[Mick]

There is no question the bureaucracy at Stanford has increased greatly over the years. It is at least two orders of magnitude larger than what it was back in the early 70's. Even more importantly, the effect it has on student life has also increased greatly. There is a thread of though that believes Stanford began selecting students for admission at least partly based on their willingness to be passive in the face of regulatory expansion. It is obviously not clear that indeed this is the case, but it is unquestionably true that today's students accept thing that would have been unthinkable in the 70s.

In the 70s, the administration was not markedly different it character that it is today. There were many examples of attempts to control student behavior. These attempts were often foolish, even counterproductive, as they are IMO today. There are three main differences today. 1) The administration is much larger, so it's impact on student life is much greater by it's mere size. 2) The expectation that the University is "responsible" for student welfare (of all kinds) is much greater today. As a result, the University has to be able to "control" more things. 3) The students seem much more willing to accept higher levels of administrative control. Back "in the day", we would just ignore them. We felt we were responsible for our own welfare, not the University, and we didn't much care what they thought about how we lived our life. Today, the students expect/accept more "handholding" and therefore get/accept more "control" from the University.

I think you hit the nail on the head with respect to the greater administration and the oversight that it brings. The one main difference you didn't mention is that liability -- particularly for California-based institutions -- is so much greater than it used to be. I think the University is reacting to the legal environment with the greater oversight.

I agree with you, I think it has ever been thus. My sister-in-law was an RA at Stanford thirty years ago, and she fairly regularly referred to the "thought police" in terms of University oversight. So there's that...

[Mick]

There is no question the bureaucracy at Stanford has increased greatly over the years. It is at least two orders of magnitude larger than what it was back in the early 70's. Even more importantly, the effect it has on student life has also increased greatly. There is a thread of though that believes Stanford began selecting students for admission at least partly based on their willingness to be passive in the face of regulatory expansion. It is obviously not clear that indeed this is the case, but it is unquestionably true that today's students accept thing that would have been unthinkable in the 70s.

In the 70s, the administration was not markedly different it character that it is today. There were many examples of attempts to control student behavior. These attempts were often foolish, even counterproductive, as they are IMO today. There are three main differences today. 1) The administration is much larger, so it's impact on student life is much greater by it's mere size. 2) The expectation that the University is "responsible" for student welfare (of all kinds) is much greater today. As a result, the University has to be able to "control" more things. 3) The students seem much more willing to accept higher levels of administrative control. Back "in the day", we would just ignore them. We felt we were responsible for our own welfare, not the University, and we didn't much care what they thought about how we lived our life. Today, the students expect/accept more "handholding" and therefore get/accept more "control" from the University.

I think you hit the nail on the head with respect to the greater administration and the oversight that it brings. The one main difference you didn't mention is that liability -- particularly for California-based institutions -- is so much greater than it used to be. I think the University is reacting to the legal environment with the greater oversight.

I agree with you, I think it has ever been thus. My sister-in-law was an RA at Stanford thirty years ago, and she fairly regularly referred to the "thought police" in terms of University oversight. So there's that...