Is the 'University of the Wilderness,' here pictured in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, or at Yellowstone, or Yosemite, or Acadia, or the Everglades in danger of being muzzled by bureaucracy?/NPS
The late Robin W. Winks, as Randolph W. Townsend, Jr., Professor of History at Yale University, was fond of pointing out that the National Park Service manages a university like no other. Undoubtedly he would be repeating that lecture today, especially since Jonathan Jarvis has been called on the carpet for writing a book without “permission.”
Some 400 “campuses,” all of them unique, underscore the unique responsibilities of the director’s office. First and foremost, the director is a teacher of the American experience and the chief protector of the American land. Certainly the best directors of the National Park Service—and the best superintendents—have put education high on their list of priorities.
The front-line teachers are the park interpreters, whom Dr. Winks admired, as do I. After all, I served as one in Yosemite. However, the teaching does not end with them. Robin would talk as fondly about the parks to a maintenance worker as he ever talked about them with me. He encouraged everyone, not just interpreters, to reach out to the visiting public.
Were the National Park Service ever to forget that (here Robin quoted Horace Albright), it would become just another bureaucracy. Then the second director of the National Park Service, Albright’s warning is from 1933. Everyone in uniform is a teacher, and indeed, that is what the uniform requires.
A consummate scholar, I think Robin would agree that the National Park Service is perilously close to becoming the bureaucracy Albright feared. Its centennial is practically invisible, and now comes this business about the director writing a book.
Even if historians end up writing critically about Jonathan Jarvis, we need to remember what his position is. Our founding fathers expected civil servants to write. They themselves produced the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln, using a mere 271 words, so eloquently defined his country we Americans repeat the Gettysburg Address thousands of times a day.
Can you imagine an ethics officer asking Abraham Lincoln: Mr. President, did you get permission from the government to write that speech? The very idea would be absurd. Who is “the government” if not the president? But there it is—how far we have strayed from our founding fathers in substituting bureaucracy for the electorate.
No, Jonathan Jarvis is not the president. However, he was appointed by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. That puts him far closer to the electorate than anyone in the bureaucracy. Now as head of our government’s finest university—the University of the Wilderness—why should Jarvis further have to ask the bureaucracy for “approval” to do his job?
In universities we write and teach. University time? My time? As every legitimate teacher knows, it is properly all a blur.
Royalties? Give common sense a break. How lucrative are they—really? Besides, for any thinker—for any leader—there is no such thing as an eight-hour day. Responsibility is 24/7. Forfeit my royalties? Why? Because the bureaucracy knows only to define my job as a sound bite—at five we all go home? As Harry Truman said, my day is just getting started.
President Truman meant the schedule of a leader, and the chilling truth is that any bureaucracy wants leadership on the run. Let’s visit an actual university for a moment. Likely, up to one-third of the senior class is struggling to graduate well past the four-year mark. The bureaucrats on campus are wringing their hands over the problem. Hundreds of meetings have been called and dozens of consultants hired. Why can’t the seniors graduate within four years?
Look in the mirror. To fill your position, some full-time instructor was let go. Quoting just a partial list, the Affirmative Action Office, the Sexual Harassment Office, the Office of Diversity and Multiculturalism, the Community Relations Office, the Government Relations Office, the Office of Social Justice, the Curriculum Planning Office, the Office of Alumni Affairs, the Development Office, and yes, the Office of Ethics and Compliance, all came at the expense of teaching. Many university campuses also have their own police force. Just what do you think that costs?
As a primary consequence, the classes the seniors need to complete their majors are no longer offered every year. And when offered, who is teaching them? Nationwide, now a whopping 69 percent of all college and university teaching is done by part-time instructors. How much personal time can they give each student? Not much on $18,000 a year. Benefits? Yeah, right.
Robin Winks, Yale University
The bureaucracy—those making ten times that amount and up—still argue they are defending “standards.” Their ranks include university presidents now averaging $1 million a year. In Washington State, the president also gets a state-supported 35-room mansion and car. Our university football coach rings in at $2.7 million. To be sure, in 49 of the 50 states, either the varsity football coach or the varsity basketball coach is the highest paid public official. And universities wonder why seniors struggle to graduate?
