4 ms·

As an example, here is an org chart at UC Berkeley for their "Division of Equity and Inclusion". There are 14 positions here that are just at the director level

by skrbjc 4y ago

As an example, here is an org chart at UC Berkeley for their "Division of Equity and Inclusion". There are 14 positions here that are just at the director level. There are many more people that work under these people. Dania, the vice chancellor, gets paid $277,027 a year. Universities are chock full of administrators like these that they never had prior and all of these departments will continually strive to grow their budgets and employee counts in an effort to expand and prove their importance and value.

ModernMech 4y ago
I understand that DEI offices are not appreciated by everyone, so it's easy to point to a particular salary as a waste if you don't value the service this office provides. Consider that rhetorically, I could make the same point you're making by digging up the org chart for the IT department, and claiming we could save so much money if we just got rid of this cost center. But here on HN we all know the intrinsic value of an IT department. It's hard to calculate a dollar value to prove that the IT budget is well spent, but we implicitly understand its purpose in the campus community. If you don't understand the purpose of the DEI office, it's very easy to dismiss it as unnecessary or unwanted. But as I said in one of my other posts, universities are places where a highly diverse population comes together to achieve common goals, and while I painted a rosy picture in that post, the reality is that the process can be messy sometimes. The DEI office provides a valuable campus resource to navigate these situations. They provide learning resources, they hold events for students that are well-attended, and they provide a support network for students who are dealing with issues relating to their identity, among other things. I don't know much about Dania from UC Berkeley, but as far as our DEI office goes, it is staffed by highly qualified domain experts holding doctorate degrees, not bureaucrats. They are at the top of their field, and they come at a premium. Again, I can understand if you're coming from corporate America you may not appreciate the concerns a typical university deals with regarding diversity of the campus population. But I just have to say, it strikes me that most of the criticism I hear regarding the DEI office comes from people who are outside of the academic community, and really have only take a cursory look into these offices and what role they play in the university community. I can't speak for all campuses, but at my institution, my coworkers and students and I appreciate the DEI office and the work they do to make campus a vibrant and compassionate environment. > Universities are chock full of administrators like these that they never had prior and all of these departments It's true that these administrators are new, but it's also true that the role universities play in civic life has expanded. More people than ever have access to universities, and DEI offices have been a response to that. It's not like the exist for lack of want. Going back to the IT analogy, universities used to not have IT departments but now they do. Does that mean we can go back to a simpler time without IT (think of how much we could shrink the budget!), or should we accept it's a new world and adapt?
- skrbjc 4y ago
  I’ve worked in administration at multiple universities and have a masters degree in education so I am well aware of how these institutions function on the inside. It is an indisputable fact that university administrations have become very bloated over time. This is just one example of one department that would not have existed 10-20 years ago, but it now commands a multi million dollar budget at just one campus of a large public university that has multiple campuses throughout the state. You can describe the merits of a DEI office and we can debate whether universities were much worse off when they didn’t exist, but the fact is they add cost. Like all the other offices. Many of which are full of the university version of “resters and vesters” riding out their time to eventually collect their retirements. I went into university administration inspired by the vision of the California master plan of higher education and the people like Clark Kerr who helped build that vision. But it quickly became clear that the culture within university administration today is sadly lacking any of that former vision and seems focused on growing department budgets while producing the most minimal amount of work.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > the fact is they add cost. I’m glad your opinion is informed, but absent from your response is any consideration for students, so I think we are concerned about different things. I never disputed that any of this costs money.

by skrbjc 4y ago

ModernMech 4y ago

I understand that DEI offices are not appreciated by everyone, so it's easy to point to a particular salary as a waste if you don't value the service this office provides. Consider that rhetorically, I could make the same point you're making by digging up the org chart for the IT department, and claiming we could save so much money if we just got rid of this cost center. But here on HN we all know the intrinsic value of an IT department. It's hard to calculate a dollar value to prove that the IT budget is well spent, but we implicitly understand its purpose in the campus community. If you don't understand the purpose of the DEI office, it's very easy to dismiss it as unnecessary or unwanted. But as I said in one of my other posts, universities are places where a highly diverse population comes together to achieve common goals, and while I painted a rosy picture in that post, the reality is that the process can be messy sometimes. The DEI office provides a valuable campus resource to navigate these situations. They provide learning resources, they hold events for students that are well-attended, and they provide a support network for students who are dealing with issues relating to their identity, among other things. I don't know much about Dania from UC Berkeley, but as far as our DEI office goes, it is staffed by highly qualified domain experts holding doctorate degrees, not bureaucrats. They are at the top of their field, and they come at a premium. Again, I can understand if you're coming from corporate America you may not appreciate the concerns a typical university deals with regarding diversity of the campus population. But I just have to say, it strikes me that most of the criticism I hear regarding the DEI office comes from people who are outside of the academic community, and really have only take a cursory look into these offices and what role they play in the university community. I can't speak for all campuses, but at my institution, my coworkers and students and I appreciate the DEI office and the work they do to make campus a vibrant and compassionate environment. > Universities are chock full of administrators like these that they never had prior and all of these departments It's true that these administrators are new, but it's also true that the role universities play in civic life has expanded. More people than ever have access to universities, and DEI offices have been a response to that. It's not like the exist for lack of want. Going back to the IT analogy, universities used to not have IT departments but now they do. Does that mean we can go back to a simpler time without IT (think of how much we could shrink the budget!), or should we accept it's a new world and adapt?

skrbjc 4y ago
I’ve worked in administration at multiple universities and have a masters degree in education so I am well aware of how these institutions function on the inside. It is an indisputable fact that university administrations have become very bloated over time. This is just one example of one department that would not have existed 10-20 years ago, but it now commands a multi million dollar budget at just one campus of a large public university that has multiple campuses throughout the state. You can describe the merits of a DEI office and we can debate whether universities were much worse off when they didn’t exist, but the fact is they add cost. Like all the other offices. Many of which are full of the university version of “resters and vesters” riding out their time to eventually collect their retirements. I went into university administration inspired by the vision of the California master plan of higher education and the people like Clark Kerr who helped build that vision. But it quickly became clear that the culture within university administration today is sadly lacking any of that former vision and seems focused on growing department budgets while producing the most minimal amount of work.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > the fact is they add cost. I’m glad your opinion is informed, but absent from your response is any consideration for students, so I think we are concerned about different things. I never disputed that any of this costs money.