| Title | : | The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 019978244X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780199782444 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 264 |
| Publication | : | First published July 7, 2011 |
The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters Reviews
-
This is a deeply flawed book that makes half an important argument. Ginsberg argues that tenure is under threat (yes) and that university tuition is skyrocketing (yes). The cause he identifies for both problems is university administrators. Ginsberg, a very distinguished scholar, has unfortunately written a very unscholarly book. The growth in the administrator per pupil ratio is the cause of most of the problems in higher education, from political correctness to high tuition, according to Ginsberg, but he does very little research to try and establish this. The book boils down to a few charts and figures, and is very well summarized by his article. Indeed, this book is an article puffed out to booklength with a lot of anecdotes and venom. The venom towards administrators is unrelenting--they are called "deanlets" and other diminutives as if that were a substitute for an argument.
And whatever is true here is outweighed by what is missing. For example, faculty responsibility for the skyrocketing tuition rates is entirely ignored. Ginsberg points out that administrators were historically not fans of tenure, and only agreed to it when market conditions forced them to. Now, he argues that with more than 70% of all collegiate teaching done by non-tenure or tenure-track faculty (primarily by adjuncts and grad students), tenure is vanishing. Here, he makes an excellent point. But the lesson he draws from it is incomplete. One of the reasons teaching by regular faculty is down so much is that faculty teaching loads have so greatly diminished. At top schools, top faculty often teach just one or two classes a year, when in the not so distant past, they would be expected to teach 4-6. This very salient fact is not even mentioned. Surely this plays a role in the rise of tuition and the rise in the # of courses taught by adjuncts. And he barely mentions the widespread problem of "deadwood" created by tenure, in which faculty who are utterly unproductive in both teaching and research continue to get raises and salaries. While I am very sympathetic to Ginsberg's argument that we have seen a radical expansion in the size of administration, and it merits study, even here, he doesn't do the hard work of going into even one university's budget, and trying to isolate out which categories are bloated, and which are legitimate. He just waltzes into higher education administration and assumes he knows everything, when it is in fact quite a complex management topic. He does make a few interesting suggestions at the end for improvement. Most originally, he argues that faculty should work with administrators and trustees to REDUCE the number of PhD programs in America, to lessen the surplus work force of adjuncts, and increase the need for colleges to hire more tenure track faculty.
But my advice is, spare yourself the trouble of reading this book, and read his W. Monthly article only. Also--he is right that every trustee and alum should ask a few simple questions of their institution: what is the student to staff and student to administration ratio? What is the trend in that line over the last decade? I'd add what are the top 20 administrators paid, and how does their pay compare with that at comparable institutions? Overall, though, this book is a major disappointment, and I only finished it out of a stubborn hope that it would improve. -
"The Fall of the Faculty" was a fascinating read, because it combined a lot of useful statistics (50% increase in faculty/students vs. 85% increase in administration in the same time period; % of university money that comes from tuition vs. donations, etc.) with humorous/chilling anecdotes, and also with the author's self-aggrandizing swaggering and posturing over what a rebel he has been w/r/t his dealings with the administration. All of this makes for an informative, fun, and sometimes very eyeroll-worthy read.
The conversation about increasing administration in the university is massively important, and Ginsberg makes a good (though not particularly academic) argument against it. But I also had several serious issues with the way Ginsberg goes about his argument, and I think they merit focus as well. For one, Ginsberg's work is heavily focused on the faculty & teaching in general, without much focus on how the shift toward administration affects graduate students. In fact, graduate students are somewhat seen as the opposition in the particular section of the book I have trouble reading without wincing: the section where Ginsberg attributes the survival of multicultural programs such as African Studies to administrative "pandering."
Ginsberg complains about such minority programs, despite only having a few students, "getting a big piece of the pie." In doing so, he generally neglects to acknowledge that having such few people enrolled in these programs is itself a systemic issue. He takes a step toward acknowledging this when complaining about diversity hiring, asserting that there just aren't enough women and minorities applying for jobs in the fields that need them, which is a cultural issue (however, he opens this conversation by asserting that the fields WITH women and minority professors have been meeting their quotas for a while and no one should worry about them, for which there is no citation).