Yes, they wonder, just as the federal government now wonders what its employees are doing with “government time.” But is the government really concerned about “performance,” or is the bureaucracy again grasping for control?
Dr. Runte, you are writing too many letters on university stationery. Please limit yourself to three pages a week. And please. Buy your own correction fluid for your typewriter. We can no longer afford to pay for that.
The more frivolous a standard becomes, the meaner becomes its enforcement. Historians have written and talked about it for centuries. But then, every civilization grows old and succumbs. We have succumbed. Why does the football coach get $2.7 million and the part-time instructor barely crumbs? Listen to the university president, arm-in-arm with the regents, insist on paying the coach “market price.” Not to worry, though, it’s all from ticket sales and television revenues. Actually, the taxpayers aren’t paying the coach a dime.
However, the English professor we do have to pay. She brings in no ticket sales and added revenue. She should feel lucky we keep her around.
Now that the National Park Service has slipped into bureaucracy, it has slipped into much the same. What would more interpreters bring to “the market?” Salary they would take from us.
Professors used to say—and truly believed—that the administration was superfluous. If the professors didn’t know how to teach, how could people never in a classroom ever know it? Now that the bureaucracy controls the classroom, who is watching the bureaucracy?
Some claim Jon Jarvis brought his “problems” on himself. Just what “problems” would those be? To a professor, that is bureaucratic “code.”
It’s your fault, Dr. Runte. Without permission, you opened the supply cabinet and took an extra sheet of stationery. You heard us when we limited you to three.
I heard you, but another student needed a letter of recommendation. I am sorry, but I didn’t have time to clear it with your secretary. She had already left for the day.
If Jon Jarvis habitually goes home at five, yes, he may have brought his problems on himself. That would suggest he is a bureaucrat. Or would it? The point is: When did he get to close the door on his mind—and who is compensating him for that? Even at home, he might work past midnight for all we know.
That of course is a teacher’s point of view. An educator has many offices—many “desks.” This is to explain why the History Division of the National Park Service especially loved Robin Winks. He respected the National Archives and the Library of Congress as “desks.” He asked scholarly standards of the National Park Service—not standards meant to control and demean its faculty.
We have a complaint, Dr. Runte, that in class, you called former Governor Dixie Lee Ray a tomboy. Really? Who complained about that? I made it clear the quote was hers. That is how she referred to herself in a Newsweek interview. She said she had been raised a tomboy. Then you admit it, Dr. Runte. You called her a tomboy. No, and please listen carefully. The quote was entirely hers. I then used it in a lecture. Well, she can refer to herself any way she wants, Dr. Runte. You can’t.
If it was getting that bad 30 years ago, imagine how bad it is today. As suddenly, every man on campus is presumed guilty of sexual harassment by virtue of being male. Surreptitiously targeting men, there are offices, and high-ranking administrators, overseeing every alleged offense.
One day, I found this tacked to my office door: “Stop Sexual Harassment on Campus!” Days later, now a sticker as well as a poster, it had also been glued to my window and office wastebasket. Looking around, I noticed that only we male professors had “received” the poster. Had anyone asked our permission? No, but then, who needs to ask permission of the “guilty” party?
Why do professors not revolt? Because those that might have revolted have retired. The World War II generation produced the greatest teachers. Having seen something of the world—and fought for it—they were not about to suffer bureaucrats. Some love the new demographic, of course. After all, so long as they remain subservient to the bureaucracy they get promoted, even if the part-timers never do.
After fleecing the taxpayers and the donors, the bureaucracy survives on grants. In a research university, up to 60 percent of an outside grant is “overhead” the researcher never sees. What? You now lack enough money to complete your research? Go find yourself (us) another grant!
Ultimately, for all of that to survive, everything great about higher education had to go. Great teaching was first to go. Next due process had to go. We haven’t quite reached the bottom yet, but think of every professor as that proverbial canary. The coal mine called the bureaucracy will snuff out anyone who dares challenge its control.
The implications of that are just as relevant—and just as serious—for our University of the Wilderness. Let’s take another look at that $12 billion backlog, for example. How much of it is “real?” To be sure, every time we hear the figure, it seems to have grown by another billion.
