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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

#61

Post by danieltillett »

gamblor956 wrote: post #8
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…

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…

Well I am glad to have such a well thought out critique. You might be surprised to learn that academics are far cheaper to hire than admin staff and will work three times as hard. The whole idea is to get rid of all the pointless admin work. My idea is that you would have three times as many academics teaching and researching, but the university as a whole would be doing 10% of the admin work [1].

1. My personal experience is only about 10% of all administrative work is actually required - all the rest is either make work or nice-but-not-essential activities.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#62

Post by danieltillett »

srevir wrote: post #55
jurassic wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IT, like the library system, provides infrastructure in support of the university's core mission. I've never heard anybody say, "Damn, the network here just works too well... let's sack the IT folks so we can focus on our research like we used to!" Likewise, no professor or student is likely to say "Do we really need all these reference books?" about the library. The value and need for these complex services is almos…

I rarely see any nuance given to the rants against admin staff. My response above yours here was to a former professor's supposedly serious past suggestion to dismiss all admin staff. It is not the first time I have heard this idea. All staff are so frequently painted with the same broad brush, with no effort to distinguish as you have done here. These folks running the Campus network command rather good salaries by…

My idea is not to dismiss anyone, but make sure that everyone is involved in teaching and research. The network people have a lot to give students and this should be made part of their job. When you have better things to spend your time on other than make work activities you avoid all of these pointless activities.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#63

Post by danieltillett »

secabeen wrote: post #11
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…

It's an interesting idea, but it misses the substantial increase in administrative load that public schools have seen over the past 30 years. 30 years ago there were non-existent services for disabled students, socionomically-disadvantaged students, international students and scholars, etc. There was also substantially fewer federal research grants and the associated paperwork required to receive those grants. You'd…

I am not surprised with how much work is involved in administering grants as I had to spend a significant amount of my time doing this. Unfortunately almost all the time spent was pointless and not really needed.

All the support activities can be provided by academics. Actually it is far better that academics teaching to the students provide this support since they actually know what the students will face, not some admin flunky who has no real idea of what happens in the classroom.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#64

Post by danieltillett »

baldfat wrote: post #6
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…

> As a former tenured professor Key word "former" Leaving Higher Education was the best decision I have made in the last 10 years.

I actually miss being an academic. I loved teaching and research, but I hated all the administration. I was lucky in that I had the ability to leave, but if I could spend 80% of my time on research and teaching and 20% on administration instead of vice versa I would probably still be an academic - what I was not willing to do is waste my life on pointless paperwork.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#65

Post by danieltillett »

ssalazar wrote: post #48
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…

This. As a current grad student at a large research university, I have no interest in what little administrative work I do have to do, and my professors exhibit similar disinclinations. That being said, at my school, the jobs of many of the admins I interact with seem to be navigating other administrative systems in the university. Its ridiculous and the solution needs to involve less bureaucracy, but not the complet…

You have capture exactly the purpose of my proposal. If you put people in charge of administration who have better things to do with their time so they don't waste time on administration. When you put professional admistrators in charged of administration then all you end up with is the need for more administration.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#66

Post by danieltillett »

tensor wrote: post #29
gamblor956 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

But it served exactly the purpose it was supposed to do which was to make more work for administration. You can't expect some administrator to put themselves out of a job by proposing less paperwork. The only way to break this crazy situation is give them something better to do with their time like teaching and research.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#67

Post by srevir »

danieltillett wrote: post #62
srevir wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely see any nuance given to the rants against admin staff. My response above yours here was to a former professor's supposedly serious past suggestion to dismiss all admin staff. It is not the first time I have heard this idea. All staff are so frequently painted with the same broad brush, with no effort to distinguish as you have done here. These folks running the Campus network command rather good salaries by…

My idea is not to dismiss anyone, but make sure that everyone is involved in teaching and research. The network people have a lot to give students and this should be made part of their job. When you have better things to spend your time on other than make work activities you avoid all of these pointless activities.

Well, you did write you would get rid of all administrative staff and replace with academics.

I cannot see how very many, if any, academics will be interested in 24x7 on call duties to maintain a campus network. Are a handful of faculty assigned this responsibility? Do they leave class to deal with a down router? Do they spend their sabbatical replacing end of life wireless access points? Do they run fiber to new buildings? Or does this responsibility rotate: this week, the history department looks after the network, and next week the English department handles it?

As much as I think you under-estimate the work required in this network example, if the proposal is to ask the network engineer to also teach in some capacity, then I also think you under-estimate what is required to be an effective teacher.

Running a production network and doing cutting edge research in even networking do not overlap. Expertise in one of these says nothing about one's proficiency in the other.

I don't at all disagree with the suggestion that there are some administrative staff who just add overhead. If we were able to reliably identify which these are, then sure, elimination of these positions and turn-over of what few real responsibilities they had to those who remain (perhaps academics) would be a fine way to ensure things stay lean.

But what you propose seems to imply most staff positions are fluff, and have responsibilities that could be picked up without radically changing the focus of faculty. I think such a claim is really divorced from a real understanding of what makes the infrastructure and resources at a top tier (or perhaps even any tier) University possible.

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#68

Post by pcrh »

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…

>most professors are blissfully or even deliberately ignorant of the time and effort necessary to prepare grant proposals for research funding.

I can assure you that this is not true. Any "deliberate" ignorance is likely an attempt to trim the amount of admin demanded.

I have prepared research proposals for numerous governmental and non-profit funders, and the amount of admin required on each varies enormously, with the EU being the absolute worst. The EU demands more, because others demand more from it; reports have to be made to this and that body, etc, etc. Completely unnecessary. Whereas one non-profit requires only a two page report and copies of any manuscripts in preparation or published (bliss!).

Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities

#69

Post by danieltillett »

srevir wrote: post #67
danieltillett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My idea is not to dismiss anyone, but make sure that everyone is involved in teaching and research. The network people have a lot to give students and this should be made part of their job. When you have better things to spend your time on other than make work activities you avoid all of these pointless activities.

Well, you did write you would get rid of all administrative staff and replace with academics. I cannot see how very many, if any, academics will be interested in 24x7 on call duties to maintain a campus network. Are a handful of faculty assigned this responsibility? Do they leave class to deal with a down router? Do they spend their sabbatical replacing end of life wireless access points? Do they run fiber to new bui…

I should have been more precise in my language - my original post was just a short response to the article. In reality any change like I was proposing would require the current staff are retained and their job description changed. You are not going to be able to turn over the network to the English department and expect it to stay online for long :)

I actually don't underestimate what is required by the network engineers, but I do think it would be great if they were also teaching and doing research. If we moved to an all academic model then it would be possible to employee more network engineers and spread the load across more people. The skilled staff would be able to share their experience with the students. I actually value the contribution of the support staff very highly and want them involved in the core activities of the university. I have no time for the usual academic dismissal of administration as being full of worthless people, what I have an issue with is letting people work as full time admistrators.

Many administrative activities are fluff. What I would like to see is only the essential activities done and people spend their time on the important activities.

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