Fenster writes:
One cheer, at best, for Rebecca Shuman’s article in Slate on the issue of budget cuts in the academy. Shuman fairly criticizes the growth of administration relative to academics in the competition for resources. A lot of that critique is indisputable. Where she goes off-track, IMHO, is in her central contention:
What is confounding about these universities’ plans to possibly obliterate nearly half of their departments is why both institutions, faced with budget crises, went straight for the academic jugular. And not just by cutting highfalutin artsy disciplines, but with an eye toward fields of study that are actually valued in today’s cruel and fickle market. Nobody seems to notice that the structure of today’s higher-ed “business” model is backward: It’s far easier to cut academics than it is to cut anything else, so that’s what universities are doing.
Look, criticizing the growth of the administration is fair game. Sometimes that critique is done in a ham-handed way, as with Benjamin Ginsberg’s polemical work, endless anecdotal litanies about administrators with nothing to do making tons of money. But sometimes administrative bloat is handled with a bit more nuance, as in this study. Here, administrative bloat is less a matter of evil leeches and more a matter of ambitious, mission-oriented staff able and anxious to “help”, whether via counseling, residence life “co-curricular programs” or staffing the proverbial rock-climbing wall.
Administrative “bloat” in this sense is much harder to cut than evil leeches. Most of such “bloat” has been added by choice, and often with an eye toward getting the butts inna seats. Cutting such programs may be psychically satisfying for education-first types, but the effects of wholesale cuts of such “bloat” can be hugely negative from a business POV. Parents grouse about tuition, but the arms race continues, a kind of tragedy of the commons.
Then there’s also the fact that while faculty are often weak from an organization point of view, they have huge residual, passive power. They can, and usually do, block change when it come to academic programs.
I was the senior finance person at a well-regarded university a couple of years back. When the sh*t first hit the fan relative to the budget, the first cut was to staff–an almost 10% cut! Academic cuts: zero. Can’t go there.
When the budget pressure continued in year two, the trustees rebelled a bit (which was unusual, and praiseworthy IMHO). They demanded that the faculty step up, so that the brunt of year two cuts were not wholly felt by staff.
What followed was a Keystone Kops version of budget. Impassioned speeches at faculty meetings about the death of a great institution and so forth. Lots of nodding of heads.
Under the surface, many faculty privately knew which departments were good and which not so good–but try to get that articulated, and acted on, in the “collegial” world of the faculty. In that world, we are all excellent, and all administrators suspect.
In the end, the faculty was sent off to a room and told they could not come out until they agreed to share the burden. The result? A series of program changes that looked OK on the surface but amounted to essentially no change on deeper analysis. Essentially, the faculty asked the administration to blink, and blink it did. Only now it had developed a new and powerful myth of academic programs being martyred to a cruel budget ax.
Now, are some institutions actually cutting academic programs? Sure, reality continues to raise its head and in some instances academic programs have gotten to the chopping block. But to argue, as Shuman does, that it is “far easier to cut academics than it is to cut anything else” is just part of the martyr mythology.
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
In my experience, the growth of administrators has a lot more to do with Parkinson’s Law than it does either Evil Leeches or Bells and Whistles. And as much as it pains me to defend academics (many of whom are Evil Leeches in their own right) they are, after all, why universities exist at all. Very few people ever chose to attend a university due to the quality of it’s administration.
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Nobody loves an albatross, or an administrator, and they are often viewed one and the same. But “administration” is one of those terms no one can love, as it summons up long lines of faceless financial accountants and auditors. But as the Goldwater Institute report linked to indicates, the big dollar increases from administration have not come from the men in gray flannel suits but the opposite–staff who aim very much to be part of the life of the institution.
People may not choose to attend a university due to the quality of “the administration” if by that is meant the faceless bureaucrats. But they very much choose to attend universities based on their perception of student services, athletics programs, support staff, amenities and so on. That is administration too, and in fact it is where most of the run up in costs can be found.
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“But they very much choose to attend universities based on their perception of student services, athletics programs, support staff, amenities and so on.”
All other things being equal, sure. But I don’t think that the reason that Ivy League schools are thought to be elite institutions (never mind whether that perception is true or not) is due to “student services, athletics programs, support staff, amenities” and so on. As noted, I’m certainly no fan of modern academic-types, but the faculty is the core of a university – full stop. It’s remarkable how many Admin types refuse to see this.
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Careful how you characterize leeches. You’ll be hearing from their union AND their lobby.
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How about ‘free riders’? The economists can get behind that.
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Academic bloat sounds like another case of the “over-production of elites” that Peter Turchin has described. Only so many can get the elite spots they were striving for, so the failed aspirants try to carve out new lesser-elite spots in consolation.
They spent good money getting that master’s in Diversity Management, and they’ll be damned if it’s not going to pay off. If there’s no real job for them anywhere, then they’ll make one up. Can’t be any old job, since no one would go for it. It has to be something that’ll sell to the successful elites. Minority Acclimation Officer, Athletics Palm-Greaser, Starchitect Outreach Coordinator when that new library needs to be designed…
Rather than it all ending with wowie-zowie new jobs for all the failed aspirants, the over-production of elites is a harbinger of social-political instability. Aspiring elites used to cram into the churches, now it’s universities. Is there a secular version of the Wars of Religion on the horizon?
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“Over-production of elites”–great term. In fact here is a recent article from the Chronicle of Higher Education on just this.
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Move-to-Bring-Staff-Scholars/143241/
The authors advocate the universities take special note of the educationally credentialed folks who didn’t make it all the way to faculty, and ask the pathways be found for advancement. These are “alt-ac” people: alternative academics, a breed of administrator-scholars.
“When we published our first column in The Chronicle in 2010, “Building a Corps of Administrator-Scholars,” the term “alt-ac” was just gaining currency. It referred to Ph.D.-prepared staff members who—in addition to our full-time work—continued to do research, write, teach, and take part in other scholarly activities, as time allowed and even when those things were not formal parts of what we were hired to do.
In that article, we described our efforts to get our university to formally recognize and support this growing group of administrator-scholars. At the time, we prepared a detailed proposal of ways the university could make better use of our strengths and submitted it to a committee drafting the university’s new academic plan. Our graduate training meant we could, for example, mentor graduate students, and our administrative skills meant we could connect scholarship to practical problems. Our proposal envisioned a flexible program that could accommodate administrator-scholars’ varying levels of desire and ability to continue our scholarship and teaching, beyond our administrative work.
When the academic plan finally appeared, however, all that remained of our proposal was a vague statement that the university should “recognize and reward the staff’s contributions to engagement,” and that staff “who are academically prepared and professionally disposed to contribute to engaged scholarship and activities should be encouraged, recognized, and supported.”
That was good, yet not quite the robust program we had hoped for.”
—more to come —-
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