‘Fall of the Faculty’ expert tells UMD union to go on the offensive

Obstreperous isn’t a word often associated with a teacher. It more often would be used to describe a teacher’s nightmare – a noisy student that’s difficult to control. But it was a word Benjamin Ginsberg of John Hopkins University used a number of times at his Sept. 26 presentation to University of Minnesota Duluth faculty, members of the University Education Association/Education Minnesota

Ginsberg urges all university faculty to become obstreperous in dealing with their administration. Author of 24 books on a wide range of subjects, Ginsberg’s book, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters, is what made UEA invite him to campus. His book explains a phenomenon they know too well.

“It’s been with us for 40 years,” said Steven Matthews, who leads the UMD History Department and led the forum. “This is what we need to do – bring in speakers to talk about important issues. We need a free exchange of ideas or there is no university.”

Ginsberg said universities were originally run by their faculties, who would take part time or temporary jobs in administering their schools.

“Deans planned to go back to being faculty,” he said. The joke was “don’t do a good job or they’ll promote you.”

Today only a few universities are faculty driven, Harvard and the University of Chicago are among them and among the best institutions in America. So what happened?

A class of professional administrators started growing. Some were faculty who failed to gain tenure. Most had little faculty experience, Ginsberg said he found out in researching his 2011 book.

“Now we have many administrators who never taught a student,” he said.

And the ratio of administration to faculty is exploding. Ginsberg found that nationally in 1965 there were 446,000 professors to 269,000 administrators and staff. By 2005 the number of professors had risen to 675,000, but administration numbers had leaped to 800,000. During that time the amount of money to pay professors had risen 128%, but administration costs rose 148% he found.

Tuition costs were forced to increase to fund administration he said, not because of the people who were actually teaching and doing the research that makes a university a university.

He cited a 2012 research paper by Carter Hill and Robert Martin that found two thirds of the increase in higher education costs in the past 20 years were administration driven. They found that in terms of costs only there should be one administrator for three faculty members, but in actuality it was two administrators to three faculty. The recent recession has found some decline in administration numbers Gins-berg said, but tight money has more often led to program and across the board cuts.

Now faculty is seldom consulted on university matters.

“Senior administration is relatively autonomous,” he said. “We find out in the paper.”

While numbers can point to the economic effects of administrative growth, the effect it has on the character and academic excellence of universities is even worse he said.

Teaching and research is what a university should be about Ginsberg said. All else is ancillary, including buildings and extracurricular activities, but that is what administration uses to “bring customers to the store. They think they have to be customer friendly and not scare prospective students and their families with such dreaded topics as calculus.”

“Administration doesn’t know what we do,” Ginsberg said. “They think one visit to a class will inform them.”

He said the administrative army sometimes does no harm “but they can be weapons of academic destruction.”

Professional administrators learn from and mimic one another. That’s why there is a concerted effort nationally to end the tenure system that finds only 25% to 30% of faculty tenure tracked.

“Tenured faculty are the trouble makers, we don’t do as we’re told, we hold meetings like this one,” Ginsberg said.

Adjunct professors need to work from administration’s play book in order to keep their jobs. He drew applause when he asked, “If part time is so good why don’t we have part time administration. Full time faculty and adjunct administration…Without tenure there is no academic freedom…We’re about not agreeing with everyone. We need to try ideas out.”

Ginsberg said it is too late for the faculties at many universities that have been coopted by administration, but not for UMD’s UEA. He urged them to develop a consciousness about their importance to UMD and not buy into administration’s appeals to their “moral sensibilities.” That may be happening already post lecture questions implied. UMD administration has suggested a faculty governance council, which sounds good, but nominees will be chosen by the deans without a real election.

“The technical term is suck ups,” Ginsberg said.

Prioritization is another buzzword in administrators’ echo chamber. Based on a book by Robert Dickeson it wants faculty to buy into cutting their own throats Ginsberg said.

“I don’t want to sound like a Fascist but you should hold a book burning party,” Ginsberg said. “Burn that damn book! It’s turgid prose!”

“Be obstreperous,” he told the faculty, “you’ll prevail.” That’s because administrators have a short time horizon on a campus, and faculty unrest is a career killer for the corporate head hunters hired for administrative searches.

“If they can’t keep the peace, they can’t keep a job, so have faculty turmoil – be obstreperous,” Ginsberg urged. “Oppose everything…be suspicious even if you agree.”

He told them to establish their own committees to investigate and evaluate administration, to review budgets and conduct audits, and form their own personnel committees.

“Do your own opposition research,” he said. “Dirt digging seems terrible…but its important…one third of administration tells fibs on their resumes.”
In a lengthy question and answer period after his presentation, Ginsberg said universities would be better run if the Sarbanes Oxley Act were applied to their rules for governing boards and regents to make sure their are no conflicts of interest.

“There are two kinds of trustees,” Ginsberg said. “Those concerned with the business of the university and those who want to do business with the university.”

The last questioner said it sounds like faculty has to act like administration if they are to be obstreperous.

“Yes it’s terrible,” Ginsberg admitted. “But we have to do these things if we don’t want to give up governance of our universities. I want to write books, not go to meetings. I hate to do all these administrative things but I got to. I hope this is only the beginning of the conversation.”