BY DANE C. JOSEPH
Car maintenance. Photo courtesy of the author.
Last year our SUV busted a valve on the freeway and began to buck on acceleration. With extreme caution I slowly drove to the dealership, which was only four miles away but somehow took thirty minutes to get to. At that time the vehicle had 176,000 miles on it. We had been diligent with tune-ups and typically received compliments about the car’s condition at service time. What happened? For one thing, time. The wear and tear of time on the vehicle was inevitable, even though the timing of its eventual demise was unpredictable. In my anger, I indignantly questioned the mechanics’ abilities and judgment for failing to catch the defective valve at our previous checkup just a few weeks before. But they fervidly maintained that there were no prior warnings.
The funny thing is that I am not a mechanic, nor am I knowledgeable about anything remotely related to automobile machinery. So, the jostling over who was in the right was almost a useless exercise. This failure to realize my limitations and instead resort to bias highlights problems of perception. People see the world in very different ways. In fact, when we were bucking on the freeway, I knew something was wrong every time I tried to apply the gas pedal, but I was not prepared to say so as my five-year-old eloquently shouted from the backseat, “The car is dying!” Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but ask the mechanic if indeed it was. I even inquired whether trading in would be prudent.
“You busted a valve, and that is not good,” they said. “But while the car is old, it is certainly not dying. We can fix it!”
“But how often will I have to come to you to fix it? When will I know it’s reached the point of no return? How will I know when spending money on it is beyond necessary?”
“Well, it depends,” they said.
“On what?” I asked.
“On your definition of necessary,” they half-jokingly replied.
At the time I wondered why they weren’t keener to encourage me to trade up so as to make more money. But my friends in business now tell me that the timing simply wasn’t right for the dealer. Since I was upset, I could have easily decided to trade for a different brand of car, taking away all of the business the dealership receives from servicing the old one. Acting on my new bias against the brand would have played on the recency heuristic, ignoring the stellar longevity of the vehicle’s performance and instead only focusing on the recent events.
Another possible answer to the “what happened” question is that bad things sometimes happen to good vehicles, at any time in their existence, regardless of how well the owners maintain them. Unquestionably, people and educational institutions are not vehicles, but the same misfortune could apply to them as well. That is, bad things sometimes happen to good people and colleges and universities. Higher education governance has been forever altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. While some of the changes will yield good, much ill has befallen the education sector. And in spite of guidance from state and health offices, there is much gray area that still needs to be navigated in day-to-day operations.
Faculty, administrators, and students vary—sometimes vastly—in their worldviews and perspectives. For example, some might view attending face-to-face classes as risky but necessary, whereas others might view such actions as reckless and worthless, even if reasonable health precautions are taken. Whose perspectives ought to take precedence when deciding how to structure class-meeting policies? Although students are prime candidates, they may not have the maturity, knowledge, and epistemic virtue to know what they need. After all, what people want and what they need might not be one and the same. But if that is true, then surely administrators and faculty are just as prone to myopic and fallible reasoning as students.
Beside the discrepancies in perspectives is the issue of values. Are decisions about whether or not to hold face-to-face classes a matter of principle, such as fiduciary duty or respect for the common good, or should they have more to do with the number of people who will benefit versus those who will pay the price? Just as the mechanics stressed that I define my terms, higher education decision-makers must also clearly define their values. What exactly is the price to be paid for (not) attending face-to-face classes? Is it freedom of speech, or life itself? In a democracy, which is more important? I do not doubt that these ethical questions are likely at the heart of many university board discussions. But whatever their decisions, I sincerely believe that we as recipients of those judgements must do two things if we are to have any semblance of success.
The first thing we must do is ensure that those entrusted to make the decisions are doing so in good conscience and with the most ethical intentions. We can do this by paying close attention to what they say and do. It is simply not good enough for them to decide based solely on whether students will take their business elsewhere, as in the example of a dealership communicating with a vehicle owner. Again, people aren’t cars! I believe the second thing we must do is be highly self-critical about our reasoning, including our biases, so that we can more accurately judge for ourselves how to make the right decisions. I won’t say whether I decided to trade in our old SUV. I believe that detracts from the point of having people think and decide for themselves. But I will say that I now understand business and consumer perspectives just a tad bit more and have taken a more active stance to understanding my vehicular performance. And rather than succumb to my bias, I try to be more self-aware so that my decisions are informed by all perspectives. I’m human and bound to make poor choices. However, the point isn’t to be perfect, but rather better—and this goes for our institutions too.
Guest blogger Dane C. Joseph is associate professor of education at George Fox University.
