Commentary

This Student is Watching

Andover is a wonderful place. It is one of the best schools in the country, but it is not without faults. After living at Andover for over three years, I have begun to notice some of these faults and take an interest in correcting them. It is through my attempts to correct issues, to become involved with changing and improving the school, that I have uncovered an alarming problem.

My discovery was not one of sudden revelation but a reality that slowly became clear to me as I struggled to make a difference at Andover. The more I tried, the more I realized the pointlessness of my efforts. I turned to faculty for assistance and discovered that they were in the same boat, except their frustration had more than four years to build up. After over a year of dealing with administrators, speaking to fellow students and talking to faculty, I have come to a simple conclusion. The Andover community suffers due to the lack of faculty and student involvement built into the major decision-making process at the school.

When major decisions need to be made at Andover they fall, in most cases, to the Senior Administrative Council (SAC). The SAC consists of 12 members of the administration, ranging from the Head of School and Associate Head of School, to the Dean of College Counseling and Secretary of the Academy. Of the current twelve members of the SAC, four serve as faculty, teaching one class each, and only two serve as House Counselors, both in small dorms. With eight members of the SAC serving almost exclusively as administrators, it is easy to imagine that they are out of touch with the students and faculty on some issues. In many cases, the SAC can turn to Student Council, faculty meetings and the Advisory Committee to the Head of School (ADCOM) in order to determine the opinions of the students and faculty. Even if these opinions are known, it is to be expected that in some cases the SAC may disagree with those opinions. This is where the issue arises. There is no system in place that forces the SAC to account for the opinions of the students and faculty when making decisions.

The majority of decisions made at Andover, by definition of being a school, directly affect the students. From decisions on budget to decisions on new rules and policies, almost every decision the administration makes will have some effect on the everyday lives of the students, yet the students play a trivial role in forming these policies or rules. Some may point to Student Council as an example of student involvement, but the reality is that Student Council does not have any official power within the administration. There is no binding nature to the decisions made in Student Council. The administration can choose whether or not they agree with the proposals of Student Council. If they believe the proposal is a good idea, like in the case of the Blue Card proposal, they can take steps to implement it. On the other hand, if they disagree with the proposal, they can simply ignore it. The SAC does not include the Student Body President or any other student representative. Without an effective Student Council, where else can students turn in order to make a difference?

When was the last time a single student found something he thought was wrong at Andover, decided to change it and succeeded? In the past 30 years only one example comes to mind: Brian Gittens ’89, the student who changed the way we observe MLK Day. In his case, the change occured not because of an official propsal he presented through Student Council, but in response to his highly publicized protest. One has to go back to the early 1970’s and late 1960’s in order to find any examples of students changing the school in drastic ways. In the late 60’s, a student-led movement to end the forced work duty of financial aid students led to the current school wide work duty program, on which the administration quickly came to agree with the student body. Once students raised the issue, the administration listened to them and changed the policy. The only memorable student-led movement that was successful, despite opposition from the administration, was the movement to end the strict dress code. Through the use of petitions, the students convinced the administration that the dress code was an issue they were united on, eventually convincing then Headmaster John Kemper to change it. What does it say about the students’ power at Andover when the last time the students and administration disagreed and the students prevailed was nearly forty years ago?

The students are not alone in their powerlessness. Despite the fact that almost every aspect of a faculty member’s life is connected to the school, they, too, have no concrete way in which to make changes to the school. The weekly faculty meeting, the most logical source of faculty power, resembles an even more dysfunctional form of Congress. With such a wide range of issues at Andover, it’s not a surprise that faculty committees are formed in order to make sense of the complicated issues. With the number of discussions raised and the number of committees, one would expect every faculty meeting to be filled with committees giving presentations on the issue to the faculty as a whole, followed by a vote of the entire faculty. The reality could not be further from the truth. According to the Phillips Academy Self-Study Report 2010, the last time the faculty took a vote on a major issue was in 2007, voting to change graduation requirements. The vote demonstrates the one realm in which faculty hold any power: the realm of strictly academic policies. Even with these policies within their control, a three-year gap since the last faculty vote demonstrates how often that control can be exercised. Instead of facilitating well-structured debate, the committees serve as a way of burying issues underneath layers of bureaucracy, the worst being ADCOM.

