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Stanford seems to be run by a faceless bureaucracy that (a) cares first and foremost about the bureaucracy itself, its power, its reputation, its vision, its go

by cs702 4y ago

Stanford seems to be run by a faceless bureaucracy that (a) cares first and foremost about the bureaucracy itself, its power, its reputation, its vision, its goals, its organization, its efficiency, its financial situation, etc., and (b) cares only secondarily about students. The many wonderful professors who do care about students operate at the mercy of apparatchiks in the bureaucracy.

bumby 4y ago
Part of the problem may be that professors have been more willing to hand over the reins of running the university to administrators in recent decades. On the surface, it may seem a good deal for the professors: they get to spend more time on researching the problems they are interested in. But the downside is they have ceded control to the "faceless bureaucracy" who care less about the traditional aims of a university (research, education) and more about the institution itself.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
People complaining about university bureaucracies is as old as the whole notion of universities. Neal Stephenson's first novel, the Big-U, is essentially about that. Not his finest work but entertaining. It's set at a fictional college near Boston. But it seems interchangeable with just about any university. Money, power, corruption, bureaucracy, etc. are all themes in that novel. The thing is, universities are places that combine a large number of people that go there, large budgets, and wide varieties of weird things that need funding, attention, etc. with lots of groups of people favoring one thing over the other and quite a bit of alumni, politicians, and other people in power obsessing over how it is all administered. So, a certain level of bureaucracy and politics are pretty much a given. As are disagreements over how this is administered. And any such organization that exists for a while inevitably develops some Kafka-esque bureaucracies. It would be anomalous if that wasn't the case. Literally almost every university on this planet has this issue. Some might regard this as a feature and not a bug. Learning to thrive in such a place helps prepare people for the real world a bit. Obviously some universities do better than others. But overall, it seems Stanford is still doing fine in producing some world class research, maintaining good academic standards, and generally attracting new generations of students that are willing to pay up the stupendously large tuition fees. I don't see what the big deal here is other than some immature people being immature, which if you think about it is the whole point of a university.

by cs702 4y ago

bumby 4y ago

Part of the problem may be that professors have been more willing to hand over the reins of running the university to administrators in recent decades. On the surface, it may seem a good deal for the professors: they get to spend more time on researching the problems they are interested in. But the downside is they have ceded control to the "faceless bureaucracy" who care less about the traditional aims of a university (research, education) and more about the institution itself.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

People complaining about university bureaucracies is as old as the whole notion of universities. Neal Stephenson's first novel, the Big-U, is essentially about that. Not his finest work but entertaining. It's set at a fictional college near Boston. But it seems interchangeable with just about any university. Money, power, corruption, bureaucracy, etc. are all themes in that novel. The thing is, universities are places that combine a large number of people that go there, large budgets, and wide varieties of weird things that need funding, attention, etc. with lots of groups of people favoring one thing over the other and quite a bit of alumni, politicians, and other people in power obsessing over how it is all administered. So, a certain level of bureaucracy and politics are pretty much a given. As are disagreements over how this is administered. And any such organization that exists for a while inevitably develops some Kafka-esque bureaucracies. It would be anomalous if that wasn't the case. Literally almost every university on this planet has this issue. Some might regard this as a feature and not a bug. Learning to thrive in such a place helps prepare people for the real world a bit. Obviously some universities do better than others. But overall, it seems Stanford is still doing fine in producing some world class research, maintaining good academic standards, and generally attracting new generations of students that are willing to pay up the stupendously large tuition fees. I don't see what the big deal here is other than some immature people being immature, which if you think about it is the whole point of a university.