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> Stanford’s foremost problem is administrative bloat. The University employs 14,448 non-teaching employees, more than double the 6,769 it had on the payroll in
by bachmeier 3y ago
> Stanford’s foremost problem is administrative bloat. The University employs 14,448 non-teaching employees, more than double the 6,769 it had on the payroll in 1984
That sounds like a big deal, but it doesn't mean anything. Stanford is among the top research universities in the world. Of course they're going to have a lot of non-teaching employees. The institution primarily exists for research, not teaching.
- cozzyd 3y agoPostdocs, for example would be counted under that.
- metadat 3y agoStanford is actually a real estate play disguised as a school and research institution. References: https://www.kqed.org/news/11781771/how-stanford-became-the-largest-landowner-in-silicon-valley https://www.kqed.org/news/11781771/how-stanford-became-the-l... https://revealnews.org/article/the-stanford-empire/ https://revealnews.org/article/the-stanford-empire/
- iancmceachern 3y agoSo is NYU
- washadjeffmad 3y agoDuring the pandemic when our universities were rumbling about furloughing staff, the governor told them they had to divest themselves of excess property holdings first. After that, there was no furlough, and no properties were sold. However, almost universally, the boards that proposed the furloughs all took PPP loans for themselves.
- bell-cot 3y ago> it doesn't mean anything EXACTLY, sad to say. If $Bobville_University operates $Bobville_Hospital - then how should you count the full-time medical, facilities, security, administrative staff at the hospital? At most a puny percentage of them are $Bobville_Professors. Which is not to say that administrative bloat - both headcount and top-job salaries - isn't an existential problem in American academia. But to identify (& hopefully kill) it, you have to do some actual work, sorting through the details.
- tmn 3y agoThey show a chart of the various 'non-teaching' roles. To my eyes, research positions are not included.
- cozzyd 3y agoThe same chart that shows SLAC, the national lab?
- jhbadger 3y agoExactly, as someone who was non-teaching research faculty (not at Stanford), I can say there are lots of people in research institutions who don't teach. That's a different issue than the real issue of growth of the number of administrative staff. It isn't useful to lump all "non-teaching employees" as a group.