All in all this book provided a lot of valuable data & enough hair-raising anecdotes to sort of moderately radicalize anyone who reads it against the rise of the administration in the university, but it still adhered to a lot of the monolithic politics that, in my opinion, opened the door to such a change in the first place. Would like to read a similar book except not written by a libertarian.
Edit: After briefly looking over the other reviews here, I'd just like to echo that if you're looking for academic rigor, you're not gonna find it here. -
3.5 stars [Education]
Benjamin Ginsberg writes an expose of corruption in the University.
Writing: 3 stars
It is well-written (3.5), but not well-organized (2.5).
Use: 3.5 stars
Truth: 4 stars
I underlined much of this book. His attack against the bloat of administrative bureaucracy is well-founded. Most who oppose the assertions in Ginsberg's book will be part of that bureaucracy, beneficiaries of the money, prestige, or both they enjoy, and thus will hate the sunlight Ginsberg shines.
On the negative side, Ginsberg thinks John Dewey and Charles Beard were luminaries. And not covering the Western-Civ debate was glaring, especially because he wrote about "core curricula" in Chapter 6.
Recommended:
To anyone who cares about education. -
This one has really stuck with me. Ginsberg does not pull a single punch here and though when I first read this book in 2012 or so it annoyed me that Ginsberg's opinion was so ever-present in the text, The Fall of the Faculty is prescient and prophetic. Administrative bloat has not abated, but in fact at many institutions has become ludicrous. If you work in academia you will certainly see much truth in this study, even if Ginbserg's polemic is one-sided. He's passionate, cut him a break.
-
I absolutely adore this book. I read it. Turned to the front of the book. Read it again. Ginsberg hits full attack mode in questioning what has happened to our universities since the administrators took over the institution. He supplies the quantitative data of the growth of administrators and managers. But with great subtlety he shows the impact of the cultural shift from scholarship to managerialism.
It is a serious book with a serious argument. But hell - it is really funny as well. There were moments when I read this and I had to put the book down I was laughing so hard. Everyone who has lived in and through universities in the last twenty years will find an incident or moment that is resonant of personal experience. For me though, the way he disposes of 'deanlings' or 'deanlets' is the great gift of the book. He provides some of the most ruthless and cuttingly funny commentary of the associate, assistant, sub, acting deans. How these men and women crawl to power remains the stark image of the book.
Brilliant, witty, horrifying and absolutely fabulous, _The Fall of the Faculty_ is stellar. Read it. Then read it again. And you will always remember the deanlings. -
I am once again embarking on my quest for next year's Associate Dean Think Tank NERCHE common read.
I was shocked, appalled and disappointed with this author's very angry point of view. The entire tone of the book was very disrespectful of higher ed administrators. His moniker for administrators is the very insulting "Deanlet". (Deanlets spend their time meeting and "retreating").
In his conclusion to 200+ pages of insults he states, "With fewer Deanlets to command, senior administrators would be compelled to turn once again to the faculty for administrative support". None of my wonderful faculty would be willing to provide administrative support. And my faculty are wonderful, but they leave the administrivia (which I do enjoy) up to me as the Dean.
The proof that he is uniformed about the changes that have taken place in higher education is his call to faculty to resist assessment. Apparently he does not understand the mandate for assessment and the idea that we have no choice but to work with our institutions to measure student outcomes and success if we want to be viable in the future- and thus ensure the support of faculty. Read this book if you want a good laugh! -
While I completely agree with the fundamental argument of this book and have seen it in action at a university where I work, his tone is pretty pompous and rude; it's almost like the first angry draft was accepted for publication without adjustments, and while I personally identified with his anger, it seemed overdone and inappropriate here, especially for a scholar.
Some enlightening ideas about strategic plans, tenure, institutional assessment, and endowments were the best parts for me and if you're looking for a rant about the downfall of higher learning in this country, then look no further. -
Ben Ginsburg has written a really important book that looks at the meltdown of the American University through a very specific lens: that of the loss of sovereignty of faculty governance and the takeover of an administrative army of non-scholars, non-educators. I'll offer up one astonishing piece of information from a book jammed to the rafters with such information: the number of administrators on American college campuses now great outnumber the faculty, and it is on the way to outnumbering the students.
