Is there any room for qualitative measures in the performance-based budgeting system?
Absolutely! Both qualitative and quantitative evidence can be used in a performance-based budgeting system. I am an intellectual and cultural historian and I know the value of qualitative measures. However, I also know that even qualitative inferences must be supported by evidence. To make this work, each department and unit will be asked to develop indicators for each of the criteria (centrality or essentiality, productivity, quality, and potential for excellence). The greater the creativity of ideas — even ones that at first seem very hard to pin down — the better. I’ve seen the ideas generated by one department and am impressed by the diversity of indicators that were recommended by that unit. I encourage each department to begin these conversations as soon as possible. This kind of input will allow the deans and the provost to work with an expanded set of ideas from which the eventual indicators will be formed. Why can’t we simply shift resources from one area of the university t
