Toledo Blade Makes Front Page of Blog

See http://toledoblade.com/article/20101220/NEWS16/12190369/0/images

How many UT administrators does it take to change a light bulb?

a. First, there has to be an administrative committee to discuss and decide what to do. This means a bonus for everyone on the committee, which means they also have to decide what staff and programs to cut to be able to afford the bonuses.

b. The committee decides to hire an outside consulting firm to assess the situation. This means more cuts at UT to pay the members of the consulting firm--per person, more money for a week than most faculty make in a month.

c. The committee decides to change not just the faulty bulb, but all the bulbs at UT! This involves changing them around and renaming them in the process! Forget the cost! Why bother figuring that out? ! Some that have served faithfully for years, truly illuminating UT, are pitched out, and the ones with a slightly brownish tinge are relocated to the best, most glorious sites.

d. This leaves UT in the dark--which the administration likes very much, but which the faculty rightly see as profoundly dangerous, and call the leader on it. The leader sheds crocodile tears about being grieved that it has come this far--not because his actions endanger UT and threaten to leave it in a shambles, but because the faculty had the audacity to call him on his 'misbehavior.' And, amazingly, he manages to convince a court judge that what he did was right--as people at UT stumble around in the darkness he left them in.

e. Actually, just skip all that stuff above--why bother changing the light bulb at all? The more UT is kept in the dark, the better the administration likes it.

Here we come to save the daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

The Goat of Christmas Future

A Modern Metaphor

The story is told of the three Ph.D.s who are out walking through the woods. They come upon some tracks. The first says the tracks are of a fawn that is starving and unable to find food in the diminished forest. The second says no, the tracks are from a polar bear driven south by warming in the arctic. The thirds says no the tracks are from an alligator that has been driven out of the swamp by development. They were still arguing when the train hit them.

Please allow me to use the above as a metaphor regarding our present position. The injunction has been denied. While this does not mean the law suit will fail, it is important that we understand where we as faculty are, and what is important to us now versus what may be important to collective bargaining in the future. Please don't read this as diminishing the importance of legal action when the CBA seems to have been challenged. However, as readers of this blog know, I have long been of the opinion that organization means relatively little in terms of outcomes. If you have the right people, the organization works. If you have the wrong people, it doesn't. Treating reorganization as either a silver bullet or a deadly one is wrong and pretty much a waste of time and resources. While I believe this administration has made a hash out of the process, it has really amounted to a smokescreen that has blinded us to more important issues.

There is a financial reckoning (here comes the train) about to occur January 1st when our new Governor takes office. It is unlikely that he will agree with the present system of financing higher education in Ohio. We need to insist on a transparent University budget. We are all taxpayers and should have access to public information. Also, we need to insist on real input in terms of who gets resources and who does not. Make no mistake, there will be cuts. It is our job to see that these take place with our students first and foremost in everyone's mind.

Speaking of our students, that brings me to a second and even more important issue. What constitutes a quality university level education? This has not been addressed. STEMM departments have gotten resources while the rest of us are told to do more with less. With the number of graduates produced each year by the great unwashed departments, I would suggest that we are every bit as much a part of that great economic engine so often referred to in PR releases as anyone else. In addition, here at the University of Extreme Student Centeredness, we continue to increase class size, as well as the number of visiting assistant professors and part-time instructors. This is not meant to slam those groups, but they are here for three years and sometimes fewer than that. While some part-times have been here forever (without a raise) most come and go. At a University that has been discussing an undergraduate research requirement, how do these two match. Research means tenure and tenure track faculty--and not just in STEMM departments.

The final item for today is assessment. This almost invariably has to do with me deriving a number for the sake of outside evaluators (read as Higher Learning Commission). First I tell the student what outcomes he/she should gain from the class. These must appear on my syllabus. Then, I have to show whether or not the students actually achieved said outcomes. For years I thought these were called grades, but no I'm wrong. I have to specifically show which questions and assignments dealt with which outcome and how well everyone did or did not do and hence show whether my class was successful. Implied here is whether I was good at my job. More and more legislatures, administrators and bureaucracies in general want a number, a metric if you will. Former Bush Secretary of Education Spellings thought you should be able to place a number next to every college and university in the country so that parents would "know" where the best value was for their child. I won't begin to explain the absurdity of it all. The problem is we must address this in some formal way. I was in a meeting where it was stated that the Higher Learning Commission eventually wants us to follow our graduates so that we can assess whether our curriculum has been successful or not. So let me make this as simple as possible. The department curriculum and I have a student for 43 hours of classes over a period that usually ranges from four to six years. The world has him/her the rest of the time. Then, five years down the road my curriculum and I are going to be held hostage to the responses (probably non random) from these former students. To believe that such results will have any validity is nonsense. There has been little statewide or national movement to tell the Higher Learning Commission, legislatures and others what a grand wast of time and effort this is. There has been little movement to tell others that learning is a two-way street and that despite my best efforts some students refuse to come to class, do the reading or even consider the subject matter. And yet, I am going to be held responsible. Excuse me, but I think I hear a train.

