Though his appointment as dean is an interim one, former UT Trustee Tom Brady said he wants to help put the Judith Herb College of Education “on a path to world class” excellence during his tenure.
Shortly after Brady’s selection was announced on June 19 in an e-mail to students, faculty, administrators and staff, he released an open letter to the faculty and staff of the JHCOE outlining how he plans to make this happen.
Brady's vision
Brady said he hopes to encourage the faculty and staff of the college to think creatively and develop “compelling action plans” consistent with the state’s and UT’s mission. He said as interim dean he would use his clout with state officials, UT Board of Trustees members, administrators and community members to implement the plans.
He said he plans to meet with the college’s faculty and staff individually and in forums to get to know them and discuss where they want the college to go in the future.
“Faculty and staff are the ones who have been thinking about [these types of plans] all of the time,” he said. “Part of what we probably don’t do very well as an administration is we never ask them what they think.”
He described these action plans as “themes that really speak to the paradigms of the future, probably where the college has pre-existing areas of strength.”
The need for this improvement, however, is not to reflect poorly on the college’s faculty and staff, he said.
“There’s a lot of bright, able, well-trained, committed, dedicated people in the College of Education, but I don’t think the college has achieved the stature that it can or deserves.”
According to Brady, many of the same problems facing the college are systemic and replicated across the nation at all levels of education.
“The profession needs to reinvent itself,” he said. “Our K-12 and the rules we have put on it on the state level and around itself, makes [effective education] pretty constrained.”
Brady has been a strong advocate for charter schools and other alternative forms of education. He helped to found the Toledo Technology Academy and has been involved with the Toledo School for the Arts.
He said this need for reinvention is not restricted to K-12 education, however. A shift from a “teaching paradigm” to a “learning paradigm” is necessary, he said, adding that such a shift would place emphasis on students successfully acquiring concepts and would allow them to learn at their own pace.
Added technology might also characterize the shift, he said, including the use of both established mediums such as distance learning as well as cutting-edge forms. He noted this technology shouldn’t make the role of professors obsolete and should only supplement it.
The exponential growth of technology, Brady said, is a large driving force behind this shift. Students need to be more tech-savvy and flexible with their skills.
“Part of what we have to train everybody to do is to reinvent themselves without knowing what they need to reinvent themselves to do ... to be innovative and flexible.”
He said this emerging shift should be considered as the college’s faculty and staff reevaluate their college’s focus.
In his open letter, Brady noted early childhood, STEM and urban education as areas where UT could build.
Brady's candidacy
An “entrepreneurial” candidate with leadership qualities such as Brady is ideal for facilitating this shift in the college, said Main Campus Provost Rosemary Haggett. He is the founder of Plastic Technologies, Inc. and has had relationships with a number of other different businesses. Plastic Technologies, Inc. recently appointed a new president to oversee its operations.
“In an academic environment, one of the more difficult things is to make things happen,” Brady said. “The environment in academia is about slow — that’s not necessarily bad, but it is about being deliberate, being careful and doing research.”
“The way our university system has evolved … it’s about everybody doing their own thing,” he said. “[Professors are] on a tenure-track where it’s about building a resume [with research and publications]. That’s different than a place like industry where you put a bright team together to make something happen that any one of us as individuals can’t make happen.”
This approach is especially necessary in light of a globalized world, he said.
“This isn’t about competing with Bowling Green [State University] anymore. This is about competing with China, India and everyone else in the world.”
The businessman
Brady’s selection can also be viewed as a culmination of UT President Lloyd Jacobs’ request to Haggett in a Jan. 27 letter about the college. Jacobs stressed the need for leadership of the college to come not only from “outside the educational establishment,” but with a “business orientation.”
This created a stir among some faculty. Lawrence Baines, former COE professor of curriculum and instruction who left UT after the spring semester, said a business orientation isn’t healthy for the college.
“The goal of a business is to make money. The emphasis is on the self and on generating dollars for the self and the corporation,” he said. “The goal of teaching is not to make a profit, but to help others.”
