Here are two front-page headlines that hit me yesterday morning here in Georgia: “77% tuition increases needed to offset cuts” and “Campuses run low on courses, faculty.”
I can’t find links to the full stories on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution site, so I’ll summarize. The first story opens, “It would take a 77-percent tuition increase at Georgia’s colleges and universities to meet the demand for a $385-million cut in the state’s higher education system budget.” (That dwarfs tuition spikes at the University of California.)
The second story’s second paragraph runs, “Classrooms are crammed with students. Some students are postponing graduation because they can’t get all their required courses. Others have trouble meeting with professors because they’re teaching more classes or aren’t on campus during required furlough days.”
Enough said. If faculty members care about their own job conditions and about the quality of education and about access for every Georgia 18-year-old who qualifies for higher education, they need to mobilize, and they need to identify the right target.
A suggestion for professors in Georgia and anywhere else threatened by these kinds of dollar signs. Do a 10-year comparison. Go back to 2000 and find an organizational chart for the administration, then set it alongside the organizational chart for 2010.
How many more deans are there, including assistants and associates? How many vice presidents have been added to the system? How many new offices have been created?
Most important, how much do they cost?
At public institutions, these numbers should be readily available. If universities won’t give them up, file an “open records” request with the legal counsel, contact inquisitive reporters, and make allies with well-positioned state legislators.
Nobody likes bureaucracy, in part because bureaucracies try to get bigger all the time. They always regard more of themselves, not less, as the solution to every problem that arises. And with faculty pressured into individualistic mindsets — after all, professors are judged on their own accomplishments, not on the accomplishments of their colleagues — administrators have an easy path of divide-and-overwhelm.
Faculty members need to remember that teachers and students are the centers of the college. Administrators are secondary, and their job is to assist teachers in their teaching and students in their learning. The more administrators position their work independently of that mission, the more they will continue the dilation, and the more they will pass on financial pressures to adjunctization, larger class sizes, and tuition jumps.
37 Responses to Advice to Faculty: Become Watchdogs
jruiz - February 26, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Sorry, but when universities became corporations, the genie escaped the bottle, never to return. Administrators now not only see themselve as executives, but believe also that ther ARE the university. Teaching resources are simply the hired help, thus no differentiation is seen between faculty, adjuncts, and TAs. Students are customers, and cash cows. At my institution, it now takes over 60% of the undergraduates 6 years to get a 4-year degree. Mainly because the previous prsident upped enrollment 30%, while not adding any new faculty lines. But he was happy about that, since the school now gets 2 extra years of tuition.Meanlwhile, the bureaucracy became bloated. For each new VP, at least one associate and assistant VP were added. Since they need something to do, getting anything changed requires a tsunami of paperwork which must receive their imprimatur.As I say, the die has been cast. As Carol King said “It’s too late, baby…”
chuckkle - March 1, 2010 at 9:02 am
Does administrative bloat also exist at elite private universities such as your own, Emory? How do you suggest faculty (and students, and parents) deal with that, since the kind of data you seek is usually secret?Chuck Kleinhans
markbauerlein - March 1, 2010 at 10:55 am
I think it is everywhere, Chuck. For public schools, the info is, indeed, public. For private schools, it seems to me that a faculty senate or faculty affairs group should be able to request this information and receive it. If they get resistance, it’s time to play hardball.
mark_r_harris - March 1, 2010 at 11:17 am
Your excellent points here are true well beyond the college setting. You can easily judge how a K-12 system is functioning by determining whether administrators believe “their job is to assist teachers in their teaching and students in their learning,” or whether they believe that they are the show themselves. I’ve worked in both types of systems, and this is a night-and-day difference.
dank48 - March 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm
This seems to me to be true across the board, nationwide, and not just in academia. Whether in government, private industry, or wherever, there are simply too many chiefs, not enough Indians, to be as politically incorrect as possible. In grade school, as has been noted recently in the CHE and elsewhere, we’ve had a pass-them-along culture so long that many people emerging from the educational cocoon have an inflated notion of their own value to any enterprise. Also, outsourcing has led to the pernicious notion that everyone can be promoted and given raises and generally share in the largesse, while someone else, preferably someone we don’t know, does the work. The key premise of the information economy (or whatever they’re calling it) is that we can get along without actually making anything ourselves, thus avoiding all kinds of inconveniences. So, now that we’ve shipped all those “lowly” jobs to countries where people are willing to get their hands dirty, how are those countries doing? How are we doing? Oops.