Who wants billion-dollar figures these days? A bureaucracy. The National Park Service is not the Pentagon, but the game is still the same. If you are truthful, the other players will cut your budget to ribbons. In other words, the moment the bureaucracy asks, the moment the truth inflates. A generous overhead for the bureaucracy is built in.
As bureaucracies grow to defend their priorities, they lose respect for an institution’s traditional priorities. Is Congress ever going to give the Park Service an extra $12 billion? No. But now the bureaucracy has its survival package. The most we can afford is ourselves.
Parkinson’s Law still applies. A bureaucracy is all about itself. It wants no rivals, only growth. In the old days, a university staff was professors, deans, secretaries, maintenance (buildings and grounds), admissions and records, and athletics. The coach was paid the same as any professor.
In Washington State, how did we ever get to 18,000 full-time “staff” versus 2,000 teaching faculty? Were the governor to ask, those further calling themselves boosters, friends, and “family” of the university would likely demand his head.
You think it is any better in Washington, D.C.? Where I fault Jonathan Jarvis is not to have made the centennial into a full-blown public teach-in. “Find Your Park!” Got it. “This Bud’s for you!” Got it. Now what, Mr. Jarvis? How about asking those of us with better ideas?
But again, what if the bureaucracy insists he not ask? Keep your distance from Alfred Runte. He will demand four pieces of stationery instead of three.
Translation: Runte knows whom we have displaced—the teachers. He would recommend slicing our ranks instead.
I would, and I do. Robin Winks softened the message somewhat, but then, he was on the National Park System Advisory Board. I have lost faith that anything good can come from a bureaucracy, no matter how many pieces of stationery I am “allowed.”
If I am wrong about the backlog, I am not wrong about what is happening to the parks. These past few years, I have seen some wonderful young people forced to leave Zion National Park because there was no work. They wanted to be teachers; they wanted to be interpreters. They wanted to do the real job of preservation, and the Park Service could only say no.
What a shame. You mean we can’t charge extra for that behemoth motor home? We can’t let a few potholes go? The local chamber of commerce always gets first dibs on park priorities—from snow-plowing to widening roads?
The serious ethical issues in the National Park Service have nothing to do with writing books. They have rather to do with preservation. Who has the right to change the parks—wire them, speed them up, make them more profitable for the concessionaires—when everything about those priorities leads to the loss of wilderness, which indeed the parks were meant to be.
I have watched the American university turn into little better than a Ponzi scheme. I feel deeply for all of the young people and their parents still expecting something good to come from that. Even when it does, it still costs them far too much. Most college expenses are no longer for teachers, at least, not the kind of teachers universities used to have.
Harry Butowsky is right. If we no longer want to pay for the teachers, there is no reason to keep expanding the University of the Wilderness, either. After all, the first to go will be the teachers, not only in the new parks but all the rest. The bureaucracy will ensure that its own priorities come first, for that is what bureaucracies know to do.
A kind and gentle soul, Robin Winks again warned us of that diplomatically. Before his death in 2003, he had visited every unit of the national park system then in existence—some 360 sites. Rest in peace, Robin. We know you loved the parks. Please then forgive me for being blunt. If even the National Park Service is now to spend its time on witch hunts, its problems—and indeed, our country’s problems—go far deeper than either of us imagined.
Comments
Isn't that always the question?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Rick, that is an easy one if you believe in our Constitution. The power lies in the people (not the government) and it is up to the people to "watch the watchers".
I want to thank National Park Traveler for covering this ethics issue, which has been missed by most of the mainline media. It is expected that everybody here loves the National Parks, regardless of their views on individual issues. The National Park Service doesn't get enough critical attention because of the Public's love for its Parks. My criticism of the NPS and its leadership is not meant to tear down the agency, but an attempt to help focus external and internal attention to its very serious problems. The NPS has long since become "Just another bureaucracy", and its system of crony management is increasingly destructive to the Parks' resources and the people who protect and enjoy them. My own observations are reflected in objective employee surveys. NPS employees in high positions should be setting the standard for personal and professional conduct, and in case after case that is not happening. I don't have simple solutions, but want to encourage people to become engaged with what's happening in our National Parks, not just in their vacation plans, so that our children can find them in excellent condition. Please keep an informed watch on the NPS and voice your opinion, whether you agree with mine of not.