-
There’s something wrong with American higher education today, and Benjamin Ginsberg, a political science professor who has worked at multiple prestigious U.S. universities, is convinced he’s identified the primary component of the problem: college administrators. His work, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters, is a polemic against the spread of what he refers to as the “administrative blight” that has proliferated throughout higher education in the past several years. Administrators and faculty are engaged in a war for control of the fate of the university, Ginsberg argues, and he makes it abundantly clear which side he believes actually has the best interests of the university at heart.
It’s a stance that will likely seem reasonable to most faculty. Indeed, Ginsberg’s unwavering sarcasm and biting criticism against the armies of what he calls “deans, deanlings, and deanlets,” their self-aggrandizing campaigns and their academically watered-down programs, makes the book quite entertaining to read. And it would have been more entertaining, if one could escape the suspicion that he’s partially right. His primary argument is that administrators exist primarily to promote their own agendas and expand their own influence, and that this often has very little to do with the primary job of the university, which is teaching and research.
The work will resonate (either positively or negatively) with anyone in higher education, though Ginsberg’s vindictive tone (comparing administrators in various places throughout the work to blight, disease, cancer, and even stronger metaphors) eventually wears a bit thin and is in places unfair. But hang around with any group of faculty for long, and much of what he says will start to sound familiar.
Though I don’t go so far as Ginsberg, my own institution has seen a recent proliferation of administrative levels, and we can all name administrators for whom we don’t have a very clear idea of what it is they actually do. The bureaucratic fuzz-speak on efficiencies, best practices, missions statements, and outcomes that is easy target for ridicule in business settings has become more and more a part of university life in my (very short) experience. Things are changing, outside forces seem to be trying to reshape and restructure what happens on university campuses, and people like Ginsberg are taking note (and getting angry).
For Ginsberg though, any new administrative program is an attempt by administrators-- career professionals, in Ginsberg’s evaluation, with little research or teaching experience-- to expand their realms of influence and undermine the power and influence of the faculty. It’s a conflict between administrators who wish to run the campus like a business (primarily to their own benefit, Ginsberg claims) and the faculty who are actually responsible for the teaching and research that is the university’s true purpose. Get rid of most administrators, Ginsberg argues, and not many folks on campus would actually notice. But get rid of the professors, and the work of the university grinds to a halt.
Ginsberg, using a mix of anecdotes and hard data, begins his case by outlining the recent growth in total number of administrators in higher education, contrasting it with trends in faculty growth, and explores (and explodes) the rationals often offered for these trends, including financial pressures and outside accreditation requirements. He then provides his (rather snarky) analysis of what administrators actually “do,” explains the ways their cross-purposes with faculty actually end up impeding the university’s true mission of research and teaching, and blows the whistle on attempts to use things like diversity and cultural sensitivity as covers for further expansion of administrative bloat. He takes particular pleasure in highlighting the many recent accounts of inside dealing between trustees and university administrators as well as stories of fraud and spending that have come to light in some of the country’s most prestigious universities.
Ginsberg includes a chapter on the rise and fall of the tenure system in the United States, which he (rightly, I think) believes is central to concerns regarding academic freedom. In Ginsberg’s narrative, faculty tenure came about in the first half of the twentieth century through a partnership with university administration and faculty to help build strong universities and shield them against interference from political forces and powerful board members or trustees. Now, however, tenure is seen as an antiquated relic that keeps universities from functioning effectively and prevents administrators from exercising complete power over potentially troublesome faculty.
Finally, Ginsberg ends with an appeal to the university’s mission and ethos and those charged with maintaining it: the faculty. Faculty, he says, have been complicit in the growth of administration and the erosion of their own influence because they’d rather teach and do research and are happy letting administrators shoulder the burden of day to day bureaucratic concerns. However, historically many administrative posts were held by faculty in temporary or part-time positions, a practice Ginsberg believes was healthier for the university because it prevented the bifurcation in values and methods between administrators and faculty that has taken place today. He provides some ideas of what can be done to stem the growth of the all-administrative university, offering a tentative call to arms (tentative because he admits it may be too late).
