Personnel Performance Evaluation Systems in Non-profit Academic Multinational Institutions: The American University in Bulgaria and The Catholic University of Korea

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Management Education An International Journal

ONTHEORGANIZATION.COM

VOLUME 12 ISSUE 4

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Personnel Performance Evaluation Systems inNon-profit Academic Multinational Institutions

The American University in Bulgaria and The Catholic

University of Korea

BENEDICT E. DEDOMINICIS



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Personnel Performance Evaluation Systems in

Non-profit Academic Multinational Institutions:

The American University in Bulgaria and

The Catholic University of Korea

Benedict E. DeDominicis, The Catholic University of Korea, Republic of Korea

Abstract: Human resources management in government-funded non-profit multinational academic institutions face

unique challenges in strategic planning. Different national stakeholder constituencies may pursue their respective aims

through these organizations in return for organizational use of the former’s political influence capabilities to obtain

additional financing. Constituencies with a particular national political interest may have representation through

membership on the executive board of the organization as academic institutions seek to globalize. The tensions from

interaction of differing constituency political objectives may be in conflict with academic ideals regarding faculty

participation in shared governance due to the varying degree of political sensitivity perceived with these various

interests. A consequence may be the reduction of the role of faculty representational input into institutional strategic

human resources management. Established academic institutions aiming to increase the representation of expatriates

among their faculty will likely face less difficulty in integrating international staff into personnel evaluation processes as part of human resources management strategic planning.

Keywords: Bulgaria, Evaluation, Human Resources, Robert McFarlane, Korea, Nationalism, Strategic

Planning, Performance Management, USAID, Joe Wilson

Introduction

eveloping effective personnel evaluation policies and procedures in a multi-national non- profit academic institution is likely to face exceptional challenges relative to a mono-national institution. Individual professional misgivings and discontents are more likely to

be both phrased and communicated along intra-institutional national group fault lines. Asignificant potential exists for intra-institutional concern to emerge that perceived differences inmanagement personnel decisions are due to national stakeholder biases and partisan preferences.These correctly or incorrectly perceived national biases may be seen as internal to the institutionas well as being external, in the form of external national stakeholder demands. Avoidingnational group identity-based polarization is necessary to allow for more effective integration ofmulti-national human resources components of the organization.

The American University in Bulgaria and the Catholic University of Korea

The American University in Bulgaria (AUBG) is an international education project in the form of

an American-style small, liberal arts residential institution supporting the transitionaldevelopment of the Balkans and the former Warsaw Pact area more widely. Approximately halfof the approximately 1000 students (as of 2009) were Bulgarian, with the rest coming from morethan 20 different countries. The entire curriculum was in English, and English was the languageof administration and shared governance. Independently accredited by the New EnglandAssociation of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) in 2001, the AUBG began academic operations in1991. Primary funders for the first eighteen years of its existence included different agenciesassociated with the US government, most importantly the United States Agency for International

D

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Development (providing approximately $40 million as of 2009).1 The US government initially

coordinated this project with the University of Maine, in partnership with the Republic ofBulgaria, the city of Blagoevgrad (the site for AUBG), and the Open Society Institute to establishAUBG in mid-1991 (Chambers 1999, 102).2 AUBG is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organizationincorporated in the US state of Maine (IRS 2011, 8). 3 By 2009, AUBG’s approximately 70 full-

time and adjunct faculty consisted of approximately one-half hired from the Western academic job market (i.e. having their graduate training in Western institutions) and one-half hires from theBulgarian market. Expatriate faculty tended to concentrate in the social sciences and humanitiesas well as in professional programs, e.g. business administration and journalism and masscommunications. Mathematics, physics and computer science were also areas of instructionrequiring multiple faculty staffing. In 2006-7, the AUBG successfully underwent its scheduledapplication for re-accreditation by the NEASC.

This writer joined the AUBG political science faculty as a full-time hire in 1994 duringAUBG's start-up phase.

4 Little information existed in the way of established administrative

policies and procedures.5 Consequently, the AUBG faculty assembly had been a focal point of

much intensive institutional activity, and this writer nearly continuously served as an officer of

the AUBG faculty assembly parliamentarian (13 years), secretary (1 year), and chairperson(2004-5, 08-09). Developing personnel evaluation policies were a central issue in thedevelopment of the Institution as a whole during this time. 6 The AUBG did not have a facultytenure system; a five-year contract was the longest contract term of employment available.Developing a good performance evaluation system in an international organization withmultinational elements is critical (Hofstede and Hofstede 2005, 355).

This writer left the AUBG in the summer of 2009 for a position in the International Studiesdepartment at the Catholic University of Korea (CUK). Today 18,000 students are distributedamong three campuses in greater Seoul, and CUK’s roots extend back 155 years.

7 French

missionaries established it as a Catholic seminary in Korea. 8

CUK was established before profession of non-state sanctioned religions was legal and proselytizers were subject to

1 Additional US governmental funding after 2009 includes a loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and“the America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF) is also gifting $8 million to the [construction of the AUBG] student center project. ABF was founded through the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund, an investment fund created to support thedevelopment of Bulgaria’s private sector through the Support for East European Democracy Act of 1991.” [OPIC, “OPICLoan Enables American University in Bulgaria to Expand,” Press Release, (April 21, 2011), http://www.opic.gov/press-releases/2011/opic-loan-enables-american-university-bulgaria-expandaccessed September 19, 2013]; KlementinaRistovska, “AUBG to borrow up to $10M,” defacto, (February 16, 2011), http://defactobg.com/wordpress/2011/02/aubg-to-borrow-up-to-10m/ accessed September 19, 2013; Vesselina Apostolova, “The New Student Center Had Its OfficialDedication,” AUBG Daily, (October 20, 2012), http://aubgdaily.com/the-new-student-center-had-its-official-dedication/accessed September 19, 2013].2 Provost Chambers received AUBG’s first “Distinguished Service Award” in 2001 prior to his departure in 2002, partlyfor his work in overseeing AUBG’s NEASC accreditation application process.

3 501(c)(3) organizations are required to submit annually an IRS 990 form for public inspection, which includes thesalaries of senior administrators and as well as for employees receiving the highest salaries. Another 501(c)(3)organization, Guidestar, posts all IRS 990 forms for public viewing at www.guidestar.org. 4 In 1994, full-time faculty were hired on three and five-year employment contracts and were to be evaluated for contractrenewal in the three areas of teaching, scholarship and service. Adjunct faculty, hired overwhelmingly from the localBulgarian academic market, were evaluated only on the basis of teaching, and adjunct faculty teaching at least 3 sections per semester were voting members of the Faculty Assembly, as were, of course, the full-time faculty.5 AUBG borrowed the first contents of its policies and procedures manual from the University of Maine, but the AUBGFaculty Assembly did not approve a Faculty Handbook until 1995, reinforcing a precedent of intensive and extensiveAUBG Faculty Assembly participation in shared governance of the Institution. AUBG also had a very active StudentGovernment, including the authority to appoint student representatives on particular Faculty Assembly committees and touniversity-wide committees, as well as very active student hard copy and electronic media.6 Colin Woodward, “American U. in Bulgaria accused of Communist-style management: 15 of the 32 full-time facultymembers from abroad left the institution last year,” Chronicle of Higher Education (44/21) (January 30, 1998). ProQuest.accessed on July 22, 2012.7 “A message from the President,” http://www.cuk.ac.kr/ accessed on July 22, 2012.8 Personal communication with the, chairperson, CUK International Studies department (2010).

