gender differential paper IJCRB

ijcrb.webs.com
JUNE 2011
INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 3, NO 2
7. Discussion of Findings
Items 10 and 11 in the questionnaire were designed to elicit information from participants in the
study. Item 10 required respondents to identify problem areas encountered during the
accreditation cycle. Item 11 asked subjects to reflect on the entire process and, with the benefit of
hindsight, suggest possible improvements for the future. Since these latter items are of a more
discursive nature, the authors have decided to include them in this section rather than enumerate
them under the “Findings” sub-heading.
The disruption to the normal teaching timetable was a major concern for many respondents. The
institution’s preparations for accreditation meant myriad meetings, search and collation of
documents, compilation of manuals, staff/standard meetings, translation of documents,
proofreading, editing and correction of different texts, preparation of exhibits, together with a
host of other duties all of which impinged on contact teaching time. Classes had to be either
postponed or cancelled altogether. Students did miss out on a significant portion of their
syllabus. The authors are of the opinion that management and all other roleplayers in the
accreditation initiative could have been operating under the following premise: “Sacrifice some
teaching time now for the greater long-term good” (i.e. accreditation and all its spin-offs).
Although efforts were made to “catch up” on lost lessons and to complete syllabi, the old adage:
”Time lost is never regained” may very well have applied to the accreditation process of JCC.
Faculty did have many meetings/information sessions with COE consultants as part of guiding
the institution through the various stages of accreditation. Despite these contacts confusion and
misinterpretations did sometimes occur. An example may help to illustrate. Faculty members
were told that the VISION and MISSION statements of the institution should appear on all
publications of the College. This ruling was duly implemented in all official JCC publications
with the exception of the program brochures. The various programs were allowed to have their
own vision/mission statements included in their brochures without mentioning the official vision
and mission of the College. This was not made clear to faculty. The fact that omitting the official
vision/mission statements in all program brochures was acceptable was only discovered later.
The point is that the Accreditation Handbook should make clear where exceptions are allowed to
prevent future misunderstanding and avoid unnecessary stress!
A common grievance was the uneven distribution of workload. This complaint can be divided
into two streams, one involving the administrative staff, the other related to the academic staff. In
the case of the former, the language barrier seems to have resulted in minimum participation of
the administrative staff. Because of their limited proficiency in the English language,
administrative staff couldn’t contribute much to standard or staff meetings. Whatever official
documentation was required was already available on disc or as a hard copy. Administration
couldn’t formulate or compile new documentation because these records had to be in English. In
fact, many of the Arabic speaking faculty members were burdened with the task of translating
official texts from Arabic to English.
The other aspect of the imbalance in workload referred to the academic staff. Some members
were guilty of not doing their share in the standards they had chosen. This resulted in
chairpersons becoming overtaxed. Standard chairs were actually placed in an awkward dilemma:
“Do I report the offending member of my standard (and appear to be a weak chairman, not to
mention wasting precious time), or ignore the problem and take on the extra work?” The
whole scenario of non-contributing staff may have impacted negatively on group dynamics and
human relations amongst College personnel.
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