While I was a undergraduate (now ABD), I challenged my university president numerous times to reject the housing and car benefits that she received on top of an already hefty salary. I was often denied being put on to committees (in particular, committees regarding university audits) because unlike ALL other student representatives I would actually attend the meetings, review the necessary materials, and ask questions (in a respectful manner). I was alone in trying to call out what I perceived to be excess and waste. I wanted my professors to make more than my administrators. Administration always informed me that to make money for the school, the President had to have a nice house. Ironically, many of the fundraising events are held on our beautiful campus. Admittedly, I am not sure why I was alone in this adventure; I like to think most people were afraid to say something. Maybe others were just apathetic? Or, others thought the salary and benefits were justified?
Q: If we go into administration for the money, aren't we just being complicit in the cycle of administrative bloat? Is there anyone that doesn't go into administration for the money?
I served as department Chair, and I emerged with a clear conscience. Naturally, they paid me only $200/month extra, but then I was only an associate professor at the time. Now that I'm a full professor, I'd make an extra $600/month, still pocket change compared to what the higher-ups make I know.
ReplyDeleteI served as Chair because my department needed me. It is true that no one wants to be Chair, but if we refuse to provide our own leadership, someone who doesn't understand us will do it for us, and it won't be fun. So, we take turns: it's a very American concept. It helped enormously that we had a superb secretary. She really ran the department: I just signed stuff. Every now and then, too, the job did have its perks. When I can think of one of them, I'll let you know what it was.
There are good reasons to enter administration, especially if you can lead, plan and organize. I see no shame in caring more about your school than you care about some sliver of the research field of your discipline. The money can be good - nothing wrong with that either. If they are going to hire an administrator anyway and your faculty position gets a replacement then where is the bloat? Better to have more faculty serving in administration than less.
ReplyDeleteThe bloat is in the excess... as "defunct adjunct" points out below.
DeleteThere are many good people in administration - I'd even venture to hypothesize that there are as many morons amongst my colleagues as in the administration. Too often (in my mind) they get blamed for our own failures and shortcomings. My former chair is my current dean, and he is there in part because my colleagues were so shitty to him when he was chair he needed the break from them!
ReplyDeleteActually, the president's house is the one perk I would actually cede to the president. Ours uses her house for a lot of functions, and I have no doubt for fundraising. What galls me is the additional three-professors-worth of salary she get on top of it. (I know! Small school, so her salary isn't as inflated as some places).
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I'm not really concerned with admin salaries as the number of admin positions, which then take up too many seats on every university committee. "Center for Student Success", "Center for Engaging Globally" (which does NOT handle student study abroad), etc, etc. I can't help but think we have too many cooks.
"I'm not really concerned with admin salaries as the number of admin positions, which then take up too many seats on every university committee."
DeleteI think this is really important. There are just too many layers of administration, too many different departments and centers and offices, with too many people at each level. Most of these people are good people, and in my experience a lot of them are serious about doing their jobs, and are good at what they do. But the problem is that the central mission of the university seems to be drifting away from actual education.
This is the feeling I have- that what we are doing doesn't remotely resemble education. We do lots and lots of stuff, we have nice glossy photos, we hand out awards, but my students struggle to write and think critically, so I wonder about their ability to "engage globally" or have "student success" if we gut faculty and funds for the actual "doing" of education so we can have another VP of Something that Sounds Impressive. I know not all admins are bad (just as not all faculty are good) but the number and associated cost of extra layers of administration seems mayhaps not the best use of limited funds.
Delete"I'm not really concerned with admin salaries as the number of admin positions, which then take up too many seats on every university committee."
DeleteIndeed, and all the more so because of who isn't sitting on those committees: the contingent faculty members actually teaching many of the basic, bread-and-butter classes that shape students' experience, especially during the first two years of school. I suspect we're looking not at causation, but instead at correlation, with a third factor driving both trends, but it's a distressing situation nonetheless, especially for some of us who would actually like to do (some) service (I'm not so sure about administration, but I certainly find myself wondering whether I should go in that direction, mostly for the money (i.e. a salary large enough to allow me to amass substantial retirement savings before somebody else decides it's time for me to retire).