Before I respond more fully on Ginsberg’s approach, I have a small quibble with his analysis of administrative growth. He tends to be uniform in seeing this growth as a bad thing, but there’s one aspect I don’t think he takes into account, and that is the growth of research centers. Here I’m speaking from my experience as a graduate student, where places like the “Center for Science, Technology, and Values” or the “Center for International and Peace Studies” were major players in supporting and fostering research and teaching at my institution. Each of these centers had to supply a small cohort of administrators to make their work possible. Here, one could make the case that the growth of administration and even bureaucracy helped bridge the divide between development and alumni relations (as each of these centers bore the name of rich donors or administrators) and actual research and scholarship. Likewise at my current (much smaller) campus, similar centers are where some of the most exciting scholarship is taking place. Albeit both these centers are headed by faculty members, but they likely entail some administrative growth, especially if they continue to expand.
Apart from that, I agree with much of what Ginsberg has to say, but where depart from him is in his evaluation of motives. For Ginsberg, administrators are always the bad guys, and their motive is simple self-enlargement. Perhaps it’s from my own experiences at smaller, faith-based universities, but I see the very real divide between administration and faculty that Ginsberg has outlined less about bad guys and good guys and more about differences in philosophy. At my own institution, for instance, I genuinely believe most of the faculty and administrators have the best interests of the college at heart. Frustration here arises though because we seem to go about pursuing that interest (and understanding it) in different worlds, using different (and often mutually incomprehensible) languages and practices. Instead of the outline of a war, which Ginsberg has provided, what would have been much more helpful to me is an outline that would have helped me understand the world of administration.
Perhaps Ginsberg believes such worlds are simply incommensurate. He touches on some of the relevant differences in his text as, for instance, when he explains in his introductory chapter:
Controlled by its faculty, the university is capable of producing not only new knowledge but new visions of society. The university can be a subversive institution in the best sense of that word, showing by its teaching and scholarship that new ways of thinking and acting are possible. Controlled by administrators, on the other hand, the university can never be more than what Stanley Aronowitz has aptly termed a knowledge factory, offering more or less sophisticated forms of vocational training to meet the needs of other established institutions in the public and private sectors. (p. 3)
What we begin to see are different (and sometimes mutually incompatible) views of the purpose of education, what I’ve referred to as the impossible tight-rope between constituencies and interests that my own administrative team has to walk (and does so largely successfully). The university, some tell us, has to stay relevant to remain solvent. Plus, we’re beholden to our denominational roots and support. So there’s a strong motivation to not do some of the things that college professors sometimes get in trouble for: being critical, helping our students to think and ask difficult questions even when we’re uncertain where the answers will fall. There’s a conflict of interests-- a tension-- between these two worlds, which is why there needs to be trust but also checks and balances (like tenure).
Another quote from Ginsberg:
As one prominent higher education accreditation official and former college administrator recently put it, though once seen as a route to “personal growth and development,’” higher education today should be understood more as, “a strategic investment of resources to produce benefits for business and industry by leveraging fiscal and human capital to produce a direct, immediate and positive financial return on those investments.” (p. 10, quote from Ronald L. Baker, “Keystones of Regional Accreditation: Intentions, Outcomes and Sustainability,” in Peter Hernon and Robert Dugan, Outcomes Assessment in Higher Education (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004), 1.)
And here we get back to the discussion of what education should be: whether vocational training, liberal arts education, or (more likely) some combination or balance of both. This is a debate that needs to happen, but it’s not going to happen in administrative retreats, planning sessions, or meetings with consultants. It’s must happen through dialogue and debate that involves (perhaps primarily) the faculty.
Ginsberg touches on this as well:
Even when their underlying motivations may be questionable, professors are obligated, at least in public, to present strong intellectual justifications for their positions. In turf wars among faculty members, victor is most often secured by those who succeed in framing the issue and offering the most compelling philosophical or scientific arguments on behalf of their cause. The best faculty debates have an educational value. (p. 84)
By contrast most administrative “debates” don’t really ever become debates, as they’re usually top-down directives issued from behind closed doors, even when they purport to be setting the plans or identities for the entire campus. Secondly, as Ginsberg notes, administrative decisions tend to simply be adoptions of “best practices” from other universities or even other industries with little intellectual justification provided. I agree with Ginsberg that the power of the faculty should not be curtailed, especially not the power to be agents in setting university course or policy, because the faculty have the expertise and the vested interest in the research and teaching for which the university itself exists.
I don’t think Ginsberg is fair with his evaluation of administrators as people, but I’m a bit naive and I also tend to give people as people the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I’m at a small institution where I can (for the most part) directly see how administrators work to make my job possible. But I think he’s right when he talks about the different worlds we live in. And this is where the crux of the matter lies.