jdm0007 - March 1, 2010 at 12:32 pm
dank48 has some good points but he left the main thread. There is no doubt that the educational system had relegated the real reasons for the system is education and not all the other things that are tied onto the program. I attended a strong academic university where I returned to teach and lead a department. This strong academic program had professors who coached various sports, were career guidance councilors, were frat and social club advisors, set high academic standards and produced graduates who could really function in the world and produce meaningful results as employees and corporate leaders. Now even at this University we have multiple times more employees not engaged in teaching and not really in touch with students who burden the system.It really is time for change. But, this means the Professors and Teachers really have to go back to managing all aspects of sudent life and knowing their students in meaningful ways.
drj50 - March 1, 2010 at 12:34 pm
I agree that this information should be readily available and evaluated carefully. However, at my mid-sized public institution, the growth in number of administrators has trailed growth in faculty over the past decade and comprises a smaller percentage of total personnel costs than was the case 10 years ago. Sometimes the data show that “what everybody knows ain’t so.”At the same time, there are other causes for increase in non-faculty staffing. Expectations regarding use of technology has increased dramatically during the past ten years, along with the need for additional staff to support it. An increasingly complex and litigious legal environment has required addition of staff to manage risk and monitor compliance. (This includes additional mental health staff.) And the recent federal reauthorization of higher education added more than 100 new mandates with which universities must comply — and someone has to do all that work. Not all growth in administration and support staff are due to nefarious forces.
rgren - March 1, 2010 at 12:50 pm
There has been growth in administrative positions, no doubt. Some of these new positions are warranted as the institutions become more “outward-looking” — focused on external fundraising and managing external stakeholder groups. Some are a result of Parkinson’s Law and its variants.I have seen a category of university employment that has grown much faster than administrators, though some of them have “demi-decanal” titles: academic professionals. These people are professional advisors, program managers, study abroad directors, laboratory technicians, and soft-money researchers and teachers. In many cases they do the work that professors cannot do or will not do. It is naive to say that we should devolve to a faculty-centric model of educational institutions. The faculty cannot and will not do what many of the administrators and academic professionals do.
goxewu - March 1, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“…the growth in number of administrators has trailed growth in faculty over the past decade and comprises a smaller percentage of total personnel costs than was the case 10 years ago.”1. If the growth in administrators has trailed the growth of the faculty in absolute numbers…well, I’d certainly hope so!2. Administrators constituting [the word drj50 wants] a smaller percentage of total personnel costs than was the case ten years ago is probably due to an increase in staff (administrative assistants, assistant coaches, groundskeepers, custodians, IT personnel, PR people, et al.) rather than a reduction in administrator : faculty ratio.3. In my direct and indirect experience (i.e., academics I know), the administrator : faculty ratio is ballooning everywhere.4. Every administrator wants an assistant, for reasons of both practicality and prestige. Every assistant wants staff support for the same reasons. Faculty, especially humanities faculty, don’t get assistants.5. “Not all growth in administration and support staff are due to nefarious forces.” Hardly “all” of anything is due to a single kind of cause. But the growth in academic administrators is, in my considered opinion and in the opinion of the academics I know, due to the nefarious force of the main task of bureaucracies being to enlarge themselves.6. One of the areas in which administrators can exercise power without faculty consultation or consent is in the area of creating administrative positions and appointing people to them. Believe me, they go for it.7. Count the number of Vice-Presidents your school had 20 years ago. Count the number you have now. See?
drj50 - March 1, 2010 at 1:27 pm
@goxewu:1. The percentage increase in administrators (and of all staff) at my institution over the past decade is significantly less that the percentage increase in faculty (full-time, tenured and tenure-track). 2. This means that the lower percentage of personnel costs devoted to administrators is not due simply to an increase in clerical or other support staff. Administrators are a smaller percentage of both personnel expenditures and (faculty plus staff) head count.3. I’d like to see the data that the ratio is in fact increasing “everywhere.”4. I don’t want an assistant. 5. I’m glad for the recognition that various causes may be at work. I only mentioned these contributing factors because Mark’s post (and comments here and elsewhere) attribute administrative growth to the single cause of the supposed inexorable expansion of “bureaucracy.” Some administrative hires actually serve to return faculty to the classroom by relieving them of administrative responsibilities; there have been several of these at my school in the past few years. I remember when some registrars were faculty members teaching only partial loads. 7. My school has the same number of vice presidents listed in the 1991 catalog.I don’t doubt that administrations have grown at many schools and probably inappropriately at some. I only offer data on my own institution to question whether this in fact occurs everywhere and to the degree that many faculty believe it has. As I said in my first post, such information “should be readily available and evaluated carefully.” I suspect that it will show substantial administrative growth at some schools and little at others. Where the growth is substantial, it should be carefully examined to determine the extent to which it was necessary or appropriate.