Guilty as charged

It is noted below that evidently the names of the new deans (Skeens, Davis and Bjorkman) were published via the web site for UT News. While I would never attempt to defend myself for such a lack of research, let me note a couple of things. I tried the university web site and myut portal. Obviously I don't have the skills to find the information. Second, the University sends out all sorts of announcements via e-mail and, silly me, I assumed they might do this for our new erstwhile deans. I know, one should never assume. Third, if this is truly a big deal then why not treat it that way as opposed to an "oh by the way you have a new dean." Guilty as charged.

Names

It has been pointed out below that the names of the new deans have not been circulated on the University's web site. They seemed willing to let the Blade publish these but nothing to the rest of us. Shall we start an office pool on how long it takes before we are all actually informed? Or, are they waiting for the judge to decide on the reorg plan?

New Deans

Congratulations to the newly named deans. I wish you all well.

Blog for Democracy and Against Tyranny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8q4atArQhU&feature=channel

Our professional colleague, Lauri Essig, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Middlebury, reminds of the importance of blogging for democracy.

More Questions

Why are we spending a reported 1.9 million on consultants? Why are we spending money we supposedly do not have? Why are we spending it on folks who seem to have no background in higher education? Why, if we're looking for transformational change and synergies, did the memo discuss cuts and the ending of programs? (It's tough to be synergistic with folks who no longer exist.) Why do we need to pay others just so you can do what you have been planning to do anyway?

Just a question or two

As we move into the corporatization of the American University I have two questions, "Aren't we (the taxpayers of Ohio) now doing through our universities what venture capitalists used to do?" "Why do we think the state bureaucracy is better at choosing winners than the aforementioned venture capitalists?"

more consultants

So, we're going to hire more consultants to help reorganize the place. I assume that's because the Zemsky crowd did such a bang up job two years ago. The President keeps claiming he wants faculty input but then decides someone from the outside knows the place much better than we do. Our dean has moved. The college has been disbanded and now more consultants. Happy Holidays all.

I'm impressed!

Note how Jake's propaganda machine exploits every opportunity! This, from a fortune cookie at Ipoh Szechuan & Cantonese, corner of Byrne and Dorr.

Arts & Sciences College: Before Reorganization

Cute Little Baby Seal Awaiting Reorganization

Paranoid?? Me??

Some have asked that this blog attempt to explain what's going on to those who are "not in the know." I don't know how to break this to everyone, but I'm generally the last person to know much about anything. However, as you all know, lack of the knowledge has never stopped me. So, here is the take of someone who admits to being looped, sorry out of the loop, about the goings on. I have been here for 23 years and been in higher education for 31 years. I have watched shenanigans from McComas to Jacobs and dare to say this is the most spin I have ever experienced. That scares me. Allow me please to explain. When an organization spends as much time and effort (round tables, transformative force, etc.) as this one has and it results in as little as this represents so far, I keep waiting for what's really going on. When an organization blames a faculty union for wanting its rightful role in reorganization and refers to the faculty as standing in the way of progress I keep waiting for what's really going on. Anyone who believes that this modest reorganization is in any way transformative or sets new trends in higher education is nuttier than a fruitcake. So again, there must be more. The question is what constitutes more. There are several possibilities some of which have already been listed by readers of the blog. The first of those is divide and conquer. There is some plausibility to this argument because more layers of bureaucracy have been created between upper administration and the rest of us. Shared governance then becomes more difficult because you have a variety of voices rather than one council. It also makes threats more real because you are part of a much smaller entity. Along these same lines, there is supposed to be another committee that will analyze all of the departments and programs that were a part of the old college. The goal is to see who best fits with whom. Actually the goal will probably entail decisions on downsizing. Remember, you already have a smaller college so you have less power to prevent whatever they think should be done to you. Also please examine next year's projected budget problems and this piece of paranoia actually makes some sense.

