Larry, Larry, Quite Contrary,
How did your SLB grow?
With 9 months on, and 3 months away,
No supervisor to whom to go!
With all apologies for trampling your nostalgic memories in the garden of Nursery Rhymes, the reality is many nursery rhymes were not written for children but as allegories, references, or commentaries to the political and social events of the day. For example, the verse I’ve adulterated above owes its provenance to “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” which has been associated with various contrary ‘Mary’ figures including the Mother of Jesus, the Queen of Scotts, and the Queen of England. The verse runs on variations of “Mistress Mary, Quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells, And so my garden grows”, and the details of her garden are attributed as references to the loss of the Catholic Church, meaningless ostentatious decorations on courtly fashions, and even the salacious cuckolding of spouses (Wikipedia, 2019).
So embedded in my lyrical exploration of the higher education policy garden is a reference to the SLB. It’s the Street Level Bureaucrat, identified by Lipsky (2010) as those staffers, or ‘street level bureaucrats’ who do the everyday work around policies that are out of touch with their day to day reality, and these folks often do not have much input on the policy development, authority to fix it, or responsibility if things go awry. They repeat it and apply it to the best of their ability and knowledge. In this instance, I explore the role of the SLB in the academic units where staffers have to provide students with information that has nuances that they are often unaware of, and in fact may be departmentally aligned and campus-inappropriate, or contradictory to the goal of the department, yet in line with the goals of the campus, including the lauded Student Success Metric. More on student success later. In the verse there are also hints to the ebb and flow of intensity and demand in the academic year, and unclear lines around regular supervision and reporting.
Now let’s apply this little lyric I vandalized from hundreds of years ago. Please note that this is a hypothetical exploration of a fantasy campus in a parallel universe, so we will explore in the hypothetical voice. As a potential example of the SLB’s challenges in interpreting policy and maintaining allegiances to institutional goals, the CSU’s recent EO1100, General Education Breadth Requirements (White, 2017), might have caused a change to the implementation of a local campus’s language requirements which created diverse interests and sense of ownership. Transfer students could possibly now be able to take a newly offered language course that would serve two requirements and met both the campus Language Proficiency requirement and the Upper Division Area C graduation requirement. However, as one of many Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), defined by the US Department of Education (n.d.) this campus could be serving 25% or more (quite possibly even 42%) students identifying as Hispanic. So many of those transfer students are Spanish speakers for whom the Spanish for Heritage Speakers course would be a better fit for their lifelong learning process. But that student-appropriate course would not meet the UD Area C requirement. Thus an additional course could be required of them and potentially delay their timely progress toward graduation. And again, student success in the form of a university credential is the metric that drives priorities over knowledge and skill development.
How did your SLB grow?
With 9 months on, and 3 months away,
No supervisor to whom to go!
With all apologies for trampling your nostalgic memories in the garden of Nursery Rhymes, the reality is many nursery rhymes were not written for children but as allegories, references, or commentaries to the political and social events of the day. For example, the verse I’ve adulterated above owes its provenance to “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” which has been associated with various contrary ‘Mary’ figures including the Mother of Jesus, the Queen of Scotts, and the Queen of England. The verse runs on variations of “Mistress Mary, Quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With Silver Bells, And Cockle Shells, And so my garden grows”, and the details of her garden are attributed as references to the loss of the Catholic Church, meaningless ostentatious decorations on courtly fashions, and even the salacious cuckolding of spouses (Wikipedia, 2019).
So embedded in my lyrical exploration of the higher education policy garden is a reference to the SLB. It’s the Street Level Bureaucrat, identified by Lipsky (2010) as those staffers, or ‘street level bureaucrats’ who do the everyday work around policies that are out of touch with their day to day reality, and these folks often do not have much input on the policy development, authority to fix it, or responsibility if things go awry. They repeat it and apply it to the best of their ability and knowledge. In this instance, I explore the role of the SLB in the academic units where staffers have to provide students with information that has nuances that they are often unaware of, and in fact may be departmentally aligned and campus-inappropriate, or contradictory to the goal of the department, yet in line with the goals of the campus, including the lauded Student Success Metric. More on student success later. In the verse there are also hints to the ebb and flow of intensity and demand in the academic year, and unclear lines around regular supervision and reporting.