goxewu - March 1, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Re #10:1. That the percentage of increase in administrators at drj50′s school is less than the increase in percentage of faculty is a good thing. Congratulations to that school. And congratulations, too, for no increase in the number of vice-presidents. I do suspect (see [6], below) that drj50′s school as an exception.2. I never said that the lower percentage of personnel costs devoted to administrators was “simply” due to an increase in clerical or other support staff. Perhaps I should have made “partly” explicit. Imagine a pie chart. The red piece of pie stands for administrators. The blue piece of pie stands for faculty. Over the years at drj50′s school, the red piece has shrunk. But it may not be the growth of the blue piece that has shrunk it. The growth of the yellow, black, white, orange and purple pieces may have grown, too, and helped shrink the red piece.3. I don’t have data that the administrator : faculty ratio is in fact increasing everywhere. But at the last couple of places I’ve taught, it’s increased. The academics with whom I socialize and correspond tell me, to a man and a woman, that it’s increased where they teach, too. Most of what I read–in fact just about all of what I read; I’ve never seen an article entitled “Growth of Administrations Relative to Size of Faculty Declining at Many Colleges” or similar–tells me the percentage of administrators relative to faculty is increasing, for all practical purposes, “everywhere.”4. Not wanting an assistant is, in my experience, the exception rather than the rule in mid-above-level administrators.5. Realist (drj50 might say cynic) that I am, I have a hunch that many of the “administrative responsibilities” of which faculty are “relieved” by the hiring of additional administrators have to do, directly or indirectly, with power and self-governance. In most schools, the substitution of the word “powers” for “responsibilities” in the penultimate sentence of #10(5.) would probably bring it closer to the truth.6. If #10 can voice “suspicions,” so can I. My suspicion is that the information drj50 desires will show a lot more substantial administrative growth than “little administrative growth.” Put in another way, I suspect that over the last 20 years, the number of full-time administratrators at America’s 3500 or so colleges and universities has increased at a much greater percentage rate than the number of full-time faculty members.
goxewu - March 1, 2010 at 3:24 pm
According to an AAUP report (http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/highlightsarchive/2009/bloat.htm):The number of full-time administrators’ (“managers’”) jobs increased by about 60,000 between 1987 and 2007. During that same period, the number of full-time faculty (“instructors’”) jobs increased by 175,000.During the same period, full-time administrators’ jobs increased by just under 55 percent, while the number of full-time faculty jobs increased by just over 35 percent.During the same period, FTE (full-time equivalent student enrollment) increased by 55 percent. In other words, administrative jobs kept exact pace with it, while full-time faculty jobs fell behind by about 20 percent.During the same period, the number of part-time adjunct faculty jobs increased by 625,000 or a little over 110 percent.Who put into place the policies and practices that dictated that the number of administrators would keep pace with FTE, that the number of full-time faculty would fall behind it, and that a more-than-doubled number of part-time adjunct faculty would be thrown into the breach? Administrators, that’s who.
new_theologian - March 1, 2010 at 3:52 pm
No one has quite been able to name the real culprit in cost-inflation in Higher Education. Accrediting commissions are to blame. What started out as a way to make sure that fraud was not being committed in the collection of tax-payer dollars in the distribution of federally-guaranteed student loans and federal grants, gradually morphed into an over-blown maze of never-ending navel staring at a cost of millions upon millions of dollars at every college in the country that seeks accreditation and federally-funded financial aid resources. Too many cooks spoil the soup, and accrediting commissions are filled with an endless parade of people who have their pet ideas about how things should be done. They travel around the country telling people to do more of everything but simplifying. I could go on about this for hours, but I can say that, in general, costs have gone up while quality has gone down as accreditation commissions have expanded the scope of their authority.
