The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
bjoern.brembs.net
The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
1–10 of 92 posts
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#2Title 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 school principles for two high schools.
2014 = 32 administrators and 16 high school principles for two high schools
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#3This sounds like more evidence the new and growing phenomenon of "bullshit jobs" http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ .
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#4This sounds like more evidence the new and growing phenomenon of "bullshit jobs" http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ .
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 brush out.
In 2009, the company I worked for fired 1/3 the office staff and we actually improved the collective productivity of the office. And it wasn't forced overtime, the office staff had a 40 hour week max even for salaried people.
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#5As 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 academics. The idea was the academics do all the needed administrative tasks, and since nobody's job would depend on doing administrative tasks, that we would only be doing the bare minimum needed to keep the university running. Also everyone would be aware of what the consequences of some new administrate task would be on teaching and research. The look on the vice chancellor's (university president) face was priceless - I don't need to tell anyone here that the proposal was immediately dismissed without discussion.
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#6As 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.
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#7This sounds like more evidence the new and growing phenomenon of "bullshit jobs" http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ .
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…
No they're not. Parkinson' Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law is the adage that "Work expands to fill the time allotted to it." But Parkinson's original book looked humorously but semi-seriously at actual administrative growth such as the growth of the British Civil Service and Admiralty staff even as British overseas colonies and navy were shrinking.
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#8As 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 highly-paid professors spending hours on tasks that a lowly-paid administrative staffer could complete in minutes.
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#9As 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?
Re: The Growth of Administrative Staff in Universities
#10I 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 more, remind useless people that their proper place in life is as high up as they want, as long as it's out of my way.