university administration

I found this article by Ben Ginsberg (via Brain Leiter) quite thought provoking. I don't like the polemical style - it is a fairly scattergun rant against the evil kulak class of university administrators - and some of the facts seem a bit selective or anecdotal, but it's helpful to have it pointed out that the way universities spend their money might sometimes be wrong.

This passage prompted some looking up:

Until recent years, colleges engaged in little formal planning. Today, however, virtually every college and university in the nation has an elaborate strategic plan ... The typical plan takes six months to two years to write and requires countless hours of work from senior administrators and their staffs. 

A plan that was really designed to guide an organization’s efforts to achieve future objectives, as it might be promulgated by a corporation or a military agency, would typically present concrete objectives, a timetable for their realization, an outline of the tactics that will be employed, a precise assignment of staff responsibilities, and a budget. Some university plans approach this model. Most, however, are simply expanded “vision statements” that are often forgotten soon after they are promulgated. 

It turns out LSE has its own strategic plan, full of words like 'portfolio', vague plurals like 'audiences' and clumsy mistakes like saying 'restraints' instead of 'constraints'. The length, pictures and irrelevant vox pops are pretty grinding for anyone actually looking for a clear specification of goals, tactics and responsibilities, and noone says much about specific timetables or budgets. However I don't think it is purposeless like the 'vision statements' Ginsberg describes. To me the strategic plan sounds, looks and feels like a prospectus or sales brochure: a kind of document which definitely has a purpose. I'm intrigued to find out what is being sold and to whom.

Maybe the administrators are selling LSE to HEFCE in exchange for money or something, in which case fair enough. The other option (Ginsberg alludes to this) is that they are selling their own existence to the 5-hours-a-year trustees who are the only people who could fire them, in which case I guess that's bad. How to find out?

If you are interested in this question, you might find LSE's accounts, workforce information, staff numbers and salary scales useful.