4 ms·

Just to point out what may not be so obvious... a lot of the administrative and non instructional staff are not what many of us would consider to be "management

by bilbo0s 12y ago

Just to point out what may not be so obvious... a lot of the administrative and non instructional staff are not what many of us would consider to be "management". For instance, at the University of Wisconsin, there is an VERY large, extremely expensive bureaucracy called DoIT. It stands for "Division of Information Technology". Basically... it is the department for all of the IT people at the University. It is enormously expensive because of the nature of the work they do. And that is just one of the operations level bureaucracies that the University needs. There is Facilities. There is Campus Police, which are very important at a place like UW. Student Housing. Health Services. The list goes on and on. These sorts of costs are not cheap, but they are necessary. Be that as it may, honest people CAN debate whether or not operational arms like DoIT are functioning as efficiently as they could be. My main point here was only to shed light on operational costs that many universities have which tend to be overlooked in conversations like these. Especially as those expenses are most likely the key contributors to the cost rises being discussed. [Edited for grammar]

jpulec 12y ago
I worked at DoIT before graduating and moving out to the Bay Area. And your characterization regarding its bureaucracy and efficiency are pretty spot on.
- ams6110 12y ago
  I worked at another Big Ten IT division. The amount of productive work per salary dollar would shock anyone in the start-up or corporate sector. Staff would roll in from 9:00 to 10:00AM, surf the web or fool around with some toys for a couple of hours, take a 90 minute lunch, go to a few meetings, and be out the door at 4:30 or 5:00PM. A lot of these people making 6 figures or close to it in a town where that is a VERY good salary. On top of that, 6 weeks of PTO and pretty generous benefits. Every few years there would be a reorganization to create a bunch of new job titles and new useless layers of bureaucracy, since that's the only way to give people more than a cost-of-living raise. You could fire half of them, hold the other half accountable to a reasonable level of productivity, and notice no difference. There might be a net gain.
  - HarryHirsch 12y ago
    In all of Europe 4 weeks of paid holidays and a regular 8-hour workday are the norm. And university is free or very affordable. What I'm saying is that poor working conditions and crippling student debt is a policy choice.
    - thejdude 12y ago
      I agree, except that people in Europe aren't paid for their holidays, but for their work. Companies are simply mandated to give you 4 weeks+ off per year - that money is of course deducted from what they would pay you otherwise. Not saying that is a bad thing; actually, it probably improves overall productivity vs the US model. But it's not a free lunch, and it's not the employer's charity - it's the money people actually worked for, equally distributed over working days and holi-days.
      - kerneis 12y ago
        I don't know where you got this idea, but it is just wrong. Of course, employers are free to do whatever back of the envelope calculation they want to decide your salary, but the law in France, the UK, and most other countries is about "paid leave" and that's exactly how it works.
        thejdude 12y ago
        Yes, that's the part you SEE. But I'm pretty sure your boss doesn't pay your "paid vacation" out of his own money - it's part of the calculation of the total package they have to pay you (including your desk, the money they might have to pay to headhunters to acquire you, ...), mandatory state "insurances" or fees. They only pay the value of the package - you can calculate your hourly rate on total yearly pay / yearly hours worked, or are free to imagine you get paid total yearly pay / total hours of the year, and then boom, you're also paid for the vacations, for weekends, for the nights and so on. But in fact you're only paid because your boss knows what value you provide and how many hours you'll be there that year.
  - 12y ago
- quasse 12y ago
  It's funny that DoIT comes up because I happen to work in the same building. I generally leave around 5:00 and without fail when I open my office door the lights are out because people rolled out so long ago that the system shut them off due to lack of activity. Either everyone gets to work at about 7:30am or nobody has ever worked an eight hour day this year.
Zigurd 12y ago
In my day, campus police were unarmed and called on actual police to work actual crimes, versus random disorder that did not rise to the level of crime. Are today's college students such thugs that we need fully equipped police departments on campuses? Police departments are usually the second most expensive part of a municipal budget. How many of the "neccessary" bureaucracies did we do without a generation ago? Universities below the elite level are headed for a massive crash. They better start the rethink soon.
- glesica 12y ago
  As far as I know, most state universities have real police departments. The officers are effectively state police officers. I'm not sure how long this has been the case, but it is at least 20 or so years, if not quite a bit more. Safety is a big issue, especially for parents (who pay many of the bills), so universities view law enforcement and safety spending as a competitive advantage. It is also the case that many universities are located in small, rural communities that might not have the police resources to handle the campus population (for instance, I went to a school that had about as many students as there were non-student residents of the town).

