protracted negotiation and - all too often - of controversy.

In this section of our Report, we will deal with the very special circumstances which Trent confronts as it tries to replace much of its senior administration, following the transition period 1997-98. For reasons we will explain, we do not believe that it would be advisable for the University to postpone the appointment of a new Administration until after completion of the consultative process, which involves many issues, and is likely to preoccupy the University for most of 1997-98. Accordingly, we will be recommending a modified search process, to be used in 1997-98 only, in the special circumstances of the multiple searches which the University must now undertake.

We being by providing some background.

Responsibility for Appointing Senior Administrative Officers at Trent

Under the Trent University Act, section 10(a) and (b) the Board of Governors is empowered to appoint the President, the deans of all the faculties, and the "senior administrative officers" of the University. However, deans and senior administrative officers must be appointed by the Board only upon the nomination of the President, "a provision which does not apply where there is a vacancy in the office of President....". The Board also has power to fix the number and duties of the officers of the University, under section 10 (c). Under its By-law 1, section 7, the Board has indicated that it may appoint "a Secretary of the Board, a Provost, one or more Vice-Presidents, one or more Deans and such other officers as the Board may from time to time determine" including associates and assistants to any of the officers so appointed.

While the Board's statutory powers to appoint senior administrators are exclusive and relatively clear, other University bodies have come to be involved in the appointment process from time to time. According to past practice, Senate has discussed the mandate or role of the President, approved the search procedures for the Vice President (Academic), Provost and Dean (and for other officers not immediately relevant) and has contributed in various ways to other Vice Presidential searches. A provision in the TUFA collective agreement speaks to the appointment of the University Librarian, but not to other senior administrative appointments. And just recently, the Hillman Committee's interim report has been discussed, and in some respects endorsed, by Faculty Council. However, given the provisions of the Trent University Act, neither the interim report nor Faculty Council's endorsement of it has any formal consequences.

a. The President

Following the selection of President Conolly, the Board adopted a Presidential Search Policy (Special Resolution III.2, 26 Nov. 1993) which calls for the appointment of a search committee of 12 members "charged with recommending to the Board of Governors an individual to serve as President..." For reasons set out below, we will recommend that for the searches to take effect in 1998, the Board modify the search procedures established by its Special Resolution. We hope that the proposed new procedures will enjoy the support and engage the participation of Senate and of various university constituencies.

b. Provost, Vice Presidents and Deans

The President is charged by the Trent University Act with responsibility for nominating individuals to the Board for appointment as senior administrative officers. The Act does not require the establishment of provostial, vice presidential or decanal search committees, nor does any Board resolution. Consequently, the President may elect to either act alone in identifying a nominee or to seek the assistance of a search committee. In the latter event, the mandate and membership of any search committee are matters for presidential decision. While this has been a matter of recent controversy within the University, it is clear that neither Senate nor Faculty Council nor Faculty Board have any statutory claim to participate in the establishment of these search procedures or in the appointment process itself. However, we have already noted the existence of a practice of consultation with Senate with regard to the search procedures for Provost, Vice President (Academic) and Dean, as well as the recent interim report of the Hillman Committee. And as we will indicate below, we will be recommending a meaningful role for various bodies and constituencies in connection with the vice-presidential and decanal searches, as well as in the presidential search.

The Mandate of the Senior Administrative Officers

We have proposed in part III of this report what we consider to be an appropriate alignment of senior administrative responsibilities. As indicated above, the Board has authority under the Trent University Act to establish particular administrative positions and to assign duties to them. We assume that this authority will be exercised in a manner which respects the processes outlined in parts IV and V of this report. However, we do not have the luxury of awaiting the formal approval of the alignment of senior offices which we have proposed. Because of the urgency of the present situation, and the need to initiate an immediate search for four senior positions, we are assuming for present purposes that the recommended alignment is the one which will ultimately be accepted. However, if changes occur during the course of the search, the consultative process we propose will allow the new alignment to be conveyed promptly to the relevant search committees.

In addition to the individual responsibilities of each of Trent's senior officers, defined in part III above, all share a collective responsibility for bringing the University through the difficult period ahead. The discharge of this collective responsibility requires not only an array of talents which must be found somewhere in the senior administration, but also a willingness on the part of its members to work together and to support each other in the common enterprise of serving the University. We identify the following critical concerns for the new administration, a list which will no doubt be modified and given specificity by the search committees:

• the re-establishment of trust, civility professionalism and leadership
• effective external advocacy of Trent's interests
• improved employee relations
• the institution of more systematic and effective academic and financial planning and management
• renewal of the University's governance structures

A Process for Appointing the Next Senior Administration

Trent faces the perhaps unprecedented challenge of appointing a President, at least one senior Vice President - quite possibly two - and a Dean, all at the same time. In the normal course, a University would appoint a President, who would then play an important role in identifying his closest associates, and in recommending them to the Board of Governors for appointment. However, while these searches are proceeding, Trent will have an Acting President and two Acting Vice Presidents, who will not be able to play the normal role played by the incumbents of their offices in the vice presidential and decanal searches. Moreover, it is unrealistic to expect that Trent's new President could take office before July 1, 1998 at the earliest. Thus, if the new President were to take the lead in the normal way in searching for the Vice President(s) and a Dean, these searches could not begin until that date, with the result the new Vice Presidential and Decanal appointments would likely not take effect before July 1, 1999. We believe that it would be unwise for Trent to depend on its acting administrators any longer than absolutely necessary, and to do so for more than two years at most, if it can possibly do otherwise. Indeed, it is not fair to ask anyone to serve in such difficult circumstances for such a protracted period.

Accordingly we recommend that the search for all positions - President, Vice President (Academic), and Dean of Arts and Sciences - proceed in tandem. Depending on the availability of the present Acting Vice President (Administration), a search for this position may have to take place at the same time.

We further recommend that the University should make every effort to conclude the presidential search somewhat prior to the conclusion of the other searches, and particularly that of the Vice President (Academic). This would enable the University to build a team with complementary skills around the new President, once she or he is identified, and would enable the new President to have some input during the last stages of the other searches.

We have mentioned the issue of complementarity and identified the need to put in place a new group of senior administrators who can work closely together. This necessarily implies that the three (or four) search committees for senior administrators should work very closely together. Indeed, we considered the possibility that a single search committee might undertake all of the searches.

On balance, we have decided to recommend the appointment of three (or four) separate search committees, with overlapping membership and a mechanism to ensure close collaboration amongst them.

The search committees should have a common core of members, comprising eight members:

• two members elected by the Board of Governors (all members eligible)
• two faculty members elected by Faculty Council
• one undergraduate and one graduate student member elected by their respective constituencies
• two staff members, one elected by unionized and one by non-union staff members.

This core group will provide general procedural guidelines to the search committees which, however, confront somewhat different situations, operate in somewhat different contexts, and therefore must be permitted some measure of diversity in the way they go about their tasks. It will also coordinate the efforts of the search committees, with a view to ensuring that they share common views concerning the University's needs, that they keep in mind the necessity of building a team rather than just filling one particular post, and that the searches are concluded in the order indicated, if at all possible.

Each search committee should have a composition appropriate to its particular task, comprising some members drawn from the core group, and some from particular constituencies. The core group will specify which of its members will sit on or chair particular committees, and will make an effort to ensure that balance is achieved both in the assignment of its members and in the overall composition of search committees. In particular, undergraduate and graduate students, unionized and non-unionized staff members, and faculty members representing the three disciplinary divisions, should be represented in as near as is possible to an equitable basis.

We therefore recommend that the search committees should be constituted as follows:

Presidential search committee: Total 9 members