University Administrators’ Pandemic Power Grab

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | November 27, 2020 | Neetu Arnold

[karpov]

Universities’ profligate spending habits have caught up with them after substantial losses in student enrollments due to COVID-19. As undergraduate enrollment fell by 4.4 percent and students had fewer “on-campus experiences,” universities desperately began laying off employees. Some even have plans to consolidate departments and entire campuses.

Those actions spell trouble for the future of the shared governance tradition on American campuses.

Shared governance allows faculty to participate in determining university priorities pertaining to administrative hires, education policies, and the budget. Faculty participation in university governance allows academic and educational interests to have a seat at the decision-making table. While shared governance has already been steadily weakened over the past several decades due to concerning trends such as adjunctification and administrative bloat, it could face its final crisis as universities consolidate and centralize power in response to the pandemic.

Similar to the power and money grab by large corporations from small businesses during COVID-19, centralized power in higher education makes it easier for ever-growing administrations to execute their own priorities—without faculty interference. This centralization and consolidation is happening at an unprecedented rate across all levels: employee, department, and institution.

[freedumb2003]

Trust me, the LAST people that should have a say in the administration of a bird feeder, much less a college or university, are professors.

[ladyjane]

Universities are much different now than they were 75 years ago.

“At that time, there was a Professor at Columbia named Isidore Rabi, who had worked on the development of the atomic bomb and who subsequently won the Nobel Prize. At a faculty ceremony in honor of the professor’s achievement, Eisenhower made a brief speech. It included a remark about how it was always good to see an employee of the university get recognized. At that point, Professor Rabi interrupted him and said, “Excuse me, sir, but the faculty are not employees of the university. The faculty are the university!”

[Wuli]

If I trusted college/university top executive/administrative officials I would have no problem with them making staffing, teaching, budget and other decisions without input from the professors. But, everything I have read over the years suggests to me that the folks “running” the colleges and universities are no less Leftist than the professors.

[S. D. Waters]

So. . . fewer critical race theory professors is a bad thing?