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DEDOMINICIS: PERSONNEL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEMS

persecution. CUK is a formally a private university but it cooperates closely by law with theSouth Korean Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MOEHRD) and theautonomous Korean Council for University Education (KCUE) responsible for accreditation.9 KCUE administers the nationwide college entrance examination process that determines whichuniversity a South K orean student may enter, regardless of whether they are formally public or

private universities.10 CUK’s current administrative structure, politics and procedures illustratethat South Koreans often adopt best practice typically understood to be the current US practice. 11 In contrast, Bulgaria’s higher education organizational structures, curriculum, policies, and procedures had been established in the nineteenth century according to European continentalmodels. The Communist authorities maintained this basic structure within the one-partytotalitarian control system. AUBG’s American liberal arts residential college model wastherefore radically different.

AUBG described itself as being highly selective in its student admission policies.12

In its2001 accreditation application to NEASC, AUBG declared its commitment to a learner-centeredapproach to teaching (Chambers 1999, 105). Initially, AUBG students generally paid very littleof the cost of their education.13 The university confronted the need to become self-sustainable in

its financing. By the early 2000s, a primary source of AUBG funding had become studenttuition.14 Southeast Europe was a region in which poverty remained pervasive but withmacroeconomic growth rates twice the average in Western Europe. 15 AUBG thereby wished toattract tuition-paying students, as well as additional US government funding and EU and NATO program and private donor funding. It sought this support in an international politicalenvironment in which globalization has in effect been Americanization (Hertsgaard 2003: 18,175-91).

16 In developing the curriculum program, challenges emerged. They focused on the

9

“Education System of Korean Republic,” http://www.foreignconsultants.com/korearepublic-educ.php accessed on July26, 2012.10 Sungha Park, “On College-Entrance Exam Day, All of South Korea Is Put to the Test,” Wall Street Journal (November12, 2008) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122644964013219173.html accessed on July 26, 2012. KCUE’s membershipconsists of the presidents of all private and public South Korean universities(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Council_for_University_Education, accessed on July 26, 2012). 11 The South Korean authorities make adaptations, of course, where they think necessary; for example, CUK and SouthKorean universities generally have the policy mandate to apply grade curves for their classes, although a particularuniversity can modify the application of the policy (known as relative grading among CUK students). CUK requiredinstructor implementation of a grade curve for all classes having 20 or more students (known as objective grading amongCUK students), but for Fall 2012, CUK changed this policy so that all classes now require implementation of a gradecurve.12 “About AUBG,” http://www.aubg.bg/template1.aspx?page=news.ascx&menu=000002&nid=206 accessed on July 7,2012.

13 During the 1990s, AUBG charged an insignificant amount of tuition and room & board costs for the overwhelmingmajority of its students, and the Open Society Institute covered all textbook costs for students. Some number ofindividual students continued to receive scholarships from OSI and from USAID to attend AUBG.14 AUBG worked with Bulgarian banks to establish a student-loan program. As discussed below, most AUBG studentsacquired US J-1 visas to allow them to work annually in the US during the summer.15 According to the CIA World Fact Book, in 2006, 13.4% of the population lived below the poverty line, and in 2003 theunemployment rate was 11.5%, “European Forum for Solidarity and Democracy: Democracy building foundation fordemocratic and socialist parties in Central, East and South East Europe and the CIS” [sic]: Bulgaria Update: 5 May2006,” http://www.europeanforum.net/country/bulgaria accessed on June 2, 2006. Yet, in 2004 Bulgarian Socialist Partyleader Sergey Stanishev submitted a no confidence motion in the government of Prime Minister Simeon Saxcoburgotski,including the justification that 40% of the Bulgarian population lived below the poverty line (BBC Monitoring Service,“Bulgarian Socialists submit no-confidence motion against government,” 4 March 2004, Source: BTA web site, Sofia, inEnglish 1312 gmt 4 Mar 04, accessed on July 4, 2006).16 In terms of AUBG philanthropic fundraising, the point was repeatedly made that prospective donors were to be foundin the US and not in Europe; the latter did not have a “tradition” of financial philanthropy. Positive US national mediacoverage facilitated fundraising, e.g. Alison Smale, “On a Campus in Bulgaria, Every Reason for Optimism,” New York

Times (May 28, 2009), www.nytimes.com accessed on July 25, 2012.

27

http://www.foreignconsultants.com/korearepublic-educ.php

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Council_for_University_Education

http://www.aubg.bg/template1.aspx?page=news.ascx&menu=000002&nid=206

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dilemmas of reconciling student, faculty, administration, and Board of Tr ustees views regardingthe relationship interface between professional and liberal arts education.17

US Foreign Policy and AUBG

International educational institutions with an American-style format in Eastern Europe as well asin the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and beyond have proliferated. This proliferation is one manifestation of American post Cold War international influence in the era ofglobalization.18 One of the stated purposes of AUBG at its founding was to provide an alternativeeducational model for Bulgaria as it und er went the challenges of carrying out far-reachingnational higher-education policy change.

19 AUBG obtained formal recognition from theBulgarian Ministry of Education as a model for education policy reform.

20 Support for AUBG

was therefore part of the Bulgarian national interest according to successive Bulgariangovernments regardless of political party affiliation.

When students and their families decide to make the financial sacrifices necessary to sendthe student to a particular university, they typically need to see the university as a route to

improve the student’s life prospects.21 AUBG functioned in a Bulgarian environment thatshowed a predisposition to view itself as desperately needing Western training and skills. 22 A prevailing elite attitude in Bulgaria was that the peoples of the Balkans required Western