This leads into the second issue--the budget. Remember the good old days when one could actually see the budget in the library? Now you have to know exactly what you want and then request that. Perhaps the Gods will then condescend to send you some of it. As a taxpaying citizen of the great state of Ohio (I also vote--early and often) I believe I should have access to how the money is being dispersed by our administration. The budget issue is a bit like reading the Bible back in the middle ages. If you could not read you had to trust those, the priests, who could about the content of what was in the Bible. That practice helped lead to the Reformation. Today, we are supposed to trust those who have access and therefore can read the budget as to what is in the budget. I have no idea where that will lead.

The third explanation we received is that the reorganization is going to make programs more visible and hence help our students. We as faculty need to understand what a wonderful thing this is and merely shut up and accept it. I guess the administration doesn't think much of programs in HHS because, following this logic, they are about to become less visible because they are being merged. What's good in one case must not work in the other. It has been my experience that what benefits students is access to good faculty and good facilities. The actual organization rarely affects them.

Downsizing, the budget, and shared governance are my initial three. There are undoubtedly other reasons behind the reorganization but this is enough paranoia for one entry.

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE?

I would like to point out that rearranging deck chairs does not constitute transformational change. The Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act all were and are transformational. This is not. Ohio State puts together a College of Arts and Sciences; we take one apart. Whoopie. But, as they say, that train seems to have left the station. Understand what will now happen. Anything good that transpires over the next millenium will be credited to the change; anything bad that happens will be charged to laggards unwilling to accept change. That's PR folks.

Perhaps someone can explain this. I heard the BOT passed a resolution that allows them to toss cash into an employee's tax free account without really having to call it a raise or tell many of us that they're doing this. Sounds like a great way for someone to claim that they too are taking the financial hit the rest of us will be asked to take while the BOT tosses them some extra cash. I'm just asking for a little guidance here. Afterall, I am a taxpayer and would like to know how my money is being spent. Along those same lines, it would sure be nice if the budget were back in the library. Again, as a taxpayer, why do I not have the right to see the entire budget for a state institution? All I ask is a little guidance.

Reorganization's New Clothes

In Memoriam

Synergy Boots

Newspeak move over! You can't make this stuff up:

. . . President Lloyd Jacobs said the proposed plan will build synergy and creativity and is a student-centered plan for a student-centered university.

“If we do this, the synergy I believe is great,” he said. “The energy will make it worth it. The creativity will make it worth it. The ability to hear voices in the organization will make it worth it.”

And below find even more.  Perpetual strategic planning?   

From: Jacobs, Lloyd 
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 11:19 AM
Subject: Implementation of Board Direction

Yesterday the Trustees of The University of Toledo pointed us in a new direction.  They clearly stated their resolve and commitment to excellence and their willingness to take risk for its achievement.  It is now for us to carry out their mandate.   

I wish to reiterate that Institutional Structures are about human relationships and are one tool for the implementation of strategy.  As we begin implementation we must recognize “Directions 2007” and “Directions 2010” as our clear guide(s) to the creation of our future. 

There are literally thousands of decisions ahead of us.  What are the first steps?   Who will be appointed to leadership roles? How will they be chosen?  What will be the milestones, the metrics, and the deadlines?  When will former structures cease to exist?  How will we attain unity of purpose?  When will we know when we are finished? 

I think we need a pause to reflect and think.  I plan not to take any significant implementation steps for the next month.  I would like to have some initial personnel actions and other steps ready for the December 6 meeting of the Board’s Academic and Student Affairs Committee.  In the interval I invite your input and action. This should not be seen, however, as an opportunity to reopen the debate on whether or not the university should reorganize its academic structure. 

Individuals, students, faculty, and staff; ad hoc groups, college counsels, The Senate, Deans, Chairpersons, Vice Presidents; please think about the best way to implement.  Send your ideas.  But, most of all perhaps, you can say “here’s a way to do this and I or we will get it done.”  Let’s try for not only action items, but action itself.  Everyone is empowered to “just do it.” 

In so doing, keep in mind our institutional values; read the current draft of “Directions 2010” and the HLC Self Study.  Remember we must be fiscally responsible. Remember our commitment to diversity.  But feel free, indeed I urge you to move ahead.  Attached please find a listing of the Colleges and Schools which now exist by virtue of the Board’s Action yesterday. 

