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Buy the Book
Tenured and Powerless
Who needs professors at the all-administrative university?
The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative
University and Why It Matters
By Benjamin Ginsberg
(Oxford University Press, 264 pages, $29.95)
When I began my college search, a family friend jokingly referred to university as a four-year sleepover. He went to Yale. And he was right.
Universities pitch themselves to new students as beacons of social acceptance rather than academies of higher learning. Magazines and books rank schools according to factors far beyond the classroom, counseling parents to ensure the financial future of their children by selecting “the right school.” Schools send brochures touting climbing walls and focus-grouped slogans about the kinds of students that attend, rather than the kind of learning they can expect.
These books follow the horserace of SAT test-prep, “college culture,” and a variety of other non-essential concerns recently lampooned by the Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson in Crazy U, which addresses the shocking build-up of a university-admissions-industrial complex seemingly engineered to make parents go bankrupt or crazy, whichever comes first.
Ferguson’s bewilderment is part of at least a half-century-long tradition of universities “selling out.” William F. Buckley’s God and Man at Yale railed against the “established non-belief” and “collectivist philosophy” of his alma mater—in 1951; Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind chronicled the flight from a core liberal arts curriculum to more “relevant” studies; Roger Kimball’s Tenured Radicals skewered the intellectual bankruptcy of modern academics.
Other less partisan books, such as Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate’s The Shadow University, launched a nationwide effort to protect the civil liberties of students under attack by politically correct bands of college administrators who sought to limit free speech to appointed “free speech zones,” or expel students for not getting with the program. All took issue with the sudden shift in focus from learning as it was classically understood to the concerted effort to indoctrinate students into unquestioning automatons, regardless of political philosophy.
Benjamin Ginsberg’s book, The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why It Matters, pins the blame for that shift on a new politburo-like administrative style of university governance. In six chapters spanning 248 pages, Ginsberg, a professor at Johns Hopkins, reveals the sea change in American higher education in which the modern university has been gobbled up by bureaucracy, marketing, and a wholesale disregard for learning. Academic concerns have been left behind.
Ginsberg’s salvo is rooted in his five decades in academia, during which schools have gone from being driven by faculty ideas and concerns to being “controlled by administrators and staffers who make the rules and set more and more of the priorities of academic life.” Administrators either refuse to consult faculty or wholly ignore their unsolicited input. Presidential searches are not conducted by committees of qualified academics, but are outsourced to special firms, which then write off any potentially controversial candidates, leading tragically to the “most boring and conventional candidates.”
Worse still, these administrators have little to do, leading them to create make-work projects, such as retreats, conferences, and “strategic planning” meetings. “Little would be lost,” Ginsberg writes, “if four out of five staff meetings (they could be selected at random), were canceled tomorrow.”
Any recent graduate of a university will recognize the products of these meetings: Mandatory sensitivity trainings, offices of “campus life,” special staff-led seminars, or dormitory-based programming seeking to “enhance cultural understanding.”
Fundraising appears to be the only thing these bureaucrats are well equipped to tackle. Even during the recession, colleges were able to raise money owing mainly to the dedication and nostalgia among alumni. But then, Ginsberg notes, administrators appropriate the money “to support more administration.”
During a recent President’s Staff Meeting at one Ohio community college, 11 of the 18 agenda items “involved plans for future meetings or discussions of other recently held meetings.” Other schools charted out similar Russian-doll meetings about meetings, squandering money that could have enhanced the faculty or benefited students in financial need.
Yet the public doesn’t see the inefficiency. According to a study by the Chronicle of Higher Education, 9 percent of Americans express “a great deal” of confidence in large corporations as a whole. Forty-eight percent, on the other hand, indicate a great deal of confidence in colleges and universities. This, Ginsberg argues, allows functionaries to fundraise even more successfully.
In 2007, American colleges and universities raised nearly $30 billion in gifts. Harvard raises an average of $600 million per year. This is all thanks to the professionalization of fundraising based on the techniques of Charles Sumner Ward, who found ways to prop up the YMCA in the early 20th century by going beyond door-to-door fundraising aimed at a select wealthy group. Ward appealed to a large base of small donors, and was able to secure larger rewards as those donors became older, more successful, and, most important, more nostalgic. An entire consulting industry sprang up, and soon universities were competing to recruit or retain top “development officers” who could boost school budgets and keep tuition competitive.