new_theologian - March 1, 2010 at 3:56 pm
One more thing on this point: It doesn’t help that every time accrediting commissions tell colleges they “need” something that costs more money and time (which means still more money) to provide, everyone knows that the college can raise tuition to cover the costs, because federally-guaranteed loan amounts are based upon the cost of tuition, rather than the prospect that the borrower will ever be able to repay it.
drj50 - March 1, 2010 at 4:20 pm
@new_theologian:I’ve worked with four accrediting bodies (regional and specialized) as a visitor and visitee(?) and seen none of what you suggest. I am aware that some specialized accrediting organizations are more prescriptive (AACSB comes to mind) regarding resources and workload, but that is not true of most.
cerebellum - March 1, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I find it ironic that Mark Bauerlein sees fit to attack administrative costs at University System of Georgia institutions safe from his perch in the ivory tower of Emory University (NOT part of the University System of Georgia). To be sure, he is accurately quoting the figures recently published by the Atlanta Journal Constitution. But, I find it odd that he has felt free to write this commentary without even having read the full stories on the AJC website.The AJC did NOT identify rising administrative costs as triggering the need for the $300 million budget reduction currently being called for by the state legislature. The budget reduction, which has prompted calls for a possible tuition increase (77% would cover the full budget reduction, but no one seriously thinks we will pass a tuition increase that large), is prompted not by misdoings or extravagant spending at the state’s colleges and universities, but by the overall decrease in state revenues associated with the current economic situation. On Thursday morning, there was a conference call among all the USG institutions, and the institutions were instructed to come up with budget cuts totalling $300 million, with each institution being assigned a share of the $300 million. This was to be submitted to the University System office by last Saturday morning, an approximately 48 hour turn around. “Administrators” were charged with managing the fast turn around, including completing the submission on Saturday.I can’t speak for other institutions, but my institution is seeking ways to cut the budget while impacting the least number of students and preserving academic quality, faculty positions, and faculty salaries. Non-teaching positions will be cut before teaching positions, possibly including administrative positions.But I am still left to wonder why Dr. Bauerlein has chosen to make administrators the scapegoats in his commentary. I’m sure that there are good administrators and bad administrators, just as there are good and bad faculty. There are administrators who are self-serving, just as there are faculty members who are self-serving. I am an administrator. I consider my position to be a service position, with my service devoted to the faculty in my division, to our students, and to the college as a whole. I have many duties, including making sure that faculty get paid and promoted, making sure that we schedule courses in such a way that we do not delay student graduation by not offering required courses, and working with faculty to maintain and improve the quality of our programs. I am here many late evenings making sure that these things get done.It is easy to underestimate the value and difficulty of someone else’s job. Faculty are not happy when administrators devalue their efforts. It is no more appropriate for faculty to devalue the efforts of the administrators that work to support them.To Mark Bauerlein: Walk a mile in my shoes before you dismiss my work as an administrator. Write about things you know about. The University System of Georgia is not one of them.
goxewu - March 1, 2010 at 4:50 pm
“…my institution is seeking ways to cut the budget while impacting the least number of students and preserving academic quality, faculty positions, and faculty salaries. Non-teaching positions will be cut before teaching positions, possibly including administrative positions.”* “SEEKING ways…” Wonder how many they’ll actually find?* “impacting” Oy vey: administrator speak.* “POSSIBLY including administrative positions” Boy, if ever there was a giveaway, that’s it. Translation: The priority for cutting positions will be #1, support staff (you know, those defenseless little assistants, lab techs, secretaries, custodians, et al.), #2, faculty, and last and certainly least, #3, administrative positions. Ah, the iron fist in the rhetorically velvet glove!
cerebellum - March 1, 2010 at 5:10 pm
How nice to think that my rhetoric is like a “velvet glove”! Thank you for the compliment.Now for the iron fist. How is it civil discourse to make blanket assumptions about the motivations and abilities of another group of people (in this case administrators)? There are many stereotypes and misguided beliefs about faculty. The majority that I know are hardworking and dedicated. When I was a faculty member, I worked very long hours and I know that I was not alone. However, the public image of college faculty is that they are folks who have so little to do that they are at home mowing their lawns at 2:00 in the afternoon. (Of course, you and I know that that may occur because they have just finished an entire night of grading papers, or because they are teaching evenings.) How would you feel if I assumed that you were lazy and uncaring because that fits with one of the stereotypes about faculty?I don’t think that blaming one group helps to solve the problem, which in this case is how we manage a $300 million dollar reduction in budget across the university system ($10 million to my institution).
