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For what it's worth, it's 23:30 here, and I'm on my laptop working on making sure that our internal ikiwiki is up-to-date with notes on the labs that I support.

For what it's worth, it's 23:30 here, and I'm on my laptop working on making sure that our internal ikiwiki is up-to-date with notes on the labs that I support. I'm going in for surgery on Thursday, and I've got Wednesday off (it's bowel surgery, so I'm doing all the annoying prep the day before). I also need to post on the appropriate Slack channels, so that my co-workers (who will be covering for me) know the docs are up-to-date. I also need to note anything things that might pop up, that don't justify wiki entries (like, tickets of note that are still open). I'll probably work until Midnight or 00:30, and then pick right up at it tomorrow morning, because _I want the docs to be up-to-date_. I was working on all that today and yesterday, but there was also the regular support load from my labs. Plus, one of my co-workers was stuck in a project to reverse-engineer a binary file format, and I was helping her through using the Python `struct` module for the first time. It would be nice if we had an extra employee to help shoulder the load, but he's out right now (his wife was in labor). My clients don't want to spend time managing technology. They just want to do the stuff they love, to do their research. But things like broken servers, laws, hackers, and the threat of negative PR, get in the way. I try to deal with all of that for them. I'm a staffer at a university. I already knew that some portion of the student body thought of us as parasites[1], but I didn't know that the outside world held the same view. [1]: https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-administrative-bloat-is-out-of-control/ https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-administrative-bloat-is...

hurricaneSlider 8y ago
To be fair, I don't think they're referring to your job when talking about 'parasites'
- asciident 8y ago
  I think people are just parroting soundbites they hear like "the number of administrators keep growing and are causing the tuition increases." In reality, what's happening is way too complex to be described in a single or even a few sentences. The role of universities is expanding. Should universities play a role in the local communities? Should they do research? Should they perform outreach to improve diversity? Should they accommodate all facets of student life? Should they have sports? Should they teach courses to non-students? Should they fundraise? Should they support extracurriculars and provide leadership opportunities? Should they offer financial aid? Should they manage real estate and parking? Should they resolve disputes among faculty and students and departments? Should they invest their endowment? Should they support alumni? Basically, each of these needs a team of people to manage.
  - imgabe 8y ago
    The main thing they should do is teach classes and possibly conduct research. That's supposed to be the primary goal. When they remove all the full-time faculty by replacing everyone who leaves with underpaid and overworked adjuncts, they fail at that mission. Nobody is going to care about any of the other things if they can't actually learn anything there.
  - amvalo 8y ago
    My answer to most of these questions is either "No, that's not what universities are for" or "yes, and they've been doing that for decades."
ForHackernews 8y ago
I don't think anyone considers IT support staff to be "administrators". They're thinking of Deans, Provosts, Vice Provosts, ____ Coordinators. These positions frequently pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they've multiplied significantly over the last 30 years.
- sct202 8y ago
  IT project bloat is definitely an issue though. It's just not the support staff that are causing the problem. Plus more admins are brought in either to manage the projects or make them more 'efficient' when the projects fail or are poorly implemented. You start to get coordinators whose job it is to hand key from one system to another so that professors or what not don't have to do it.
wutbrodo 8y ago
"College administrators" doesn't mean "sysadmin". And it's a pretty bizarre interpretation of the linked article to say that the author is implying that sysadmins (as a subset of non-teaching staff) are parasites. Rather, the article's claim is that the relative growth rates of teachers, students, and non-teaching staff imply in the aggregate some inefficiencies in the way the college's functioning has been evolving. The argument may or may not be correct, but it's analysis isn't prima facie ridiculous and its meaning is worlds away from what you're saying. On top of THAT, even the most uncharitable interpretation of the article (ie, tarring college administrators as mostly parasites) would quite obviously not include the kind of work you're describing, ie support staff for course materials.
dylz 8y ago
Have you tried this? I like it for doing what you are doing. https://construct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://construct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
danieltillett 8y ago
My post wasn’t aimed at people like you (support staff), but as others have already pointed mentioned all the deans and vice-deans for x that seem to do nothing but make it hard to actually get any teaching and research done. Good luck with your surgery.
magduf 8y ago
It should have been pretty obvious from context that the OP wasn't talking about "system administrators", but rather the more common definition of "administrator".

hurricaneSlider 8y ago

To be fair, I don't think they're referring to your job when talking about 'parasites'

asciident 8y ago
I think people are just parroting soundbites they hear like "the number of administrators keep growing and are causing the tuition increases." In reality, what's happening is way too complex to be described in a single or even a few sentences. The role of universities is expanding. Should universities play a role in the local communities? Should they do research? Should they perform outreach to improve diversity? Should they accommodate all facets of student life? Should they have sports? Should they teach courses to non-students? Should they fundraise? Should they support extracurriculars and provide leadership opportunities? Should they offer financial aid? Should they manage real estate and parking? Should they resolve disputes among faculty and students and departments? Should they invest their endowment? Should they support alumni? Basically, each of these needs a team of people to manage.
- imgabe 8y ago
  The main thing they should do is teach classes and possibly conduct research. That's supposed to be the primary goal. When they remove all the full-time faculty by replacing everyone who leaves with underpaid and overworked adjuncts, they fail at that mission. Nobody is going to care about any of the other things if they can't actually learn anything there.
- amvalo 8y ago
  My answer to most of these questions is either "No, that's not what universities are for" or "yes, and they've been doing that for decades."

ForHackernews 8y ago

I don't think anyone considers IT support staff to be "administrators". They're thinking of Deans, Provosts, Vice Provosts, ____ Coordinators. These positions frequently pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they've multiplied significantly over the last 30 years.

sct202 8y ago
IT project bloat is definitely an issue though. It's just not the support staff that are causing the problem. Plus more admins are brought in either to manage the projects or make them more 'efficient' when the projects fail or are poorly implemented. You start to get coordinators whose job it is to hand key from one system to another so that professors or what not don't have to do it.

wutbrodo 8y ago

"College administrators" doesn't mean "sysadmin". And it's a pretty bizarre interpretation of the linked article to say that the author is implying that sysadmins (as a subset of non-teaching staff) are parasites. Rather, the article's claim is that the relative growth rates of teachers, students, and non-teaching staff imply in the aggregate some inefficiencies in the way the college's functioning has been evolving. The argument may or may not be correct, but it's analysis isn't prima facie ridiculous and its meaning is worlds away from what you're saying. On top of THAT, even the most uncharitable interpretation of the article (ie, tarring college administrators as mostly parasites) would quite obviously not include the kind of work you're describing, ie support staff for course materials.

dylz 8y ago

Have you tried this? I like it for doing what you are doing. https://construct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ https://construct.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

danieltillett 8y ago

My post wasn’t aimed at people like you (support staff), but as others have already pointed mentioned all the deans and vice-deans for x that seem to do nothing but make it hard to actually get any teaching and research done. Good luck with your surgery.

magduf 8y ago

It should have been pretty obvious from context that the OP wasn't talking about "system administrators", but rather the more common definition of "administrator".