17 The AUBG President’s statement on the AUBG web site noted that “We are a liberal arts university believing in a broad-based interdisciplinary education, while emphasizing career preparation” (“President's Address” athttp://www.aubg.bg/template5.aspx?page=4089&menu=000000000 accessed on July 4, 2006). President W. MichaelEaston, whose resume includes being President of the University of Maine campus at Presque Isle, joined AUBG inAugust 2005 and left in 2007, but he has been hired to return to AUBG as President on a one-year contract startingSeptember 1, 2013 (“Former AUBG President Easton Appointed Successor to Dr Huwiler,” May 14, 2012,http://www.aubg.bg/template1.aspx?page=news.ascx&menu=000002&nid=308, accessed on July 28, 2012). However, in

summer 2012, Dr. Huwiler retired from AUBG, and Dr. Easton assumed the position of President [Ilia Panayotov,“Administration Castling,” AUBG Daily, (September 17, 2012), http://aubgdaily.com/administrational-castling/, accessedon September 9, 2013.18 See, for example, Athanasios Moulakis, “What the U.S. Government Can't Do Abroad, Colleges Can,” The Chronicle

of Higher Education, (July 3, 2011), www.chronicle.com, accessed on July 21, 2012, including the bio statement that Dr.Moulakis is the President and Provost of the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. Previously, he had been chiefacademic officer and interim president at the American University of Afghanistan. For another, critical perspective onanother example, see Allen Russ and Steve Horn, ““Great Game” Part One: The World Bank Brings NazarbayevUniversity to Kazakhstan,” Counterpunch, December 13, 2012.http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/13/the-world-bank-brings-nazarbayev-university-to-kazakhstan/, accessed onSeptember 18, 2013.19 See, for example, Colin Woodard, “’The Cream of Bulgaria’: Starting from scratch, an American university attracts thecountry’s best and brightest,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, (October 27, 1993), p. A37+. Woodard quotes MichaelTachev, Secretary General of the Saints Cyril and Methodius International Foundation, “Higher education in Bulgaria

needs radical restructuring. It will be years before there will be quality at state universities comparable to this program”(1993). For a recent media report on the state of higher education reform in Bulgaria quoting the AUBG Provost, seeTom Marshall, The Hechinger Report, “Lessons from abroad: Bulgaria pioneers new approach to ranking universities,”Worldnews on NBCnews.com, (September 9, 2012). http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/26/14100763-lessons-from-abroad-bulgaria-pioneers-new-approach-to-ranking-universities?lite accessed on September 9, 2013. For a recent monograph overview of globalization having far reaching impacts on worldwide academic reform, seeWildavsky (2010).20 Personal verbal communication to this writer by AUBG Provost Dr. J. Barry Chambers.21 Faculty orientation session comment by AUBG Provost Dr. Ann Ferren.22 The People’s Republic of Bulgaria was reputedly the closest ally of the USSR in the Warsaw Pact [John Dyer,“Bulgaria won't be celebrating 1989: Bulgarians never reconciled with their communist past, and they worry about the present,” (5 November 2009), Updated May 30, 2010, http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/europe/091104/bulgaria-communism-wall-berlin?page=fullaccessed on July 28, 2012]. Katsikas (2012) reports that the Communist People’sRepublic of Bulgaria twice under the Zhivkov government formally requested to join the USSR as its sixteenth republic,once in the early 1960s and again in the 1970s (5). Katsikas explains that the USSR refused so as not to complicate itsrelations with the West and its own allies. In return for Bulgaria’s supplication, Bulgaria received extensive economicsubsides from the USSR as well as export markets for its uncompetitive products.

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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/europe/091104/bulgaria-communism-wall-berlin?page=full






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international intervention to address their most difficult challenges.23

AUBG was a conduit forWestern expertise, education and training to be successful in the context of the North Atlantic-focus of the global international political economy.24

The close public association of AUBG with the US government was an implicit but strongmessage to Bulgaria and the Balkans. 25 The US ambassador and other US government officials

were regular stage party members at the annual, spring AUBG public commencement ceremony,together with high Bulgarian officials. At the May 2006 commencement ceremony, the Bulgarian prime minister, Sergei Stanishev of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), was the keynote speaker. Notable international guests with a public professional focus on the Balkans werecommencement speakers. For example, the former president of Finland, Maarti Atisaari, the UNspecial envoy to Kosovo, was the guest speaker in May 2005. AUBG graduation was a featuretopic on Bulgarian television news broadcasts as well as a topic of print media reports. AUBGwas the only international institution of higher education in Bulgaria that the Bulgariangovernment formally recognized.

26

AUBG is a multinational institution that aims to provide a liberal arts education in ahistorically troubled, dynamic region.27 From this writer’s perspective, AUBG faculty member

effectiveness required a conceptualization of the AUBG community politico-social setting. Thissetting featured a diverse multinational identity environment in a historically troubled region inwhich the US had recently displaced Russia/the Soviet Union as the regional hegemon. Thesechallenges manifested themselves in relationships among all constituencies and stakeholderswithin the AUBG multinational institution (Mor Barak 2000: 342-44, 346-48; Amthor et al.2011). These relationships in turn evolved along with the pressing internal and externalinteractive inputs into the policymaking processes of the institution. AUBG's institutionaleffectiveness in pursuing its mission required addressing the tensions existing between the statedand the actual parametric goals and capabilities which Euro-Atlantic integration provided. Thesegoals and capabilities were juxtaposed to the stated ideals to which AUBG as a liberal artseducational institution was committed.

28 A focus of these tensions included the political

constituencies supporting AUBG as a US government policy initiative seeking to shape the post-Communist regional political context. Particularly through educating members of the future elite,

23 Ivan Krastev, Director, Center for Liberal Strategies, in Sofia, Bulgaria, at “Towards Stability on the BalkanPeninsula” conference, June 6-8, 1997, Sofia, organized by the Free and Democratic Bulgaria Foundation.24 Comments by Svetoslav Gramenov, CEO GASCO Bulgaria, at “European Economies in Transition” FacultyDevelopment in International Business’ seminar, International Business Center, Katz Graduate School of BusinessUniversity of Pittsburgh, organizer, on May 25, 2006, at the Elieff Center, American University in Bulgaria, funded byUS Department of Education.25 This close association did generate controversy, e.g. “AUBG `not CIA'” Sofia Echo, (January 17, 2002),http://www.sofiaecho.com/2002/01/17/637323_aubg-not-cia#comments accessed on June 13, 2009. This article respondsto an earlier publication in the The Economist to refute The Economist article's report of AUBG's informal reputational

association in Eastern Europe with the American CIA [“Europe: Less of the state, please; Private education in CentralEurope,” The Economist , (362/8254) (Jan 5, 2002): 41. ProQuest, accessed on July 21, 2012]. The chairperson of theAUBG Board of Trustees at this time, Ralph P. Davidson, had been a CIA official in 1952-54 [Irvin Molotsky,“Kennedy Center Head to Step Down in ’88,” New York Times, (May 2, 1987), http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/02/arts/kennedy-center-head-to-step-down-in- 88.html accessed on September 16, 2013.]26 Comments at the open session of the May 2006 meeting of the AUBG Board of Trustees in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria atthe AUBG main campus, although other Western-style universities had come into existence, such as the successful NewBulgarian University in Sofia. A Slavic University was briefly in existence as of 1994, which included classes withRussian as the medium of instruction as this writer personally observed (some of its classes also were in the formerregional Communist party headquarters, as was AUBG itself) but it soon ceased operations.27 “About AUBG” at http://www.aubg.bg/template2.aspx?page=4077&menu=000 accessed on July 6, 2006.28 The AUBG Mission statement was reformulated to the following sentence: “The Mission of the American Universityin Bulgaria is to educate future leaders committed to serving the needs of the region by promoting the values of an open,democratic society” at http://www.aubg.bg/template5.aspx?page=4091&menu=000000002 accessed on July 4, 2006.Previously, the AUBG Mission statement had been more detailed, including fourteen subpoints for orientation of thedifferent departments of the university and for use in the previously-required, annual goal-setting letter which all AUBGadministrators and faculty were to submit to their superiors.