markbauerlein - March 1, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Your defensiveness, cerebellum, is overdone, and it is interesting that you speak so firmly of your work ethic but do so behind a pseudonym.As for my post, I did hold off on making final judgments and instead suggested that faculty members do a simple counting of administrative positions and costs. It may be that the UGA system comes out well. Since you are so certain of that outcome, perhaps you would like to share the figures for the number of upper-administrator positions at your institution from 2000 and from 2010.
markbauerlein - March 1, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Also, cerebellum, for the last three years I have founded and directed an undergraduate program at Emory, the Program in Democracy and Citizenship. It had a budget of around $300,000 per year, half of which I secured through outside fundraising. One of my goals, too, was to direct every dollar directly to freshman classrooms (which is why I did most of the clerical work myself). So, no need to read me any lessons about administrative work.
performance_expert - March 1, 2010 at 8:24 pm
#13 theologian, “No one has quite been able to name the real culprit in cost”Paying corporate rent. There. Fixed that for you.
performance_expert - March 1, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Cerebellum, ‘hate to be the one to break the news to you, but some parts of Emory (specifically, the discipline where MB resides) yield a result… Well, just to be plain, Bubbie, your esteemed UGA system schools are an uncoordinated sinkhole. Emory is, poetically, a diamond bigger than your head. The UGA system is a mixed dog with some incredibly, incredibly uncoordinated schools, subject academic departments who refuse to even know each other between schools. Did I just say schools? Pardon me, what I meant to say was collected mooring of Red Neck Yachts.There’s an old joke at Emory about how the school basically purchased the French department from another school. And all of those faculty keep apartments back where they used to live. Even at the isle of Emory, they can’t stand Georgia and grind their teeth until they get some leave time. The other old joke at Emory is about at the eye clinic the doctor was worried about being late for his golf or tennis game resulting in doing a procedure on the wrong eyeball of a patient (there are two eyeballs).You should remember that, Cerebellum, there are two eyeballs. And it’s a big world out there. Emory knows that. Not to pull rank, but, you know, they rent the land to the CDC. And that’s probably not going to change anytime soon.Good luck with the budget cuts. It is a nightmare. I suggest you start taxing the rich. Have you thought of that, I wonder? Ciao, Bubbie. P_E
goxewu - March 1, 2010 at 8:40 pm
If cerebellum will re-read #17, he or she will find no statement about the motives of administrators. I merely pointed out the clearly implied PRIORITY of the types of employees whose jobs will be cut. It’s actually not even “implied”; more like staring you in the face if you apply a little process of elimination. Heavens forfend that I would attribute motive to the priority. I’ll leave that for somebody else to figure out. But I don’t think it’ll be difficult.”Velvet” was not a compliment. I mean the word to indicate a kind of superficial smoothness.”I don’t think that blaming one group helps to solve the problem.” Yeah, we don’t want to blame the course the ship is taking on the people who are…uh, running the ship, do we.
performance_expert - March 1, 2010 at 9:11 pm
In fairness, the cost inflation has a great deal to do with paying corporate rent in the form of subsidizing Wallstreet / corporations too big to fail that are incredibly still handing out bonus money like candy corns on Halloween / oh did anyone forget there are two empire wars being paid for? + the general looting from the privatized “defense” (empire) industry / + let’s see now… Cheney owns stock in the private for-profit prison industry while USA has the highest per capita number of people in prison in the world, surpassing China, Russia, insert scapegoat country; Rumsfeld owns bird-flu stock; and now “Homeland Security Chief” Chertoff is making income from selling airport screening machines; corporate rent to medical-”insurance”-management grid, there’s 10% of your GDP right there; and let us not forget that taxation is essentially a voluntary activity for the wealthy; centralized media feeding you no news and in place, a consistent stream of smut-in-place-of-news. So c’mon people, middle class is being liquidated in front of you (like so many other actions done right in front of you.) So, economically, yes, there is a little bit more to it than fungi growth of education administrators, though this too is an unpleasant reality, admin who “are the school,” see workers as objects of harrassment, abuse, and disposal, who metasize at will, who collect political power by following the script, who practice caprice and call it leadership. Yes, this too is real and ~real unpleasant~ however until you grow some spine, keep riding the mudslide down hill. And the aforementioned may be difficult to write about without pseudonym unless your name is Glen Greenwald.
