Letter to the Editor:
Sir,
[PART I]
As a student and hopeful future practitioner of municipal affairs, I beg you to indulge me as I offer my humble advice to the members of the Narragansett Town Council as they: consider the list of candidates seeking to fill the vacant Town Manager position; the professional standards against which to judge the qualifications of said candidates; and the tension between the conflicting needs for a public Q&A forum on one hand, and to respect the privacy of applicants who are currently employed on the other, purportedly two mutually exclusive options. These issues, raised in Derek Gomes' article, "Search for town manager resumes," from April 8, 2013 are at once delicate yet manageable.
First, the issue of professional qualifications. Gomes explains, "[Town Council President James] Callaghan recommended adopting the qualifications initially posted after [former Town Manager Grady] Miller's dismissal in May 2012, which 'strongly preferred' a master's degree and municipal management experience." This preference, however, has given way to a sense of pragmatism. Gomes noted, "After an appointed search committee screened more than 70 applications... the former Town Council re-posted the job, tweaking the language so a master's degree and municipal management experience were 'preferred,' rather than 'strongly preferred.'" The distinction is one of semantics, not substance. The considerations that should matter most to the Town Council in particular, and the Narragansett public in general, are: a candidate's ability to resolve municipal problems; the confidence to act decisively and with vision to seize opportunities to foster and strengthen municipal health; and the candidate's provision of proof which demonstrates his/her experience and training in active municipal affairs.
To unpack the question of which managerial skills a town's executive should possess, I must ask that you indulge me further, while I briefly list the qualifications I consider most valuable:
(1) A firm grasp of both the Town's and State's institutional structures, functions, and legislative processes. In other words, in order to do something at the local level, which legislative requirements must the Town Manager satisfy? and to whom must the Town Manager direct his/her efforts for evaluation?
(2) Understand top-down vs. organic economic growth. Should Naragansett rely primarily on support from the State for growth? or is growth more likely to be borne from local projects that require less funding and fewer bureaucratic hurdles?
(3) In principle, the ability to develop a plan which insulates the Town from financial instability as it occurs at either the national level, state level, or both. If and when a recession occurs, will Naragansett suffer from a dramatic drop in funding and support from the State of Rhode Island, as happened recently? Which efforts would a Town Manager pursue to protect his/her community from this threat?
(4) A desire to re-invigorate the public's social activism at the local level. How can the residents of a municipality shoulder more responsibilities? and what might those responsibilities be?
(5) An appreciation for the educational system as the foundation for his/her municipality's health.
(6) Effective strategic planning. This entails: communicating an accurate and shared, unified vision for the community; diagnosing the Town's current strengths, weaknesses, and overall health; identifying short, medium, and long-term goals; identifying the means of achieving those goals; offering sober recommendations to the Town Council for realistic and sustainable growth; and spearheading the efforts to implement approved proposals and projects.
(7) Although not necessary, a supplemental knowledge of technical skills in the following areas would greatly enhance a manager's competence: GIS mapping; AutoCAD design software; data collection, organization, and analysis; presentation software and delivery; and economic-financial forecasting.
Does holding a Master's Degree necessarily endow a candidate with these abilities? More than likely, yes, but not necessarily, no. More importantly, is it wise to reject for consideration those applicants who -- for any number of reasons -- have not received a Master's Degree? Of course not. American history is littered with the lives of individuals -- the American Framer Benjamin Franklin, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, for instance -- who walked the road less travelled to attain an educational curricula using free educational resources, both of which were less formal and less expensive than the formal, institutional path often taken by their more wealthy and socially connected counterparts. Although times have changed, the question under consideration by the members of the Town Council -- to require, prefer, or overlook the absence of a Master's Degree? -- is nothing more than the latest struggle to differentiate between the value of formal schooling, the credential system, and where the twain meet.
Given the professional duties of a town manager -- which are interestingly both demanding on the one hand, and humble on the other -- the Town Council should exercise a more liberal approach to the first assessment step -- educational requirements -- for two reasons.
First, expanding access to applicants without Master's Degrees will at once capture more potential candidates with less formal, but no less effective, training while not inundating the Town Council with a flood of applicants. The article explains that, "[Councilman] Callaghan said the town's recent struggles with hiring and retaining town managers might already dissuade some qualified candidates [from applying]. 'I don't know how attractive the Narragansett [Town Manager] job is with our track record' ", Callaghan said.
Second, as the article explains, the review process is rigorous. The Town Council and, perhaps, the public will enjoy a lengthy regimen which will use a host of different means to evaluate applicants. Invariably, this process will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate regardless of -- or rather in spite of -- the candidate's educational credentials. I do not mean to sully the value of higher education. But what is clear to the public and experts alike is that higher education has recently demonstrated two worrying obstacles for potential students: cost and, in some cases, an overabundant and burdensome number of requirements. The latter impediment directly concerns this discussion.
As Seth Godin, former Yahoo! Vice-President explained in his January 22nd interview with Kara Miller from WGBH Boston's Innovation Hub, titled "The Future of College" (2013), "The challenge that we have [in America] is the 'accreditation problem.' It's one thing to teach people; it's another thing to prove that they learned something. And so what you pay for, now, at a 4-year institution [or for a master's degree] is not the courses... What you pay for is proof that you finished. And so, what we have to do is figure out a shorthand that will enable people to prove what they know." Godin continues, "I think most talented people do not, and should not, have a resume. What they should have is a list of projects. What have they built? Who have they impacted? Who is so in love with their work that they will speak up on their behalf?"
What is encouraging to bear in mind is that, coupled with a less rigorous -- and less expensive -- formal educational curriculum, there exist today a growing number of emerging opportunities for aspiring professionals to prove their expertise more easily, without undermining the quality of standards their field uses to verify that expertise.
The AmeriCorps member group "Teach for America" , College Level Examination Programs, or CLEP exams, and, specific to town management, the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) are but three organizations and institutions that serve as accreditation resources for aspiring professionals who are eager to qualify for careers, but who lack the money, time, etc., to do so. In order to attain the AICP certification, for instance, test applicants must show a mix of educational credentials and experiential training in the field of municipal affairs, or another field with a similar skill-set. Interestingly enough, however, applicants with neither a master's degree in Planning nor a master's degree, period, can nonetheless offset their lack of formal credentials by engaging in more frequent field work and training, or by attaining more project experience within municipal affairs. Case in point, an individual who applies for the AICP certification with a Graduate Degree in Planning is required to have only 2 years of professional and experiential training, whereas an applicant with no Master's Degree can compensate for this by showing 4 years of professional experience!
The current President of Northeastern University, Joseph Aoun, spoke to the value of these types of accreditation institutions. Their value is derived from their willingness and authority to offer an indirect, and far more affordable, means of acquiring the same skills one would receive from a traditional higher education institution. In the same interview conducted by Kara Miller with Messr. Godin, Aoun put forward the following prediction: "I think we [educational institutions] are in the middle of a transition that is going to have an enormous impact... because at some point... nothing [will] prevent employers from saying, 'We don't care about the formal credential process.'" For all intents and purposes, the Town Council of Narragansett should be willing to acknowledge the validity of a candidate's credentials and abilities regardless of educational attainment over and above a Bachelor's Degree.
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