Baines added that while he finds “the shift in philosophy from altruism to profitability deeply troubling,” he hopes Brady will maintain the college’s mission and not turn it into “a short-term, money-making, assembly line.”
Haggett defended the choice of Brady in light of his business experience.
“Certainly it is in the job description of every dean to be the financial manager for their college and to look for alternate and new sources of revenue ... to figure out how to do things in different ways while being more cost-effective,” she said.
“When [Jacobs or Haggett] say they want a business influence, that’s not about ‘Oh we are going to go in and rip everything apart and figure out how to make money,’” Brady said.
Though he talks about making the college’s focus “narrower and deeper” in his open letter, he said he does not foresee the elimination of any “program, courses or centers.”
“I don’t see any that need to be cut,” he said. “Without knowing exactly how we are going to evolve or change in order to be different than we are today, I suspect rather than cutting things, it’s a matter of maybe parsing things differently so that we get more out of what we have.”
He indicated some programs, courses and centers may be moved outside of the college to achieve this.
“Managing the college’s financial health, if anything, to me is about how we generate more revenue, support or grants so that we can do things even better and more broadly,” he said.
Along with Haggett, Brady said he supports pursuing partnerships with companies such as Higher Ed Holdings that can increase access to UT’s programs. Haggett said it is important that UT retains control over its programs and maintains their high quality in such relationships.
Brady said serving as the college’s financial manager, though, will not be easy.
“All of us are going to have to live with less,” he said. “It’s not about doing it the same. If we cannot figure out how to teach more people at lower cost without saying ‘Oh, everybody work harder,’ we’re lost.”
Brady’s appointment comes at a time when Ohio’s Chancellor of Education Eric Fingerhut is calling for the state’s academic insitutions to accommodate more students despite a stalled state budget and decreasing tax revenues.
More technology in classrooms may help satisfy this greater demand, he said. He added that an increase in funding for the state will demand the training of students capable of creating more “high-value commerce.”
The selection process
After current COE dean Tom Switzer announced his intention to step down and return to the classroom last fall, Haggett and Jacobs immediately began talking with faculty members to see what their needs and desires for the college were and then started interviewing candidates.
After Brady entered consideration, Jacobs wrote a March 17 letter to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland asking him to relieve Brady from his role as a trustee for 12 or 18 months so he could become interim dean.
The Ohio Board of Regents responded saying Brady would have to resign permanently from his position as a trustee. Brady did so in April, and the full board voted to accept his resignation on April 13.
After all final applicants were considered and interviewed, Brady was approved by Haggett and Jacobs. The other applicants were from both within and outside of the college and constituted a diverse group along gender and racial lines, according to Jacobs. The BOT approved his nomination at its June 22 meeting.
Professor of early childhood, physical and special education William McInerney said he was unhappy with the search process.
“At a meeting that took place on March 16, Jacobs indicated to the three faculty members of the JHCOE Planning and Review Committee, several emeritus faculty, several other JHCOE faculty members and a chairperson that he intended to appoint Brady as interim dean of the JHCOE effective August 1. Apparently, he did,” he said.
Dean search
In his Jan. 27 letter, Jacobs instructed Haggett to convene a committee of faculty members with the dual charge of reviewing and focusing the strategic plan of the college and then searching for a permanent dean.
“That first phase will help us better articulate the kind of [permanent] leader we are looking for,” Haggett said. “So I think that first phase is important in teeing up the search process.”
She added that Jacobs asked her, Health Science Campus Provost Jeff Gold and Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Scott Scarborough to use this “visioning” and search combination for all future searches for senior leadership positions.
Brady’s appointment will last until July 31, 2010 or until a national search process has concluded and a permanent dean for the college is selected. Brady’s annual salary will be $176,000.
* Attached at the top of this article is a PDF of the report generated on June 19 by the Ohio Ethics Commission regarding the legality of Tom Brady's appointment as JHCOE interim dean.
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