With a near unanimous decision at its fall 2022 meeting, faculty at Hamline University passed a resolution asking the university’s Board of Trustees and senior leadership to develop and implement a 360-degree review process for consistent, periodic evaluation of university administration. The resolution was intended to facilitate a more comprehensive culture of assessment on campus, to better attend to and account for the intensely interdependent work of offices and initiatives on campus — as well as the vital intersections with off-campus constituencies and communities.
We believe that the particular challenges we see in our university reflect broader challenges facing all colleges and universities, and we write to argue why and how 360-degree reviews provide an opportunity to:
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- Rethink how we assess leadership as collaboration, given the new complexities of university administration;
- Reaffirm the value of working in higher education, by empowering all employees with active voice in evaluating the mission and direction of the university, and;
- Reassert the value of higher education, by linking evaluation more directly to community needs and community stakeholders.
Context and definition
In its traditional application, a 360-degree review provides an opportunity to collect diverse, meaningful community feedback about the work of an institutional leader in relation to the everyday operations and strategic objectives of the university. A designated review team would collect and synthesize information about the university administration, helping to see patterns of strength, challenge, and opportunity often less visible to direct supervisors or to the Board of Trustees, through quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews with a broader set of stakeholders.
Such reviews, long practiced in business and non-profit sectors, have increasingly been implemented in higher education, with a particular emphasis, as the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges has argued, on the benefits of presidential 360-degree reviews to support the Board of Trustees in periodic, comprehensive evaluations — particularly in challenging times. 360-degree reviews are particularly useful for defining and enhancing opportunities for growth and improvement that align the performance of administrative leadership with the strategic vision to address. Moreover, these reviews ensure honest, far-reaching, and comprehensive feedback about the impact of university leaders’ work on their unit and the broader university community and provide a more complete, substantive portrait of a university’s senior leaders’ work to their supervisors and/or to the Board of Trustees.
Extending the reach and strategic purposes of review
Our resolution proposed an extension of the 360-review process to other members of the University Administration. As noted in a recent Inside Higher Education piece, understanding who and what is “the administration” is important for various reasons, and we could use three sources of information to “determine who holds the authority and responsibility for decision making and what defines the administration at a particular institution: organizational charts, the chain of command and the spheres of decision making.” In other words, although there may be similarities, different higher education institutions are likely to have different administrative structures, determining the “university administration.” Including all members of the university administration in a periodic review, especially prior to major points of leadership transition and renewal, would enhance transparency in decision-making.
Perhaps, most importantly, transparency leads to trust, and trust fuels engagement. 360-degree reviews enable a stronger relationship between employees and the university administration, built from meaningful opportunities for communication about perceived needs, strengths and challenges. Numerous new articles suggest that at a time when “great resignation” and “quiet quitting” work in tandem and affect higher education, university leaders and university boards must understand the current climate on their campuses—through surveys, listening tours, exit interviews, focus groups, and more—to determine areas in need of development and folks in need of support, and to establish a plan of action. Belonging and shared purpose don’t come from “free T-shirts,” and a 360-degree review offers a specific platform to listen to and build community, to actively and transparently engage employees in decision-making on campus.
360-degree reviews could enhance a sense of purpose not just for the people on campus but for the work of higher education more broadly. Universities — whether funded directly by the state or indirectly supported through their position as non-profits — have been the subject of pointed cultural debate about, and a declining sense of, their value. A strong 360-degree process would integrate meaningful public input about our impact in the civic life of our communities, using the opportunity to create more meaningful collaborative engagement and define accountability for the mission and our benefits of higher education.
It is no secret that rising costs make it hard for many students to afford college. However, higher education remains a smart investment for our students and families. It is the responsibility of higher education institutions to ensure that faculty and university leaders perform well. A well-designed and well-implemented 360-review is an important instrument in devising policies and fostering an institutional culture that understands, supports, and serves students, particularly as these students and their needs are changing.
Binnur Ozkececi-Taner and Michael (Mike) Reynolds are professors of political science and English, respectively, at Hamline University. Reynolds was associate dean of Hamline’s College of Liberal Arts twice and served as associate provost. Both Ozkececi-Taner and Reynolds served as Faculty Council presidents in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 academic years, respectively.