chuckkle - March 1, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Bauerlein: “How many more deans are there, including assistants and associates? How many vice presidents have been added to the system? How many new offices have been created? Most important, how much do they cost?”Bauerlein: ” For private schools, it seems to me that a faculty senate or faculty affairs group should be able to request this information and receive it. If they get resistance, it’s time to play hardball.”Hmm, good luck finding this at Emory. Please do publish the info on administrator’s salaries, benefits, perks, and expense accounts when you get it.And just would “hardball” consist of?Chuck Kleinhans
performance_expert - March 1, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Did you hear about the bank and the RV business? The same bank 1) finances the operations of the RV manufacturer, 2) finances the inventory floorplan at the dealership, and 3) provides the loans to the purchaser, making money three times from one product.Someone from Asia suggested the USA would be benefit from increasing the science-engineers and from a lessening of the finance-engineers with their many sophisticated mechanisms.
markbauerlein - March 2, 2010 at 8:22 am
It seems to me that school archives would have catalogs and other annual publications that would list all upper-administrative personnel, Chuck. At least that would be a start.But why would I want to do so at Emory? For example, when I found that there was a need for a program to boost freshman liberal education, the president and provost were supportive and came through with funding.
chuckkle - March 2, 2010 at 9:24 am
The question isn’t finding lists of administrative positions and office holders. Of course that information is available. As I said, “Please do publish the info on administrator’s salaries, benefits, perks, and expense accounts when you get it.”Bauerlein: “But why would I want to do so at Emory?” Exactly! You expect faculty at public institutions to challenge administrators about their privilege, but you have no willingness to deal with how salary secrecy and other forms of spending are kept top secret at private universities. Smells like hypocrisy to me.Chuck Kleinhans
markbauerlein - March 2, 2010 at 10:52 am
Wrong, Chuck. Several years ago at Emory, changes were made to faculty pension plans and a group of us (all too few!) set up email protests and put the blame squarely on specific administrators. Funny enough, we had several colleagues on the faculty asking us to tone it down.Anyway, if the same thing happened today, or if the administration took any steps that hindered faculty labor in and out of the classrooms, or if it appeared that administrators were improving their own lot at the expense of students, I would take the same actions. I invite you to ask anybody you may know at Emory about my status.I don’t expect any faculty anywhere to make such challenges unless the conditions warrant it, such as massive tuition hikes.
new_theologian - March 2, 2010 at 2:39 pm
I have to say that I’m really mystified that I do, in fact, seem to be the only one here who thinks accrediting commissions are the major cause of the problem. Is there a contest to the observance of a direct historical correlation (we can leave the question of a causal relationship to a post-fact-finding assessment) between the increase in authority conceded to accrediting commissions, the lowering of overall quality (say of graduates and standards for assessment of student work–i.e. grade inflation), and increases in costs? If there is, indeed, a correlation, then asking questions about what the relationship is, if any, between these three facts should be a natural next step.As for the idea that none of what I suggested above has been observed, I find that, again, amazing, since, from where I’ve been sitting, it seems to be everywhere. I don’t think a week goes by when I don’t hear something new about what we have to do because of accrediting standards, or how we have to do more paperwork to prove something to accreditors, or how we have to add something to our syllabi, or make a new chart, or collect more data–all to prove that we are doing what we already know we are doing. It’s not just where I am, either. My colleagues at other institutions say the same sort of thing. The accrediting commissions have decided that their authority extends to virtually every aspect of institutional life. Satisfying their demands requires extensive paperwork (because they demand that, too). It takes time and costs money to do that paperwork to push it all around.Also, accrediting commissions are built upon a basically darwinistic understanding of institutional organization. Increasing complexification and constant innovation is the sign that an institution is living and healthy. That means that well-enough can never just be left alone. Institutions always have to grow, change, and adapt. All of that takes time and money, and introduces risk that also requires an investment of money.On a related note, one person mentioned “corporate rent.” I think that is part of the issue, if I understood the point of the comment. It seems clear to me that the “everybody’s gotta play” approach to higher education (no one should ever become an apprentice and learn a trade; everyone should go to college, regardless of actual interest) has led to a strange commoditization of the higher education experience that follows an artificially distorted set of economic rules–and that distortion is due to the accrediting commissions and their relationship to third-party governmental initial payers.At every turn, new swimming pools and new dormitories with individual bathrooms and kitchenettes, and new rec-centers with indoor tracks, etc., all have to be built and maintained to attract and retain tuition-payers who might otherwise go down the road to the more luxurious Country Club University. Even if rich alumni donors provide the funds to build all these things, they only end up giving the gift that keeps on taking, because the more there is to maintain, the more costs we incur just for owning it. Buildings have to be heated and cooled, cleaned and painted and powered, roofed and landscaped. In-classroom technology has to be serviced and upgraded. Millions upon millions of dollars later, we wonder why tuition costs keep going up while faculty don’t seem any better off today than they were before, and students aren’t really getting any smarter.