So what is to be done? Ginsberg offers a few concrete suggestions, which I’ve modified into my own list of modest proposals specific to my own university, outlined below. My academic environment is very different from the ones in which Ginsberg has spent his career, but we share many of the same perspectives and values. We’re part of the same profession, and we both have an ideal of the university we’d like to see preserved, sustained, and developed. To that end, I propose that we:
1. Bring back tenure. As mentioned above, the tenure system is not perfect, but it’s an important balance against administrative authority. Even when the administration is largely benign, tenure is essential to academic freedom. The case could be made that this is even more important at a smaller institution, where personalities and politics have the potential to play a more direct role in conflicts between administration and faculty. The power to dismiss senior faculty members who have been vetted and promoted through due process should rest with the faculty as a whole and not the administration alone.
2. Give faculty representation on the board of trustees. As anecdotal evidence at my own institution supports, the trustees (who carry much of the power of the university, at least in theory) exist in a different world from the faculty. They’re made up of ministers and lay leaders in the community, with backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints that often differ widely from those of the faculty. It’s clear that effective leaders in this environment are those who can navigate between and have credibility with both of these disparate worlds. However, an easy step toward bridging these worlds and increasing faculty agency would be for the faculty to elect a small number of their own members to serve as representatives to this board.
3. Assign administrators some teaching load. This suggestion does not come from Ginsberg’s book but is especially suited to bridging the faculty/administrative divide at my own institution. Many of the faculty feel administrators live and work in a different world than we do as faculty, and many administrators have told me the same thing. This disconnect is heightened by differences in background; even when we want the same things, we don’t speak the same language. As a teaching institution, however, we can all agree that what happens in the classroom is essential. Requiring our administrators to bear some teaching load (or at the minimum requiring that any new administrative position have teaching load built into it) would not only bring faculty and administrators together as colleagues, it would also keep us planted in the same context with the same priorities. Moreover, administrators bearing some teaching load could go a long way to providing limited course release for faculty who wish to pursue research and scholarship but whose current course loads make this impossible.
I think Ginsberg is on to something in his treatment, though his acerbic tone isn’t going to win any administrators over to his side. And that’s not his point: Ginsberg is sure the battle lines are drawn, and he’s articulating a desperate faculty rearguard action. I’d like to think we’re on the same side, just speaking different languages. Unfortunately, I agree with Ginsberg that some of the language and values college administrators have adopted is largely incompatible with what I believe the true values of a liberal arts education actually are, but I haven’t yet given up hope that we can’t bridge those divides and do good work together. -
The author argues that college administrators are to blame for the decline in the stature of college faculty, as they are inept and financially burdensome. He targets the excessive number of high-salaried "deanlets" who are disconnected from the college's educational mission. Although to some extent that is true, there is an oversupply of PhDs in virtually every academic field, which is overlooked by both faculty and administrators. The labor market requires young professionals with relevant skills and fresh ideas, but academia trains too many PhDs to replicate themselves. This issue is not being solved, leading to the rise of virtual education and for-profit institutions that could render traditional academic institutions obsolete.
-
I first became aware of this book when I saw it quoted in David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs, and being an ex-academic myself, I had a personal interest in the subject matter. Despite being published in 2011, The Fall of the Faculty is shockingly still relevant, mainly because the trends in higher education that have led to increased administrative positions and fewer teaching jobs have continued to the present day. But while I found this book valuable, there were some drawbacks that led to me giving it 3 stars (which perhaps is closer to a 2.5) instead of 4 or 5.
For one, Ginsberg writes with a tone that I think damages his credibility. Part of me relished in his anger - I loved seeing him call administrators unqualified or incompetent or all sorts of things that reflected my personal feelings and experiences with university administrators. However, I worry that this tone can come across as biased to readers who may not have as much of a stake. Ginsberg seems to be preaching to the choir, speaking primarily to other teachers who feel the same way as he does. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but I do wish he had given the impression of being more objective.