Jarvis' book is truly inspiring! http://www.eparks.com/store/product/123318/Guidebook-to-American-Values-...
This is much of merit in Alfred Runte's essay... perhaps too much? A tight edit might permit it a wider readership.
One quibble: the NPS maintenance backlog and understaffing is all too real. We can see it everywhere we look in our Parks.
The same thing happened to me, when I was employed in the 1980s at a state historic park. I gave a talk to a library group on a Sunday (my day off) and they gave me an honorarium, which I had to return. Yeah, making $25K a year was enough of a reward! In the meantime, the local superintendent was pursuing private money (in the form of a "private public partnership") and sacrificing the values and integrity of the resource in order to--increase resource management budget? Improve visitor services? No, to increase revenue generation.
Dr. Runte makes some important points. Points I think no one else is making. (at the bottom I will suggest a few slight disagreements with Dr. Runte)
The most important being, National Park Service people are expected to write, and the Director of the National Park Service requires no one's permission to speak for the National Park Service. Or, for himself. The role of the Cooperating Associations has always been to facilitate the publication of the interpretive messages from NPS people, with publications that can then be sold in park/cooperating association book stores; where the revenue in turn supports more books from multiple sources and a broader array of offerings to the public.
Having worked in the Field, in Regional Offices and in the offices in Washington, as others have smelled there is something in this case and the charges from the IG and the Ethics Office that has a strong smell of "gotcha.". Most of the charges are truly ridiculous. The case really hinges on whether Jarvis has a reportable personal interest because of the sales proceeds which Jarvis assigned to the National Park Foundation. The same NPF that is chartered by Congress to support the national park service because Congress recognized that, like the Cooperating Associations, there are things that need to be done with for and in parks that need, like book sales and promoting donations to parks, a separate track. But clearly Congress did not want cooperating associations and the Foundation to be managed from a distance like the Concessions are, because obviously Congress knew all this stuff could be done by Concessions instead. No Congress has Chartered the Foundation and facilitates the Cooperating associations because parks and the park service need this kind of interdependent relationship. So it is foolish for the Ethics Office or the IG to treat a donation by an NPS book author to the Foundation as a personal interest. Especially in this Centennial Year when 100 park projects need funding matches and donations to meet their goals. Clearly the Jarvis book also furthers the needs of the Centennial. Congress, by the way, even sometimes-hostile Republicans, have in the laws supported the Centennial by name. So there is no conspiracy here. The very triviality is what makes you wonder if this is a "gotcha" or a 'set up.'. I don't know but it smells like it.
Especially as someone noted recently to me, that the report reveals that the Ethics Office had got crossways earlier with Jarvis for not processing donations to the Foundation on time; and low and behold the major outcome of this case is that same Office no longer will have to answer to the Director. All of that smells, some one was out to get him, and who are the beneficiaries?
How sad that the convoluted device used to get Jarvis was the idea that a Director of the park service needs permission to write a book, or, as Dr. Runte says, that he is always on duty 24-7. I worked for the park service in years past, never with Jarvis, but I do not think I have ever seen a any more than one or two Associate Directors or other top park service managers who ever worked 40 hour weeks. One of the attacks on Jarvis has been, especially under the past Secretary, he was always on the road traveling to parks or meeting with communities or congressional offices, and leaving too much of the day to day work with park superintendents, deputy and regional directors, etc.
So the idea that he violated the rules by working on government time is doubly ridiculous. Someone said he ought to come out of the meeting with the public on the road, and on plane on the way back,open his computer and jot down inspiration for the book. Absolutely no conflict there.
My instincts do not explain this bit about saying he was asked to write the book. Whereas the issue of 'personal interest' may be real, it takes major contortions to twist a case that such comments were illegal. You have to say, as they said, that it was a cover up. Public officials are constantly pushing publishers for permission to publish, reporters for stories, members of congress for meetings and on and on. When a congress person finally responds by saying "yeah, come into my office tues." how many of those governement officials end up saying to their boss: "I was invited to speak to Senator Snort Tuesday"? Because in fact that is how it is, the invitation happens only when the Senator or the publisher invites them in. But, i agree from comments from Ron that Ethics are important and it would have been better to simply say he wanted the word on the real meaning of the Centennial to get out, and he wanted the proceeds to go to the Foundation.