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AUBG served to make the region more receptive to Euro-Atlantic influence by increasing theregion’s Euro-Atlantic soft power amenability.29 Joseph S. Nye, Jr. proposed a hard versus soft power dichotomy that has become part of journalistic and political discourse.30 Hard power is“the ability to get others to do what they would not do through threat of punishment or promiseof reward” (2001, 354). Soft power is “the ability to achieve desired outcomes through attraction

rather than coercion, because others want what you want” (Nye 2001, 354).

National Identity and Multinational AUBG

An appropriate conceptualization of the multinational politico-social identity setting in whichAUBG operates illustrates the challenges that AUBG faced as a multinational educationalinstitution. These challenges relate specifically to personnel evaluation. According to Martha L.and Richard W. Cottam, the four central propositions of social identity theory are the following:

1. Maintaining a positive self-image is a striving of people.2. A person’s identity and self-image receives contributions from membership in

groups.

3. By comparing their own group with other groups, people evaluate their own groups.4. A positive comparison of a person’s own group with other groups significantly

determines this person’s self-concept and hence gives it a positive social identity(2001, 90).

Cottam and Cottam (2001) note that once an actor makes a social comparison of ‘self’ with‘other’ and finds it to be unsatisfactory, the actor may employ three socio-psychologicalstrategies. First, individuals may engage in social mobility. They can sometimes abandon theirgroup and join the one that they perceive to be superior, i.e. join the hegemonic core community.In societies in which groups are permeable, this strategy is possible. This cognitive strategyresults in individual instead of collective action and it requires an individual belief in socialmobility. Examples are prevalent in the US, where socio-economic classes are permeable but

racial identifications are not in most cases (Cottam and Cottam 2001, 92-93). For the selection ofthis strategy to occur, the salience of national group identity is crucial. People are less likely to pursue the social mobility alternative when 1) they have a strong emotional investment in a groupand 2) they perceive the group as a whole to suffer from some disadvantage (Cottam and Cottam2001, 92-93). Many highly ambitious English-speaking students from post-Communist societiesviewed great social mobility opportunities as readily accessible through the American Universityin Bulgaria. The AUBG is attractive because it provides a local access point for achieving theskills, training and credentials for beginning a highly successful career.

31 AUBG’s marketingthemes to prospective, tuition-paying students includes providing life opportunities for currentand prospective students that surpass all others. 32

29 Tony Barber, “Bulgaria ‘risks falling under Russia’s influence’,” Financial Times, 20 July 2009, accessed on October30, 2009.30 Luke Harding (Berlin) and Nicholas Watt (Brussels), “Bulgaria and Romania to join EU in 2007 despite corruptionfears,” The Guardian, (April 4, 2006) accessed on July 4, 2006 and Olli Rehn, “Brussels must offer the Balkans acredible future,” Financial Times, (April 2, 2006), accessed on July 4, 2006. According to EU Commissioner forEnlargement Olli Rehn, “The prospect of EU membership anchored the transition of these countries from communismafter 1989, boosting the modernisers who opened up their economies to foreign investment and reformed the state.Enlargement is an extraordinary example of soft power – and it is one of our most powerful and successful policies.”31 As a psychological strategy, social mobility does not require physical geographic movement of the actor, i.e. AUBGarguably did not necessarily contribute to regional brain drain. By 2009, most Bulgarian AUBG graduates did not leaveBulgaria, but they knew that their AUBG diploma gave them access to local opportunities having a strong internationalcomponent, as well as international opportunities.32 Obtained from an advertising statement in English placed on a highway billboard at the approach to Blagoevgrad on themain North-South route from Sofia in 2006. The Wikipedia entry for AUBG states that “The American University inBulgaria leads all Bulgarian universities in terms of the employment prospects of its graduates and their incomes,

30




Cottam and Cottam (2001) reported that social creativity strategies are a second approach torelative disadvantage as a result of an unfavorable social comparison of self in relation to theWest and other external, historically predominant groups. This general category of strategy wasmost amendable to immediate application within the AUBG institutional community context. Insocial creativity strategies in response to unfavorable relative communal social comparisons,

groups psychologically may do the following:1. Choose different comparative dimensions. AUBG’s tolerant liberal arts residential

social environment witnessed certain national student groups acquire “different butequal” celebrated reputational qualities (Cottam and Cottam 2001, 288). For example, some student national groups were more achievement-oriented and politically effective in Stud ent Government (e.g. the Romanians), while othersgroups were more bohemian.

33

2. Change the comparison group. Rather than comparing themselves with the West asmembers of local national groups experiencing deep economic, political and socialchallenges, successful AUBG students and alumni collectively had the option of comparing themselves to non-AUBG external groups in the post-Communist

region.34

3. Redefine the basis of comparison from negative to positive. For example, certainnegatively stereotyped Balkan ethnic Muslim minorities may have found in AUBGa Euro-Atlantic hegemonic social environment with greater tolerance for viewingtheir own national identity (Cottam and Cottam 2001, 92-93).35

AUBG aspired to create a learning environment that encouraged social creativity strategies in aEuro-Atlantic context. The students focused their aspirations on AUBG representing both thesocial creativity ideals and the social mobility opportunities of regional Euro-Atlantic integration.In the context of European integration ideals, all national cultural groups are formally equal instatus (e.g. Hofstede and Hofstede 2005, 354). If successfully persuasive, then these nationalcultural groups are then less likely to view themselves as in social competition with each other.

Cottam and Cottam (2001) noted that social competition is another cognitive strategicapproach to addressing relative disadvantage resulting from a negative social comparison. It canlead to a questioning of the existing political conditions and develop into severe political conflict.The manner in which people strive for or maintain positive social identity will depend upon theirsubjective perceptions of the nature of the relations between groups. Whether or not they viewthese relations as stable and legitimate will determine how secure the outcomes of inter-groupcomparisons appear. With regard to provoking social competition, unfavorable groupcomparisons are not sufficient (Cottam and Cottam 2001, 93). Identifying achievable alternatives

according to a national ranking system launched by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education in November 2010.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_in_Bulgaria, accessed September 16, 2013.

33 The Romanian student cohort had been one of the largest non-Bulgarian AUBG groups, but it drastically reduced insize once Romania and Bulgaria both entered the European Union on January 1, 2007. EU accession allowed universitystudents to gain access to any other university in the EU without discrimination on the basis of nationality, i.e. they weresubject to the same criteria for admission and financial aid as local nationals, thereby greatly facilitating access by Centraland East European undergraduate students to admissions and financial aid in West European universities (“Your Europe:University Access and fees,” [sic] http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/education/university/fees/index_en.htm, accessedon August 1, 2012).34 AUBG sought to counteract this student vulnerability to a decrease of self-identification with the local community byencouraging a strong community volunteer orientation among the students. For example, the AUBG Better CommunityClub, as part of AUBG Student Government, was very active in volunteer efforts, such as working with children at thelocal orphanage in which a disproportionate number were Roma (Gypsy) [e.g. Darya Yanitskaya, “’Christmas Lights’Shine for Blagoevgrad,” (December 17, 2011), http://defactobg.com/wordpress/2011/12/christmas-lights-shine-for- blagoevgrad/, accessed on July 31, 2012.] This writer was a faculty advisor to the Better Community Club, but the articlemistakenly stated that this writer was the source of the initiative to organize the orphanage children to present a musical performance; the initiator was rather a Bulgarian AUBG student, Yavor Kiryakov.35 e.g. In 2009, the ethnic Albanian student contingent at AUBG was the largest non-Bulgarian group. Notably, AUBG in2009 had few Serbian students.

