BY AN ANONYMOUS SAINT CATHERINE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR

Saint Catherine University sits on an idyllic green bluff in a serene part of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It’s not too far from the Mississippi River. When it’s hushed, you can hear the faint sounds of a barge horn as it slowly heads down to New Orleans. It’s the perfect setting to build a university.

When the college applied for initial accreditation after its founding in 1905, it did not have the necessary $500,000 endowment. Mother Antonia argued that what the college lacked in financial resources, it made up for with its faculty. The faculty was the most “precious asset of the college.” But nuns have given way to senior, executive, lead, and associate roles in administrative departments that seemingly exist for no reason—the marketing team just launched its fourth new website in five years—and they proudly represent their MBA drab

An email arrives in my inbox exclaiming the excitement of the newest administrator. They love the mission of the university. The ink hardly dries on the administrator’s name plaque before—ding!—an email announcement that they are leaving. When we got our fourth new provost in five years, back in 2019, that was normal, right? It must be normal because my sixth dean is arriving. Like the grand staircase in Hogwarts, everyone is constantly disoriented, with stairs continually moving and walls pretending to be doors.

St. Catherine University student protest. Photo courtesy of The Wheel.

Ding, says my old friend. The students are protesting. The student newspaper did an excellent job with coverage; as a matter of fact, many successive articles are on specific grievances. The students articulate a list of thirty-eight demands in a document mostly ignored by the administration. They want to be seen as students and not just numbers on an income statement. The president’s solution is to hire a consultant. MBAs love consultants, evidently. Why speak directly with your campus community members when you can employ a fall guy. Another tactic emerges: accept no responsibility but blame relentlessly.

Shortly after the most recent protest, the provost accused the faculty of trying to whip our students into a frenzy. She announced with a now common expression, which once had a chilling effect, that “someone reported . . .” and “they named names.” Now, these are just empty words of a regime attempting to strike fear in the hearts of their once most precious asset. Much like Dolores Umbridge’s attempt at a hostile takeover of Hogwarts, the tactics of fear and division cast a shadow over the once sun-soaked statues of our founding sisters. The air is heavy; it is palpable. Darkness has descended upon this place.

Ding goes the email. This time our fight centers on a new draconian policy. One of the demands from the students’ protest centers on this policy. All undergraduate classes require a minimum enrollment of fifteen. Faculty were not involved in creating the policy. But we are told that we are lucky because the average low enrollment policy around the country is twenty-four. No data are ever provided to prove that such an average exists. A McDonaldization approach to higher education is nothing new. Why let students choose from ten classes when we can force them into one supersized class? And much like what McDonald’s serves, our data are manufactured to give the appearance of being authentic.

Ding goes the inbox. The provost, president, and the board of trustees have just changed the number of credits for a degree and the general education core. How many faculty weighed in on this decision? None, but we are told to fix any problems that arise. The administration and the board will be busy writing a new faculty constitution this summer. Buried at the end of an implementation plan, this pronouncement makes it clear that the board of trustees will be the only ones voting on the approval of these sacred faculty documents. Why?

The administration finally has its proof of how egregious the faculty is. With a hefty price tag, it hired a consultant yet again. Sova conducted a study of faculty and our shared governance processes. While we are not allowed to read the report, the administration begrudgingly released an executive summary with no company header and no indication of who created this document. Did this entire process involve interviews with faculty? No. Surveys of faculty? No. Sova spent thirty minutes with the senate once and did most of the talking. The administration forms a Shared Governance Committee but handpicks the members. This tactic eliminates any semblance of democracy. Operating in the dark is the modus operandi. If you can buy an MBA and receive an academic fiefdom with a newly manufactured title, purchasing a report doesn’t seem outlandish. What was once the “most precious asset” has moved to the other side of the balance sheet—a liability.

Ding! Boy, I hate the sound of that inbox. The administration is terminating tenured faculty and rolling contracts with no input from our tenure committee or senate. While we are “not in a bad financial situation,” it’s clear that they can’t keep adding administrators, employment attorneys, and consultants while keeping the faculty. How many faculty are we losing? No one knows for sure because this administration prefers to operate in the shadows, deploying a new tactic:  write nothing down. Between termination of contracts and course cancellations, faculty are hurting. Who are those faculty? Primarily women and faculty of color.

I sit at commencement. The faculty chairs on the dais are half empty. The campus’s lush green lawn has become a sea of black robes and short drab hoods. The MBAs may not be as violent as Blackshirts and brownshirts, but some of their tactics are similar. Propaganda, disorientation, misinformation, fear, usurping and concentrating power, the disappearance of the outspoken, and purges of dissenters are some of the new leadership tactics of today’s universities. The shadow has defiled that beacon of light. That distant barge horn that brought such soothing calmness can’t compete with the startling alarm of emails announcing our next exciting initiative. What’s next? We will replace all faculty with puppies?

The author, who prefers to remain anonymous, is a proud AAUP member and associate professor at Saint Catherine University.