Running head: CASE STUDY 1

Case Study

Laura Reiter

Loyola University Chicago

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Case Study

Case Narrative

The University of Chicago (also known as the College) is a private urban institution

located in Chicagos Hyde Park neighborhood. The primary focus of campus life is academic,

with intellectual freedom and rigorous inquiry at the heart of the universitys mission. The

College shares a #3 spot in National Universities ranking with Yale University according to U.S.

News & World Report (2017). The total enrollment is 12,962 with 53% male students (U.S.

News, 2017). Tuition and fees are set at over $50,000 while room and board costs around

$15,000 (U.S. News, 2017). As of October 2016 the University of Chicago reported a $7.1

billion endowment (Mainer, 2016).

While things seem very good for the College now, this was not always the case. During

the 1950s the University of Chicago suffered an enrollment crisis and did not recover fully until

the 1990s:

The Colleges demographic collapse occurred exactly at the time that other top private

universities began to expand in the 1950s and 1960s. This collapse disadvantaged the

College, creating a campus culture marked by high attrition rates, low graduation rates,

and a milieu that many students found unsupportive, especially in the world beyond the

classroom. This cultural situation also hurt the University badly, both because of loss of

tuition and alumni support, and also because of a loss of national visibility in

undergraduate admissions. (Boyer, 2008, pp. 1-2)

This collapse and the many intervening years of slowly rebuilding the College, served to

create the environment within which the recent housing controversy took root. From 2012 to the

present, the University of Chicago has been in the midst of change regarding campus housing
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due to the effects of poorly maintained infrastructure that reached a breaking point. Maintaining

infrastructure is a part of every college campus struggle, however in this particular situation the

University of Chicago had purchased a number of buildings in the surrounding community to

supplement their residence needs back in the 1960s. Unfortunately the building infrastructure

had deteriorated by 2012 to the point where a number of units were uninhabitable and the cost to

repair and update them to modern standards untenable.

Along with this difficulty, the placement of these residential houses was away from the

main campus (with one exception), which lead the decision makers at the university to close

these residence houses and build new facilities on campus. This move was in line with the

colleges mission to build a stronger, more cohesive residence life experience for all students.

The providing of appropriate student housing not only would stimulate undergraduate

enrollment, but it also would greatly assist out undergraduate program (Boyer, 2008, p. 83).

While building new residence communities on campus may seem like a logical step to take,

especially in light of the deteriorating condition and out-of-the-way location of the old buildings,

the University of Chicago administrators had inadvertently made this particular change more

difficult with the strong emphasis placed on house and community affinity.

Similar to the Ivy League schools whose traditions surrounding student housing are

common knowledge, the University of Chicago College Housing, under Campus and Student

Life, chose to emphasize house loyalty. Aside from the prestigious cultural association with

other top schools, this was a concerted effort by Campus and Student Life to keep students

engaged in residence life and living in college housing through all four years. Until recently the

culture had been for students to move to apartments off campus after two years. This was due in

part to the fact that there was not enough available housing to accommodate all students (Boyer,
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2008). When the residency buildings were purchased in the 1960s, the stronger emphasis on

house loyalty and community began to change the culture of living off campus. This effort was

made to increase social prestige: The Chancellor believes we should follow [the pattern

of]Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and others. Here there is a rather small highly selective

student body with most students living on campus. This type of university operation has

enormous educational advantages (Boyer, 2008, p. 83).

Unintentionally, this newly developed culture turned the decision to sell the old buildings

and construct new housing on campus into a very controversial one for the College. On-campus

students are placed in houses within their dorm, which serve as tight-knit communities and

provide academic and social support (U.S. News, 2017). Students, both current and former, are

strongly attached to their house. They feel loyalty to the building and the community thus and

perceived the proposed changes as an attack on their values.

These students and alumni believed the change in housing would affect them negatively

in the short-term and did not appreciate the Universitys efforts to centralize housing over the

long-term, especially in light of the fact that this would mean closing four buildings when more

space was needed to accommodate current students. In response to this perceived threat students

began a letter writing campaign, penned numerous articles in the student paper, commandeered

the twitter handle during the annual UChicago Giving Day, and wrote personal emails to trustees

citing their anger and frustration with this decision.

