[Alumni-chat] Community Meeting on Thursday afternoon

[Art Dole]

On 10/4/07 8:42 AM, "Sistersara at aol.com" <Sistersara at aol.com> wrote:

> 
> In a message dated 10/4/2007 8:58:42 A.M. Central Daylight Time,
> aadole at roadrunner.com writes:
> 
> Using  consultants is risky. Consider the plans proposed by  consultants
> previously  employed by the BOT (eg. The Renewal Plan).  Both the BOT and the
> AB must bear in mind that it is the faculty and  administration (especially
> the President whoever she is) plus the students  who have to carry out any
> plan. Several specialists in higher education,  sociology, and psychology
> have written case studies on the failure of top  down plans. The plans were
> subtly sabotaged by those who were charged with  carrying them out but who
> were not consulted.
> 
> Art Dole '46>  
> 
> 
> 
> Art, Consultants can be very valuable if the job they are hired to do is
> well defined.  For instance, one very clear job that needs doing vis a vis
> Antioch is "market research" -- where is the potential market given current
> demographics that might be interested in the kind of Antioch that is  created?
> What 
> is the likely range in tuition and other costs this segment  of potential
> students will be able to spend on college?  This doesn't mean  starting from
> scratch -- these kinds of projections are possible from widely  available data
> bases, but it looks to me, right now, that this in-house  expertise is not
> necessarily available.  For that kind of information, a  consultant is useful
> -- it 
> can help you determine how to re-organize so as to  potentially be attractive
> to some relatively small segment of the market of the  near future -- say the
> kids and families beginning to think college for their 13  or 14 year old.
> 
> Our problem right now, I think, is that no one has focused on "what went
> wrong" over the years, and thus what we actually have to agree to have fixed
> going into the future (should there be one), and in addition, we have not
> examined traditional Antioch Values, and pushed the question of how these
> would  be 
> actualized in the Higher Ed scene of the near future -- meaning the next 25
> years or so.  Those things need to be addressed BEFORE one starts talking
> about recruiting students and all.  Without this, a consultant who can lend
> specialized information to the planning process is probably pretty  useless.
> 
> 
> 
> ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
> Sister Sara
> 
True. However,  the first task is to recruit an equivalent to Arthur Morgan.

 Who picks the consultant? What are the consultant's qualifications? How
does the consultant relate to the people who are expected to carry out the
consultant's recommendations? If the organization lacks a leader, later is
the new president hobbled by the consultant'w work? Is there a book about
all this?

A personal note. I have been a consultant several times. Usually an
interesting challenge, well compensated but not enough time. It's very hard
to escape the scenario for your visit that the administrators who write your
check arrange. 

Art