4 ms·

How in the hell??? Is this considered extreme even in america?

by emptyfile 8y ago

kathe-rine 8y ago
My university is comparable to Stanford (Princeton) but has a roughly 1:1 faculty: administrator ratio (1200: to 1100).
- emptyfile 8y ago
  That seems reasonable for an expensive US university, especially when compared to the post above. I live in eastern europe and I was trying to remember what kind of administrative staff I encountered in my 6 years of university. Apart from the people who handle the paperwork for admissions and cleaning ladies I honestly can't think any.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Your librarians are administrative staff. Your research assistants are administrative staff. The people who do inventory are administrative staff. The people who do purchases are administrative staff. The people who work in the cafeteria are administrative staff. The people who install, maintain, and fix the computers used by all of the people in the list above are administrative staff. The people who fix a broken door are administrative staff. The people who are managing student housing are administrative staff. On-site campus security that busts freshmen parties are administrative staff. Pretty much everyone who is drawing a salary, and is not a lecturing professor is administrative staff. If your university consists of a dozen lecture halls, and a storage closet, you don't need any administrative staff. The more facilities and services you have, the more administrative staff you will have. Stanford probably has a lot more facilities then your university did. If you just want to lecture to people, education can be incredibly cheap. If you want to lecture to people, and have them use expensive lab equipment, and have them live on campus, and have hundreds of people, with teams of assistants doing research... It's going to be expensive.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
I used to work for a public school district and it too was extremely top-heavy with administrators. I worked in a building dedicated to administrators with not a single teacher or student.
- throwawayjava 8y ago
  FWIW that can be reasonable depending on the size of the district. Ours has ~4k+ non-admin employees and 15+ physical plants. That's: * a large enough headcount that you need an HR department, * a large enough overall budget that you need a CFO and accountants, * a large enough physical plant that you need (sizable) facilities and transportation departments (with storage space), * a large enough IT plant that you need dedicated staff, * a large enough student body that you need a legal/compliance group (open records requests, mandatory state/fed data collection and reporting, etc.), * a large enough teaching staff that you need nodes whose primary function is coordinating significant curriculum changes across grade levels and schools, * a large enough community that a full-time community relations person is cheaper than bringing in a PR firm whenever necessary (every dollar that schools spend or borrow comes from a democratic process that schools have to engage with seriously in all but the most affluent communities), * and several other functions. For a place with 4k people, that's dozens and dozens of admins. There are basically two options: build a wing onto a school, or build a stand-alone building. Most districts go the stand-alone route because 1) districts can often get cheap/free land anyways, and 2) it's a good idea to leave that physical space for schools to grow in case population increases. FWIW I did the "look up all my past employer's [X type of admin] to engineer/sales/marketing ratios and compare to the school district" thing. I couldn't find anything out a whack. But the resulting raw numbers definitely mean the district needs dedicated space for admin folks.
- grimjack00 8y ago
  This is why I am highly skeptical every time there's a bill/referendum/whatever to increase the education budget. It's not that I don't care about children and their education; it's that I doubt much of that money will get anywhere near where it needs to go.
  - 8y ago

How in the hell??? Is this considered extreme even in america?

kathe-rine 8y ago

My university is comparable to Stanford (Princeton) but has a roughly 1:1 faculty: administrator ratio (1200: to 1100).

emptyfile 8y ago
That seems reasonable for an expensive US university, especially when compared to the post above. I live in eastern europe and I was trying to remember what kind of administrative staff I encountered in my 6 years of university. Apart from the people who handle the paperwork for admissions and cleaning ladies I honestly can't think any.
- vkou 8y ago
  Your librarians are administrative staff. Your research assistants are administrative staff. The people who do inventory are administrative staff. The people who do purchases are administrative staff. The people who work in the cafeteria are administrative staff. The people who install, maintain, and fix the computers used by all of the people in the list above are administrative staff. The people who fix a broken door are administrative staff. The people who are managing student housing are administrative staff. On-site campus security that busts freshmen parties are administrative staff. Pretty much everyone who is drawing a salary, and is not a lecturing professor is administrative staff. If your university consists of a dozen lecture halls, and a storage closet, you don't need any administrative staff. The more facilities and services you have, the more administrative staff you will have. Stanford probably has a lot more facilities then your university did. If you just want to lecture to people, education can be incredibly cheap. If you want to lecture to people, and have them use expensive lab equipment, and have them live on campus, and have hundreds of people, with teams of assistants doing research... It's going to be expensive.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago

I used to work for a public school district and it too was extremely top-heavy with administrators. I worked in a building dedicated to administrators with not a single teacher or student.

throwawayjava 8y ago
FWIW that can be reasonable depending on the size of the district. Ours has ~4k+ non-admin employees and 15+ physical plants. That's: * a large enough headcount that you need an HR department, * a large enough overall budget that you need a CFO and accountants, * a large enough physical plant that you need (sizable) facilities and transportation departments (with storage space), * a large enough IT plant that you need dedicated staff, * a large enough student body that you need a legal/compliance group (open records requests, mandatory state/fed data collection and reporting, etc.), * a large enough teaching staff that you need nodes whose primary function is coordinating significant curriculum changes across grade levels and schools, * a large enough community that a full-time community relations person is cheaper than bringing in a PR firm whenever necessary (every dollar that schools spend or borrow comes from a democratic process that schools have to engage with seriously in all but the most affluent communities), * and several other functions. For a place with 4k people, that's dozens and dozens of admins. There are basically two options: build a wing onto a school, or build a stand-alone building. Most districts go the stand-alone route because 1) districts can often get cheap/free land anyways, and 2) it's a good idea to leave that physical space for schools to grow in case population increases. FWIW I did the "look up all my past employer's [X type of admin] to engineer/sales/marketing ratios and compare to the school district" thing. I couldn't find anything out a whack. But the resulting raw numbers definitely mean the district needs dedicated space for admin folks.
grimjack00 8y ago
This is why I am highly skeptical every time there's a bill/referendum/whatever to increase the education budget. It's not that I don't care about children and their education; it's that I doubt much of that money will get anywhere near where it needs to go.
- 8y ago