cerebellum - March 2, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Mark Bauerlein-Let me repeat that the threatened tuition hikes in the University System of Georgia are not attributable to fat cat administrators trying to feather their nests. They are due to actual DECREASES in state appropriations. You use this as an opportunity to take potshots at administrators, suggesting that there is a link between proliferation of administrators and the threat to raise tuition. The mention of a 77% tuition increase was due to the fact that a 77% tuition increase is what it would take to offset the $300 million dollar cut system-wide.While there are exceptions, most of the USG institutions operate on lean budgets. According to the Chancellor, the proposed budget cuts “total the entire budget for 23 [institutions].”What is your evidence that USG administrators are “improving their own lot at the expense of students”?I never stated that I was certain of the outcome. The outcome is hard to measure (counting positions). However, accepting your challenge, I have now done a “quick and dirty” inventory of “administrative” positions at my institution in 2000 vs. 2010. This is a difficult comparison to make, since we have changed structure several times in the intervening years, and making comparisons is like comparing apples to oranges. My conclusion is that we are just about dead even now compared to 2000 in terms of total number of administrative positions. In the past 10 years, we have opened and closed campuses, expanded offerings on existing campuses and online, etc. Our student enrollment has gone from just over 14,000 students to just over 25,000 students and from 325 full-time faculty to about 500 full-time faculty.I’m also not claiming that all administrators are good; I’m just saying that stereotyping administrators and implying that they are the root of all evil is neither helpful nor fair.I also want to make clear that I have no desire to disparage Emory, a fine institution. It is, however, an “ivory tower” compared to working in an open access institution.Performance_expert- I get that you don’t like the USG. Calling the USG system institutions an “uncoordinated sinkhole” is unnecessary. Calling me “Bubbie” is just rude. Again, stereotypes – are you assuming that anyone associated with the USG is a “Bubba”?Mark Bauerlein – I did not intentionally use a pseudonym. The Chronicle automatically enters your “username.” Mine happens to be “Cerebellum.” However, I am happy to indicate my name and will sign at the bottom of this commentary.Barbara L. Brown, Ph.D., Psy.D.Dean of Social SciencesGeorgia Perimeter College
markbauerlein - March 2, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Thank you, Barbara, for your openness and for your data.I would reiterate, however, that I did not take any “potshots” at administrators, only asked faculty to test for administrative bloat in their respective campuses. And it’s not about individuals, but rather the system and its many embedded mechanisms (such as accreditation demands noted above). Also, I never said that administrators at Georgia are “improving their own lot at the expense of students.” Read my comment again. I was stating that as a hypothetical at Emory, not a reality at Georgia. Let’s keep the contexts distinct.Your tally should make faculty at Georgia Perimeter College feel confident of the right priorities on campus. In fact, I would think that you would welcome my call for faculty members to examine administrative sizes over the years, for it would only strengthen relations between you and them. Still, just because the immediate problem is cuts in funding this year doesn’t mean that administrative costs haven’t disproportionately raised the general system costs in past years and soaked up disporportionate amounts of prior funds.