by bilbo0s 12y ago

jpulec 12y ago

I worked at DoIT before graduating and moving out to the Bay Area. And your characterization regarding its bureaucracy and efficiency are pretty spot on.

ams6110 12y ago
I worked at another Big Ten IT division. The amount of productive work per salary dollar would shock anyone in the start-up or corporate sector. Staff would roll in from 9:00 to 10:00AM, surf the web or fool around with some toys for a couple of hours, take a 90 minute lunch, go to a few meetings, and be out the door at 4:30 or 5:00PM. A lot of these people making 6 figures or close to it in a town where that is a VERY good salary. On top of that, 6 weeks of PTO and pretty generous benefits. Every few years there would be a reorganization to create a bunch of new job titles and new useless layers of bureaucracy, since that's the only way to give people more than a cost-of-living raise. You could fire half of them, hold the other half accountable to a reasonable level of productivity, and notice no difference. There might be a net gain.
- HarryHirsch 12y ago
  In all of Europe 4 weeks of paid holidays and a regular 8-hour workday are the norm. And university is free or very affordable. What I'm saying is that poor working conditions and crippling student debt is a policy choice.
  - thejdude 12y ago
    I agree, except that people in Europe aren't paid for their holidays, but for their work. Companies are simply mandated to give you 4 weeks+ off per year - that money is of course deducted from what they would pay you otherwise. Not saying that is a bad thing; actually, it probably improves overall productivity vs the US model. But it's not a free lunch, and it's not the employer's charity - it's the money people actually worked for, equally distributed over working days and holi-days.
    - kerneis 12y ago
      I don't know where you got this idea, but it is just wrong. Of course, employers are free to do whatever back of the envelope calculation they want to decide your salary, but the law in France, the UK, and most other countries is about "paid leave" and that's exactly how it works.
      - thejdude 12y ago
        Yes, that's the part you SEE. But I'm pretty sure your boss doesn't pay your "paid vacation" out of his own money - it's part of the calculation of the total package they have to pay you (including your desk, the money they might have to pay to headhunters to acquire you, ...), mandatory state "insurances" or fees. They only pay the value of the package - you can calculate your hourly rate on total yearly pay / yearly hours worked, or are free to imagine you get paid total yearly pay / total hours of the year, and then boom, you're also paid for the vacations, for weekends, for the nights and so on. But in fact you're only paid because your boss knows what value you provide and how many hours you'll be there that year.
- 12y ago
quasse 12y ago
It's funny that DoIT comes up because I happen to work in the same building. I generally leave around 5:00 and without fail when I open my office door the lights are out because people rolled out so long ago that the system shut them off due to lack of activity. Either everyone gets to work at about 7:30am or nobody has ever worked an eight hour day this year.

Zigurd 12y ago

In my day, campus police were unarmed and called on actual police to work actual crimes, versus random disorder that did not rise to the level of crime. Are today's college students such thugs that we need fully equipped police departments on campuses? Police departments are usually the second most expensive part of a municipal budget. How many of the "neccessary" bureaucracies did we do without a generation ago? Universities below the elite level are headed for a massive crash. They better start the rethink soon.

glesica 12y ago
As far as I know, most state universities have real police departments. The officers are effectively state police officers. I'm not sure how long this has been the case, but it is at least 20 or so years, if not quite a bit more. Safety is a big issue, especially for parents (who pay many of the bills), so universities view law enforcement and safety spending as a competitive advantage. It is also the case that many universities are located in small, rural communities that might not have the police resources to handle the campus population (for instance, I went to a school that had about as many students as there were non-student residents of the town).