The Truth in Numbers?

One of the first things that I learned in history graduate school, in Ann Arbor, in the 1990s, was to be skeptical of facts. Facts or truth are always, and inevitably, shaped by context, by the questions asked, by the agent with a pen, by the political ideology, by the biases of the interpreter. The biases come in many forms: racial, gender, class, status, and always a combination of the above and more. Biases are political and unconscious and help to shape knowledge and organize information. So, always ask questions, always probe and always doubt. Well, historian or not, I suspect that I am not alone in my feeling about facts. But, what about numbers? Or data? Are numbers real? Do data comprise a single narrative? Do they tell us objective truths? Are they the building blocks of what we know and how we should do our jobs?

My days in the Office of the Provost have made one thing crystal clear: Numbers! Data! The twenty-first century university is peppered with numbers, and their legitimacy is taken very seriously. Numbers occupy a revered place in the state legislature and among politicians who oversee our public educational system. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Numbers of transfer students; number of research dollars; number of minority faculty members and numbers of majors; numbers of dollars in salary; number one university? Numbers going up and numbers going down…. Numbers tell a story, numbers mean reward, numbers mean punishment, numbers mean….

But, I know, and I suspect we all know that numbers (and their cousins, data) tell many stories, and often all at once. They offer a lot of essential information, but they also lie or distort or simply lie silent, waiting to emerge and declare what is real.

Yet, as a colleague said recently, the numbers are here, and we – colleges, schools, departments and each individual faculty member – must reckon with them. So, before we strap on our doubts, our cynicism, and ultimately our battle gear, let me suggest that we faculty members take a moment and get to know them, the numbers I mean, and even invite them for a cup of coffee. Maybe if we get to know them a little we can persuade them to be on our side. Perhaps we can shift the perspective or the meaning of those numbers and ask that they help us to tell a story (3 PhDs is a lot for the year even if it is only a small percentage of the university goal) that reflects what we are proud of and all that we have done. And maybe if we listen hard enough, we can create the context and tell the story that we – as individuals and collectives – would like to tell, and we can plan a future that works for us, for faculty members, for departments, for colleges and ultimately for the university as a whole.

But, before we do, it might be useful to express why some of us, maybe most of us? are cynical or skeptical or at least feel uneasy about how to approach these numbers, whether those that reside within our 20 key performance indicators or those that have taken up residence on the dashboard charts created by the Office of Analysis and Information Management (AIM). They sure are pretty and impressive. But, few of us are blinded by the aesthetics.

This brings me back to the beginning. We are trained to be questioning and skeptical and wonder about the efficacy of the information we are told, we question whether we have the whole story and we wonder whose priorities lie behind the pie charts and bar graphs and much more fancy and elaborate pictures on display. And, as scholars, we interpret one another’s research findings (data) for a living.

So, I hope there can be some understanding of why many of us cannot just get on board and march to the step of the chair’s dashboard presentation or dean’s ComPASS report.

And, yet, FIU has not invented the dashboard or created the strategic plan and its 20 metrics out of thin air. Indeed, many of us, from individual faculty members to chairs and up to deans helped to respond to the dictates from Tallahassee and created the dashboards and prioritized the resource allocations. And, truth be told, priorities have been set, within significant constraints, by deans, who consulted chairs who may have consulted with their faculties, at least on questions of how to counter pressures from afar and how to “move the metrics” and satisfy the numbers. In that sense, the numbers that are staring at us on the page or on the screen are the result of collective work and collective imaginings. And, they are not going away.

So….it seems to me that we must, each of us and all of us, look the numbers straight in the eye, give them meaning and context, allow them to tell the stories of what is and of what we wish to be.

What do you think?
Rebecca