31

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_in_Bulgaria

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/education/university/fees/index_en.htm

http://defactobg.com/wordpress/2011/12/christmas-lights-shine-for-blagoevgrad/




http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/education/university/fees/index_en.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_in_Bulgaria




to the existing relationship must also be feasible by group members. Factors that contribute to theidentification of alternatives include the following:

1. The perception of the illegitimacy and injustice of status differences.2. The perception of the instability of the status system.

Both 1 & 2 are necessary for social competition and social creativity strategies; when they occur,

the comparisons become insecure. Flowing from this awareness of alternatives is anenhancement of group self-image and an increase in the salience of group membership, leadingto an increase in mutual ethnocentrism (Hogg 2009). In response to an unacceptable comparisonleading to social creativity and social competition strategies, the identity of a group among itsmembers becomes necessarily stronger and more distinct (Cottam and Cottam 2001, 92-93).Ethno-nationalist conflict falls in the category of social competition strategies.

AUBG relied upon a multinational faculty in an American-hegemonic institutional contextexisting within the rapidly changing, post-Communist Bulgarian national and SoutheastEuropean regional environment. A predisposition to perceive unequal status evaluations was adanger; in attracting and keeping long-term Western expatriate full-time faculty, AUBG paid theexpatriates a salary comparable to Western levels. Full-time faculty hired from the Bulgarian

academic job market in the 1990s received a salary which was a multiple of typical Bulgarianuniversity pay levels in this economically devastated country, but it was still a fraction of theexpatriate level. The potential for national invidious comparison and consequently dysfunctional polarizing behavior required counteraction. Moreover, the stereotype of Western perspectivesand their representatives being superior to local perspectives is problematically prevalent inBulgaria (e.g. Zhelyazkova et al. 2009). Yet, the availability of these perspectives throughAUBG was one of the attractions in marketing AUBG to prospective tuition-paying students.

This vulnerability to negative self-comparison by Bulgarian actors in relation to AUBG’s public commitment to a Western curricular and pedagogical orientation risked generating intra-institutional resentment. When established in 1991, all of the AUBG Bulgarian faculty had beentrained and developed their careers under the previous, Communist order. Consequently, AUBG

allowed a series of accommodations to emerge that encourage social creativity in perception.Locally-hired Bulgarian faculty, for example, maintained their homes and families in Sofia(population 1.3 million) and came to Blagoevgrad (the site of the AUBG main campus, population 70,000), 100 kilometers to the south on problematic roads. One AUBG presidentreferenced them as AUBG’s Sofia-based faculty. Also, Bulgarian AUBG faculty typically had acomparatively extensive publication record that was important for AUBG accreditation. AUBGhad a stated commitment to creating a residential liberal arts institution in the American tradition.At the time of this writer’s departure in 2009, the senior administration expected faculty to be oncampus at least for four full workdays to fulfill teaching, advising and committee serviceexpectations.

36 This expectation was in conflict with a tendency among many faculty (mostly,

but not only Bulgarian) to emphasize Sofia as a focus of their professional and personal lives.

36 Personal communications with AUBG faculty members since 2009 indicates that this expectation of presence on theAUBG main campus in Blagoevgrad for four full workdays has ended. In response to persistent faculty pressure, courseteaching schedules have subsequently been arranged and assigned to reduce scheduling necessities for faculty to be inBlagoevgrad for four workdays.

32




Implications for Personnel Evaluation

Bryson notes that strategic planning is inherently a political process (2004, 28). Tensions instrategic planning emerged in developing institution-wide formative and summative evaluationsfor AUBG administrative and faculty personnel. Fifty to 80% of the budget costs in non-profit

organizations are personnel costs (Pynes 2004, 4). Effectiveness in strategic planning necessarilyincludes human resources management, and specifically in the personnel evaluation processes in place in the institution. Stakeholder participation can play an important role in the strategicmanagement of human resources and therefore, ultimately, directly or indirectly, in personnelevaluation (Winstanley et al. 1996, 71-74). In a multi-national academic nonprofit institution, themulti-national institutional stakeholders will inevitably impact on personnel performancemanagement practices within the organization. They will do so minimally through affecting performance objectives in relation to the formal and informal mandates from stakeholders thatthe organization serves (Hubbard 2009; Schraeder et al. 2007, 24; Lalonde 2011, 455).

The sources of funding for a public or non-profit organization impact upon the strategicdirection of an organization, including its implicit, if not explicit, internal institutional evaluation processes (Jansen et al. 2004). Various US government agencies are a source of financing formany different non-profit NGOs.

37 The AUBG Board of Trustees included influential US

partisan political figures as members of the board. Accommodating their preferences in return fortheir political support to win additional allocations in the US government budgeting process became an expectation. These influential board members brought with them their personal policy preferences regarding AUBG’s various roles that in turn became critical informal mandates. In2000, the new AUBG Chairman of the Board was a former senior executive at Time magazine,Ralph P. Davidson. Early in Davidson’s tenure, Robert "Bud" McFarlane, joined the policymaking AUBG Board of Trustees as well. The AUBG President during 2003-5 commented tothis writer that McFarlane actively participated in deliberations regarding one AUBG senioradministrative personnel decision.

Some AUBG faculty assumed that his political influenceassisted in obtaining funding for AUBG while AUBG was under USAID review for conditionalrelease of a $5 million tranche of designated funds. Irreconcilable stakeholder conflicts emergingfrom this fundraising policy decision appeared when the AUBG stud ent media reported onMcFarlane’s career and McFarlane then immediately resigned in 2001.