Second, I wish Ginsberg had relied more on anecdotes outside the realm of his own experience. This book doesn’t lack for data; it cites useful studies and includes horror stories to support Ginsberg’s main points, but it also contains a lot of generalizations or basic descriptions. That’s not always bad, as sometimes, peoples’ jobs are at risk or a more detailed picture isn’t required, but I personally wanted to see more detailed evidence and analysis to support his conclusions. When Ginsberg needed more detail, it seems like he relied almost exclusively on his own experience, and while I don’t doubt that Ginsberg has valuable insight, I do wish his personal experience was less the star of the show and more of a voice among many. I would have liked to see something more in the style of Graeber’s methodology: gathering anonymous stories and tracing patterns across multiple first-hand accounts, making caveats when appropriate and using more formal studies to explain the trends. I understand that such a process would be difficult, given that many may be reluctant to talk, but I think quoting more from other educators (and even administrative staff) would have gone a long way.
Third, there are some parts of this book that are a little cringey, to say the least, and may put some progressive readers off. For example, Ginsberg complains about “multicultural” or “diversity” programs receiving lots of administrative support despite having fewer students. Buried in this complaint is the point that some of these smaller “diversity” programs are used as a shield against administrative criticism - a point that is absolutely worth exploring. However, I do think that complaining too much about African American or gender studies receiving unfair support comes across as dismissive or discrediting, regardless of intent. Ginsberg also states that administrative pressure for departments to hire more diverse faculty is useless because either A.) there just aren’t (m)any women or POC in some fields to hire, or B.) some fields, such as the humanities, are already doing so successfully. While there’s a kernel of truth in those statements, Ginsberg doesn’t address the fact that A.) less women and POC earn advanced degrees because of institutional discrimination, hostile learning or work environments, etc., and B.) just because his own department was “diverse,” that doesn’t mean other departments are (many English programs are overwhelmingly white). Instead of just complaining that administration is meddling where it doesn’t belong, I would have liked to see an argument for more aggressive reforms of the education system as a whole and what role admin plays in helping or hindering this process. Ginsberg could have even kept his point that admin only shows interest in diversity for appearances - that point just could have been made without suggesting that it’s just a fact that women/POC aren’t available or, if they are, it’s because departments are already doing what they need to be doing.
Despite these drawbacks, this book isn’t without merit. I particularly thought that the chapter overviewing the history of tenure was well-written, with interesting tidbits of information that I think makes the history of higher education accessible to a casual reader. I also think Ginsberg had a good defense of the liberal arts and closed his book with concrete advice regarding what can be done about administrative bloat. But as it stands, The Fall of the Faculty is not necessarily a book I’d recommend if someone wanted to learn more about current trends in academia, especially if that person is an administrator themselves. -
The section on activism and administration left me with a very bad taste in my mouth (it's a bad thing to ban sexual harassment on campus? or something? first amendment et cetera). He fundamentally misunderstands the links between activism and administration - which most commonly amounts to inclusion theatre than any real progress. It is clear from his own examples that administration couch their actions in social justice language without believing in anything but a further extension of their own power, and I would appreciate the blame not being laid at the feet of those of us who are trying to build a better world. Honestly just skip "The Realpolitik of Gender and Race", there are better ways of engaging in the links between (faux) social justice and university administration.
Normally such a chapter would lead me to never recommend this book, but I was deeply appreciative of every other chapter. The book as a whole contains a wealth of valuable history and statistics for anyone involved in university life. The development of administrative bloat and the suggestions for how to solve those issues are important topics for those connected to academia, and for those this is without doubt a valuable book. -
Underneath the derogatory remarks and loathing for the university administrative apparatus hides a timely and lucid discussion of some of the main issues impacting higher education. Specifically, the author points to the reckless, unaccountable, and often unnecessary growth of the administration at the expense of the faculty and, by extension, students’ wellbeing. Not a perfect book by any stretch—the author too often relies on anecdotes and hearsay to make important points and his obvious disdain for administrative malfeasance can be distracting—yet the bureaucratic pathologies the author identifies are too visible and consequential to discount altogether. This book is worth checking out if you care about the state of higher education.
-
Well, I'm a fan of snark and vitriol, so I enjoyed Ginsberg's book. Also, as one who works at a university suffering from the administrative bloat against which he rails--just hired another big cheese at a base pay rate of $600K (juxtaposed against the .75% (that's 3/4 of 1%) pay increase garnered by faculty and staff), I can very much appreciate his position. I do think he could have done more with the closing section, wherein he offers up suggestions to fix things. Still, he's correct in general, and the book amply demonstrates it.