Finally, I urge the College Councils and the Faculty Senate to become implementors.  Where Administrative action is needed please call or visit.  I promise I will keep an open mind for the month’s moratorium.  Thanks.    lj  

Operation a Success but Patient Dies

Transformational Change: The Paradigm Begins, Berlin 1961

Arts & Sciences Council Votes Unanimous No Confidence In Jacobs Partition Plan

The resolution as passed by Council on Oct 5:

Resolved that the Arts and Sciences Council has no confidence in the reorganization plan proposed by President Jacobs on September 24. Its most serious problems are that it:

• was developed without input from elected faculty representatives
  
• was developed with little input from departmental chairs
• was developed without input from students
• was presented without calculating the costs
• will make interdisciplinary cooperation more difficult
• will set the sciences, languages & social sciences and arts in competition for resources
• will threaten the writing across the curriculum program
• will harm international preparation by threatening the study of foreign languages
• will endanger reaccreditation in 2012 by the North Central Higher Learning Commission
• lacks data to show it will improve learning
• lacks clear goals, objectives and benchmarks to assess its success or failure   

 

Seen at University of Toledo's Homecoming Parade

Presidential Legacy?

Just a few questions

While I hate to interrupt anything as intellectual as the art show Mr. Bloggie is running, I do have a few questions about the reorganization. We've just heard that a little over 7 million is going to disappear from this year's budget. Given that 2012 is supposed to resemble the great depression, I have a few questions. First, why reorganize and add bureaucrats who don't teach? It all sounds rather costly to me. Second, think of the expense for new stationary. There will be new stuff for the various colleges, schools, programs and departments. Third, how does any of this help our students? As you all know I hate to be the wet blanket at the party, but this is beginning to sound just a touch expensive at a time when we supposedly have a shrinking pool of cash. Finally, there is the law of unintended consequences. In any reorganization there will be unintended expenses. We have no real idea if this will increase the number of students, the quality of the faculty, and outside funding. Or, it might just confuse prospective students.

Worship of Mammon

Chronology of UT Reorganization

Before Reorganization

During Reorganization

Post Reorganization

Bloggie suspects this is why President Jacobs keeps speaking so ominously about the year 2012.

Love to all.

Saturn Reorganizes The College

RIP UT College of Arts & Sciences 1909-2010

Details on the death will be released as they become available.

Slides From Arts and Sciences College Death Announcement on 9/24

 

Sexual Harassment Policy

Please go the the UT web site and read the new proposed policy on harassment. There are places for comments.

Even Smaller Boxes

Research About UT That Did Not Make The UT News

The following item from USAToday was brought to Bloggie's attention by reader Jack Pumpkin. Thank you, Jack:

By Michael McCarthy, USA TODAY

When Katherine Ott completed her master's thesis on student fees at the University of Toledo during the 2008-09 school year, she discovered that her fellow students knew relatively little about how these mandatory charges were being used to help underwrite the school's athletics program.

She also discovered that the athletics program's share of the fee money was greater than the program's level of importance to the students.

Her findings are part of a growing body of academic research and writing about higher-education finances, including the use of student fees for athletics and other purposes. She says she believes that in today's tough economic environment, people throughout academia are seeking greater accountability from schools.

ANALYSIS: Percentage of tuition that goes to athletics

DATABASE: What NCAA schools spend on athletics

"Students are more interested in knowing where their money is going because costs are on the rise," she says. "It's difficult to find the money to go to college."

While she found that a little more than 90% of the 760 full-time undergraduate, graduate or professional students who agreed to participate in her survey were aware that they paid a "general fee" over and above their tuition payment, most were clueless that their fee money went toward the athletics department and cheerleading.

Through three separate fee allocations — athletics and cheerleading; the Glass Bowl stadium, and the football program's Larimer Athletic Complex — Toledo athletics received nearly half of the $19.9 million in general fee money the school distributed in 2007-08, Ott found.

Only one in four students in Ott's survey knew athletics and cheerleading received funding vs. nearly half who knew the recreation center and student union did. Fewer than one in three knew a portion of the fee money went toward the Glass Bowl, where Toledo plays home football games, and a little more than 1 in 10 knew it went toward the Larimer facility.

"Students didn't think their money went towards athletics and cheerleading — when actually that's where the majority of the general fee dollars went. So that was a really big surprise for me," said Ott, now associate director of the loan program at Christendom College in Front Royal, Va. The students "rated the rec center as the No. 1 (beneficiary) when actually it was athletics."