But while in principle it is easy to want and need to support ethics officers, as if THEY have no malign intent, or Inspector General investigators, as if they are above criticism or visciousness, in truth the IG office does get it wrong a lot, and they have a vested interest in the blood sport. Sometimes they have it right, and sometimes when they recommend a prosecution they are right, but the Department of Justice will not prosecute. Perhaps for completely valid reasons, or not. But there are many many many times when DOJ does not pursue an IG case because there is no case. As Ronald Reagan said, he wanted the IG to be full of people "meaner than junk yard dogs.". Sometimes that works, but sometimes accuracy fairness and balance is not the distinguishing trait of junk yard dogs.
What are the issues that SHOULD be examined under Jarvis? On Ethics, perhaps the decision to make it easier for donors to the parks to get recognition for their donation. Maybe in fact those relaxations, which people in TRAVELER have sometimes objected to, were actually the thing that motivated a 'gotcha' for writing a book.
But to me, none of that are the real issues. The real issues are with resource protection. Should ATVs be allowed in a national preserve even though nothing in the legislation says national preserves like Big Cypress are to be treated different than parks? Should the Department of Transportation standards for bikepaths in huge broad swaths be permitted to be the standard in Sleeping Bear Dunes, in replacing a gentle trail? Should Regional Officers have been permitted to retire, with no additional accountability, after it was so clear that the Effigy Mounds superintendent needed a tighter rein. Should the traditional and necessary rule that hunting of wildlife that crosses into private land in Grand Tetons be changed to allow hunting? Should the recommendations for snowmobiles in Yellowstone and ATVs for Hatteras been stronger for resource protection? And of course advocating more successfully for money for parks from Congress?
If Jarvis did not make those decisions, because the park service has always been so decentralized, something treasured by superintendents and rangers alike, should Jarvis have intervened to reverse them, and if not why not?
With real pressure from congress (congress is not only elected by the people but IN the Constitution, you could look it up, the NPS is not) and decentralization and many other complexities, I am not prepared to judge Jarvis, who has been so good on so many other issues. Like: heroism on Point Reyes when it was clear he probably would not get the job unless he folded on Oysters. He would not fold, and in the end the Obama administration over long long long delays, ultimately decided they would let him stay despite the political pressure. that was early in the Obama Administration when they had the votes.
-- ON SOME GENTLE DISAGREEMENTS WITH DR. RUNTE; to some extent Dr. Runte conflates the politics of the Universitry with the park service. It is not this bad in the park service. Yes, once in a while it can be bad, anything with people can be bad. But mostly the decentralized nature of the park service, which has examples of the down side at Big Cypress and other issues above. Dealing with the Ethics Office in an Election Year when Congress is trying to say Obama is unethical is a bad time to challenge the Ethics Office. Yes there are bad bureaucratic things, and personal disclosure, I have got into trouble several times for supporting the unorthodox over the bureaucratization. But NO, the park service is, unlike places like GSA and others, NOT overwhelmed by the bureaucracy YET, although OMB is trying. Most people in the park service love the Mission. Yes, too many managers in Washington now get to be manager without park experience or partnership area experience. That should not be permitted. Someone commented about the weaknesses of the Ethics Office: "well Jarvis has had his whole term to fix it." You will not believe this, but when a veteran or someone from the military bureaucracy is installed in something like the Ethics Office, a director may have no choice over that. And for some offices like that, it is very hard under the rules, to attack them. Not unlike how hard it is for an African American to complain that there is police brutality in the neighborhood.
People have ridiculed Jarvis' saying "I took a risk," but in fact in a Washington world where you can get wiped out any number of ways regardless of the merits, you can be paralyzed if you wait until you know no one will come after you for anything you do. The only reason the Centennial got moving again is because of multiple risks, the only reason last year's appropriation was expanded is because Jarvis (and the Seretary and the President) took risks. Jarvis took risks with the government shutdown, and risks trying to retrain employees who had made mistakes, rather than throwing away the good side of their accumulated experience with the bad, while he took risks getting rid of some highly placed NPS and Foundation officials when they were not working out.
