[HN Gopher] Faculty reflect on two decades of rapid expansion
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Faculty reflect on two decades of rapid expansion
Author : Jugurtha
Score : 32 points
Date : 2021-11-11 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yaledailynews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (yaledailynews.com)
| MarkLowenstein wrote:
| 14 comments in and no mention of the element Administratium?
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e9/a5/74/e9a57450043a4af5725c...
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| It's happening in the UC system too, I feel...though I don't have
| data.
|
| Edit: https://capitolweekly.net/tuition-uc-administrators-
| tripled-...
| secabeen wrote:
| For a lot of these schools, it helps to look at the increase in
| research dollars that they're bringing in. I expect some
| fraction of the new administrators are necessary to manage the
| research funding, which has a limited affect on tuition costs.
| Federal grants in particular have a lot of reporting and
| compliance that has to be produced.
|
| The article also notes:
|
| > University spokesperson Karen Peart pointed out that while
| the University's managerial staff has increased over the last
| two decades, so too has the faculty, which has grown by 54
| percent.
|
| If the faculty have increased by that much, I would hope the
| staff would increase a similar amount.
|
| Neither of the experts quoted in the article are particularly
| focused on higher ed economics, either:
|
| https://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=10
|
| https://politicalscience.yale.edu/people/james-scott
| cossatot wrote:
| You've got to look at the scholarly work rather than their
| faculty web pages. Campos has written a number of recent
| papers in the broad area of higher ed economics (particularly
| law school), but in the grand tradition of American law
| professors also clearly feels entitled to write about things
| such as public health that are well outside of his formal
| training.
|
| Campos's google scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/cita
| tions?hl=en&user=1Geb1zAAAAAJ...
|
| James C. Scott is an influential scholar on power structures
| and the often antagonistic relationship between governors and
| the governed. His book _Seeing Like a State_ in particular is
| widely read and mentioned on HN frequently.
|
| What is most interesting about this article is that there is,
| at least among the quoted faculty, zero support for the
| administrative growth and a universal sentiment that it is
| harmful to the University and places undue burdens on faculty
| and students, and the quotes are quite vitriolic (this is not
| normally how professors talk in public about their schools).
| The Administration's explanations are hilariously weak (
| _Additionally, the growth may have partially stemmed from
| student requests. Hannah Peck, the assistant dean of student
| affairs at Yale College, told the News that the Student
| Affairs team added four new health promotion positions as
| part of the YC3 program. "Students have consistently
| requested more mental health support on campus and we are
| thrilled to be able to provide it," Peck wrote._ So, that 's
| 4 out of >1,500!).
|
| It really does look like a struggle for power and billions of
| dollars in revenue, and the faculty are losing.
| pempem wrote:
| The question I was immediately struck by was "how many of
| those are tenured?". For the last decade+ we've seen the same
| flow of contract gigs rather than jobs with assured benefits
| proliferating higher education.
|
| It makes our colleges' education poorer because these non-
| tenured contract profs are making a lower quartile salary
| with no benefits after 4+ years of being underpaid as a grad
| student while also pursuing and interviewing for tenured
| positions/working on their research.
|
| Universities have two jobs: 1. teach the populous, but also
| 2. be a leader in understanding the corner of the world they
| are focused on. We have been a leader in the latter and the
| less we invest in it, the more problematic a future we'll
| face as a nation.
| tejtm wrote:
| For a lot of research it is good to look at who will NOT be
| doing the research anymore because ... wtf; Tenured
| Administrators and "Pro Tem" Faculty ... which is the Grey
| Poupon (tm Kraft/Heinz) way of saying the corporation
| administrators have turned their own HR into a "Kelly Girl"
| office to commoditize their complement, the schools teachers.
| finolex1 wrote:
| Without details about what roles these new administrators are
| being hired for, it's impossible to say whether this is
| justified. For example, the quote from the university president
| suggests the growth is due to hospital staff:
|
| > University President Peter Salovey emphasized that the
| administrative growth has been proportional with the growth in
| faculty size and in University revenue. He reiterated that the
| growth in the Yale School of Medicine's clinical practice has
| been a significant and worthwhile cause of the administration's
| increased size.
|
| Whereas the reactions in the article and in this thread seem to
| be focused on other positions.
| robocat wrote:
| I wonder when they will exceed one staff member per student?!
|
| Although: "The total number of instructional staff teaching the
| 5,964 undergraduate students at Yale University is 1,915 . When
| this is adjusted to account for those with part-time status, the
| result is the "full-time equivalent" (FTE) count. Using the FTE
| count for students and staff results in a "student to instructor"
| ratio of 6 to 1 which places Yale University among the best
| concerning instructional attention." - from another site.
| catgary wrote:
| I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in
| Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty + administrative
| staff, and services ~4x the undergrad population. UofT has ~50%
| more faculty and staff, and handles close seventy thousand
| undergrads!
| WoodenChair wrote:
| > I always find the US system shocking, even just up north in
| Canada. UBC has comparable numbers of faculty +
| administrative staff, and services ~4x the undergrad
| population. UofT has ~50% more faculty and staff, and handles
| close seventy thousand undergrads!
|
| While your overall point is well taken, UBC is not a
| comparable institution to Yale. UBC has an acceptance rate of
| around 50%, Yale has an acceptance rate of around 5%. UBC has
| an endowment of around $2 billion, Yale has an endowment of
| around $40 billion. These are order of magnitude differences.
| We can debate whether Yale should have that level of
| selectivity or endowment, but it's to be expected that a way
| more selective school with way more resources will spend more
| on human resources per student.
|
| If you want to make a comparison, it would make more sense to
| compare something like a selective large state university in
| the United States to UBC, not Yale.
| christkv wrote:
| This just reminds me of an episode in yes prime minister where
| there is a new hospital fully staffed by administrative staff and
| no medical personnel because it never officially opened to the
| public.
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| Turns out hiring 50 Deans of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and
| Other Useless Things does not make for a good research
| institution. Also turns out that you really don't need a bunch of
| people putting out feel-good press releases to realize "DEI".
| quacked wrote:
| More and more often, large institutions like bloated corporations
| or swollen universities feel like giant holes where people go to
| mine money. The American Dream is to have all of your paperwork
| in order so you can set your tent up right above a rich vein.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| Oddly enough, this is the most optimistic way I've seen the
| state of our institutions described without agressively veering
| into the realm of fiction
| WalterGR wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29183973
| [deleted]
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