If “higher education” was a great investment in a young person’s life, more students would pay back their student loans. How about we press colleges to lower costs instead of trying to better understand “quiet quitting”. Hint, “quiet quitting” is called a bad employee.
I have no problem pressing colleges and universities to lower costs – hopefully starting with administration, followed in some cases (the “U” being a case in point) by athletics – but just because “A” came before “B” doesn’t mean “A” caused “B.” Making an investment in higher ed doesn’t have much of a relationship with a college graduate’s loan payment record. In addition, I’m afraid you haven’t made a connection between student loans and their repayment on the one hand, and the phenomenon of “quiet quitting” on the other hand. How are they related?
Interesting, though not in a good way, that you assume “quiet quitting” equates to a “bad employee.” Why should quitting a job without fanfare mean someone is a “bad” employee? Isn’t it possible that they found a better opportunity – or were offered one – by a different employer?
Ray, two simple points. One, if you made the money they claim you would from a college degree, you would easily pay back your loans. “Quiet quitting” is not leaving your job quietly, it is not doing your job as you sit on your butt and ARE getting paid. Quitting quietly would be much better than drawing a paycheck while doing nothing and protesting whatever it is that entitles you to do little to no work WHILE being paid.
There is nothing new about people carving out long, comfortable careers by doing the bare minimum while loudly complaining about what little actual work they complete (in order to prove how hard they are working). It happens in education, at nonprofits, and at big businesses and corporations.
Mmm. No. That’s not what’s happening. Unless and until there’s a sudden jump in wages, like 30%+, reducing work for the same pay is fair: https://www.bls.gov/productivity/images/labor-compensation-labor-productivity-gap.png
But yeah, there have always been those people who sit on their thumbs while getting paid. It’s called the pay gap. Women and people of color routinely get paid less for the same work as white men. https://www.epi.org/publication/what-is-the-gender-pay-gap-and-is-it-real/
Lol! “Quiet quitting” is not what you think it is. We live in a capitalistic system. Employers and employees have a contract in which the employee agrees to trade their time and skills for compensation. If the employee agrees that the compensation offered is commensurate with the time and skill they’re willing to provide, they agree to be employed by the employer. However, what frequently happens is that the employer hires an employee at a compensation level based on a job description, and then proceeds to add requirements and expectations beyond the description after employment begins. The employer often then uses hints and suggestions for advancement rather than additional compensation. This results in a situation where the employee provides more to the employer than the employer compensates the employee for. Correction is appropriate for these situations. Quiet quitting is not actually quitting – the term is inaccurate – it’s an employee limiting the time and skill to only what they’re being compensated for. You know, like a good capitalist.
Now, if you think quiet quitting is bad, I’m sure there are “employers” happy to take advantage of your time and skill for a steep discount or free to make you feel like you’re a good employee. Well, that’s assuming you have any skills they care about. I guess, if not, they could rent you out to someone else if they need your skills and take the value of your work from that someone else while still not fairly compensating you. I don’t know about you, but I remember that there was a pretty big disagreement in the US over whether such practices were ok, though.
Be careful. They did this at the U when I worked there and they discovered that my boss should be working for me. That didn’t go over too well. It destroyed our relationship and I left shortly thereafter.
360 feedback is a joke. Management/administration rolls it out with great fanfare about how much they care about employees/staff and want to make things better for everyone. The results always show that the vast majority of people think everything is great! Assuming the results are reported, major issues are downplayed in favor of cheap/easy fixes. “There’s no heat in the buildings; favoritism and bullying are rampant; and there is no opportunity for advancement. We are going to increase the amount of tartar sauce provided in the cafeteria.”
Yeah, and I’ll take that with a side order of Myers Briggs. Importing executive fads into academia is unlikely to yield the promised revolution. Experience has shown that incompetent executives in “leadership” positions simply can’t apply whatever information you manage to collect from these exercises anyways. I’m surprised to faculty sign off on this with such enthusiasm. I’m not saying I have a better solution but basically your telling us that administration can’t do it’s job, part of being an administrator is being proficient at administration… so who are these people who need someone else to tell what to do, and how do I get one of those jobs? I can be clueless for right salary.
I don’t understand. Did they not give their leadership performance reviews before this?
Dude, executive and administrative accountability are revolutionary innovations that only evolved after we turned all the pyramids upside down. It takes a few decades for consultants to catch up to all this genius flowing out of the incubators ya know.