performance_expert - March 2, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Oh my, now I must reply.In order, New_Theologian, of course you’re the only one with your idea. You’re a theologian and are thinking new thought. Yes, thank you for your brief treatise on the matrix, the control grid. It is qite manipulative: harass the workers and they will not have time to confront the power that reigns. Your hint at third parties is much intriguing. Perhaps I am not the only soul who wonders, “Who thinks this stuff up, these top-down mandates.” You are particularly correct about the time-suck aspect of these requirements.Dear Assistant Dean, pardon me, I thought you were a male, hence “Bubbie” being the familiar form for “Bubba.” May I improvise per gender? Oh, forget it, I will not insult you. I stand my ground re: the uncoordinated aspect of the UGA system schools. Maybe they are each to have personality or something however I have seen various depts. not even willing to accept the coursework of same dept / different UGA school, so yes, or as they say in California, Oh Hella Yes, I call it uncoordinated. I call it a lot more and thank you for acknowledging my point. I have seen things on the management side of UGA system that leave me scratching the head and silenced in awe of the sophomoric terribleness of it and wondering if it is even worth addressing via scholarship or otherwise. At present, my intuition is that time is valuable and why waste time. Obviously, you are cosmopolitan? I dare say you might want to visit some of “your system” before making declarations on how it functions. It is a big system with more than a few fiefdoms, hence the lack of coordination. Leadership values? Seems spotty to me. Again, inconsistent, a values-per-fiefdom operation. I often think the requirement to be a system-wide administrator must be based on the date your family tilled the farm, the earlier the better, because this poster does not receive the impression of excellence as the mission of the state bureaucracy of GA. Certainly I have made my point. Good luck to you.MB, thank you for ruminating and stimulating the dialogues.P_E
performance_expert - March 2, 2010 at 8:51 pm
PS Dear Dean / Asst Dean, whatever. I just worked a fourteen hour day, am a bit, not tiered, but tired, yes.
performance_expert - March 2, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Context, if I am not mistaken, the two republican senators from Georgia recently both voted against the bill to protect women who are raped while outside the USA and as employees of defences contractors, the case referenced being Halliburton, both senators from Georgia voted against protection for the worker who is required to sign an agreement that any disputes, including being raped, will be addressed solely through company mediation and the employee is specifically prohibitted from using the traditional US legal system or otherwise publicizing the assualt. This bill passed and is now law, however and for the third time, the two senators from Georgia voted against it. This is completely shameful, despicable, heinous. I suggest the priorities in Georgia are determined by the political class. Maybe they will get around to educating their children, someday. This Big-Headed-Republican-Deny-the-Populace mode is still in full-action mode. At the University of Texas, I recently noted that the university there is closing the community classes that have served 10,000 local citizens, whom it has been pointed out, fund the local fire dept’s service to UT/A. The community classed, a longstanding local cultural institution, are being stopped because they cost the university $122,000. per year = ~$10. per person served. Instead of balancing this out, the university admin and their voting team of student management have decided to do away with the program, to the utter shock of the local populace. Meanwhile the football coach is paid something like 3-5 million dollars per year. Therefore, as I have stated, until you grow some spine, this type of beat-down of the public is happening. It is a strange twist of sociology, the angry politics turn their wrath of the general public. It is like the magic eight ball. Shake it, turn it upside down to read, and find something new.Ciao bubbies and bubbettes, transexual buh-bobs and buh-betties, and sweet larries and contruction suit sues. We’ve had a solid two decades of identity politics. Maybe some other distractions will be foisted until a thought-revolution occurs and noisy neighbors rule the day when they realize the mandated “for” or “against” means making a choice.
performance_expert - March 2, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Here. Educate yourself about Georgia: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/healthwellness/143164/30_gop_senators_vote_to_defend_gang_rape/
performance_expert - March 2, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Watcher of the skies watcher of allHis is a world alone no world is his own,He whom life can no longer surprise,Raising his eyes beholds a planet unknown.Creatures shaped this planet’s soil,Now their reign has come to an end,Has life again destroyed life,Do they play elsewhere, do they knowmore than their childhood games?Maybe the lizard’s shed its tail,This is the end of man’s long union with Earth.Judge not this race by empty remainsDo you judge God by his creatures when they are dead?For now, the lizard’s shed it’s tailThis is the end of man’s long union with Earth.From life alone to life as one,Think not now your journey’s doneFor though your ship be sturdy, noMercy has the sea,Will you survive on the ocean of being?Come ancient children hear what I sayThis is my parting council for you on your way.Sadly now your thoughts turn to the starsWhere we have gone you know you never can go.Watcher of the skies watcher of allThis is your fate alone, this fate is your own.