COLUMN: Evaluating the University

From Marisa Katz's, "Ineluctable Modality of the Visible," Fall '98 From Marisa Katz's, "Ineluctable Modality of the Visible," Fall '98Cornyn Fasano. Brailsford & Dunlavey. Biddison Hier. William Jackson Ewing. Coopers & Lybrand. Why are there so many of these firms floating around campus? Well, for one, the consulting industry is booming. And having himself been hired from Coopers & Lybrand, Penn Executive Vice President John Fry is a strong proponent of consulting firms' ability to help the University improve its service delivery and overall efficiency. But perhaps more importantly, students, faculty and staff have expressed concern with the level of service in many areas. These complaints come in conflict with the view typically offered by the people providing these services, who tend to think they do a pretty good job. As the system is set up now, departmental heads are supposed to funnel self-evaluations to the central administration. But problems are often glossed over -- or omitted completely -- as officials try to avoid making themselves look bad. Thus, administrators wait for students to raise enough concerns that they are forced to bring in an outside "audit" of those services to make recommendations. Ultimately, these reports indicate that the administration has failed in monitoring its service delivery. Such a reactionary approach is of little value. And the benefits outside firms offer are somewhat unclear. First, they are exorbitantly expensive. A source in the administration estimated that the University pays these firms in the "seven figure range." While administrators may boast that a retail overhaul and renovations to residences will ultimately pay for themselves, the consulting for these projects certainly isn't coming for free. And since they are paid by the University, the firms can never be absolutely independent. Consultants are often told generally what to find. Their recommendations, therefore, rarely depart much from what is already known. For instance, after completing a survey of residences that was supposed to give administrators an idea of what could be done with residential living, we are in the process of implementing a version of a plan for college houses that has been in the works, in one form or another, for 16 years. The only "revelation" Biddison Hier seems to have shown us is that, despite our greatest hopes, tearing down the high rises is not financially feasible. Similarly, after a year-long survey of the University's recreational facilities, Brailsford & Dunlavey is telling us what students have been saying for years: we need more indoor recreation space with updated equipment, in addition to improved outdoor playing surfaces. A further conflict of the recreation survey was that, from the beginning, Brailsford & Dunlavey has been considered as a possible contractor for recreation upgrades if it found that such improvements were needed. With this arrangement, the firm's findings are even less surprising. Another weakness with the consulting approach is that it adds a significant amount of time to an already long bureaucratic process. Granted, as long as the University is committed to investing in certain facility and programmatic improvements, it makes sense to attempt as thorough an evaluation as possible. And one advantage of consulting firms is that many have extensive experience in higher education. They can, therefore, benchmark the University against other institutions, recognize problematic patterns and recommend solutions that have worked well elsewhere. But outside firms typically spend several months solely trying to learn about issues at the University -- the "information gathering" portion of their survey. And even months aren't sufficient for gaining a complete sense of Penn's campus culture. Any way you look at it, an internal evaluation system would be far more effective than hiring a consultant. The University needs a better self-auditing system to gauge day-to-day performance. The supposedly business-savvy administration should be able to develop a way of monitoring customer -- student, faculty and staff -- satisfaction. Then, officials wouldn't have to wait for there to be outrage to hire a costly outside consultant who finds out time and time again that students were right and service was poorly delivered. Whether by distributing surveys or bringing together focus groups, the administration needs to start listening to what students are saying. It would save a lot of time and money. And we might even be able to see improvements during our time at Penn.