When asked to indicate the importance of 22 fee-funded organizations and activities, students put the recreation center at the top of the list and athletics near the bottom. Respondents rated each organization and activity as not important, neutral or important. The recreation center had the greatest percentage rating it as important (70%).

None of the three athletics-related fee recipients was rated as important by more than 21% of respondents; 16 other organizations or activities were rated as important by a greater percentage.

It is difficult to know whether Ott's findings can be extrapolated nationally. Her thesis adviser David Meabon, director of Toledo's Russel Center for Educational Leadership, has launched a four-part national survey that will include a study of the "collection, allocation and expenditure of student activity fees," he says. He says he has surveyed about 800 schools and hopes to publish his initial findings by November.

"We're in a major financial crisis in higher education. I call it the backdoor tuition increase," Meabon says. "For many people, this is a hidden tuition fee or cost — and a backdoor way to fund institutional activities."

The hidden cost of athletics in college education also was explored in a study published in April 2010 by Matthew Denhart and Richard Vedder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington, D.C.-based research group. Among the findings: NCAA Bowl Subdivision schools with less-affluent student populations, as measured by the percentage of students receiving need-based federal money called Pell Grants, are providing athletics programs relatively large subsidies. That money comes through forms of institutional or government support — which Denhart and Vedder describe as a diversion of financial resources from "traditional academic purposes" — and/or student fees.

Denhart and Vetter found that of the 11 FBS conferences, the four with the highest percentages of students receiving Pell Grants were Conference USA, the Western Athletic, the Sun Belt and the Mid-American. Those four conferences also have the second- through fifth-highest athletics subsidy rates (the Mountain West has the highest subsidy rate and the No. 7 Pell Grant recipient rate).

"Those who can most afford to pay a subsidy tax actually pay the smallest amount," Denhart says. "Those who can least afford it pay the most."

Dean's Plan

Bloggie thought this might be of general interest and solicits comments.

Note that Dean McClelland is said to have presented this plan to President Jacobs this morning. Further note that Year One calls for the abolition of Arts and Sciences Council (the Vengance of Jake?); Year Two calls for the absorption of the Education College (where will poor Tom Brady lay his head?); and Year Three adds certain Engineering Departments.

Civilly yours,

Bloggie

From the Chronicle

Of interest:

September 16, 2010

Southwestern College Halts Publication of Student Newspaper

By Josh Keller

San Francisco

Southwestern College, a two-year institution near San Diego, has temporarily halted the student newspaper from issuing a print edition, and student journalists allege it did so to prevent them from publishing articles before a heated election for the college's governing board. But the college denies any attempt at censorship and says the holdup is an administrative issue unrelated to politics.

The paper, The Southwestern College Sun, won several national awards last year from the Society of Professional Journalists for stories that were critical of the college's president and board members. One board member, Jean Roesch, sharply criticized the paper last month and asked for more positive coverage.

Staff members said on Thursday that college officials had barred them from publishing a paper before three members of the board face re-election on November 2. "We've been told we can't publish before the election," said Max Branscomb, the paper's faculty adviser. "It's outrageous, it's inexcusable, and it's flimsy."

Southwestern has suffered from a revolving leadership and nasty battles between administrators, faculty members, and students. Last year, the college suspended four faculty members who participated in a campus protest against cuts to course offerings. In February, Southwestern's accreditor put the college on probation, citing a "culture of fear and intimidation," among other factors.

A spokesman for the college, Chris Bender, said the allegations of censorship were "flat inaccurate." The college stopped publication of the The Sun because officials discovered this summer that the paper is in violation of a campus purchasing policy requiring administrative approval for printing costs, he said.

Once the newspaper obtains proper approval for its printing costs, the paper can resume printed publication, he said. Until then, the newspaper is free to publish its stories online, he said.

"It's not an issue of free speech or freedom of the press," Mr. Bender said. "It's a purchasing problem."

Yeah, right....

