Maintaining Access, Trust, and Transparency in a Neoliberal Institutional Environment

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Collaboration Between Researchers and Organizational Stakeholders in an Age of Accountability

Abstract

A fundamental tension presently exists in higher education. On the one hand, colleges and universities have operated on the belief that academics need the freedom to question received wisdom and produce knowledge that can be openly shared. On the other hand, such institutions are also engaged in a highly-competitive marketplace influenced by the prevalence of neoliberal management, otherwise known as “new public management” (NPM), in education (Lorenz, 2012; Shahjahan & Hill, 2019). Increased oversight and limited data sharing are seen as normal activities under NPM, while ideas of shared governance or data transparency are viewed as outmoded models. Formal analyses have pointed out the impact of neoliberal philosophies and NPM on early career and senior academics (Darder, 2012; Gonzales, Martinez, & Ordu, 2014; Lawless & Chen, 2017; Levin & Aliyeva, 2015; Osei-Kofi, 2012). Fewer studies, however, have interrogated the impact of neoliberalism and NPM on the relationship between researchers and organizational stakeholders.

This tension is explored through a qualitative case study of how institutional pressures related to performance funding impacted the author’s ability to conduct and report on a yearlong ethnographic study of remediation reforms at a Florida open-access public college. By tying state funding to clearly defined metrics, performance funding compels institutions to focus channel their resources in support of measurable improvement that can purportedly enhance educational outcomes. After 90 semi-structured interviews with administrators, faculty, and students - and over 200 hours of observations in classrooms and academic support centers - the author nonetheless discovered numerous ways in which performance funding had negative consequences to the freedom of teaching and learning in Florida’s higher education institutions. For example, institutions that developed promising approaches to student success were incentivized to see other state colleges as “rivals,” rather than as colleagues with whom innovative ideas could be shared and expanded. Important institutional statistics relating to student outcomes that did not directly relate to performance funding measures were no longer gathered. Moreover, institutions focused their limited academic support resources on a miniscule percentage of the overall student population that “counted” in the metrics - namely, first-time, full-time students who were between the ages of 18 and 25.

This paper then details how problems relating to access, trust, and transparency emerged once the author prepared to report his findings pertaining to performance funding. Adjunct faculty who had been vocal in their displeasure about the deleterious effects of performance funding on student resources for low-income and minoritized students were understandably concerned that they would not have their contracts renewed if their statements were published. Administrators became worried that future performance funding metrics could be “tweaked” by state-level actors as a form of retaliation against their institution. In order to protect the identity of the institution and the participants, the author expanded his research to nearby colleges. However, the paper concludes with a description of how the author made difficult decisions to temporarily withhold some findings in the interest of maintaining relationships and continuing longitudinal research.

Author

• Michael Lanford, University of North Georgia