ADCOM is designed to function similarly to the Student Council. Its role is to act as the voice of the faculty when speaking to the administration. ADCOM was originally made up of six faculty members (each serving for two years with three members’ terms ending each year), the Head of School and the Dean of Faculty. As the role of the Head of School has transformed under Barbara Chase, the Head of School has been replaced by the Associate Head of School in ADCOM. ADCOM’s largest problem, the same that faces Student Council, is that it holds no actual power. Much like Student Council, SAC can easily ignore the issues and opinions raised by ADCOM if they wish to ignore them. In recent years, ADCOM has become little more than a conduit for faculty frustrations, turning the once influential position into a chore for many faculty. Each year, as three slots open on ADCOM, more than three quarters of the faculty opt themselves out of the election, choosing passivity over the frustration of serving on ADCOM.

With ineffective faculty meetings and the complaints of ADCOM falling on deaf ears, the remaining faculty involvement with the administration is minimal. Faculty serving as Cluster Deans, Dean of Students, Dean of Faculty and Dean of Studies play some role in the administration, but the faculty does not popularly elect these deans. Instead, they are chosen by the Head of School’s Office.

On Sunday, the official Phillips Academy Self-Study Report 2010 was presented to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges as part of the reaccreditation process. The report is designed to facilitate a community-wide examination of the standards to which the school holds itself and whether or not these standards are met. In the report, the second standard on which the school is evaluated is entitled Standard 2 (Governance). Ideally, the section would be the place in which the issues I raised above would be addressed.

Andover’s committee assigned to study the aspects of Standard 2, a committee led by the Special Assistant to the Head of School, found the school to be “fully in compliance” with Standard 2. At the end of the section discussing Governance, the issue of the “participation of all constituencies in the policy-making process, as appropriate” is addressed. The report admits that faculty and students often disagree with the policies of the administration,and points to the systems of Student Council and the ADCOM as means of addressing these disagreements. The report goes on to state that the official position of the administration, in regard to faculty discontent over their lack of involvement, is outlined in a 1994 letter from Mrs. Chase to the faculty. Within the letter, Mrs. Chase states, “For some issues it would be appropriate for the faculty to vote, and for others it would be more appropriate for them to advise the Head of School.” It is unclear what the criteria are for making the distinction between the two kinds of issues, and who makes the distinction. The report also mentions that the letter has not been circulated in recent years.

In addition to citing a long list of official policies and documents, the committee also lists members of the community that were interviewed during the study. Of the five people listed as sources of interviews, all five are members of the SAC, and all five are not active members of the faculty. The final bullet point of the “notable strengths of the school in this area” section reads, “Trust: Members of the academy community express confidence that the trustees and the senior administration will govern effectively by making the best decisions for the school.” The point is contradicted four bullet points later under the “notable weaknesses/needs” section, which states, “The regular cycle of evaluating senior administrators within the context of community input was temporarily suspended to allow the administrative reorganization of 2006 to take place. There is a need to reactivate this practice.” Clearly all members of the community do not share the aforementioned trust.

The issue with the current system boils down to one thing: a lack of actual power behind the voices of the student body and faculty. The current system relies heavily on the belief that the SAC and the rest of the administration will take into consideration the opinions of the faculty and student body. In an ideal system, a balance between administration, faculty and students could be struck. I firmly believe that an administration is required in order to run a school successfully, but I also believe that they should not be the only group that participates in the running of a school. In order to make meaningful changes to the process and improve the way the school is run, some power must be shared with the faculty and students.

The current system leaves students feeling incapable of making a difference at their school and faculty feeling frustrated by their inability to influence the community in which they live and work. Something needs to change.

Addendum:

Over the course of researching this article, members of the Head of School’s Office repeatedly blocked me in my attempts to acquire copies of both the Self-Study Report and the “Letter to the faculty from Head of School re: decision-making (11.8.94).” I am deeply indebted to all the members of the community who helped me to thoroughly research this article.

Scott Cuthell is a four-year Senior from New York, New York and Head of Circulation and Delivery for The Phillipian.