Also of interest, see concerning news on free speech on campus "The Fire" at http://www.thefire.org/

Letter of Honest Concerns

This was forwarded to Bloggie in today's emails: 

-Original Message-----
From: Coleman, Douglas W.
Sent: Thu 9/16/2010 11:37 AM
To: Rouillard, Linda; Patrick, Brian; Black, David C.; Davis, David H.; Tucker, David E.; Haase, Dwight; Caruso, Michael J.
Subject: Re: Faculty Stakeholder meetings

  Dear A&S Executive Committee,

I would like to offer my two cents on the proposed reorganization.  I
simply do not see

   1. How, in a time of supposedly limited resources, the increase in
      /administrative/ costs that accompanies the proposed
      reorganization is supposed to improve UT's missions of /teaching/
      and /research/, and
   2. How /dividing/ colleagues into separate colleges is supposed to
      /facilitate/ cooperative ventures among them.

Take the extra cost of the new deans' salaries and imagine it /instead/
being made available to faculty for interdisciplinary course
development, interdepartmental faculty research initiatives,
interdisciplinary student research projects, and so on.

Consider now how the creation of a cross-listed interdisciplinary course
now needs to go only through two departments and A&S Council before
getting to Faculty Senate.  With the proposed reorganization, yet
another layer of approval would be needed.  The same goes for arranging
many other types of interdisciplinary projects -- there would be an
additional layer of approval needed.

Since simple facts suggest that the proposed reorganization would
actually take funding away from interdisciplinary activity to pay
additional administrators /and/ would add extra barriers to
interdisciplinary cooperation within what is now A&S, it is not a
stretch to look elsewhere for the motivations for the proposed change. 
The change would break up A&S influence on faculty governance into three
parts -- I suspect this is not irrelevant to President Jacobs' support
for this reorganization.  A&S would go from being the largest college to
being three separate smaller colleges of UT, each with far less
influence.  The reorganization would, both symbolically and in actual
effect on faculty governance and the college-by-college distribution of
enrollment, change UT from being most influenced by a broadly-based,
liberal arts and sciences tradition to an institution dominated by its
professional schools.

      -- Doug Coleman

PS: If the Board of Trustees, as many of us in A&S have long suspected,
wants the University of Toledo to become the Toledo Institute of
Technology, they should keep in mind that MIT, which they might perceive
as a model to emulate, has one of the most famous PhD. programs in
linguistics and philosophy in the world.

imitation

Word is out that the Dean of our School of Business does a great imitation of a two-year old. Book him now for your Homecoming Parties.

Reorg/Strategic Plan Meetings

As I may not make either of the two meetings allow me to make my beliefs known. First on the reorganization part of this: You can call people anything you want (Deans, Tribunes, Commissars, etc.), and you can put them in almost any order you want; but, if you want something specific accomplished that is not now being done (see integrative learning) then assign one of your minions to do this. This administration seems to want to kill flies with bombs (atomic ones). If something is not being done we must need seventeen more deans and other assorted hangers on. In another case, if you believe some faculty are not working hard enough then sit down and discuss that with them. Instead we have, for the last two years, run around like crazy people, sent thousands of e-mails and ended up with pretty much the same workload we had two years ago. That hardly seems like an efficient use of time. For the last two years I have been involved with the Round Table, then the extended Round Table (I see a career in wood working or at the very least furniture sales) and now yet more meetings that seem destined to increase the bureaucracy so much that everyone will have some kind of title. I suppose that's one way to get rid of the union. If I were the conspiracy type I might conclude that this is just a smoke screen to keep us occuppied while other things are being done.

As to the Strategic Plan I get the feeling that this university does not value what I do. I teach communication. That does not generally result in patents or new drug therapies. Since we do not raise money but merely "teach" the view seems to be that anyone can do this. When I finally retire, I imagine they will search the zoo for my replacement (see trained seals). Universities are more than just the search for patents and money. They can lead students in many exciting directions. (My pediatrician while growing up was a Harvard graduate in English Lit.) This administration seems to think it can picture the future; and, it's a picture without most of us in it.

ANNOUNCEMENT!!! The Journal of Administrative Antics: New Online Peer-Reviewed Journal

Bloggie is pleased to announce the founding of a new, and much-needed academic/professional interdisciplinary journal:

The Journal of Administrative Antics

Recognizing that the temper of our times is increasingly one of vapid self-serving excess by administrative "elites" that have adapted themselves to functioning at general social expense, this new academic and professional journal is now in the process of formation. The first issue is expected to be published in June of 2011, and thereafter will be published twice annually. Initial publication will be online with the expectation of adding a print edition sometime within the first two years.

JAA will be peer-reviewed.  An editorial board is in the process of formation and will be announced in due time.  The editor seeks nominations or self-nominations for the editorial board. 

