71–80 of 92 posts
Pay Post-Docs like shit, but hire another Vice-Provost with a 100K+ package! Welcome to modern higher education and research where people doing the research get paid worse than the those BS'ing in 'administration'.
How do I know? First-hand experience being at the wrong end of the table.
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My brain can't handle neon yellow background, but I don't think bullshit jobs are a new phenomenon. I think there was a huge bloat in bullshit jobs from the 1980s-2008. A lot of jobs that should have been lost due to productivity gains because of computers and networking were converted into bullshit jobs. We went to so long with a real significant recession, it was like a forest that hasn't had a fire to clear the br…
It goes back alot further than that, we used to call those guys pyramid builders.
Title really should be consequences of business models in education reform of higher education. It showed a consequence of selling scientific research and less tenure for the scientist and researchers looking for a job outside of college. Was a former faculty member of a college as a librarian. Colleges have nothing on Public School Administrators. My city of 120,000 went from 2003 = 8 administrators and 4 high schoo…
This culture is spectacularly wrong, and will be discovering exactly how wrong over the next few decades.
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> 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.
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How does it makes sense for administration to take their overhead and then spend it hiring unnecessary beurocrats (rather than shuffling funds to give themselves raises)? The ever-growing regulatory burden that the private sector always cries about? This is the same thing.
I can tell you I have seen new directors whose not-so-qualified spouses magically find jobs in other departments. Nepotism, pure and simple.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does it makes sense for administration to take their overhead and then spend it hiring unnecessary beurocrats (rather than shuffling funds to give themselves raises)? The ever-growing regulatory burden that the private sector always cries about? This is the same thing.
I can tell you I have seen new directors whose not-so-qualified spouses magically find jobs in other departments. Nepotism, pure and simple.
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…
Sorry if its a little OT, but I actually have this question: Is it normal for grad students to get reimbursed by their institution for conference travel?
Nobody would go to a conference if they had to pay their own way because nobody's paid enough to be able to, quite frankly.
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…
Any university where admin staff outnumber teaching/research staff is doing something wrong in my opinion. A certain amount of administration is obviously essential and invaluable, but there's a limit...
In the US (which is all I can speak to), the growth in administrative staff seems more like a response to increased layers of political bureaucracy. For example, schools are scrambling to add Title XI administrators because the federal government requires them in order to get federal funding (including student loans). Faculty don't want to be responsible for the associated administration and paperwork, so someone has to do it.
Regarding increases in tuition prices, most if not all states are slashing higher education funding. That shortfall has to be made up for somehow.