Working backwards can be a risky strategy, but it makes sense every now and then.
By proposing five possible models of West Campus in order to stimulate student discussion, the upperclass residential committee is running a big risk: Without careful articulation of its motive, this strategy could backfire, with students interpreting the debate as a majority-rule vote for their favorite model.
The motive, however, is very shrewd. Committee members are attempting to set up the discussion as a sort of Residential Jeopardy!-they provide the answers, the students provide the questions.
One of the "answers" the committee has tossed out is the "independent residential, selective elsewhere" solution. The committee anticipates that one of the questions from students about this solution will be, "What about the social value and organizing strength that selective houses bring to the campus?"
Showing students a picture of the campus without fraternities on it forces people to articulate why they want fraternities drawn back in. Rather than driving the residential life committee back to square one, such questions provide committee members with precisely the data they want-and need-to hear.
The models are designed to get students talking about what works in each picture, as well as what does not and why; they are meant to defract the discussion away from competitive concerns such as prime space and toward conscientious concerns such equity of access, social values and community development.
The committee could have worked in the other direction-it could have first ascertained the rewards that the University's residential system should provide its students. Then it could have done a campus-wide opinion tour, and subsequently drawn up a matching picture of the new set-up.
The campus-wide tour, however, would have been a waste of time. At best, it would have yielded a series of philosophical conclusions that would look terrible in practice.
The five-model approach aims to rescue the discussion from the residential netherworld; it sets philosophy into action by asking students to determine which parts of the committee's actions correspond with their philosophies.
Nevertheless, the pitfalls of the reverse policy psychology are clear and dangerous. First, it could easily trigger a model frenzy, with every group dissatisfied with the current menu of options adding its own recipe. Should this happen-and there is evidence that it already has-the true point of the campus-wide discussion will get buried by an avalanche of alternatives.
More troublesome is the likelihood that students will view the models as concrete finishing points rather hypothetical starting points. In the absence of constant reiteration of this point, discussion about upperclass residential life is almost guaranteed to polarize into five distinct camps.
It is imperative, therefore, that everyone view this phase as a thought process-not a decision making process. Final Jeopardy! is still months away.
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