I spoke about this case with Karen Warren Coleman. Until June of 2016 she was the VP

for Campus Life and Student Services for the University of Chicago. As part of the backstory

she told me that the College had a previous housing issue where they had to close a residence

facility quickly. In 2012 Pierce Tower had several incidents where several toilets exploded
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causing rivers of urine and pieces of porcelain (Cholke, 2012) to shoot across the dorm

bathrooms. Since students documented this event, and broadcast their displeasure on available

social media, it was an embarrassing event for the university.

In an effort to prevent a similar scenario from occurring in the other dorms, and to

promote a more centralized student life experience, Karens team at Campus and Student Life

had begun discussing the closure of the other off-campus, aging residence facilities immediately

after the Pierce incident. These discussions went on for several years before students were told

about the changes in 2015. Karen used the housing debacle at Pierce to persuade the board that

making these changes by closing the dormitories ahead of time (before there was an emergency)

were in the best interest of the university and in line with where student life was headed in the

future (having a centralized campus experience).

Although there were a lot of organizational challenges that involved planning and

decision making that went into this entire process such as persuading the board, planning what to

do with the old buildings (3 of four were sold), deciding where and how to construct the new

residence facilities, choosing names for the new buildings, and figuring out where to place the

students in the interim; the central challenge of this case study involves communicating with

students, managing student expectations, and keeping open lines of communication about

university decisions even while students and alumni attempted to undermine those decisions.

Executing new building initiatives is a matter of money and logistics. The real issue, as in many

projects, is addressing the human element.

With the luxury of time, how do you prepare to present news to a campus community that

will likely be unpopular? How does the university keep the goodwill of students and alumni and

persuade them that the decisions being made are in the best interest of the university? How do
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you as a leader maintain your dignity and respect the dignity of the other participants during a

contentious meeting?

After navigating the Pierce Tower disaster in 2012 and convincing the board to support

the proposed closure and relocation of the residence halls, Karen knew it was unwise to tell

students too far in advance about plans to close the current dorms but also did want to provide

some lead time since she thought not giving enough time to process change would be seen as

shoddy or underhanded. Once the news went out to the students in 2015, she decided to keep the

lines of communication as open as possible. This involved many face-to-face meetings with

focus groups, the Inter-House Council (a student organization), and community meetings with

each impacted house where students were invited to express their feelings and Student Life

representatives could share the logistics of the transition. In addition, Karen met with the

Maroon Key Society, a group of students who serve as advisors to the Dean of the College, in

order to learn more about the overall student perspective. There were, of course, emails, and

more emails, followed up by constant meeting and re-meeting with the same participants, not to

mention meetings with her team and other College administrators.

In response, students orchestrated letter-writing campaign to try and save the dormitories;

they included the personal addresses of members of the board of trustees (who kindly forwarded

the letters on to Karen), and a takeover of the Universitys twitter hash tag on UChicago Giving

Day. Fortunately, Karen and her team had anticipated some of these actions and communicated

beforehand with the board and with fundraising so they would not be caught unawares. In the

midst of this case, while celebrations were being planned to honor each of the affected houses

and the College was in the middle of relocating students, Karen stepped down from her position

at the end of June 2016. This process continued without her, but for the most part Karen along
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with her team in Student Life oversaw and managed the transition out of the old residence halls.

Reflective Essay

Talking with Karen about this case brought together a number of the organizational

theories and perspectives we had learned about in class. She was my teacher for Leadership last

semester and I knew, based on what she had shared in class, that she was a wealth of knowledge

and would have plenty of experiences to draw from. In fact, we spent the first half hour of our

conversation with her telling me about seven different possible scenarios we could talk about

during the interview! One of the reasons I admired her in leadership was her leadership style,

which paralleled in many ways the feminist chapter in Manning (2012).

