[BostonCard]

[quote author=2006alum link=topic=17921.msg211014#msg211014 date=1510014876]

My largest beef with university expansion is that I think it's led to the rise of a of exceedingly large proportions bureaucratic administrative staff that tends towards mission creep away from the core mission of research and teaching. I'm presenting at a university where it feels like there are more administrators than faculty, and one wonders what % of student tuition actually goes toward someone teaching them something rather than filling out the staff of the office of [services/feelings/needs/inclusion/accommodations/paper-pushing].

I am very glad you said this. I hesitated to go in that direction, because I felt it might be construed as being too critical. However, both from personal experience and from the experience of people I know well, Stanford has become an inefficient bureaucracy, where the functionaries could be working at a department store (or worse still, a law firm  :) ) with no awareness of Stanford as a university. There are way too many of them, and all they do is get in the way. They are counting beans for others who are counting beans. Yes, all universities have always had some issues like this. However, Stanford is at least two orders of magnitude worse than it was in 1970. I would like to see employment figures for non-academic staff. It must have exploded.
If it helps any, U$C is just as bad, maybe worse. At least Stanford hasn't had the scandals with med school deans. However, for bloated bureaucracy, we are probably in a dead heat.
[/quote]

This is hardly limited to Stanford and/or USC.  The first graph is Berkeley:



This one looks at the rise of administrata by university category.


I'm not a subscriber, but the following article suggests that the "ideal ratio" of faculty to administrators is 3:1.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Adminis...uch/135500

BC

[BostonCard]

[quote author=2006alum link=topic=17921.msg211014#msg211014 date=1510014876]

My largest beef with university expansion is that I think it's led to the rise of a of exceedingly large proportions bureaucratic administrative staff that tends towards mission creep away from the core mission of research and teaching. I'm presenting at a university where it feels like there are more administrators than faculty, and one wonders what % of student tuition actually goes toward someone teaching them something rather than filling out the staff of the office of [services/feelings/needs/inclusion/accommodations/paper-pushing].

I am very glad you said this. I hesitated to go in that direction, because I felt it might be construed as being too critical. However, both from personal experience and from the experience of people I know well, Stanford has become an inefficient bureaucracy, where the functionaries could be working at a department store (or worse still, a law firm  :) ) with no awareness of Stanford as a university. There are way too many of them, and all they do is get in the way. They are counting beans for others who are counting beans. Yes, all universities have always had some issues like this. However, Stanford is at least two orders of magnitude worse than it was in 1970. I would like to see employment figures for non-academic staff. It must have exploded.
If it helps any, U$C is just as bad, maybe worse. At least Stanford hasn't had the scandals with med school deans. However, for bloated bureaucracy, we are probably in a dead heat.
[/quote]

This is hardly limited to Stanford and/or USC.  The first graph is Berkeley:



This one looks at the rise of administrata by university category.


I'm not a subscriber, but the following article suggests that the "ideal ratio" of faculty to administrators is 3:1.
http://www.chronicle.com/article/Adminis...uch/135500

BC