-
This book is a required and depressing read for faculty. And since I'm an "ex-faculty" I'd say it is also an important read for any parent who is going to send kids to a university. Fundamentally, who makes decisions for the university, and what is the money going into universities (tuition, grants, etc) going there for? This book presents many depressing examples and also has a good overarching narrative.
-
There are many things wrong with American higher education. This book gets at none of them. A cranky conspiracy theory that claims that a shadow army of "deanlets" has stolen the university from its faculty.
-
Very interesting book about administrative bloat and how faculty at the college level are being undermined.
-
Too in love with his thesis to really get anywhere.
-
TL;DR the author is 100% correct in his diagnosis. He is just too bitter to make his points land for the average reader.
A topical piece that directly and unapologetically lays the blame for the problems of modern American higher education at the feet of the new class of administrators that has taken control over the university system.
The author has a clear first hand knowledge of how the university system ran in the times before the corporate model seized control of higher education. To say the author reviles the current status quo is an understatement. For a professional academic the author is very clearly(and correctly) spitting bile with his clear disdain and outright disgust at what university management has become during his lifetime.
The chip on the author's shoulder over the changes in university structure is large enough to be seen from space. It pulls away from the text only in that the author does a poor job imparting to the reader why they should share his view of the system.
The author's lack of class analysis(as opposed to his writing as a disaffected academic) makes his explanation of why the managerial system that took over hollow and uninspiring. It made what could have been an excellent raging against the dying of the light into an old man yelling on the bus for anyone to listen to his hate. -
I believe that university administrations have become larger and more complex beyond any reasonable justification and that this is one of the reasons higher education is in real trouble. However, this book argues that point in a way that would be easy for a critic to dismiss: with information that could be regarded as anecdotal, with unsupported generalizations, and with a good deal of exaggeration and sarcasm. The author attributes a greater degree of corruption to administrators than I think is fair. Sure, some people are nakedly self-serving; but more commonly, people respond to the incentives that they're given. It's the very structure of university administrations that's the problem, and the solution is to rebuild the university from the ground up, not to put pressure on administrators to behave themselves.
-
As a humanities professor at a two-year college, I agree with Ginsberg's central conceit and overview here. However, his binary approach to administration vs. faculty, and demeaning tone (such as the constant use of the terms "deanling" and "deanlet") are dismissive and, ultimately, only reinforce the stereotypes of such positions...and by extension, reinforces the division between the two. I am currently in the throes of watching my own institution fall apart due to administrative overreach and a complete lack of shared governance with faculty, yet I find the approach here far too combative and blithe to be of any help, unfortunately.
-
Ginsberg has no love for administrators! As a member of the faculty, I found this book completely engaging but highly repetitive. The same few points are made in multiple chapters with just a slightly different take. The author's consistent criticism of the army of "deanlings and deanlets" was humorous. I would have liked more strategies for combating the all-administrative university as I accepted this thesis by the end of the first chapter. Five more chapters with slightly different details were not necessary.
-
Aside from Professor Ginsberg's seeming distaste for much of the programming revolving around diversity, he makes many good points, particularly as this subject relates to the ever-increasing costs in higher edu. The growth of administration, and the relative decrease in the number of professors who have any sort of job security is bad for students, bad for the larger college community, and ultimately really bad for those who believe in the pursuit of life-long learning.
-
This book aims to point the danger of the expanding role of administrative role on behalf of the faculty. The author claims will diverge the university from its main mission, spreading knowledge via teaching and research, to provide administrative staff more benefits.
Although the author seems to be an expert and well-aware of this matter, however, the book is staffed with long stories and elaborations. Therefore, the book can be significantly reduced to one chapter or an article. -
I rarely DNF books, or if I do, I don’t write a review about it. I made it to about the halfway point before giving up because of blatant racist bias, so I figured I’d still write something.
Truly terrible. It reads like a list of specific anecdotes intermixed with assumptions and someone with an absolutely massive ego. I don’t think I learned a single thing. I suffered through this for more than half a year trying to read it, and I can’t caution against it more. -
Despite the frustrated tone, and some questionable comparisons to other countries and times, I do think the core elements of this book capture all of the frustrations I felt while in grad school. Overwhelming bureaucracy is rough even when it’s supposed to be there — and when it’s out of place, it can be devastating.
