The Frontiers of University Administration

Last week, David Perry highlighted a striking trend in American higher education: the expansion of administrative positions at colleges and universities and the simultaneous "fall" of tenure-track faculty. Two quick caveats are required to understand this trend before getting to the crux of my post.

First, some call this growth "bloat," which fails to acknowledge that a chunk of the additional personnel were hired to meet enrollment demands and spur completion. In other words, as Perry acknowledged, not all administrative expansion should be thought of as excessive. Second, "administrative" is an umbrella term that disguises precisely where growth is happening. In my experience, certain areas have massified to a greater extent than others. For example, when I was job searching a few months ago, it was impossible to miss the plethora of new positions in development and fund-raising. I had to learn a whole new vocabulary just to understand the job descriptions.

Although I recognize that the number of administrative positions is relevant and intersects with the the state of the academic profession, I don't think it captures the major transformations currently afoot in administration. If you want to learn about the relationship between administration and corporatization, keep your eyes fixed on two increasingly widespread phenomena: 1) efficiency-based restructuring and 2) contracting with private companies to develop administrative technologies. These practices are remarkably under-studied, and they are often absent in conversations related to the nature of change in higher education and the advent of disruptive innovation that's all the rage these days.

Starting with the first phenomenon: efficiency-based restructuring. Many institutions are looking for synergies between units that justify cost-cutting mergers. An example of this at my own university was the decision to create a center for innovation in teaching and learning by combining the center for teaching excellence and an e-learning office. A few experts in big data will be hired in the process, but the move also frees up office space and reduces the need for some administrative positions. Efficiency wasn’t the only objective in this process—it was a signature initiative for the provost who, like many chief academic officers, seems to be gunning for a presidential appointment.

Another example of efficiency-based restructuring is a model of shared services being explored at the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at Austin. Not coincidentally, both universities were advised by the consulting firm Accenture LLP, which is not the only consulting firm cashing in institutions' pursuit of organizational efficiencies. A friend at Booze Allen recently told me that his team is getting into higher education consulting. The shared services model looks to identify and eliminate administrative redundancies, typically through the centralization of certain administrative functions that are shared by many units. This model has been hotly contested by faculty at both institutions, partly because it oversimplifies the work done by many staff people and could result in substantial loss of grant money. So, rising numbers of mid-level managers in higher education is not the only example of failed corporatization. Many constituents at colleges and universities oppose the type of lay-offs required to achieve the efficiencies proposed in restructuring. 

The second phenomenon is contracting with private companies to develop or implement technologies that improve the administrative functioning of campuses. Right now, our university has a number of contracts with companies in order to digitize paperwork, streamline the collection and analysis of information, and measurably cut the bureaucratic red tape that is said to inhibit change. One of these products is an online portal that collects information on faculty in order to facilitate annual reporting to the state, generate standardized CVs, and eventually streamline the promotion and tenure process. Other products are designed to replace the antiquated applications that were created in-house to manage student information, course registration, and financial aid. A booming business has emerged to capitalize on various administrative functions in higher education. We don't have any sense of how much money is being spent on these and similar products, or if they even work as advertised. It seems rather odd that a research university with some of the brightest minds on earth would rather pay a company than encourage its own people to develop new technologies.

Why don't we hear more about these phenomena? Higher education's reform-industrial complex has not nearly been as concerned with administration as instruction. Innovation and disruption, it seems, are solely applied to teaching and learning. Frequently, innovation revolves around cutting costs by putting students in front of a computer, instead of in a classroom with others. I have yet to see a panel, summit, or conference dedicated to “re-imagining” administration. The reality is that many of the innovation evangelists have no experience in administration and may not have a strong sense of where to introduce new ideas. Administration is also less politically-charged and sexy than how much students are learning and whether tenured faculty are superstars or deadweight. Thus, these two phenomena are largely occurring under the radar.

In thinking about administration in higher education, we should set our sights on more than just counting the number of administrative jobs. There are major shifts taking place in administration, and they represent the frontier of university operations—we know little about them, how much they cost, or whether they work. And these trends are just as important and say more about corporatization than the number administrators.