38 Soon afterwards, US

Congressman Joe Wilson (Republican-South Carolina) joined the Board of Trustees.39

Wilson in2001 won his first term as a member of the US House of Representatives, and he apparently hadan informal relationship with individual members of the AUBG faculty and administration.Wilson subsequently resigned in May 2009 in response to concerns raised by faculty and publicized by the administration regarding the issue of AUBG political non-partisanship and the

37 One of the public faces of the US government funding for international NGOs is the United States Agency forInternational Development (http://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/partnership-opportunities/ngosaccessed on July 21, 2012),which has raised questions about influence over humanitarian relief and development international NGO recipients ofgovernmental funding on behalf of respective national political agendas (Agg 2006, 19). Domestically, US governmentfunding for NGOs has recently become a topic of national debate regarding Planned Parenthood, e.g. Devin Dwyer,“Planned Parenthood at Center of Budget Shutdown Threat,” ABCNews (April 8, 2011),http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/planned-parenthood-center-budget-shutdown-threat/story?id=13328750#.UArFdI5gP8saccessed on July 21, 2012.38 Vesselina Dobrinova, “Convicted, Pardoned: The New Board Member,” Aspecter , 12/2, (February 13, 2001),http://aspecter.aubg.bg/archive/vol12/issue2/index.htm. downloaded on June 10, 2009, with McFarlane’s role in the Iran-Contra affair highlighted in this report, along with Davidson’s endorsement and hope that he will assist in AUBGfundraising from the US government. Most recently, McFarlane has been a foreign policy advisor to Republican US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich [Fred Barnes, “Gingrich Announces National Security Team,” The Weekly

Standard , (November 22, 2011), www.weeklystandard.com, accessed on July 31, 2012].39 Wilson’s website describes him as Founder and Co-chair of the Congressional “Bulgaria Caucus,”(http://joewilson.house.gov/Caucus/BulgariaCaucus.htm, accessed on July 31, 2012).

33

http://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/partnership-opportunities/ngos

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/planned-parenthood-center-budget-shutdown-threat/story?id=13328750%23.UArFdI5gP8s

http://aspecter.aubg.bg/archive/vol12/issue2/index.htm

http://www.weeklystandard.com/

http://joewilson.house.gov/Caucus/BulgariaCaucus.htm

http://joewilson.house.gov/Caucus/BulgariaCaucus.htm

http://www.weeklystandard.com/

http://aspecter.aubg.bg/archive/vol12/issue2/index.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/planned-parenthood-center-budget-shutdown-threat/story?id=13328750%23.UArFdI5gP8s

http://www.usaid.gov/work-usaid/partnership-opportunities/ngos




appearance of various potential conflicts of interest.40

Wilson then immediately joined thefundraising-focused AUBG University Council.41

Addressing the question of how to define institutional productivity and effectivenessrequires a clear agreement on the mandates of the institution, to the extent possible (Bryson2004: 37, 99-102). In the view of this writer, with regard to informal, sensitive mandates as of

2009, AUBG was a comparatively inexpensive US political investment in order to 1) co-optsome of the ‘best and the brightest’ students from post-Communist Eurasia for a pro Euro-Atlantic individual career and national development perspective;

42 2) gain and maintain both USgovernment as well as a broader, US polity focus on Bulgaria through AUBG as a vested USgovernmental bureaucratic and partisan political interest while rewarding Bulgaria as anAmerican ally;

43 3) win additional wealthy Bulgarian and Balkan Diaspora support within the US

and Europe for Bulgaria’s Euro-Atlantic development (Balkan diaspora figures become a targetof AUBG fundraising efforts);

44 4) provide opportunities for various professional interests

associated with the US States of Maine and South Carolina and NEASC.45

One of the key analytic themes in personnel evaluation in education is the challenge of

instituting an individual and organizational performance evaluation system that produces valid

and reliable results. Advocates of seniority-focused evaluation systems in public and non-profitorganizations claim that merit pay and promotion systems end up degenerating into favoritism,with senior management favoring those employees who are their friends, for reasons that do nothave to do with effectiveness in performance (Pynes 2004, 361).

As an American institution started with little institutional groundwork in 1991, AUBG had aculture of extensive faculty employee participation as a stakeholder in policy making at AUBG(Matasar 2008). Faculty participation in the shared governance process at AUBG appeared tocorrespond more with the strategic human resources management approach favored in Siddique(2004). The latter’s focus is upon incorporating human resources management into institutionalstrategic decision making.

40 e.g. Major new curriculum programs, such as a possible environmental studies program that was discussed, would haverequired approval by the AUBG Board of Trustees, as did all individual faculty five-year employment contracts.41 Wilson did silently attend in its entirety at least one AUBG Board of Trustees meeting in Washington, DC in January2007 (which this writer also attended), including attendance at the meeting of the Board Audit Committee, but this writernever witnessed him attending the “open” components of the Fall and Spring Board meetings held on-site at AUBGduring 2001-9. Wilson would subsequently gain national notoriety by heckling US President Barak Obama during thelatter’s September 9, 2009 speech to the US Congress [Carl Hulse, “In Lawmaker’s Outburst, a Rare Breach of Protocol,”The New York Times, (September 9, 2009), www.nytimes.com accessed on July 31, 2012].42 By the mid-2000s, the large majority of AUBG students obtained annual US summer work under the “J-1” visa program to accumulate savings necessary to pay their AUBG tuition and room & board fees, with the Sofia US embassyapproval of AUBG student applications a largely pro forma matter (http://j1visa.state.gov/ accessed on July 21, 2012),with applications administered privately through companies such as Fletcher Lynd (http://www.fletcherlynd.com/accessed on July 21, 2012).

43 Bulgaria deployed forces in Iraq in May 2003 [Sofia News Agency, “Withdrawal of Bulgaria's Troops from IraqCompleted,” (December 17, 2008), http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=99912, accessed on July 22, 2012].as well as Afghanistan [Sofia News Agency. “Bulgaria to Make Major Withdrawal of Afghanistan Troops by 2014,”(November 30, 2011), http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=134412 accessed on July 22, 2012].44 e.g. Gergana Yovova, “AUBG receives $5 million for Student Center and scholarships,” Flashnews, (September 13,2009), http://old.flashnews.org/news/aubg-receives-5-million-for-student-center-and-scholarships.html, accessed on July17, 2012, referencing also Diaspora giving to AUBG. The funding source, the America for Bulgaria Foundation, is a USgovernment creation with the US ambassador to Bulgaria as an ex-officio member of its board (“America for BulgariaFoundation,” http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=America_for_Bulgaria_Foundation, accessed on July 17,2012).45 e.g. The Bulgarian ambassador to the US, Elena Poptodorova, announced at an AUBG Board of Trustees meeting inBlagoevgrad in October 2008 that Bulgaria and the US state of South Carolina had signed a cooperation agreement.Various faculty and senior administrators (including presidents and chief academic officers) with a professionalassociation with institutions in the state of Maine and with NEASC-member institutions and within NEASC itself alsoassumed employment at AUBG [e.g. the AUBG interim provost (2002-3) was recommended by NEASC personnel inresponse to a request from the AUBG president, who had been a senior administrator at the University of Maine beforestarting employment at AUBG (2003 personal correspondence with NEASC personnel)].

34


http://j1visa.state.gov/

http://www.fletcherlynd.com/

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=99912


http://old.flashnews.org/news/aubg-receives-5-million-for-student-center-and-scholarships.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=America_for_Bulgaria_Foundation

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=America_for_Bulgaria_Foundation

http://old.flashnews.org/news/aubg-receives-5-million-for-student-center-and-scholarships.html



http://www.fletcherlynd.com/

http://j1visa.state.gov/





The AUBG faculty struggled with devising and adopting an effective, i.e. valid and reliable,faculty evaluation system. Evaluating teaching and service was the main challenge. Someaccepted the Provost’s argument that the entire multinational institution should develop an ethosfocused on the stated mission of the institution as a prerequisite for developing institution-widecriteria for evaluating personnel effectiveness (Kuh 1993). Creating this ethos required

generating an effective, continuous, Institution-wide dialogue. This dialogue was to be aboutwhat AUBG was trying to do and what it wanted to see in its students, graduates, faculty andadministrators in terms of their knowledge, achievements and behavior/attitudes.

