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About the Author
Dan Greenberg is a longtime observer of science policy and politics. He is the author of "Science for Sale: The Perils, Rewards, and Delusions of Campus Capitalism" (University of Chicago Press), as well as other books, and has published widely in newspapers and popular and professional magazines.
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Obsolete and Dispensable: the University Presidency
Do universities need presidents?
At $300,000 to $500,000 each, plus house and car for a middling institution (and often much more at grander schools), they’re the resource equivalent of a dozen or two adjuncts or at least several senior professors.
Leadership on many fronts is what the campus head is supposed to provide — most of all in raising money. Why, then, the heavily staffed development offices at the schools that regularly snare big gifts? Once the target has been softened up, couldn’t a provost or dean or chairman of trustees move in to clinch the deal?
Wise and productive orchestration of the institution’s many components — that’s what the effective chief provides, isn’t it? There’s the administration, the faculty, the students, the alumni, the trustees, the non-academic staff, the nearby community, and, for public institutions, the governor and the legislature.
Each of these may have its own divisions. There’s the male-female division of the faculty; the adjuncts and the tenured. The humanities feel financially deprived in comparison to the sciences. The legislature writhes under budget pressures and wonders why out-of-state students are getting bargain rates.
Harmony does not flourish among these divergent groups. Faculty often feel disdain for the administration; alumni fret that their beloved institution is doing something important very wrong; students are generally sullen, and non-academic staff are grossly underpaid, feel oppressed, and sometimes go out on strike — an event sure to bring the TV trucks rolling in.
Since any of these groups can wreck a university presidency (ask Larry Summers), the wisest course for the head person is to avoid arousing any of them by yielding as little as possible and maintaining the status quo in shares of money, office space, honors, and any other matters that can precipitate an explosion.
Though doing nothing is the wisest course, the ambitious president need not settle for oblivion. With a nimble speech writer (there are plenty of them on the market now as newspapers slash their staffs), the hunkered-down president can safely take on the off-campus role of academic statesman.
Topics abound, and none is ever exhausted, because the ingredients can be endlessly mixed and matched: The university and the new economics of the post-industrial age in an era of globalization; learning and the digital revolution; whither academe in a period of change; poverty, productivity and the ivory tower, etc., etc.
The university presidency is obsolete, a holdover from long-gone times, like the British monarchy. The best that can be said for both of them is that, though expensive, they’re entertaining.
Photo by Photobucket.com user Allegra
Posted at 05:16:26 PM on January 22, 2008 | All postings by Dan Greenberg
Comments
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It is not unusual for corporate executives to be paid much more than they are worth, and CEOs of nonprofits and superintendants of school districts often have rather substantial salaries. And what about the compensation demanded by sports coaches? All this while many adjuncts are paid at pathetically low rates. The dependence on adjuncts at many institutions is disgraceful. People should not allow themselves to be abused by being paid such unconscionable rates. Adjuncts should unite and demand to be paid fairly. And accrediting entities should deny accreditation to institutions that rely excessively on adjuncts. I don’t see the university presidency as being out of line with other executive compensation or as being more outmoded than many other elitist positions. I do think qualified and effective people would be willing to do the job for less than the $500K mentioned. But if you are going to pay school district executives $400K or more, it is hard to hold the line on salaries for college presidents.
— Joe Erwin · Jan 23, 05:32 AM · #
A campus’ chief administrative officer can perform a valuable function in speaking for the university to the school’s state’s congressional delegation.This is also true for the president in a multi-campus system.
I do not think an administrative head of a subset of the university can have this clout.
If the expense of compensating the president is such an issue perhaps [insert your own comment about expensive non-academic university programs here].
— George Gollin, University of Illinois · Jan 23, 08:43 AM · #
I’d rather Mr. Greenberg write on science and the role of higher education in economic development (his field of scholarship and an issue of substance regarding the purpose of higher education) than this whimsical pointless memo.
Other than Trachtenberg, I’d say this “Lives of the Mind” series is a bust. I really do not care to read more about the 1960s and that narcistic generation (even unto their own retirements), school t-shirts in gyms and pregnant barbies.
— Ken · Jan 24, 06:47 AM · #
Ken, my wife has a theory that in any sentence containing the word “whimsical” you can substitute the word “stupid” without changing the sentiment one bit.
— Tad · Jan 24, 07:57 AM · #
Tad, your wife is whimsical.
— Owen · Jan 24, 08:21 AM · #
Re-reading Thorstein Veblen’s Higher Learning in America (1918) I find that this case was well made already then: Veblen wanted to dispense also with the trustees. Rather than obsolete, this pair of corporate institutions (CEO and directors) were then a harmful innovation, Veblen argued: once church control was no issue, the trustees should have gone away, but Americans (then and now) had no real model for an institution other than the for-profit corporation, so the universities blindly imitated that.
