June 17, 2005

Accounting mentality and what can be measured

I am an academic here at the Laboratory as a scientific visitor. I was here last year when the suspension of operations occurred. Despite that, I was eager to come back for many reasons, most important being the opportunity to work closely with my host and others in Atmospheric, Climate and Environmental Dynamics (EES-2) and Space and Remote Sensing Sciences (ISR-2) with whom I have collaborated for several years.

I have read with some interest the running commentary on proposed changes in the transportation services and it has reminded me of something I have observed over and over again in many venues, including academia, business, government, etc. That is the tendency, apparently increasing, for bureaucracies to take on an accounting mentality, overlooking the fact that many important things cannot be measured or accounted for by a certified public accountant. The point that many have made in this venue with regard to the transportation issue, is that since it is problematic to place a value on the time of employees frittered away a few minutes at a time over long periods, it is ignored in favor of that which can be measured, i.e., the cost of providing demand-responsive transportation. You see it all the time in many forms. When what is truly important is difficult or impossible to measure, we measure something else and use that measurment instead of making a strong case that what matters cannot be measured. This same accounting mentality increasingly dominates academia, especially in state-supported institutions. Because it is difficult, perhaps, realistically impossible, to place a dollar value on a liberal education, state schools are chronically underfunded. Instead of standing up and forthrightly admitting that the most important benefits of liberal education cannot be quantified easily, and then voting adequate funding anyway, state legislatures increasingly look at standardized test scores, retention rates, graduation rates, etc. as measures of success.

In microcosm, academics face the issue daily. We hope that by casting the bread on the waters, we are inspiring students to go forth and do great things for mankind, but with rare exceptions, we never really know. We have to rely on our own experience of benefitting from the dedication of our teachers and mentors and hope for the best. Further, because of increasing class sizes, we academics also succumb to the pressures. In a technical class of 50+, we cannot give essay tests, we cannot have individual projects, etc, so we resort to multiple-guess tests that can be graded quickly. We measure something, even if it is the wrong thing. It saddens me to see the nearly universal increase in emphasis on accounting, especially when the truly important things cannot be measured.

The point for the Lab: I would urge Lab management to place as much emphasis as possible on clear, cogent explanations of the intangible benefits of a research establishment such as the Lab, making no apologies for the fact that much of what really matters cannot be accounted for in ledgers, at least not in real time, short-term payoffs. Find a way to maintain the intellectual ferment that has characterized this fantastic place to live and work for 60 years. If you can keep that, the best and brightest will continue to come here and will find creative ways to deal with whatever requirements the bureaucracy imposes from above because it will be worth it to be here in the midst of so much intellectual excitement.

--William Beasley