[I]f this new academic compact is to take hold, the academic community must be ready and willing to accept changes in the culture: There will be more career opportunities but less job guarantees; individual autonomy will be kept constantly in check by institutional mission; traditional faculty productivity metrics will be replaced by reasonable accommodation for career interests, talents, and changing priorities; strategic planning will be a continuous interactive process, not a one-time event; trust between faculty, administration, and boards will be crucial; collaboration within and across units will be the operative condition; and communication will become seamless.

To the above summary of the main points of the New Academic Compact: Revisioning the Relationship between Faculty and Their Institutions, one faculty work expert responded, "Sounds a bit like Camelot, doesn't it?" If you are someone who believes that faculty-administration interaction is and always will be a bloodsport then this book, which is the final report of the Faculty Work Project of the Associated New American Colleges (ANAC) may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you believe that cooperation, goodwill, and generosity are not only possible in academia, but absolutely necessary to its development, then this call to "reenvision the relationship between faculty and their institutions" will be a source of inspiration.

The ANAC is composed of twenty-one midsize, comprehensive colleges and universities located in all regions of the US whose enrollment is typically between 3,000 and 6,000 and whose mission "makes student learning primary within a traditional higher education commitment to teaching, research, and service." The report is the result of the work of thirty faculty members and administrators drawn from nineteen ANAC universities, and is composed of three parts: 1) a description of each part of the "new academic compact;" 2) descriptions of "the compact in action" at several ANAC schools; and finally, 3) responses to the report by an outside group, and reflections on its efficacy by several who were deeply involved in the study.

The report centers on four topics: career paths, clarifying service/streamlining governance, unit accountability, and flexible workload. The recommendations are more daring than one might expect from a committee. They call, for instance, for differentiated work for faculty members according to current needs of institution and current stage of career, advancing the sensible opinion that expectations concerning the focus of faculty effort should not be unchanging and one-size-fits-all, but instead should be negotiated and adjusted to reflect the individual faculty member's interests, career stage, and the priorities and needs of his or her department and the university overall at that particular moment in time.

The success of such an approach, as of most of the recommendations made in this book, rests on individual faculty members no longer conceiving of themselves as "independent agents" pursuing their own goals unencumbered by institutional considerations, but rather seeing themselves as part of a "circle of value" in which "participants (or groups of participants) not only strive to find meaning, satisfaction, and efficacy in their own work but also add value to or enhance the work of others.Thus, individual faculty structure their particular work experiences to pursue their specific interests, skills, and talents but in the context of identifying the ways in which their work adds value to that of the academic unit to which they belong. Similarly, the work of the unit, as a collective, must add value to the work of the institution." Lest this seem like a one-way street, the authors go on to assert that "to complete this circle, the institution must also add value to the work of the faculty" by identifying "the ways in which the resources of the institution can be directed toward supporting and adding value to the work of the individual faculty member." In short, faculty work and institutional mission should be aligned, and mutually supportive.

This requires a conception of faculty governance not as a system of checks and balances, but as open, collaborative, and based on mutual trust. "In the long run, faculty, administrators, and trustees must be encouraged to see themselves and each other as vested partners in a collective professional enterprise" and as such, they must see each other as team mates, not adversaries.

What sets this report apart is that it goes beyond simply describing idealistic goals to address the nuts-and-bolts of implementation. Guidelines for creating differentiated workloads, for instance, are discussed not only as a process in itself, but as a part of the larger definition of unit and institutional goals and priorities. The ideas put forward in this book cannot be adopted piecemeal; all elements are interdependent and integrated.

Despite its rather dry prose style, New Academic Compact provides a powerful spur to the imagination of anyone who feels that there is a better way to organize the life of an educational institution. Camelot? Perhaps. But if even one university could put these ideas into practice, even for one brief, shining moment, the way we conceive of academia might be changed forever.

Scott Walters,
UNC Asheville