During the course of her career Karen managed to work her way into top leadership

positions in universities that were heavily male-dominated. In order to be successful and foster

positive group dynamics, Karen always emphasized the importance of communication within her

own team, which was also how she chose to handle this particular case. The communication

fostered an atmosphere of collaboration, especially since she and her team were looking for

student input. Rather than a decision maker, web leaders are collaborators, people who work

with others to accomplish the organizations goals (Manning, 2012, p. 164). This style of

leadership is one that I hope to emulate but also one that I think provides agency for those at the

bottom (i.e. the students) who many times can feel like their voices are not heard and that

decisions are being made for them without any opportunity to provide feedback.

While from the outside it can seem like open communication is always the best, I think

that there are inherent difficulties that cause many leaders to choose another path. For example,

Karen shared that during many of the meetings with students either she, or a member of her

team, were there simply to listen to hurtful and antagonistic comments from students as a way to
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show support for students. This is not easy and requires a lot of self-mastery and a

relinquishment of defensiveness and control. As much as leadership can benefit by seeking

input, sometimes it is easier to make decisions without soliciting feedback. However, when

applied correctly, I think that this feminist style of leadership is better for institutions over the

long term because decisions are not made hastily without multiple perspectives to provide a

balance. When there are opportunities for people to connect and collaborate they become more

invested in the future of the institution.

Another reason I chose to interview Karen is that I also have a personal connection to the

College. During the summer of 2015, right before I started as a student at Loyola, I was an

intern in the University of Chicago College Programming Office. This is under Campus and

Student Life and so, even though I didnt know her at the time, Karen was my boss. That

summer provided me with insight into the campus culture and values at the University of

Chicago. I realized that there was an external force working on the institution, although until

recently did not have a name for it. As Ashworth, Boyne, and Delbridge (2009) pointed out:

Organizations adapt their internal characteristics in order to conform to the expectations of the

key stakeholders in their environment (p. 1) in a phenomena known as institutional

isomorphism. At the University of Chicago this environment consists of other top universities

such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton. Even as an intern within the College

Programming Office I was assigned to research what these other schools were doing to boost

student engagement in order to compare with our own efforts. This case study regarding housing

is similar in that the College wants to create cohesive house communities within campus borders,

similar to other top schools. While this move towards more centralized housing may actually be

better for students and their residential life experience, it is also a bow to mimetic forces.
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Earning a place among the top five national rankings is a place the University of Chicago has

long-worked to achieve (Boyer, 2008), and so administrators openly discusses these mimetic

forces as an integral part of keeping up with the competition.

Of course, the catalyst for these particular changes in housing was the disaster at Pierce

Tower. While extremely minor in comparison to the natural disasters at the Gulf Coast

Institutions as outlined by Shaw (2016), this maintenance fiasco at Pierce was enough of an

embarrassment to cause the university to plan better for the future, resulting in changes to

campus facilities. Knowledge of changes that emerge during the crisis response and recovery

process can assist in the preparation for and the navigation of future crisis (Shaw, 2016, p. 73).

Indeed, the College took this crisis to heart and approved the more sweeping facilities changes in

order to avert another disaster. The Pierce Tower mess ultimately became a turning point that

caused positive and long-lasting institutional change.

Change that was positive for the long-term health of the University and residential

housing also caused students to experience feelings of loss and anxiety [that] are key

organizational tensions surrounding change. Groups also fear the loss of symbolic meanings and

traditions of the past (Lane, 2007, pp. 85-86). Knowing that this is a common reaction to

change, and being able to prepare for it, is especially helpful when planning major (or minor)

changes within institutions. According to Lane (2007) the change resistance revolves around

power, control, and vulnerability (p. 88). Lane (2007) recommends that, acknowledging the

painfulness of the process can be useful in helping others feel understood (p. 89) and that

there is no effective substitute for talking to people directly and explaining to them what is

going on, how they are affected, and what will happen next (p. 90). These are both courses of

action taken by Karen and her team in Campus and Student Life. Students greatly benefitted
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from having their concerns heard by administrators who were willing to talk with them face-to-

face.

This change effort was a massive undertaking for Karen and she told me that what

sustained her during the difficult times was the personal conviction that this was the right

direction for the College. The change to campus housing aligned with the mission of the

University of Chicago to grow the community and have a centralized resident life experience.

