Nerd News: Edu-Crats and the University

Oxford University Press is soon to be publish a book that's sure to make a splash: it's The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters by Benjamin Ginsberg, professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.  Personally, I'm gratified to see that (a) somebody has shown the nerve to engage this issue in a big nerd forum, and (b) an influential academic press has the nerve to print it.




From the OUP webpage for the book, here is part of the official blurb:

Until very recently, American universities were led mainly by their faculties, which viewed intellectual production and pedagogy as the core missions of higher education. Today, as Benjamin Ginsberg warns in this eye-opening, controversial book, "deanlets"--administrators and staffers often without serious academic backgrounds or experience--are setting the educational agenda. 

The Fall of the Faculty examines the fallout of rampant administrative blight that now plagues the nation's universities. In the past decade, universities have added layers of administrators and staffers to their payrolls every year even while laying off full-time faculty in increasing numbers--ostensibly because of budget cuts. In a further irony, many of the newly minted--and non-academic--administrators are career managers who downplay the importance of teaching and research, as evidenced by their tireless advocacy for a banal "life skills" curriculum. Consequently, students are denied a more enriching educational experience--one defined by intellectual rigor.

PREACH IT!  See too the indispensable Inside Higher Ed website's writeup as well.  Note the Insta-Prof's take. My personal sentiments about the issue are a matter of public record.  Bureaucracy run amok will be the ruin of us all both on campus and off.