Philip Sheridan writes,
I read the 17 page American Philosophical Association site visit report on the University of Colorado, Boulder, philosophy department. As a consultant, I wrote many reports like this -- you interview, obtain documentation and data, analyze the information, compare performance to best practices, and then finalize recommendations. Most of the time outside consultants are hired because there is a known problem; the consultant provides an 'objective' viewpoint as someone experienced in the subject area and, importantly, as someone with no personal stake in the outcome.The troubling thing about the report is that it provides no detail, no who-where-what information that would document the basis for the conclusions. Ostensibly this lack of detail protects confidentiality, but the report was never intended to be made public. As a former consultant, I would say that the conclusions and recommendations are not supported by the content of the report. All of the allegations are vague and without specifics. No one writing such a report should want to provide salacious detail for no reason, but in fact the detail is extremely important. In a criminal trial, no accuser gets away with making vague allegations. Only the reference to 15 complaints filed with the ODH indicates that there may be specific actionable problems, but obviously the UC was already aware of those, so in fact the report contains nothing new that is specific enough to justify the recommendations. Vague comments like "the department has a reputation in the international philosophical community for being extremely unfriendly to women" are not really acceptable, as the authors appear to be merely repeating gossip obtained before their arrival in Boulder.The 'best practices' reference is just silly. They are making all of this up as they go along, that's plain to see, and the UC philosophy department is the first department to be subjected to this inquisition, so there is no 'best practice' that even exists. The insistence that events must be "family friendly" appears to be based on some theory of academic work (or indeed, any adult work) that is not articulated but that is probably completely unfeasible. At a minimum it should be debated by all concerned, not just presented in passing as the thing that must now be done.If a junior consultant gave me this report as a first draft, I would make these sorts of comments and would help them understand that that their report did not meet professional standards and could not be presented as is to senior management.I conclude that the APA CSW should not be doing this sort of thing at all. Referring to the last sentence of my first paragraph above, the CSW ladies are not wholly disinterested; they are gender warriors. They are not objective as a consultant from outside philosophy and academia would be, nor are they subject area experts (they are philosophers!) and they have done a disservice to Mr. Forbes, the department, the University and philosophy in general. They should go back to teaching and writing and complaining on their blog; if this sort of thing is to be done, it should be done by professional, objective outside consultants.
Compare the above with this supine reaction to the Site Visit Report by two faculty members of the philosophy department.
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