— Owen C. · Jan 24, 09:00 AM · #
Finally someone pointing out the truth about our academic emperors. Most presidents slithered their way to the top by sucking up and stepping on; therefore they are singlulalry unqualified to provide what universities need most these days: leadership. And if they aren’t doing that, as Mr. Greenburg rightly points out, then they are indeed obsolete.
— Steve · Jan 24, 09:02 AM · #
The comments above say more about the posters than the state of the American college and university presidency. No one is paid more than they’re worth in a free-market economy. They’re paid exactly what they’re worth. And while faculties make great sport of poking and prodding at the administrative beast, the real narcissism is in assuming that any institution of higher learning of any size or complexity could exist with just a faculty and students. The corporate model may not be perfect, but our emulation of that governance structure has resulted in the most admired and respected system of higher education in the world. Argue with success if you must, but in a free society, if you don’t like the way things work, you can either strive to change it or you can go find an industry where you feel you’ll be treated better. My 20+ years in the academy have taught me what’s important and what’s not. The discussion of whether universities – some of which are multi-billion dollar corporations – require CEOs, just seems silly.
— Allen · Jan 24, 11:58 AM · #
Provocative but absurd. What is the alternative? The real value of this piece is its too-brief mention of the forces that impel university presidents to be survivors (managers) rather than risk takers (leaders). A really valuable essay would propose a means of providing support and protection for those presidents who do opt to be real leaders – often at a terrible cost. As one president has said, “In this job you don’t get fired for not doing your job; you get fired for doing it.”
— /case hardened · Jan 24, 12:04 PM · #
There’s plenty to criticize in Greenberg’s rant. I’ll just focus on one item: If he thinks “targets” are “softened up” by development officers and then anybody can come in and “cinch the deal,” he’s totally ignorant of how fund raising works.
First of all, they’re not “targets” — they are supporters who truly care about the institutions to which they give. After all, there are millions of worthy causes available — why should a donor give to our institutions?
Secondly, donors deserve to know that there is a person at the top, steering the ship, accountable for the direction in which it is going. Donors don’t give to buildings; they give to people.
A university president is indispensable to the process of building support for the institution. And all faculty, staff and students should remember that every time they turn the light switch on in the offices or classrooms. You don’t have to pay the light bill because there is someone else to do it.
— JPS · Jan 24, 12:14 PM · #
Commercial CEO pay is way too high! College Presidents pay is also getting a bit high.It was true a long time ago that College Presidents once received a reasonable multiple of the best paid Professors salaries plus expenses to make it
possible to do the job —That is still true in some places.But in others it is getting a bit out of hand…
— Prof. Arnold L. Goren · Jan 24, 12:50 PM · #
Good grief! What a stupid essay. Let’s not waste more time these vampid ideas. Mr. Greenberg, let Steve Trachtenberg and other pros comment on university presidents.
— Gustavo Mellander · Jan 24, 01:42 PM · #
This may be the germ of a serious essay I’d like to read, but it doesn’t germinate, and for the many reasons already noted. More evidence we didn’t need that even smart folk end up using anything at hand to feed the ravening, uncritical (unedited except by Spellcheck) appetite of the blog monster.
— Ben Birnbaum · Jan 24, 03:06 PM · #
I think it was a great essay and applaud Greenberg’s choice of topic. Compensation for Academic Presidents and CEOs is very much out of hand, and it should be a concern for employees everywhere. The gap between rich and poor is constantly growing — a dire problem for democracy.
It’s largely luck determines who becomes a College President and who is stuck as an Adjunct. So why the huge disparity? I agree adjuncts need to band together. Perhaps a new union to fight for their rights?
— A concerned 20-something · Jan 24, 03:56 PM · #
Greenberg’s essay does a tremendous disservice to today’s College/University President who operates in an environment that requires a 24/7 mindset and a like number of hours on the job. Salary level is ultimately determined by the market and the limited number of talented individuals that are willing to take on the challenging job of leadership for one of our institutions of higher education. In difference to our uninformed commentator # 14” Luck” plays little or no no part in determining who becomes a College President
Correspondingly, luck would seem be quite low on the list of reasons why someone chooses to teach part-time. More often a conscious choice is made especially since it is no great secret that adjunct compensation is based upon similiar supply/demand conditions when a perspective part-time applicant is considering this option, rather than other admirable choices for the use of these talents.
— D. New · Jan 24, 11:39 PM · #
What I think is important to ask about is the disparity in pay, power, prestige, and working conditions between the presidents and the contingent faculty, and whether these disparities are truly earned – on either side of the ledger.
There are thousands of contingent faculty who would find the idea of their “conscious choice” to work part-time preposterous. Let’s not pretend that lower-paid contingent faculty aren’t exploited by many institutions.
— Chris · Feb 6, 07:04 PM · #