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While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which ad

wtdo 6y ago
This frames the question wrong and deceptively so. When you say "cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion", you frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion. But you can go without an administrator whose sole purpose is diversity and inclusion and still have diversity and inclusion be handled. That sounds like the kind of thing the administrators in admissions ought to be handling. Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college? Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant?
- adminprof 6y ago
  I didn't frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion, that's just usually how the roles are defined. But you're missing my point completely (maybe intentionally?). I'm just saying that we should talk about specific administrators or administrative units, not "administration is too big". So let's talk about that, not whether your framing of my framing of the university's framing is accurate. And you'll see that this is effective, because now when you ask those more specific questions, there are potentially good discussions. Like "Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant" and someone might wonder if it makes sense (based on your proposed structure) for the Dean of Athletics to be handling rape cases, and whether they have the expertise to deal with the federal regulations that come with Title IX. Or "Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college?" and someone might wonder why it makes sense for someone responsible for undergraduate education (which might not involve research in some universities) to handle grants, which is usually related to graduate education and research (and in many fields, don't involve students at all). Or "administrators in admissions ought to be handling [diversity and inclusion]" and someone might wonder if there should not be someone also responsible for diversity and inclusion in faculty/staff/administrator hiring, or in campus policies around inclusion (like accessibility services), which are post-admissions.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    If, as other commenters have said about their schools, there are double-digit numbers of administrators making over $1m, why not just cut their compensation to near that of lecturers?
  - wtdo 6y ago
    No, it does not make sense for the Dean of Athletics to handle rape cases other than for them to kick out the athlete that has been convicted of rape by a court of law after an investigation by the police. An argument can be made as to whether those are University police or non-University police, but the investigation shouldn't be done by the Dean or any other administrator. If the Dean of Athletics has questions about federal regulations, that's what lawyers are for, which don't need to be in house administrators either. Administrators in admissions handle diversity and inclusion for students. Whoever is already in charge of hiring faculty/staff should also be handling diversity and inclusion there as well. I get that specialists are needed at times, and having one person (or group of persons) can help in getting a singular focus and consistent strategy. But there's nothing wrong with people wearing multiple hats in a job and communicating with peers as they do so. There also can't be a discussion of which adminstrators to let go until we are talking about specifics. Each University will have different circumstances, priorities, problems and budgets, and each individual adminstrator will have their own skills, expertises, and abilities to handle certain workloads. What changes Harvard would make are going to be different than the changes Notre Dame would make. That's why you can't have those specific "which administrators" conversations. It's not because we can't decide whether to cut administrators in charge of diversity or administrators in charge of athletics. Any given administrator can have multiple roles. They don't need to specialize in one. Which grouping of roles occurs will be determined by a very specific set of circumstances for a given University and its people, which is going to depend on knowledge that neither you nor I have.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > No, it does not make sense for the Dean of Athletics to handle rape cases other than for them to kick out the athlete that has been convicted of rape by a court of law after an investigation by the police. An argument can be made as to whether those are University police or non-University police, but the investigation shouldn't be done by the Dean or any other administrator. If the Dean of Athletics has questions about federal regulations, that's what lawyers are for, which don't need to be in house administrators either. A student's behaviour can generally get them kicked out of a university, despite not being convicted by a court of law. Just like you can be fired from your job, without a jury-of-twelve-peers conviction, if you've broken your employer's code of conduct. So, no, the dean's job in this case is to not to simply grep through the list of state felons, and match them against the student roster. There's broader discretion in the kind of censure that private individuals need to apply, that does not begin and end at the courts.
- IdoRA 6y ago
  > Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college? Among other reasons: It takes an entire team to manage the lifecycle of grants, it's too much work for a single person to accomplish. In addition to the work needed to apply for a grant, there is also mandatory reporting and compliance to that needs to be completed. Additionally, a dean doesn't have the capacity to bind the entire university to the terms of a grant (nor the awareness to safely do so), so you run into problems with interdisciplinary research, which is increasingly encouraged.
tengbretson 6y ago
I don't think this needs to be settled ahead of time. If we shut off the tap of infinite student debt funding I guarantee the universities will magically discover what administrators and departments are dispensable quicker than you can imagine.
- adminprof 6y ago
  I don't see what assurances you have of this guarantee you give. As so far it seems like when funding is cut, faculty (teaching and research) and academic departments are cut and financial aid is reduced, rather than major cuts in administration. So it's worth discussing what administrative units are cuttable, or come to the realization there is no free cuts to make to administration without sacrifices to some existing principles.
  - tengbretson 6y ago
    If we can't trust these organizations to make the right (and obviously needed) cuts in order to still realize their value to society in the face of reduced funding, then they don't deserve to be the ones teaching our children in the first place.
    - adminprof 6y ago
      I think we just keep going back to the same issue -- people agree that administration is too big. But if you break it down to actual positions or administrative units, it's not clear there is any agreement. There is no such thing as "right cuts" because that implies it's clear which parts of administration should be cut. Same with government. Government waste is bad? Of course! Trim unnecessary government spending and pork barrel? Yes!! And which branches and positions should we cut? The Right Ones!! [cue nothing actually happens]
      - tengbretson 6y ago
        What I'm getting at though is that it's a distributed problem and that I frankly don't care if everyone gets it right. Shut off the money first. Some of the universities will make their cuts in academic and research departments. That's fine. I don't expect we'll hear too much from them after a while. Good riddance.
btilly 6y ago
While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which administrators. And I find that once you try to do that, no one agrees which administrators should be cut. Do you want to cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion? Or the administrators responsible for tech transfer? Or the Dean of the College? Or administrators that manage grants? Or administrators of admissions, or athletics, title IX, or school of medicine? For a start, let's cut any administrator that was not considered needed for the proper running of a university 30 years ago. So we can start with the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion and tech transfer. You can probably also get rid of most of the administrators administering grants, athletics, and title IX. Give us some specifics to discuss. Because while almost everyone agrees administration needs to be trimmed, if everyone just wants to keep the ones they think are important and there's not much overlap, then there's clearly no way to do this. The argument, "We can't cut anyone if we can't all agree on who to cut" is a recipe for, "We will cut everyone after we go bankrupt." Those bankruptcies are already starting. And before COVID-19 is over, plenty of universities that can't figure out how to do layoffs of administrators are going to have to do just that. Education has been on an unsustainable path for decades. It is widely recognized that it is unsustainable. As Stein's law says, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." But before we get there we get to see the truth of Stanisford's corollaries, "It will go on a lot longer than we think" and "It will end badly when it does stop." It has gone on a lot longer than I thought it could 20 years ago. However COVID-19 has changed the equation enough to end business as usual, and now we get to see how bad the ending is. The more that administrators cling to keeping business as usual, the worse that they will make things for themselves.
- bambataa 6y ago
  > For a start, let's cut any administrator that was not considered needed for the proper running of a university 30 years ago. What makes you so sure universities were sufficiently well-run 30 years ago? And what makes you so sure other people agree with you?
  - labcomputer 6y ago