Now let’s apply this little lyric I vandalized from hundreds of years ago. Please note that this is a hypothetical exploration of a fantasy campus in a parallel universe, so we will explore in the hypothetical voice. As a potential example of the SLB’s challenges in interpreting policy and maintaining allegiances to institutional goals, the CSU’s recent EO1100, General Education Breadth Requirements (White, 2017), might have caused a change to the implementation of a local campus’s language requirements which created diverse interests and sense of ownership. Transfer students could possibly now be able to take a newly offered language course that would serve two requirements and met both the campus Language Proficiency requirement and the Upper Division Area C graduation requirement. However, as one of many Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI), defined by the US Department of Education (n.d.) this campus could be serving 25% or more (quite possibly even 42%) students identifying as Hispanic. So many of those transfer students are Spanish speakers for whom the Spanish for Heritage Speakers course would be a better fit for their lifelong learning process. But that student-appropriate course would not meet the UD Area C requirement. Thus an additional course could be required of them and potentially delay their timely progress toward graduation. And again, student success in the form of a university credential is the metric that drives priorities over knowledge and skill development.
Figure 1: Plausable Language Requirement Infographic (Leonard, 2019)
The department chair is likely interested in aiding students’ knowledge and skill development over pushing “credentials without knowledge and skills [that make the] university a scam” (DeVoogd, 2019). That locally powerful individual might have encouraged the blithe staffer-SLB to coax students into enrolling for the course that could develop their abilities. The students might have noticed the revision from what the Advising Office had suggested, but often we see that the onus of accountability for the student is shifting from the student to “multiple accountability points” (Rippner, 2016, p. 21) including the institution and the state. The student, disempowered, yields to the cajoling of the SLB and enrolls in the course that will assist in bringing a cognitive academic language proficiency to their existing conversational language proficiency (Cummins, 2008). A win for the learning process!
And then the department chair departs for summer break. As a faculty member, they are not on contract for the month of summer as well as winter break, and the SLB’s source of information is gone. Instead the SLB now needs to look to another office for guidance, somewhere below the Office of the Provost, but above the department level. And this office is tasked with graduating students on time to make seats available for the next crowd of students deservedly looking to participate in greater “economic opportunity and upward mobility (Mitchell, Leachman, Materson & Waxman, 2018).
And here is where the pinch occurs. In the academic units on American campuses, staffers have two allegiances. The department’s goals and the predominant supervisor’s wishes, competing with the university’s goals and the distant edicts from the powers that be. The SLB has little power or control over the information they share, and will pitch whatever the next story they’re given.
Of course, you might have seen the fallacy in indicting the staffer for not following protocols. Instead, is it not the department chair who has strayed from campus protocols and policy? But if that departure is in service of student learning, and skill and knowledge building, who can say that’s not really serving students for life-long success? We can close with another nursery rhyme I’ve adulterated for blessings and protection from the Evil One (Burns-Booth, 2018).
And then the department chair departs for summer break. As a faculty member, they are not on contract for the month of summer as well as winter break, and the SLB’s source of information is gone. Instead the SLB now needs to look to another office for guidance, somewhere below the Office of the Provost, but above the department level. And this office is tasked with graduating students on time to make seats available for the next crowd of students deservedly looking to participate in greater “economic opportunity and upward mobility (Mitchell, Leachman, Materson & Waxman, 2018).
And here is where the pinch occurs. In the academic units on American campuses, staffers have two allegiances. The department’s goals and the predominant supervisor’s wishes, competing with the university’s goals and the distant edicts from the powers that be. The SLB has little power or control over the information they share, and will pitch whatever the next story they’re given.
