Where Do We Go From Here?

Consider this essay a continuation of my column on how to ruin a university.  Not only are professors in my college not getting any raises this year, but our department budgets are under assault.  Thus, in my department, we were recently told that we might have to forego telephones in our offices.

 The cause of this belt tightening is supposedly a financial emergency.  With the regents changing the way online courses are funded, there are not enough dollars to go around.  Because the shortfalls must somehow be made up, the faculty is asked to bear the brunt.

But guess who does not have to worry about tough times?  It is members of the administration.  A number of years ago, Benjamin Ginsburg, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, wrote a book entitled “The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University.”  This trend has not slackened.

At Kennesaw State University, we have over two hundred administrators.  These include twenty-eight vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, associate vice presidents and vice-provosts.  The United States makes do with just one vice president, but we obviously have a more complicated operation.

Of course, we also have a host of directors, and assistant directors, and deans, and assistant deans, and department chairs, and discipline coordinators.  These are all plainly vital to determining what I teach in my classes. 

What is more, they must be handsomely paid for their crucial services.  The vice presidents therefore begin by earning more than twice what I do.  They soon rise to three times as much.  Some of these people started as professors when I did, but in making the transition to management, their intelligence and usefulness undoubtedly soared.

Think about it.  If we got rid of one of these brilliant supervisors, we would save enough so that no faculty phones were endangered.  If we cut their number in half, imagine the savings.  By my estimate, if we include the cost of their staffs, the overall cost is in the neighborhood of fifty million dollars.  That’s not chump change.

The administrators know this.  They have been promising for decades to cut back, yet they never do.  That, by the way, also goes for the bloat in the chancellor’s office.  There is apparently a law of nature, which dictates that managers multiply faster than rabbits.

So what do these high priced executives do?  Do they help me in the classroom?  Do they improve my teaching?  I am, in all modesty, an expert in social change.  I have written books about it.  How are they, who have not, supposed to tell me what to share with my students?

 They instead force me to write reports.  I have to justify what I do.  They also promulgate regulations.  Without this guidance, I would surely go off the tracks.  The proof, as they say, is in the pudding and since students are learning so much more than then once did, this supervisory meddling is clearly paying off.  Yeah!

What do administrators actually do?  For one thing, we have a vice president in charge of diversity and he has what amounts to an associate.  Together they earn about $300,000. per annum.  Their office, therefore, costs in the vicinity of half a million.

What do they accomplish?  The number of minority students at KSU has increased, but this is due to changes in community demographics.  As for discrimination, there never was much.  If there were, why would so many minorities be coming to us?

No. These diversity administrators are an insurance policy.  They were hired so that if the school is sued for violating anyone’s rights, their presence demonstrates that it did all it could to guard against discrimination.

The bottom line is that you get what you pay for.  If you pay for more administration, you get more administration.  These folks subsequently have to justify their inflated salaries by interposing themselves into the learning process.

By the same token, if you pay less for quality faculty, you get less quality faculty.  If there is no incentive for talented people to become first-rate teachers and scholars, fewer become first-rate teachers and scholars.  They instead cross over to become administrators.

That is what has been happening for decades and the outcome was predictable.  Our universities will shortly become universities in name only.  The politicians may continue to boast about their accomplishments, but society will reap the bitter fruit.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University