{"id":25883,"date":"2010-12-06T12:03:47","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T17:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=25883"},"modified":"2012-02-29T14:53:32","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T19:53:32","slug":"ideas-%e2%80%93-the-psychological-currency-of-the-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2010\/12\/ideas-%e2%80%93-the-psychological-currency-of-the-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideas \u2013 The Psychological Currency of the University"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Jeremy<\/a>
Jeremy Teitelbaum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In tough economic times, Dean Jeremy Teitelbaum says, it\u2019s essential for the University to keep the ideas flowing and avoid the psychological deflation that so often accompanies budgetary woes.<\/h3>\n

By Jeremy Teitelbaum, Dean<\/a>
\nCollege of Liberal Arts and Sciences<\/a><\/p>\n

Although I know that it\u2019s dangerous to draw too many macroeconomic conclusions from my own personal experience, everywhere I look I see evidence of deflation \u2013 an economic state of falling wages and prices.<\/p>\n

The news in October that the core rate of inflation was only 0.6 percent<\/a>, the lowest ever measured, was one authoritative piece of evidence pointing in that direction. Walking into the Borders Bookstore on Michigan Avenue in Chicago to find discount banners advertising a store-closing clearance sale<\/a> was a much more public and visible sign. Hearing friends\u2019 and family members\u2019 painful stories of lost jobs, salary reductions, furloughs, and stalled home sales make up the most sobering evidence.<\/p>\n

\"<p>CLASBut from a purely professional point of view, the most worrying sign of deflation\u2019s grip in my day-to-day life is the deflationary mindset<\/a> I find affecting me and my colleagues at the University.<\/p>\n

Just like inflation, deflation creates a set of expectations in people\u2019s minds about the future that profoundly affects their behavior. Inflation tells people to rush \u2013 to buy now, spend now, borrow now \u2013 because the price of everything will be higher tomorrow. Deflation tells people to stall \u2013 to wait to spend, delay borrowing \u2013 because the price of everything will be lower tomorrow. In a time of deflation, hiding money under your mattress becomes a reasonable investment strategy.<\/p>\n

What concerns me is how the deflationary mindset spills over from the economic realm to the psychological. We rely on the motivation of highly talented, creative, and self-directed students and faculty to accomplish anything. One feature of such highly talented and creative people is that they are always thinking of new and exciting projects for which they need new equipment, new conferences, additional faculty, new courses …<\/p>\n

This appetite can drive administrators crazy, and I think that to people with a background in business it can seem completely irresponsible. I see it as a key indicator of health in a university; and what makes my job as a dean interesting is the challenge of keeping the flow of ideas active, when only a few of them can be actively supported.<\/p>\n

When the flow starts to dry up, and faculty and students stop asking for things, that\u2019s a sign that they\u2019re feeling deflated<\/a>, in the sense of being \u201cbrought low in spirit.\u201d Economic deflation is bad enough, but psychological deflation is a particular threat to a university.<\/p>\n

Back in 2002, Stanley Fish described this kind of deflation in a column in The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em> called \u201cLet the Bad Times Roll<\/a>.\u201d He talked about how the economic crisis of that moment changed his life as dean \u2013 namely, it got easier, because the answer to every question and request was \u201cno.\u201d He even saw his calendar open up and the pressure from department heads and faculty for resources drop away:<\/p>\n

As a general rule, people come to the dean’s office either to petition or to complain; but if the word is out that there are no resources, no one will expect anything; and if no one expects anything no one will be disappointed; and if no one has been disappointed, no one will complain ….<\/em><\/p>\n

Fortunately, we\u2019re not there yet. One recent e-mail from a department head proposing the expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars on an extremely worthy project started out like this:<\/p>\n

Recognizing that this probably is the worst possible time to be looking for money for any sort of project, \u2026 nevertheless \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Hooray for \u201cnevertheless!\u201d Despite the constant foreboding references to next fiscal year, the number of meetings that end with \u201clet\u2019s see …\u201d and various confining administrative restrictions imposed at all levels to prevent us from accidentally overspending our budgets, people are still looking for ways to improve the institution. Those people are doing their share to fight deflation, and I hope they keep their ideas coming \u2013 one day someone is going to get a huge surprise when we can finally start saying \u201cyes\u201d again.<\/p>\n

Comments? Send them to: dean@clas.uconn.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has 23 departments in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, ranging from physics to philosophy, and more than 15,000 students, 600 faculty, and 83,000 alumni. Check out our three initiatives: Health and Human Behavior<\/a>, the Environment<\/a>, and <\/em>Culture and Society<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Other CLAS Blog posts:<\/h4>\n

On Not Buying an iPad<\/a><\/p>\n

A Step Closer to Science Fiction?<\/a><\/p>\n

Academic Freedom Meets Freedom of Information<\/a><\/p>\n

Ambition and Intrigue in the Court of Henry VIII<\/a><\/p>\n

A Civil Conversation on Contentious Issues<\/a><\/p>\n

Academically Anchored<\/a><\/p>\n

Meditations on A(nother) Snow Day<\/a><\/p>\n

Coming to Grips with Climate Change<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Just Hire the Best’?<\/a><\/p>\n

Will ‘Crowdsourcing’ Revolutionize Scholarship?<\/a><\/p>\n

Hidden Symmetries<\/a><\/p>\n

Spectacular Storrs<\/a><\/p>\n

Citizenship, Marriage, and Mosques: Problems in the Applied Humanities<\/a><\/p>\n

Of Deans and English Professors<\/a><\/p>\n

The Joys of Jamming<\/a><\/p>\n

Slick Calculations<\/a><\/p>\n

The Road to Agra<\/a><\/p>\n

UConn Over Yale and Other Tales from Jim Draper \u201941<\/a><\/p>\n

The Amazon, Avatar, and Smallpox<\/a><\/p>\n

The Value of Curiosity<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a tough economy, the ongoing flow of ideas helps avoid psychological deflation, says CLAS dean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[66],"class_list":["post-25883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 09:27:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25883"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55745,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25883\/revisions\/55745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25883"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=25883"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=25883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}