This alignment will help the campus community construct a more meaningful institutional life

around a common purpose (Hartley, 2003, p. 99). Hartley (2003) outlines the six steps towards

revitalization: a crisis of purpose (the Pierce Tower incident), a rejection of the status quo (the

board accepting the proposed changes), a renewed vision (new on-campus housing for students),

a movement (planning for the new housing), implementing the vision (sharing the plans with the

campus community and working to bring students and alumni on board), and finally realizing the

vision (the old buildings are sold or decommissioned, house communities are honored, and

students move into different housing while the new buildings are constructed). The change

process at the College followed these steps, with Karen as a member of the true believers

working to communicate with the fence-sitters and the naysayers about the importance of this

change effort.

What I have learned while putting together this case study is the importance of open

communication, self-mastery, and the necessity of a strong belief in the institutional mission. To

answer the questions I posed earlier: With the luxury of time, how do you prepare to present

news to a campus community that will likely be unpopular? Expect that people will resist

change and create a plan of open communication that links university silos. How does the

university keep the goodwill of students and alumni and persuade them that the decisions being
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made are in the best interest of the university? Connect the proposed changes with the

institutional mission while truly listening to the concerns posed by invested parties. The initial

version of proposed changes may be too extreme and by including other voices a solution that is

best for all can be reached. How do you as a leader maintain your dignity and respect the dignity

of the other participants during a contentious meeting? Perhaps the most challenging part of all

is to stay calm and not become defensive when the mission you believe in is being attacked in a

public forum. The personal conviction that what you are doing is right, along with a good dose

of preparation and self-mastery will go a long way towards constructively engaging with dissent.

One area of this case study that challenged me was defining the line between what is

public knowledge and institutional knowledge. One of the most important lessons I have

learned, both in Leadership and in this class, is that, as a leader there will always be some things

you cannot disclose to certain groups of people. For example, Karen talked about how there was

a misconception among students and alumni regarding finances. They thought that the money to

fix the old residence facilities could come out of the big university pot and that since they had

sufficient funds (i.e. the endowment) repairs should not be a problem. She stressed to me that

this was not how the budget worked, however she could not say this to students and alumni at the

time. While this information was true, and may have helped her convince students and alumni

about the necessity of the changes, it was information about the internal workings of the

university that she needed to keep to herself. In fact, College Housing did not even receive a

portion of the proceeds from the sale of the buildings. This semester I learned a similar lesson

while observing the faculty negotiate the challenges within the department. There were many

levels of need to know and learning to respect those boundaries, even when it is tempting not

to, is one of the more challenging aspects of leadership as I see it.

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During this semester I have been reading and listening to supplemental texts that have

allowed me to explore more in-depth the ideas of conflict negotiation and leadership. Radical

Candor, a weekly podcast about how not to hate the boss you haveor be the boss you hate

(Mayer, 2017) explores issues within the workplace and how to negotiate difficult situations with

grace. One of the hosts, Kim Scott, also wrote a book of the same name that was recently

published and I have it on my summer reading list (Scott, 2017). Im in the middle of Dignity:

The Essential Role it Plays in Resolving Conflict written by Hicks (2011) a woman with years of

experience in international conflict resolution. She discusses how central the concept of dignity

is to repairing broken trust and building strong communities. Another book on my summer

reading list is Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders (Eagly &

Carli, 2007). I read the first and last chapter of this book during Leadership last semester and I

plan to finish it soon. My main takeaway from what we read in class was the importance of

blending agency with warmth (Eagly & Carli, 2007, p. 166) as a female leader. I look forward

to exploring all of these issues more in-depth, with the added perspective of organizational

theory, in my journey to become a force for positive institutional change within higher education.
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Annotated Bibliography

Cholke, S. (2012, December 17). University of Chicago to close Pierce dorm. DNAInfo.

Retrieved from https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20121217/hyde-park/university-of-

chicago-close-pierce-dorm.

