May 2001

Warfield Donates Lifetime of Research to University By Elena Barbre The School of Public Policy (SPP) and the University Libraries now have at their disposal over $1.5 million worth of research and training materials related to the field of complexity, thanks to a donation by John Warfield, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Integrative Sciences and a trailblazer in the complexity field. Warfield's expertise centers on the links among engineering, management, and policy, and the challenges of developing rules to guide conversations between people in these very different areas with very different perspectives. For the past decade, he has also been developing training materials for Ford Motor Company, which, like many major corporations, daily faces situations in which engineers, marketers, and managers must communicate and solve problems. "John Warfield's work includes a focus on the way this complexity interacts with a science of design," says Kingsley Haynes, dean of SPP. "It also focuses on the application of science to resolve problematic situations. As problems get extremely complicated, we are reduced to groups of people who don't have the vocabulary to understand each other. This is an important area of complexity, and we're excited to have the materials. They will be of unbelievable value to students, faculty, and the corporate community." The materials, a collection of reports and videotapes to be housed in Special Collections and Archives, are a culmination of Warfield's research from more than 30 years in the field. They represent the sciences of generic design and complexity; a management system to be used in the practice of resolving complexity; and case studies showing applications of the management system by government and industry in countries around the world. The diversity of applications for Warfield's research is staggering and includes enhancing self-government for Indian tribes, changing the defense logistics system as a consequence of the Cold War, determining fundamental causes of the decline of the Catholic Church in England, and merging Ford's and Volvo's information systems. In addition, his research on the reconstruction of higher education has produced seven unpublished volumes and a proposal for redesigning the university called "The Wandwaver Solution." "Today's university is very successful in some respects, and in other respects, a failure," says Warfield, who retired from George Mason last year. "I spent 40 years of my career in universities. My research strives to retain the best and eliminate the worst, while adding value throughout." "The brutal impact of the 'publish or perish' practice in universities is hostile to the concept of learning broad-ranging ideas and also to the development of empirical results," says Warfield. "A great deal of administrative and faculty courage will be required to allow my materials to become involved in the kind of educational changes the materials are capable of supporting." Among his solutions are to make the institution highly visible to internal and external publics in terms of goals, programs, activities, and products; to make it manageable as an organization and as an integrated body of knowledge; and to expand academic program offerings to anticipate the needs of an increasingly complex society. The most prominent use of this educational research has been in Mexico, where his theories and practices have been widely taught by the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey. More information on "The Wandwaver Solution" is available online at www.gmu.edu/departments/t-iasis.