The FIU Nature Preserve After the Fact and Lessons in Communication

When I first heard that the integrity of our Nature Preserve was under threat from a colleague in my department, I was worried. I was worried for the university, for faculty, for students, and, honestly, for myself. How could I work shoulder to shoulder with people making these decisions? I sat down to write a Blog. This is part of what I wrote: “There seems to be a habit that relies on a post-decision consultative process: let’s have a forum with faculty to hear their concerns about a project that has been planned and a decision that has been made. The trouble is, the issue is no longer up for debate. It is, in many ways, even more disempowering to be brought in on the tail end of a decision-making process than not brought in at all. Being consulted after the fact means either: 1) we can scream into the wind; 2) we become complicit in a project that we deeply believe is wrong. Either way, faculty voices are not heard and we are disempowered.”

But, before I posted it, I decided to talk with some people, both administrators and faculty members, in order to get a fuller picture of how this decision to create two practice fields on the top third of the Nature Preserve was made. Alas, the more I dug, the more people I talked to, the fuzzier the narrative became. While I had hoped for a neat, simple and straightforward story to tell (and which would have been much easier to blog about), it did not appear to be the case.

What was the case? Well….I do not have all of the subtleties figured out, but I am confident in reporting that there was consultation and, as it turns out, assent at least among some faculty leaders. So, then, how could a plan move forward to repurpose the top third of the nature Preserve for Athletics if interested faculty were consulted?

Step One: The Decision Emerges: Repurpose Nature Preserve lands!

The day of the President’s memo on the Preserve/Intermural Fields Plan, one of you passed along an impressive and extensive list of courses that rely on the Nature Preserve to give our students hands on experiences; a list that included the fact that several faculty members are using the Preserve to study the spread of Zika; others rely on it to apply for federal funding, which includes workshops for K-12 educators in MDCPS. So, teaching, research, and community outreach. And also STEM, undergraduate research, grants, experiential teaching and learning…all stated institutional priorities. This was a convincing piece of evidence regarding the Preserve’s centrality to FIU’s mission.

Step Two: Discovering the Process: How did this happen?

How could this happen? Who were the power brokers? Was there a broad consultative process among faculty (and student) stakeholders from across units?

I would have hoped for open meetings involving the very professors who write syllabi around their activities in the preserve. I would have hoped that the researchers studying mosquitos that live in our Preserve agreed to this plan; or those literature professors who bring students out to understand the impact of the natural environment on literary perception were on board.

However, I do not think that we – as in the faculty as a whole or students across the university – were brought in to the process, on a significant scale (at least not before decisions were made and only details left to be fleshed out). Why not? Well, to my mind, that is where the real question — and answer — lie. Why did we not hear about all of this until it was essentially a done deal? Why weren’t students and faculty across campus brought into the conversation? Is that the result of administrators making nice to the Athletic Director or trying as they might to have a competitive football team? Are those the forces at work? It is an easy narrative to grab onto, no?

Step Three: What I learned: small-scale consultation.

But, I do not think that that is exactly what happened, or not all that happened, for sure. I am not convinced of silence or conspiracy; maybe haste or rashness, yes, but not deception. When the President was given the option by the Board of Trustees (BOT) to look for cost-effective alternatives and the proposal was raised to use part of the Preserve, the CFO (designated to be in charge of the project) turned to the appropriate Faculty Senate committee, the Environment & Planning Committee (EAP), to hash out details and come up with a proposal.

The Chair of the Faculty Senate EAP Committee and the CFO did that. It was in this conversation where real decisions began to be made and plans hatched: in conversation and in collaboration between an administrative leader and a faculty leader.

We might ask why didn’t the CFO and President hold open meetings and town halls for students and faculty, especially since institutional memory must have reminded some of the senior administrators of the turmoil surrounding proposals for the Preserve a decade ago? We might also wonder why there was not an immediate e-blast from the Faculty Senate or broad faculty discussion right away? Was no institutional memory prompted there either? None of these open consultations or discussions happened. Instead, decisions were made and plans drawn up in a small room among a small number of faculty members and administrators. And the Faculty Senate formally approved the plan later (albeit with fewer than half of the Senators present). On the one hand, is this not what committees are for, to make decisions for the whole? On the other hand, perhaps, something is not quite right and even broken?

Step Four: Final Idea: broader conversations needed

 We need to repair these lines of communication. Impactful decisions should not be made in small committees without broad consultation. Once the information flood gates have been opened, then, and only then, can there be open debate, whether resulting in happy consensus or impassioned disagreement.

 What do you think?
Rebecca