Since we only needed three annotated references for the bibliography I threw this one in

here just to let you know that you really need to read this article. Its not very long so it

wont take more than a couple of minutes to read, but it is one of the most amazing

articles I have read in a long time. Nowhere outside of Harry Potter have I read a story

that involves both about exploding toilets and hidden gold. When I was talking with

Karen she kept referring to it as an embarrassing incident, however when we texted later

she sent me this and it brought home exactly how embarrassing Pierce Tower was. There

is an embedded link in the article that connects to student news coverage of the disaster

with photographic evidence. Click at your own risk.

Hartley, M. (2003). " There Is No Way without a Because": Revitalization of Purpose at Three

Liberal Arts Colleges. The Review of Higher Education, 27(1), 75-102.

This is helpful in framing the organizational change process, even though the case study

does not involve the revitalization of purpose for an entire campus, the same steps

applied: a mini revitalization of purpose, if you will. The trajectory of crisis leading to a

better outcome lends a different perspective on challenging events. Without the initial

crisis at Pierce Tower perhaps the College would not have changed its approach to

housing. The fact that this article connects change to vision or mission is critical because

without this link there is no direction for change. This article provides the insight that

institutional mission must be at the heart of change efforts.

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Lane, I. F. (2007). Change in higher education: Understanding and responding to individual and

organizational resistance. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 34(2), 85-92.

Chicago

While the article mostly discussed resistance to change among faculty and staff, the same

feelings and reactions were expressed the students in this case. As a member of the true

believers it may be difficult to step back and view the change effort from the perspective

of a fence-sitter or a naysayer. However, the article emphasizes that it is important to

remember that part of any change process will involve resistance. The included tables

that list why people or organizations might resist change and suggestions for overcoming

this resistance are very practical and can be applied when responding to this case.

Manning, K. (2012). Organizational theory in higher education. New York, NY: Routledge.

I really connected with Chapter 14: Feminist in Manning. Especially considering

Karens leadership style, this chapter would be helpful for someone working on this case

study. This chapter uses the visual imagery of a web to explain the centrality of

communication to the feminist style. Table 14.2 compares the gendered approaches to

leadership and would help someone working on this case to consider realistically how

they typically interact with others and whether they would have used connective

leadership or direct leadership in this case.

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References

Ashworth, R., Boyne, G., & Delbridge, R. (2009). Escape from the iron cage? Organizational

change and isomorphic pressures in the public sector. Journal of Public Administration

Research and Theory, 19(1), 165-187. Chicago

Boyer, J. W. (2008). The kind of university that we desire to become (Occasional Papers in

Higher Education, 18). Chicago, IL: The College of the University of Chicago.

Cholke, S. (2012, December 17). University of Chicago to close Pierce dorm. DNAInfo.

Retrieved from https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20121217/hyde-park/university-of-

chicago-close-pierce-dorm.

Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (2007). Through the labyrinth: The truth about how women become

leaders. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Hartley, M. (2003). " There Is No Way without a Because": Revitalization of Purpose at Three

Liberal Arts Colleges. The Review of Higher Education, 27(1), 75-102.

Hicks, D. (2011). Dignity: The essential role it plays in resolving conflict. New Haven: Yale

University Press.

Lane, I. F. (2007). Change in higher education: Understanding and responding to individual and

organizational resistance. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education, 34(2), 85-92.

Chicago

Manier, J. (2016, October). University of Chicago reports endowment of $7.1 billion. UChicago

News. Retrieved from https://news.uchicago.edu/article/2016/10/13/university-chicago-

reports-endowment-71-billion

Manning, K. (2012). Organizational theory in higher education. New York, NY: Routledge.
CASE STUDY 16

Mayer, L. (Director of Production). (2017, April 18). Radical candor. [Audio podcast].

Retrieved from https://www.radicalcandor.com/blog/tag/podcast/

Scott, K. (2017). Radical candor: How to be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity. New

York: St. Martins Press.

Shaw, M. D. (2016). Organizational Change as a Function of Disaster Recovery: Lessons from

Gulf Coast Institutions. College Student Affairs Journal, 34(3), 62-75.

U.S. News & World Report, Best Colleges Rankings. (2017). University of Chicago. Retrieved

from https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-chicago-1774