I'm not sure what the answer is, though, as I've said before, I suspect that having more administrators who are both qualified to teach intro/core courses and do so regularly would help. So might a requirement that most administrators return to the faculty after a period of time (term limits for adminstrators? they wouldn't, after all, have to be tenured or tenurable given the current state of faculty employment; they could just be offered a one-year renewable teaching contract at the end of their adminstrative stint, and be treated as a normal contingent faculty member from there on, or have the choice of searching for employment elsewhere. I suspect that would change some administrators' view of tenure pretty quickly.)
The other obvious change would be to really sit down and try to come up with some sort of equivalency between administrative and faculty positions, and tie pay levels to each other (with appropriate adjustments for 9-month vs. 12-month and more vs. less flexible positions, keeping in mind, however, that few faculty, either tenure-track or contingent, could actually do their jobs solely during the contracted 9-month period. Summer, if one isn't frantically teaching summer classes for more money, tends to be a time for concentrating on research, large-scale class planning, or both).
I'm in the category of "academic whore". I'll do anything for money.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear. (Or in this case, send the check here, here!)
DeleteGuilty.
Delete"Is there anyone that doesn't go into administration for the money?"
ReplyDeleteIf they aren't hiring adminflakes from Cubicle America, then people are coming in from the professorial ranks, and yes, it's all about the bread.....people have families and situations that demand money, and the office beats working a second job. I do agree it just adds to the bloat, but until they pay better (or America abandons capitalism), this is inevitable.
"Is there anyone that doesn't go into administration for the money?"
ReplyDeleteYes---someone might go into administration because they are simply tired of being in the classroom full time, or even at all, and they need to be able to build upon the experience they already have to continue to earn a living. Staying within academia but moving to an administrative position is one way to do that. There are crappy administrators----good lord don't we all know it----BUT that also makes it all the more important for someone who intends to work hard and try to fix things to get in there and give it a try.
Some people are just born administrators. I have a friend like that. He's a dream to have along when trying to get a group of people to one place to have dinner at a certain time and all those other things that end up being more complicated than they are. We always joke he'll end up a dean, but he would be very good at it.
ReplyDeleteI was sitting with a faculty member at lunch having a tangentially related conversation when s/he said, "I left administration to become faculty because I needed the flexible hours; I couldn't keep an 8-5 schedule."
ReplyDeleteIf I left the ranks of the faculty, it would have to be for something better. Since the hours are 8-5 for admin, with no summers off, I'd need some compensation in the form of extra money. Is that wrong? I wouldn't do it JUST for the money, but I'd certainly expect more money to be doing that level of work.
ReplyDeleteYes. This too.
DeleteI think this is a pretty big assumption that people in administration WORK MORE than professors. Many of my professors (even assoc. professors) work 60-70 hours a week and work during the summers.
DeleteThey are stuck in an office though. And I cannot speak for others but if I work over the summer it is because I chose to. Friends of mine at R1s even say similar things about summer----a time to research, to write, to travel. And almost no one outside of academia has the flexibility we do during the year, too. All of this applies to those with full time gigs, of course.
Deletewe just hired a person to spend their time examining why so few transfer students stay to graduate. And yet there's no money to pay good adjuncts a decent (for adjuncts anyway) salary.
ReplyDeleteYou probably have a sociology adjunct or similar who would have been happy to do that study for her regular course rate. Grrr.
DeleteSomeone got paid to do that?! Every place I've been it would fall under "Other duties as assigned."
DeleteI do have to say that if I'm going to have to go into an office for 45 hours a week, plus take-home work and/or evenings, I want a higher salary. I work 60-odd hours a week, sure, but a lot of that happens in my house, while I am wearing my bathrobe. If I'd wanted a corporate job I would have pursued one, so administration doesn't look all that appealing.
ReplyDelete