Posted on 02/22/2024 8:56:36 AM PST by george76
Administrative staff grew by 12 percent while enrollment barely budged
The University of Florida employs one administrator for every four undergrad students, according to an analysis by The College Fix.
The Fix analyzed data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and found the public university in Gainesville added 1,000 new administrator jobs in the past 10 years.
In the 2022-23 school year, the university employed 7,376 administrators, or 250 per 1,000 undergraduate students, a 12 percent increase from a decade prior. By comparison, the university’s enrollment grew by just three percent during the same time period.
The University of Florida employed 6,745 administrators and support staff employees in the 2013-14 school year. This includes student and academic affairs divisions, IT, public relations, administrative support, maintenance, and legal and other non-academic departments. This worked out to 223 administrators per 1,000 students.
Florida State University is similar in size to the University of Florida – but FSU employs one administrator for every ten undergraduate students.
This administrative overhead includes the university’s public relations team, none of whom responded to multiple emailed requests for comment sent in the past weeks.
Director of Communications Brittany Wise did not respond to four emails and a voicemail left in the past six weeks that asked for comment on administrative growth.
Vice President for Communications James Wegmann and Associate Vice President for Communications Steve Orlando did not respond to four emails sent in the past month that asked for comment on the administrative growth. The Fix also asked if President Ben Sasse had plans to look into cutting positions and for any additional context on the data.
Some of this administrative overhead is related to the university’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives, though this may be headed to reversal.
The latest data shows that UF’s DEI initiatives consisted of the equivalent of 24 full-time employees. DEI initiatives cost the university $5.3 million, $3.3 million of which is state funded.
Chief Diversity Officer Marsha McGriff made $300,000 per year as of November 2022, according to public records.
Last year, Florida’s university system announced its intentions to revise DEI initiatives.
More can be done, political scientist says
A political scientist who researches DEI said the public university is making some changes.
“UF has made progress, especially in building alternatives to DEI programming. It has invested significantly into the Hamilton Center, which appears to be a model academic center for classical education in the country,” Scott Yenor with the Claremont Institute told The Fix via email.
“The system is also changing its general education requirements to better rid core courses of obviously partisan left-wing academic departments,” the Boise State University professor said.
“UF’s central DEI office has also changed hands too,” he said. “Its former DEI Provost has left the university.”
Other changes are “cosmetic,” Yenor said. For example, the law school’s “Asst. Dean of Faculty Diversity and Community Relations is now Asst. Dean for Experiential Learning & Engagement,” he told The Fix.
He had similar criticism of the pledge by 28 Florida university presidents to cut DEI, calling it “quite modest.”
“Nothing in the statement cuts to the core of decisively ending wokeness in higher education,” Yenor wrote for Newsweek in February 2023.
“There were no promises to even trim the number of DEI administrators,” he wrote. “Neither are efforts to recalibrate curricula mentioned.”
“That such proverbial table scraps stir conservative hopes is a sign of desperation after decades of ineffectual reforms to higher education. For anything to actually change, a much bolder approach is needed.”
If I remember correctly, at Stanford and Ivy League schools there is one administrator per student.
Does a football analyst count as an “administrator”?
What?!?!?! WAY TOO FEW ADMINISTRATORS. Need to get that ratio to 3:1 and incidentally increase fees and tuition to pay for them Why I’m sure the DIE office alone could provide a couple of hundred well paid sinecures for people of color whose sole job would be to constantly scan everything written and said on campus for things to be offended by.
The state board of regents needs to simply abolish the department of “diversity” and fire every administrator employed by it.
Then go through courses with a fine toothed comb and abolish any that are obviously just leftist indoctrination.
Though it sickens me to see this at my alma mater, I know its at least as bad if not worse elsewhere.
The whole nation’s university system has become the unemployment office for failed liberal politicians.
First, some history, then some insights. Tenured faculty were used in an administrative capacity on many campuses. For example a tenured faculty member would become a department head, and reduce the amount of teaching that they did.
Tenured faculty also headed research committees. The wrote and administered grants, as well as heading laboratories and administering such labs.
Some faculty also were responsible for running student organizations, helping lead/chaperon study-abroad programs, help students apply for prestigious scholarships, etc.
Now to the insights. First a tenured faculty person is far more expensive and difficult to fire than a pure administrative hire for most of the above functions. Part of the reason for using tenured faculty was that they were viewed by their piers as being part of the club and therefore other professor PHD’s would listen to them as opposed to a “under educated” Administrator.
Next when you count “Administrators” exactly what does that mean? Is a defensive line coach on the football team an administrator? Certainly, not faculty. How about a PhD and MD, who heads a university hospital medical lab, but doesn't teach anymore, or gave up tenure for a much higher salary?
As pointed out in the article, many universities have not had that much student growth. University educations are expensive and less in demand. Most are having problems with the financial statements. Lots are merging or downsizing or changing focus from granting degrees to increasing the certifications and online programs the staff. They are also spending a lot more staff time on fund raising and hiring professional fund raising staff, much of which is by administrative staff.
Finally, the number of state and federally funded requirements in higher education has and continues to increase dramatically each year. It doesn't matter if it is Title 9 reporting requirements, Diversity training requirements, audited reports on federal grant money, the paperwork is huge and getting worse each year. Administering federal backed loans to students require lots of paperwork.
So yes, I can understand that the number of administrative jobs in increasing rapidly. Depending on which box you put certain university employees in (staff, faculty, tenured faculty) I can easily see why it may make economic sense to hire non-faculty over promoting tenured faculty and why tenured faculty might refuse some administrative duties requiring a university to hire pure administrative staff.
In 1974 freshman classes seemed to have about 1 instructor per 50 students. ( my calculus class had 120 people in an auditorium). These were weeding courses designed to weed out the people who couldn’t learn from the textbook. I lasted 2 quarters, having come from a highs school where senior classes were 1 instructor per 15-20 students and there was a lot of interaction in the classes. I never saw an “administrator” and the only contact was a mailed notice of academic suspension. UF only cared about tuition money, textbook money, and an easy life for the staff. As Frank Zappa said, go to college for a diploma, go to the library for an education.
Harvard University employs about 1,352 full-time administrators for every 1,000 undergraduate students enrolled at the university..
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4192194/posts
Administration bloat is a huge problem everywhere.
Administration includes custodial staff.
So what’s he waiting for?
University of Florida has 1 administrator for every 4 undergrads
You would think they could better service than a cruise ship...
I think the US Navy has more admirals than ships.
I miss Frank.
Stop giving.
No wonder it’s such a ripoff financially not to mention weird ass Marxist professors
Desantis chose a RINO to rebuild the university?
“Desantis chose a RINO to rebuild the university?”
Desantis chose a strong administrator and staunch conservative to rebuild the university.
I’m a Gator through and through. But, this is a (quite) bit overkill!
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