wtdo 6y ago

This frames the question wrong and deceptively so. When you say "cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion", you frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion. But you can go without an administrator whose sole purpose is diversity and inclusion and still have diversity and inclusion be handled. That sounds like the kind of thing the administrators in admissions ought to be handling. Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college? Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant?

adminprof 6y ago
I didn't frame it as getting rid of diversity and inclusion, that's just usually how the roles are defined. But you're missing my point completely (maybe intentionally?). I'm just saying that we should talk about specific administrators or administrative units, not "administration is too big". So let's talk about that, not whether your framing of my framing of the university's framing is accurate. And you'll see that this is effective, because now when you ask those more specific questions, there are potentially good discussions. Like "Why is there a Dean of the College of Athletics that isn't also handling athletics and the parts of title IX that are relevant" and someone might wonder if it makes sense (based on your proposed structure) for the Dean of Athletics to be handling rape cases, and whether they have the expertise to deal with the federal regulations that come with Title IX. Or "Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college?" and someone might wonder why it makes sense for someone responsible for undergraduate education (which might not involve research in some universities) to handle grants, which is usually related to graduate education and research (and in many fields, don't involve students at all). Or "administrators in admissions ought to be handling [diversity and inclusion]" and someone might wonder if there should not be someone also responsible for diversity and inclusion in faculty/staff/administrator hiring, or in campus policies around inclusion (like accessibility services), which are post-admissions.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  If, as other commenters have said about their schools, there are double-digit numbers of administrators making over $1m, why not just cut their compensation to near that of lecturers?
- wtdo 6y ago
  No, it does not make sense for the Dean of Athletics to handle rape cases other than for them to kick out the athlete that has been convicted of rape by a court of law after an investigation by the police. An argument can be made as to whether those are University police or non-University police, but the investigation shouldn't be done by the Dean or any other administrator. If the Dean of Athletics has questions about federal regulations, that's what lawyers are for, which don't need to be in house administrators either. Administrators in admissions handle diversity and inclusion for students. Whoever is already in charge of hiring faculty/staff should also be handling diversity and inclusion there as well. I get that specialists are needed at times, and having one person (or group of persons) can help in getting a singular focus and consistent strategy. But there's nothing wrong with people wearing multiple hats in a job and communicating with peers as they do so. There also can't be a discussion of which adminstrators to let go until we are talking about specifics. Each University will have different circumstances, priorities, problems and budgets, and each individual adminstrator will have their own skills, expertises, and abilities to handle certain workloads. What changes Harvard would make are going to be different than the changes Notre Dame would make. That's why you can't have those specific "which administrators" conversations. It's not because we can't decide whether to cut administrators in charge of diversity or administrators in charge of athletics. Any given administrator can have multiple roles. They don't need to specialize in one. Which grouping of roles occurs will be determined by a very specific set of circumstances for a given University and its people, which is going to depend on knowledge that neither you nor I have.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > No, it does not make sense for the Dean of Athletics to handle rape cases other than for them to kick out the athlete that has been convicted of rape by a court of law after an investigation by the police. An argument can be made as to whether those are University police or non-University police, but the investigation shouldn't be done by the Dean or any other administrator. If the Dean of Athletics has questions about federal regulations, that's what lawyers are for, which don't need to be in house administrators either. A student's behaviour can generally get them kicked out of a university, despite not being convicted by a court of law. Just like you can be fired from your job, without a jury-of-twelve-peers conviction, if you've broken your employer's code of conduct. So, no, the dean's job in this case is to not to simply grep through the list of state felons, and match them against the student roster. There's broader discretion in the kind of censure that private individuals need to apply, that does not begin and end at the courts.
IdoRA 6y ago
> Why can't the Dean of the College also handle grants for their college? Among other reasons: It takes an entire team to manage the lifecycle of grants, it's too much work for a single person to accomplish. In addition to the work needed to apply for a grant, there is also mandatory reporting and compliance to that needs to be completed. Additionally, a dean doesn't have the capacity to bind the entire university to the terms of a grant (nor the awareness to safely do so), so you run into problems with interdisciplinary research, which is increasingly encouraged.

