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Administrators Have Seized the Ivory Tower. A faculty perspective on academia’s “professional managerial class.”
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | November 28, 2022 | Michael C. Behrent and K. Steven Vincent

Posted on 11/28/2022 7:15:02 AM PST by karpov

The “ivory tower” has long been the lens through which American popular culture views higher education. The phrase conjures up images of seminar rooms and high-minded ideas debated at a comfortable distance from the “real world.” It is this picture, however, that is now out of touch with reality. Facing stagnant salaries, diminished job security, pressure to maintain student enrollment, and an ever more anti-intellectual culture, few professors feel like they are living in anything like a lofty ivory tower.

If there is a constituency still living the ivory tower dream, it is not professors but their bosses: university administrators. Anyone who has had to deal with academic leadership in recent years has encountered the dizzying array of vice provosts, associate deans, and associate vice chancellors. Not only do titles proliferate, but offices do as well: The academic deep state is chock-full of departments with chirpy but obscure names like “Student Success,” “Inclusive Excellence,” and “Strategic Initiatives.” It is in this world, in which administrators compete for titles like old regime aristocrats in bureaucracies so opaque they would make Kafka blush, that the new ivory tower is to be found.

The denizens of this new tower are extravagantly compensated. The base salary last year of the NC State chancellor was $680,997, which was topped off with no less than a $1.5 million performance bonus. Yet it’s a mistake to focus only on the top of this hierarchy. Universities are in the midst of a full-blown administrative spending spree that shows no signs of abating. At NC State, in 2020-21, no less than $131 million more was spent on administrative (i.e., non-teaching) positions than on teaching ones. Meanwhile, the ratio of full-time faculty to students is falling, as are faculty wages.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: creepstate; deepstate; doj; fbi; fib; merrickgarland; policestate; singlepartystate

1 posted on 11/28/2022 7:15:03 AM PST by karpov
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To: karpov

But it’s professors who still push all of the crazy, immoral s*** on the students.


2 posted on 11/28/2022 7:19:50 AM PST by libertylover (Our biggest problem, BY FAR, is that almost all of big media is agenda-driven, not-truth driven.)
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To: libertylover

Some of that comes from some professors, a whole lot of it comes from the kinds of behind the scenes administrative offices discussed in the article.


3 posted on 11/28/2022 7:24:52 AM PST by Languager
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To: karpov

In the late 1960’s I was president of the college Republican club at a state college in Minnesota. From time-to-time I worked with a couple of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) members on several issues. Our common points of agreement-hiring more administrators with more regulations.

After teaching at the college level for 30 years, I found my views on administrators has not changed much.


4 posted on 11/28/2022 7:39:13 AM PST by Maine Mariner
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To: karpov

I have a BA in History (UWa 78) and an MA (actually a MSSM) in Systems Management (not IT-related) (USC 88). The history degree taught me to research and write at the college level. The masters degree introduced me to analytical approaches and tools. So I benefitted - to a degree - from the college education experiences at the time. At. The. Time.

But times change.

Academic institutions, like large institutions everywhere, are thoroughly infected with Woke, LGBT+, and CRT ideologies. These infections, as the article implies, are hosted and nurtured in the administrative superstructure of the colleges and universities. Specifically in the Human Resources Department Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) sections.

As the old saying goes: “The fish rots from its head.”

And, to be frank, I can understand why increasing numbers of middle and lower class high school graduates are choosing to forego the debt incurred and time lost that a college degree represents today. Scientific fields and engineering fields are still worth taking degrees in even thought the DEI rot has infected them as well. But the liberal arts, which were sort of limited from a jobs standpoint to begin with, are simply schools of indoctrination. Other than producing caretakers and curators for their libraries and collections, society has no need and does not benefit from what their woke, SJW graduate has to offer.

Burn it all down. Then rebuild it to serve genuine societal interests.


5 posted on 11/28/2022 10:50:24 AM PST by Captain Rhino (Determined effort today forges tomorrow.)
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To: Captain Rhino

I use to supervise intern engineers and new engineers in a drafting / design department. For the most part they were pretty good. However, that led to a lot of ‘meetings’ with MBA types and HR types who knew every BS buzzword and knew NOTHING about the product we manufactured. At one company I contracted for there was an entire department of ‘diversity’ engineers who were literally kept designing things just to keep them busy and the company could show off how many ‘diverse’ engineers they had. They couldn’t do basic math let alone design a complicated mechanical assembly BUT they had a degree from prestigious colleges. I assume it has only gotten worse since the 15 years I have been running my own company. One rule I have is I will not hire anyone with a college degree. If I need someone that educated I source it out. I would rather take a high school grad and train on the job ,even for advanced engineering projects. That, and the local prison provides a steady source of good welders for the fabrication side of things.


6 posted on 11/28/2022 11:46:55 AM PST by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes)
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To: karpov

The price of college goes up as do the salaries because the federal gov’t is covering the cost.


7 posted on 11/28/2022 1:33:39 PM PST by minnesota_bound (Need more money to buy everything now)
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To: karpov

So many of the professors’ students are aiming for those jobs. There’s not much else they can do. So the professors aren’t going to rebel. Also, the administrators control the flow of funds to departments and programs that don’t pay their own way through profitable research. Rebel against them and, win or lose, your department will get less money.


8 posted on 11/28/2022 5:38:18 PM PST by x
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