Finally in 1998, AUBG adopted a new evaluation system for the faculty with a focus on theannual goal-setting letter submitted to a supervisor as its cornerstone (Chambers 1999, 104).

46 In

this evaluation system, a full-time faculty member coming up for review for contract renewalwould prepare a hard-copy evaluation dossier. The annual goal-setting letters as well as thesupervisor's written responses to them, student teaching evaluations, faculty peer classroomteaching observation evaluations, and grade distribution curves were all initially mandatoryinclusions in the dossier. The faculty member could also include any other material in order to tryto demonstrate teaching effectiveness in a learner-centered environment. For example, such

evidence might include unsolicited positive comments from students and alumni as well assamples of student work and alumni achievements. The faculty member was to present evidenceof effectiveness through triangulation: providing information from different constituent perspectives (such as students, alumni, professional peers, visiting pedagogical experts, senioradministrators and other critical stakeholders) to corroborate claims of effectiveness in threeareas: service, scholarship and teaching. The annual goal-setting letter was to be the focus ofdemonstration of continuous improvement as part of the Total Quality Management approach(Chambers 1999, 105; Rosenbloom et al. 2009, 172-73). The evaluation dossier was provided tothe Faculty Assembly’s Faculty Evaluation Team (FET), which periodically undertook asummative evaluation of the faculty member for contract renewal.

The Provost argued that the faculty evaluation system could not exist in an institutional

vacuum: all parts of the institution were to have this dialogue about their respective contributionsto actualizing the mission of the institution. Administrators submitted an annual goal-settingletter to their supervisor, to which the supervisor would respond privately in writing.

47 AUBG also struggled for a resolution of tension over the issue of teaching vs. research

faculty activity emphasis. These issue tensions reflected deeper sources of polarization andconflict among the institution's personnel (Bryson 2004: 45-46, 171-72). This tension had thenational academic market pay differential as one focus. Another focus included the expectationof an intensive faculty campus presence in Blagoevgrad for a residential liberal arts college in theAmerican model. Many faculty, including those most senior, disproportionally Bulgarian anddistinguished in their respective fields, emphasized the pursuit of their professional scholarshipgoals (and personal commitments) in Sofia. Additionally, the required English language medium

of instruction generated tensions over possible advantages that native English speakingexpatriates may have had in teaching. These issues were highly salient and intense because

46 AUBG Provost Chambers does not cite the goal-setting letter. However, this writer was directly involved in theformulation of the new evaluation procedure referenced here while serving as rapporteur and member of the AUBG taskforce on faculty evaluation in summer 1997. This writer submitted such a goal-setting letter annually during 1998-2001,the first year to his social sciences division chairperson and then to the Provost. With regard to teaching, prior to 1998,the evaluation criteria relied heavily on student course evaluations.47 A struggle ensued within the senior administration over the hierarchy relationship of the Chief Academic Officer to theChief Financial Officer and to other senior administrators. One of the issues around which this struggle coalesced was,specifically, to whom these individual senior administrators should submit their respective goal-setting letters, i.e.directly to the President or to the CAO, and, more generally, the nature of the senior administrative evaluation policiesand procedures. The nature and form of stakeholder constituency, including faculty, input into the evaluation procedurefor the president and other senior administrators was also a continual, parallel issue of debate at AUBG during thiswriter’s employment there.

35




evaluation of faculty for contract renewal and promotion was formally based on the threecategories of evaluation: teaching, research, and service (Chambers 1999, 105). Accordingly, thedirection in which the Institution would move with regard to the relative emphasis on teaching,research and service would ultimately potentially impact on personnel contract employmentdecisions. Attracting comparatively costly expatriate faculty who would perform at a superior

level in all three areas of research, teaching and service to come and live in Blagoevgrad and build a long-term career there was a challenge. The institution’s consequent difficulty in applyingthe same professional activity expectations to all faculty led some faculty to perceive personnelemployment decisions as heavily dependent upon political factors. Some faculty looked to thesensitive informal political mandates as supposedly influencing personnel decisions.

As Bulgaria rapidly changed its economic, political and cultural norms, the AUBG faculty participated vigorously and critically in shared governance with an AUBG senior administrationresponding to fulfill mandates. As Cottam and Cottam (2001) noted, change in relationshipsamong national identity groups perceived as unequal in status risks intensifying polarizations asthe existing relationship is no longer perceived as legitimate (93). Consequently, in this turbulentexternal and internal environment, resistance to the annual goal-setting letter submission was

signif icant. Some number of local Bulgaria faculty simply refused to submit a goal-settingletter.

48 Some number of Bulgarian and American expatriate faculty felt that the administrationwas using the goal setting letter to bias the Faculty Evaluation Team against the faculty memberundergoing evaluation.49 Other problems with the annual goal-setting requirement includedrequiring a significant amount of time and effort from the Chief Academic Officer of theinstitution to review and comment on all goal-setting letters.

Advantages of the goal-setting letter included providing the faculty member with an annualformal notification of the Institution’s expectations (formative evaluation). The faculty memberthereby received evaluative feedback prior to the final evaluation for contract renewal(summative evaluation). The goal-setting letter did provide additional information for the FET beyond the evaluee’s dossier material inclusions, which put the evaluee in the best light. Student

course evaluations were one component in the evaluation dossier for the faculty member todemonstrate a teaching contribution to AUBG institutional effectiveness. These student courseevaluations had to be presented as part of a context of contribution to institutional effectivenessthat the evaluee attempted to portray through the dossier.

Finally, in 2003, new senior AUBG administrators, with the agreement of the FacultyAssembly, dispensed with the annual goal-setting letter submission requirement for faculty. Thenew president and interim provost also no longer required that the Chief Financial Officer andother senior administrators submit annual goal-setting letters to the Chief Academic Officer, i.e.the Provost.

Comparisons and Conclusions

The differences of AUBG from CUK emerge fundamentally because CUK was not originallyestablished as an international institution funded by an external state government. CUK exists incomparatively stable and ethnically homogenous South Korea. CUK’s International Studiesdepartment of approximately 9 full-time faculty has been hiring international faculty since 2009as part of a CUK commitment to increase the expatriate faculty presence throughout the

48 Personal communication of Provost Chambers to this writer. Senior faculty commented to this writer that for some ofthe Bulgarian faculty their level of command of English, as illustrated in the goal-setting letter, was a related concern.49 While the faculty member’s goal-setting letter and Provost’s written response were private institutionalcommunications, at Wright State University – Lake Campus community college, where this writer worked in 2006-7, theDean of Faculty’s annual evaluation letter for each unionized faculty member was a public document. Anecdotally, in thelate 1990s, one colleague at the University of Bristol in the UK informed this writer that their annual goal-setting letterwas posted for public viewing.