tengbretson 6y ago

I don't think this needs to be settled ahead of time. If we shut off the tap of infinite student debt funding I guarantee the universities will magically discover what administrators and departments are dispensable quicker than you can imagine.

adminprof 6y ago
I don't see what assurances you have of this guarantee you give. As so far it seems like when funding is cut, faculty (teaching and research) and academic departments are cut and financial aid is reduced, rather than major cuts in administration. So it's worth discussing what administrative units are cuttable, or come to the realization there is no free cuts to make to administration without sacrifices to some existing principles.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  If we can't trust these organizations to make the right (and obviously needed) cuts in order to still realize their value to society in the face of reduced funding, then they don't deserve to be the ones teaching our children in the first place.
  - adminprof 6y ago
    I think we just keep going back to the same issue -- people agree that administration is too big. But if you break it down to actual positions or administrative units, it's not clear there is any agreement. There is no such thing as "right cuts" because that implies it's clear which parts of administration should be cut. Same with government. Government waste is bad? Of course! Trim unnecessary government spending and pork barrel? Yes!! And which branches and positions should we cut? The Right Ones!! [cue nothing actually happens]
    - tengbretson 6y ago
      What I'm getting at though is that it's a distributed problem and that I frankly don't care if everyone gets it right. Shut off the money first. Some of the universities will make their cuts in academic and research departments. That's fine. I don't expect we'll hear too much from them after a while. Good riddance.

btilly 6y ago

While in general I agree that there are too many administrators at many universities, this type of argument is ineffective without pointing out exactly which administrators. And I find that once you try to do that, no one agrees which administrators should be cut. Do you want to cut the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion? Or the administrators responsible for tech transfer? Or the Dean of the College? Or administrators that manage grants? Or administrators of admissions, or athletics, title IX, or school of medicine? For a start, let's cut any administrator that was not considered needed for the proper running of a university 30 years ago. So we can start with the administrators responsible for diversity and inclusion and tech transfer. You can probably also get rid of most of the administrators administering grants, athletics, and title IX. Give us some specifics to discuss. Because while almost everyone agrees administration needs to be trimmed, if everyone just wants to keep the ones they think are important and there's not much overlap, then there's clearly no way to do this. The argument, "We can't cut anyone if we can't all agree on who to cut" is a recipe for, "We will cut everyone after we go bankrupt." Those bankruptcies are already starting. And before COVID-19 is over, plenty of universities that can't figure out how to do layoffs of administrators are going to have to do just that. Education has been on an unsustainable path for decades. It is widely recognized that it is unsustainable. As Stein's law says, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." But before we get there we get to see the truth of Stanisford's corollaries, "It will go on a lot longer than we think" and "It will end badly when it does stop." It has gone on a lot longer than I thought it could 20 years ago. However COVID-19 has changed the equation enough to end business as usual, and now we get to see how bad the ending is. The more that administrators cling to keeping business as usual, the worse that they will make things for themselves.

bambataa 6y ago
> For a start, let's cut any administrator that was not considered needed for the proper running of a university 30 years ago. What makes you so sure universities were sufficiently well-run 30 years ago? And what makes you so sure other people agree with you?
- labcomputer 6y ago