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I believe President Pauldine operates through a Positivist paradigm. Making immediate changes and belief in one and only one reality are tenets of the positivist paradigm. Once she identified the various financial problems, she quickly went into cost cutting mode. It appears she is grounded in this single reality as well. It does not appear she took other opinions or information into consideration, which would have been more of a social constructionist paradigm way of proceeding. While the details of the evaluation process were not provided, programs as determined to be underperforming were cut. The standard predictable response through this paradigm would be to cut costs, through the elimination of substandard programs. Yet, why the programs were substandard and what metrics defined them as such is at question, yet these apparently do not fit into her reality.

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Post-modern paradigm is at play here where everything is being questioned by putting all options on the table. The president wants people to think outside the box (but doesn't reward that thinking when it's successful like with the nursing program).

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The president is dealing with Vertical Power issues. William Gamson wrote about how different self serving subunits can sometimes run into power conflict. In this case study, the president is dealing with "star" programs and "in jeopardy" programs. These two actors are reacting to the availability of power, how they seek to acquire power, and how the conflict over power is adjudicated.

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This president seems to be approaching her analysis of the organization and problem solving through a positivist lens. Bess and Dee (2008) state that administrators who use a positivist lens assess the conditions and immediately begin to make changes they believe will improve the performance of the organization. In this case, she has made determinations about the problem with an approach focused on solving problems she could measure. In this scenario she has used systems theory to address the problem as she has interpreted it but failed to consider the interpersonal group levels of the system that might allow her to develop key relationships with various units in the organization.

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I think System Theory may apply to this case. I see this community college as a system. All the departments and divisions are interrelated and interdependent. Any one of them changes will affect others. For example, when the academic programs are in jeopardizing, the enrollment will be surely low. And low enrollment will bring the financial problems. Vise versa, when the finance has problems, the college will not have adequate funds to support academic needs and other auxiliary units' development. Less academic funds will lead to ineffective programs, and then low enrollment.

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Pauldine Seems to operate with one empirical, logical, observable, and unquestionable reality. Like  there is one clear input-output and one obvious solution to the financial problem... to cut.  In a "system," you can cut programs and move faculty around (but I do think she is missing big parts of the system in her thinking).

To throw in one more thing -- although the president is willing to put everything on the table to cut, she isn't thinking in new ways... As Pam says, she's doing things the same way higher ed has been doing them forever!!

Also, since I am coming from my own social constructivist perspective, her "one solution" doesn't work for me. I'd be looking to build community through communicating about the problem and solving it together, growing stronger through the experience of working as a team to get to the other side.

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The structural framework is clearly at play as the President enters a challenging situation and is tasked with deciding what programs to keep and let go. "The benefits of getting structure right are obvious under normal conditions and even more so when organizational architecture meets unexpected crises."
Bolman, Lee G., and Terrence E. Deal. Reframing Organizations : Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/cwm/detail.action?docID=4883027.
Created from cwm on 2021-09-06 20:14:08.

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The President appears to be operating mainly from a Positivist paradigm - working with the current system to make improvements. Little attention seems to be paid to the social constructivist paradigm, not taking time to understand other's reality. While there is talk of "no sacred cow", there doesn't seem to be a true disruption you'd see in post modern paradigm - those questions of "why are we doing what we're doing?" do not seem to be coming across in the scenario. The academic rating system doesn't provide context and there is no mention of a review system for non-academic areas like auxiliaries which we know to be losing money.

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President is operating from Bolman & Deal's Political Frame - Scarce resources and enduring differences put conflict at the center of day-to-day operations. Power is an important asset for her. Differing interests in the collective from faculty and other campus stakeholders.

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Positivist: Clear ability to identify problematic areas and drive change (cutting low-performing and financial struggling programs)
Social Constructivist: Giving weight to the human perspective (sorting, not terminating, displaced faculty into new roles after eliminating 14 programs)
Post-Modern: Disrupting status quo ("putting everything on the table" for evaluation)