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The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

bjoern.brembs.net

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Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#21

Post by john_b »

gaius wrote: post #9
danieltillett wrote: post #5

As a former tenured professor I thought a lot about this issue. The underlying problem is that administrative staff create work to justify their existence. The more administrative staff you employ the more you need to employ. I was on the academic council for a couple of years (itself a huge waste of resources and time) so I got to put up a proposal that we get rid of all administrative staff and replace them with ac…

... And the tenured professors could sweep their classrooms at the end of the day, and serve in the canteen at lunchtime, and save even more money?

I think you need to check your dictionary for a proper definition of "administrative". Nobody has been bemoaning the exponential expansion of janitors and cafeteria ladies on university campuses.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#22

Post by extra88 »

spiritplumber wrote: post #10

I once had an argument with one of these people (Not being a grad student, I was not allowed to take a class that taught cluster computing, on a cluster that I had built and had written about half the linux distro for). So I gave the guy a hug. A professor had to come over and persuade me to put the admin guy back on the ground again a few minutes later. I took that class and got a B+. Lesson learned: Punch less, hug…

Thereby justifying the existence of yet another "useless" administrative position, that of Title IX coordinator who reviews the incident as possible sexual harassment.

A lot of staff growth in all organizations is related to changing expectations (and sometimes legal requirements) related to human resources and management; you don't need nearly as many managers if don't care about things like treating everyone fairly or their professional development.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#23

Post by warcher »

jacalata wrote: post #20
spiritplumber wrote: post #10

I once had an argument with one of these people (Not being a grad student, I was not allowed to take a class that taught cluster computing, on a cluster that I had built and had written about half the linux distro for). So I gave the guy a hug. A professor had to come over and persuade me to put the admin guy back on the ground again a few minutes later. I took that class and got a B+. Lesson learned: Punch less, hug…

Oh hey, it's that sociopath dude again.

hahaha, man, I hope he joined that boxing gym like I suggested last month. Get the bad blood out, man. It's good for you.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#24

Post by beloch »

Even in just a few years as a grad student I saw noticeable increases in bureaucratic overhead. When I started you could go to a conference and claim your expenses pretty much on the honor system. As students, we knew our trips were being paid out of a finite fund and racking up unnecessary expenses would limit our trips in the future. We kept each other honest. By the end, our PI had been forced to hire a full time secretary to deal with the bureaucracy. Everything we expensed required a paper trail. $50 lobster dinner on credit? No problem getting reimbursed. $3 hotdog with no receipt? Brace yourself for hours of paperwork.

This idiotic policy pressured us to spend more in pricey restaurants and avoid cheaper street vendors (Try explaining to a thai street vendor that the receipt has to have your name on it). Similarly, it was easier to claim a $50 cab ride than a $5 subway fare. Add in the cost of paying people to scrutinize our every receipt and I'm sure the University tripled the cost of conference trips. Success? Absolutely, at least for the sleazy admin who tripled the staff reporting to him, likely by claiming students couldn't be trusted to keep costs down.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but it illustrates my point: Treating people as dishonest by default carries a heavy price, payable in bureaucrat salaries.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#25

Post by spiritplumber »

warcher wrote: post #23
jacalata wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hey, it's that sociopath dude again.

hahaha, man, I hope he joined that boxing gym like I suggested last month. Get the bad blood out, man. It's good for you.

I got back into fencing. Thanks :) I still stink at it, and am likely to keep stinking at it, but it's a good workout in a competitive environment.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#26

Post by gamblor956 »

calibraxis wrote: post #16
gamblor956 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proposal was immediately dismissed because it was a stupid idea. There is a tremendous amount of administrative work related to academics that most professors never notice because they're not the ones doing the work. If the professors had to do all of the administrative work themselves--even just the bare minimum--they would barely have any time to teach. Moreover, a substantial amount of money would be wasted on…

Or maybe you have no idea. Consider how absurd it's gotten ( http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-decl... ): "My own knowledge comes from universities, both in the United States and Britain. In both countries, the last thirty years have seen a veritable explosion of the proportion of working hours spent on administrative tasks at the expense of pretty much everything else. In my own university, for…

Providing a diatribe from another professor does little to support your argument that professors have any idea as to the amount of administrative work required to make a university function. Indeed, the quote actually supports my argument that most professors are blissfully or even deliberately ignorant of the time and effort necessary to prepare grant proposals for research funding, student grants for student projects and job applications, setting up conferences and workshops for the faculty and students, managing the curriculum, and other tasks necessary for the university to function so that the professors can do their jobs (lecturing and/or research).

None of these burdens was created by the administrative staff--they are external burdens that the administrative staff were hired to address so that the academic faculty didn't have to waste their time on it.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#27

Post by unabridged »

Combine this with the rise of adjuncts over professors and you find that most of the teaching staff is making much less than their administrative support. I find it insane that as an adjunct you would be lucky to break $25k while seeing job postings at the school for a Benefits and Insurance Coordinator that can make up to $66k.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#28

Post by hyp0 »

danieltillett wrote: post #5

As a former tenured professor I thought a lot about this issue. The underlying problem is that administrative staff create work to justify their existence. The more administrative staff you employ the more you need to employ. I was on the academic council for a couple of years (itself a huge waste of resources and time) so I got to put up a proposal that we get rid of all administrative staff and replace them with ac…

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson's_law

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#29

Post by tensor »

gamblor956 wrote: post #26
calibraxis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe you have no idea. Consider how absurd it's gotten ( http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-decl... ): "My own knowledge comes from universities, both in the United States and Britain. In both countries, the last thirty years have seen a veritable explosion of the proportion of working hours spent on administrative tasks at the expense of pretty much everything else. In my own university, for…

Providing a diatribe from another professor does little to support your argument that professors have any idea as to the amount of administrative work required to make a university function. Indeed, the quote actually supports my argument that most professors are blissfully or even deliberately ignorant of the time and effort necessary to prepare grant proposals for research funding, student grants for student projec…

How about a first hand example from the secretary at the last university where I worked? The university used to give travelling professors and students a per-diem for food. I think it was around $50 US per day, so pretty reasonable. You had to justify if you spent more than that.

However, while I was there the administration decided that they wanted to cut down on some imagined "abuse" that people were not spending the $50 on food, but maybe kept some of it, or used it to buy a beer heaven forbid. So they required receipts for everything, no more per-diem. Even better, they decided that they know how and when you should eat and set limits on breakfast lunch and dinner individually.

This created so much paperwork that they had to hire more full time staff to go through all the receipts. Clearly this cost the university way way more than it potentially saved and also created huge problems for people with special dietary requirements.

All of this was exclusively caused by the administrative staff, not tenured professors who universally hated it. The older secretaries who were around when things were better also hated it and thought it stupid.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#30

Post by spiritplumber »

jacalata wrote: post #20
spiritplumber wrote: post #10

I once had an argument with one of these people (Not being a grad student, I was not allowed to take a class that taught cluster computing, on a cluster that I had built and had written about half the linux distro for). So I gave the guy a hug. A professor had to come over and persuade me to put the admin guy back on the ground again a few minutes later. I took that class and got a B+. Lesson learned: Punch less, hug…

Oh hey, it's that sociopath dude again.

At the time, I felt that a bear hug was the best way to avoid an actual fight, and it worked. If you want to co-write a post on de-escalation techniques, I'd genuinely love to! What would you have done in that situation to defuse it?
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