The Power-Mad Morons Running The Academy
Excellent column in USA Today by law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds about the tiny little power barons running colleges these days:
Full-time administrators now outnumber full-time faculty. And when times get tough, schools have a disturbing tendency to shrink faculty numbers while keeping administrators on the payroll. Teaching gets done by low-paid, nontenured adjuncts, but nobody ever heard of an "adjunct administrator."But it's not just the fat that is worrisome. It's administrators' obsession with -- and all too often, abuse of -- security that raises serious concerns. At the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Clyde W. Barrow, a leading professor, has just quit, complaining of an administration that isolates itself from students and faculty behind keypads and security doors.
Isolation is bad. But worse still is the growing tendency of administrators to stifle critics by shamelessly interpreting even obviously harmless statements as "threats." A recent example took place at Bergen Community College, where Professor Francis Schmidt was suspended, and ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination over a "threat" that consisted of posting a picture of his 9-year old daughter wearing a Game Of Thrones T-shirt. The shirt bore a quote from the show, reading: "I will take what is mine with fire & blood." Bergen administrator Jim Miller apparently thought the picture, which was posted to Schmidt's Google Plus account, was somehow intended as a threat to him. (Schmidt had filed a labor grievance a couple of months earlier.)
What kind of person claims that a picture of a 9-year-old girl wearing an HBO T-shirt is a threat? The kind of person who runs America's colleges, apparently. And Miller, alas, is not alone in his cluelessness and, apparently, paranoia.
...With college enrollment falling and budgets under pressure, legislatures, donors and alumni will be looking at ways to restructure schools in the future. The profusion of self-important deanlets and the abuse of campus police forces ought to be looked at as part of this process. It's just another symptom of the now-imploding higher education bubble.
Reynolds' book on remaking higher ed -- The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself.
This is where for-profit colleges would work better and be more transparent. Lots of colleges are making money hand over fist (you can do that when you have the luxury of inflating the price of your product 10% per year indefinitely). The trouble is, as not-for-profits, the institution itself is not allowed to keep that money. What to do? Corruption! Cronyism! How many times have we seen stories about the Second Assistant to the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate who has a sinecure job and is rewarded with a mid-six-figure salary and free housing? Administration has grown exponentially at most colleges and it's eating the lunches of both the faculty and students.
Cousin Dave at April 24, 2014 11:18 AM
"...Professor Francis Schmidt was suspended, and ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination over a 'threat' that consisted of posting a picture of his 9-year old daughter wearing a Game Of Thrones T-shirt... Bergen administrator Jim Miller apparently thought the picture... was somehow intended as a threat to him."
It's Bergen administrator Jim Miller who needs a psychiatric examination. I mean seriously. There is something wrong with him.
Ken R at April 25, 2014 1:30 AM
Gotta do SOMETHING with people who are too stupid even to teach public school.
(I'm not saying that only stupid people teach public school. But a lot of the people who do prove to be too stupid to do anything else.)
Sosij at April 25, 2014 7:56 PM
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