36




institution.50

At CUK, participation in shared governance is not formally expected of international faculty

at the assistant professor level, while South Korean assistant professors do have a substantialservice load.51 This writer teaches in English, but most classes are still in Korean. The languageof the department administration is Korean, and the staff must translate relevant policy

statements into English for this writer and other expatriates who do not know Korean. As of2009, in the International Studies department, tenure-track assistant professor-level internationalfaculty hired from the Western academic market received less in salary than Korean tenure trackassistant professors.

52 Nevertheless, some intra-departmental tension did emerge regarding therole of international assistant professors serving as Master of Arts thesis advisors forinternational graduate students.

53

CUK international faculty hired in 2009 did not submit an annual, goal-setting letter per se.CUK international faculty were encouraged to submit a research project prospectus which wasuploaded on CUK’s Trinity on-line faculty human resources management system. If thissubmitted research project eventually produced a publication in a SCI/SSCI/AHCI-listed journal,then the faculty member would receive the equivalent of seven thousand US dollars to cover

research expenses and as a financial reward (the CUK International Studies department may also provide additional research funds). CUK relies extensively on financial rewards to faculty toencourage publication. Publications produced outside of a submitted research project prospectusdo not result in a financial reward, although they are acknowledged in applications for contractrenewal and tenure application. Attendance costs to present papers at sufficiently prestigiousconferences must first be paid by faculty. The faculty member may apply for reimbursement ofsome of the costs through submitting documentation of proof of presentation of a paper.

CUK expects faculty to upload reports of activity and achievements (student mentoringsessions, publications, conference presentations) regularly and continuously through the Trinityon-line system. In terms of monitoring teaching performance, CUK appears to relyoverwhelmingly on student teaching evaluations.

54 CUK in 2011 also began posting these

student teaching evaluations on-line for university community public viewing.The administration provides feedback to the CUK expatriate assistant professor in the

International Studies department only when applying for two-year contract renewal or whenapplying for tenure.55 This writer’s 2009 CUK expatriate employment contract explicitly stated acertain number of publications in SCI/SSCI/AHCI journals within a certain time period as therequirement for obtaining tenure.

The absence of a CUK administrative service requirement may have its drawbacks, but italso has its advantages in that the international faculty tends not to be mobilized for intra-

50 In 2010, a former South Korean AUBG colleague now a faculty member in South Korea informed this writer that aSouth Korean newspaper, Joong Ang Il Bo, has an affiliate, Joongang Education Development Institute

(http://www.jedi.re.kr/), which publishes a noted annual ranking of South Korean universities. Beginning perhaps as earlyas 2006, it modified its criteria to include the number of international faculty in its annual evaluation, and consequently, beginning in spring 2009 and continuing to the present, numerous South Korean universities have been placing jobopening advertisements in The Chronicle of Higher Education.51 This writer has been asked to participate in evaluating applications for full-time faculty positions in the InternationalStudies department, but this participation has required an insignificant amount of time.52 David McNeill, “South Korea Brings in Foreign Professors by the Thousands, but Is It Ready for Them?” The

Chronicle of Higher Education, (February 27, 2011). ProQuest, accessed on August 6, 2012.53 David McNeill, “South Korea Powers Ahead With Globalization,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, (55/40), (June26, 2009). ProQuest, accessed on August 6, 2012.54 This writer received a semester Best Teacher award from the CUK senior administration for a Fall 2010 class becauseof student teaching evaluations in one course (administered in Korean, although the student could write his or hercomments in English if he or she wished to do so).55 Faculty peer observation and evaluation of teaching has not been implemented for faculty, while CUK does have anactive, new Center for Teaching and Learning whose English-language presentations the faculty, and particularlyinternational faculty, have been encouraged to attend. In 2009, the new director of the CTL highlighted her doctoraltraining in a US academic institution in her self-introduction to attending faculty.

37

http://www.jedi.re.kr/

http://www.jedi.re.kr/




institutional national identity-based social competition. Consequently, although the relationship between international faculty and administration at CUK is more distant than at AUBG, it is alsoless contentious. The CUK example illustrates that a more hierarchical organization hasadvantages over more horizontal ones in administering personnel evaluation procedures in aglobalizing academic non-profit organization within a hegemonic national culture (Tompenaars

and Hampden-Turner 1998, 161-85). The implication is that the globalizing national academicnon-profit is cautious regarding shared governance involving non-tenured international faculty.Their inclusion risks generating institutional tensions that have a significant national identitycomponent. The prospect of significant institutional change may confront intra-institutionalgroup resistance because of reactional mobilization on the basis of perceived threat to shared, perceived national group institutional self-interest.

56

The senior administration should take the lead in formative evaluation of performance inregard to the expatriate faculty, e.g. possibly through use of the annual goal-setting letter andwritten response. The principle of academic shared governance is arguably in conformity withthe participative leadership style of organizational leadership (Howell and Costley 2006, 131-62).However, charismatic leadership may be necessary to counteract the potential for intra-

institutional polarization of personnel along national lines. If charismatic leadership is notavailable or feasible, then directive leadership style may be more appropriate. Thisrecommendation may be particularly true in meeting the challenge of formative and summativeevaluation of expatriate faculty performance in initial efforts at increasing multinational facultyrepresentation (Howell and Costley 2006: 95-125, 208-43). A parallel in the US domestic settingmay be found in the challenge of mandating a commitment to increasing faculty diversity, atleast partly to meet Equal Employment Opportunity legal obligations. In sum, the challenges of bringing international faculty into a globalizing non-profit academic institution are analogous tothose challenges in justifying and implementing academic affirmative action programs in the US(Pynes 2004, 72-73, 80-83).

Acknowledgement

This paper was produced through the support of the Catholic University of Korea research fundand with the support of the University of Illinois Summer Research Laboratory on Russia,Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers fortheir insights and comments. Any errors are solely the author’s.

56 Alan Brender, “South Korea Declines to Renew Contract of an American University President,” The Chronicle of

Higher Education, (52/32), (April 14, 2006). ProQuest, accessed on August 7, 2012.

38




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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benedict E. DeDominicis: Benedict E. DeDominicis is an assistant professor in the InternationalStudies Department at the Catholic University of Korea. He came to CUK after 15 years at theAmerican University in Bulgaria. He received his BA in political science and Russian from theOhio State University and his MA and PhD in political science from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Management Education: An International Journal is

one of four thematically focused journals in the

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The journal explores the dimensions of learning to

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cultures and negotiate change effectively.

As well as papers of a traditional scholarly type, this

journal invites case studies that take the form of

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exegeses analyzing the effects of those practices.

Management Education: An International Journal is a

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ISSN 2327-8005

Documents

Personnel Performance Evaluation Systems in Non-profit Academic Multinational Institutions: The American University in Bulgaria and The Catholic University of Korea