Of course, you might have seen the fallacy in indicting the staffer for not following protocols. Instead, is it not the department chair who has strayed from campus protocols and policy? But if that departure is in service of student learning, and skill and knowledge building, who can say that’s not really serving students for life-long success? We can close with another nursery rhyme I’ve adulterated for blessings and protection from the Evil One (Burns-Booth, 2018).
| Hot-cross buns! Hot-cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, Hot-cross buns! When you have no agency, Give them what they want; One a penny, two a penny, Hot-cross buns! |  Figure 2: Hot Cross Bun (Burns-Booth, 2012) |
Note: you can mess with Nursery Rhymes. According to Project Gutenberg (2019) a group deeply interested in detail and guidance on copyright expiration, works published before 1923, carry no copyright control. I look forward to reading your next rewritten garden lyric!
References
Burns-Booth, K. (2018). Lavender & Lovage: A Culinary Notebook of Memories & Recipes From Home & Abroad. Lindon: Pageway Press.
Burns-Booth, K. (2012, March 20). Baking for Easter. The History of Traditional Hot Cross Buns and Hot Cross Bun Recipe. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Lavender and Lovage website: https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2012/03/baking-for-easter-the-history-of-traditional-hot-cross-buns-and-hot-cross-bun-recipe.html
Copyright How-To. (2019). Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Project Gutenberg website: http://www.gutenberg.org/
Cummins, J. (2008). BICS and CALP: Empirical and Theoretical Status of the Distinction. In Street, B. & Hornberger, N. H. (Eds.). (2008). Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 2: Literacy. (pp. 71-83). New York: Springer Science + Business Media LLC. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.598.5273&rep=rep1&type=pdf
DeVoogd, G. (personal communication, August 1, 2019).
Lipsky, M. (2010 originally published in 1980). Street-Level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. Russel Sage, New York.
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. (2019). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary,_Mary,_Quite_Contrary&oldid=903586277
Mitchell, M., Leachman, M., Masterson, K., & Waxman, S. (2018, October 1). Unkept Promises: State Cuts to Higher Education Threaten Access and Equity. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/unkept-promises-state-cuts-to-higher-education-threaten-access-and
Rippner, J.A. (2016). The American Education Policy Landscape. Rutledge Publication: New York.
US Department of Education. (n.d.). Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) | White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Retrieved July 13, 2019, from https://sites.ed.gov/hispanic-initiative/hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis/
Burns-Booth, K. (2018). Lavender & Lovage: A Culinary Notebook of Memories & Recipes From Home & Abroad. Lindon: Pageway Press.
Burns-Booth, K. (2012, March 20). Baking for Easter. The History of Traditional Hot Cross Buns and Hot Cross Bun Recipe. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Lavender and Lovage website: https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2012/03/baking-for-easter-the-history-of-traditional-hot-cross-buns-and-hot-cross-bun-recipe.html
Copyright How-To. (2019). Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Project Gutenberg website: http://www.gutenberg.org/
Cummins, J. (2008). BICS and CALP: Empirical and Theoretical Status of the Distinction. In Street, B. & Hornberger, N. H. (Eds.). (2008). Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 2: Literacy. (pp. 71-83). New York: Springer Science + Business Media LLC. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.598.5273&rep=rep1&type=pdf
DeVoogd, G. (personal communication, August 1, 2019).
Lipsky, M. (2010 originally published in 1980). Street-Level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. Russel Sage, New York.
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. (2019). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary,_Mary,_Quite_Contrary&oldid=903586277
Mitchell, M., Leachman, M., Masterson, K., & Waxman, S. (2018, October 1). Unkept Promises: State Cuts to Higher Education Threaten Access and Equity. Retrieved August 3, 2019, from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities website: https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/unkept-promises-state-cuts-to-higher-education-threaten-access-and
Rippner, J.A. (2016). The American Education Policy Landscape. Rutledge Publication: New York.
US Department of Education. (n.d.). Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) | White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Retrieved July 13, 2019, from https://sites.ed.gov/hispanic-initiative/hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis/
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