So Runte is right about that, but I think overall, wrong about the actual ethics of the Service and the need for them on a day to day basis. I know it sounds like I am contradicting myself, but I am speaking overall vs specific cases of the politicization experienced every day by a director.
Also on wiring up the parks, I respectfully disagree with Dr. Runte. The director has said, and several people have commented, that he thinks big visitor centers can hurt park resources and cost too much, and today the visitor can get an interpretive message even more complete through cell phones. I do not think this is always true, but it IS true more than it is false that many big visitor centers misdirect interpreters and visitors to a building when they need to be in the park.
The people whose judgement i trust best who comment in NP Traveler are Rick Smith and Ron Mackey, and both are more critical than I have been toward Jarvis. I think I have a bit more experience in how viscious things can be from forces in Washington outside the park service, and especially with this nearly historically crazy Congress (not the worst, so far, but very near the top). I believe from a short stint on a detail in a high official's office in Washington that rarely do the critics get the whole story, and so I am less willing to criticize than other good people, like Kurt or Rick or Ron.
Whoever i have been working with a park recently, and that park had a real need, and needed real support, I could see that the Director really tried to help, and often made crucial rescues. Note that I have no personal relationship with the man, and often was trying to push the park service beyond the place Jarvis or the Service was in. Believe me or not, I am not in the tank for Jarvis. But I am in the tank to strengthen the capacity of the Service to operate. I believe some criticism of Jarvis is responsible, but you can see reading the comments that some are angry about one issue or a personal experience and will never let it go, and will use Jarvis to blame.
Many times when I had been just a bit closer (not as an employee, I mean trying to help a park as a private person which I am) and could see, Jarvis seemed to be doing all he could.
There is no doubt he could have let the Centennial go, and with good justification, blamed it all on his predecessors.
But he did not let it go, and it is better that he did not. His book was simply one more case trying to move the Cetennial to something meaningful.
He knew it was too late for the Centennial for the NP Service to be the sort of Birthdayt Party the 1972 the Centennial of the beginning of the park system was. So he is trying to make the achievements of the NEXT hundred years the point of the Centennial. In a very real way without the consistent efforts (directly or in support of other good people) of the Director we would have nothing meaningful from this Centennial.
A very long comment, D-2, but yes, I read every word. You make a valid point about the decentralization of the National Park Service. Superintendents often do get lots of leeway. I expect several to invite me into their parks this year to give talks on the Centennial. One has already called.
I suppose what I fear--and others fear--is where all of this may be headed. Fifty years ago, universities were largely "decentralized," too. I got invited to Forestry, Native American Studies, Geography, Environmental Studies, Landscape Architecture, and many others to give guest lectures on the national parks. Suddenly, the bureaucracy was demanding that I stay "home." What did I know about any of those fields? Why was I "diluting" myself, so to speak?
Last year, a young woman working her way through the university at my favorite coffee shop was "forced" to take Women's Studies. A major in electrical engineering, she dreaded the requirement. "I hear the professor just stands in front of the class and cries about how bad men are." She was right and got a C.
Once the witch hunt starts, all the aggrieved party need do is cry. Let's not allow that in our University of the Wilderness. He wrote a book. Hang him on the spot! If and when history hangs Jonathan Jarvis, I do hope we have a good deal more evidence than that.
Again, D-2. Great comments. Thank you for weighing in.
Yes Dr Runte, terrible things can happen in institutions. When they run right, checks and balances -- even Ethics Offices -- can actually help. I was subject, around 30 years ago, to a concentrated attack by political (non-professional) people, that should have taken me out. But I was saved by people following the ethics rules, people I did not know. They didn't have an "ethics office' then, but the function existed in the responsiblility of Human Resources people.
On the other hand, sometimes those offices can by tyrannical. For the most part there are checks and balances, and my experience in the park service despite my share of bad times, overwhelming was great.
I like to believe in Universities or in the NPS of today that cause great concern to you or others, my sense is the low morale is not because all excellence has gone out of the organization. Rather it is the very good people with very high standard who are in angst if any diminishing of excellence happens.
if we did not have ethics officers or at least Human Resources rules and Equal Employment professionals, we would have a lot more law suits, and more investigations by the likes of the IG office.