JAA Editor: Brian Anse Patrick, BA, MA, PHD, GED, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University of Toledo, 4630 University Hall, Toledo, OH  43606, brian.patrick@utoledo.edu.

JAA actively seeks submissions of high quality research articles, book reviews and essays.  Although there is no methodological preference, submitted articles should be empirically-based and conform generally to either MLA or APA publication standards and be no longer in length than is necessary. Book reviews and essays should be no more than 1,000 words in length.  Save for a title page, articles should contain no mention of the author's name for purposes of anonymous review.  

 

JAA seeks to grow by rhizomatic means--horizontally in the direction of the concerns of contributors and expressed social needs. Initially the journal will be focused on university and not-for-profit administration, but will also encompass antics of government, corporate/business elites that have been placed in the stewardship roles of publicly held corporations or other arrangements of trust. Counter intuitive approaches are welcome. 

JAA policy will lean toward flexibility concerning submissions. Article, book review and essay queries should be sent to the editor. 

 

Considering the temper of the times and the severity of the problems caused and perpetuated by administrative antics, research article topics could utilize any number of approaches:

• Analyses of administrative rhetoric, themes, equivocations, techniques, either by methods of textual analysis or quantitative content analysis or by other means.
• Econometric studies
• Political Economy 
• Comparative analyses
• Case studies 
• Ethnomethodological or participant-observer studies
• Literature reviews 
• Effects research
• Nomothetic or historical analyses 
• Ritual, religious studies or anthropological-based approaches 

JAA actively seeks article submissions and queries. Please send them by email to the editor.    

Organizational Communication at UT

Confusion

Okay, so I'm a little confused. It's probably because I'm not an associate administrator of some type or I would see the light. We've been told the new plan won't add administrators. So who are all those extra deans? We've been told it will not increase costs. So, they're going to work for free? Wow. I guess we really are working toward being number one in administrative bloat. What a goal.

The New Civility

The New Administratively Centered University: Administrative Bloat At UT and Elsewhere

Apparently some animals are more equal than others when it comes to improving the human condition.

Below please find a summary of a report on Administrative Bloat as the real reason behind high costs at American universities.  You might wish to consider this in light of such facts as the UT Strategic Organization Committee proposal that is being rammed down our collective throat along with the multiple layers of  new high level administrator bureaucrat positions it creates; and the arbitrary $100 fee that is now being charged to Communication majors that goes to the general fund; and the $130 fee that new students are forced to take for so called orientation classes; and the perpetual administrative bonuses for friends of Jake; and so forth and so forth. 

You can use the links  provided to access the report itself. 

Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education

Printer-friendly version

Jay P. Greene

Goldwater Institute Policy Report

August 17, 2010

Enrollment at America’s leading universities has been increasing dramatically, rising 

nearly 15 percent between 1993 and 2007. But unlike almost every other growing 

industry, higher education has not become more efficient. Instead, universities now 

have more administrative employees and spend more on administration to educate 

each student. In short, universities are suffering from “administrative bloat,” 

expanding the resources devoted to administration significantly faster than 

spending on instruction, research and service.

Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students

 at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number 

of employees engaged in teaching, research or service only grew by 18 percent. 

Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student increased by 61 

percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student

 rose 39 percent. Arizona State University, for example, increased the number 

of administrators per 100 students by 94 percent during this period while 

actually reducing the number of employees engaged in instruction, research

 and service by 2 percent. Nearly half of all full-time employees at Arizona 

State University are administrators.

A significant reason for the administrative bloat is that students pay only a 

small portion of administrative costs. The lion’s share of university resources

 comes from the federal and state governments, as well as private gifts and 

fees for non-educational services. The large and increasing rate of government 

subsidy for higher education facilitates administrative bloat by insulating students 

from the costs. Reducing government subsidies would do much to make 

universities more efficient.

We base our conclusions on data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education

 Data System (IPEDS), which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. 

Higher education institutions report basic information about enrollment, 

employment and spending in various categories to IPEDS, which then makes 

this systematically collected information publicly available. In this report, we 

focus on the 198 leading universities in the United States. They are the ones

 in IPEDS identified as four year colleges that also grant doctorates and engage

 in a high or very high level of research. This set includes all state flagship 

public universities as well as elite private institutions.

Read Administrative Bloat at American Universities: The Real Reason for High Costs in Higher Education here

Read Appendix B here

Media Coverage of Administrative Bloat in American Universities

ASU Statement Misses the Mark