Effective fundraising also allows university presidents to hold on to their schools’ massive endowments. This gives them more autonomy and shields them from the kinds of market pressures that could force a greater focus on academic rigor. When testifying before Congress in 2008, college presidents argued that they should not be required to justify their favorable tax status by spending at least 5 percent of their net worth each year. They “failed to mention that endowment income helped to free them from having to consult their faculties regarding university programs and priorities.” A large endowment was “needed to sustain the all-administrative university.”
About the Author
J.P. Freire is a writer in Washington and a former editor at the Washington Examiner and The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jpfreire.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) | Leave a comment
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Jack in Wi| 6.13.12 @ 6:20AM
Universities are rotten with wasted overhead. This is just the tip of the iceberg. When I went to college teachers actually spent most of their time in the classroom. Now most professors have grad students as their slaves to do the heavy lifting in the classroom. Meanwhile they play around with mosty useless research which nobody reads and does nothing for mankind. Before the Federal government pumped all that money into universities only good students who could get something out of college went there and graduated. Now college education is so watered down by affirmative action and grade inflation that is is a joke.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 6:54AM
Whoa! Jack and I agree--as far as Jack goes. The fundamental problem is simply too many people going to college who should be getting some other form of post-secondary education.
Friere is wrong: the "four year sleepover" is not a recent problem, but as old as the university itself: many students merely put in their time to collect the necessary credential. Does anyone here remember the "Gentleman's C"? Through grade inflation, it has become the "Gentleman's A-", and it's not limited to gentlemen anymore.
The truth is, university has always been whatever the individual student makes of it. My daughter's four years at University of Pennsylvania was no sleepover; at the end of it, she had achieved a firm foundation in her chosen discipline (Russian and Linguistics), won several prestigious scholarships, and was accepted into to University of Chicago's 5-year Ph.D. program. You can't sleepwalk your way to that.
As regards research: there is indeed much wasted effort at universities today, mostly in the humanities, but to say that teaching should be the only thing done there is a mistake. While teaching should be every professor's highest priority, striking a balance between teaching and research is what we need today--along with a pruning of college catalogues of mindless and make-work departments and classes, most of which include the word "studies". A smaller, leaner university backed up by cheaper, more relevant vocational programs is the key to America's future.
Pecos Pete| 6.13.12 @ 7:10AM
And, it wouldn't hurt to fail students who can't legitimately make the grades. Of course, that would mean less revenue for the schools.
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 7:56AM
It's doesn't surprise me that your daughter got into the University of Chicago.
My son, who is now on a fellowship working on his PhD in Physics in Boston was the top graduate in the College of Arts and Sciences of the very good college he attended. He ranked 1st out of almost 400 students. The summer previous to his graduation he applied to Chicago for a summer research position in their Physics department. He received a polite letter back complimenting him on his qualifications but stating that Women and Minorities received preference. They actually put that in writing! I still have the letter somewhere. I look at it as the real beginning of his education!
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 9:15AM
My daughter still would have gotten that free ride from Chicago even if she shaved and peed standing up. In a relatively small discipline (about 10,000 people are studying Russian in this country at all levels), she ranks in the top 100.
But, being a woman is not necessarily a plus in other areas. Asian women in particular are subject to reverse discrimination. The overachieving Asian girl is a stereotype now, and if Asians overall have to score 410 points higher than blacks on the SATs to get admission to a leading university, then Asian women probably have to score even higher.
It would seem there are minorities, and then there are minorities; there are women, and then there are women.
EdConservative| 6.13.12 @ 10:05AM
On the other hand....
1) if I ask someone a question and they can tell me in 5 different languages that they do not know the answer, what is the value?
2) Millions of children are bi-lingual for free without 4 years of study at $45K per year
3) iPhone apps can already translate. Who's going to pay a human to do it?
4) Don't study it, go there instead. Send a kid to a job in Russia for 1 year, learn Russian while saving thousands.
Overall, foreign language study in the US is an enormous waste of resources.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 1:50PM
On the gripping hand, Ed--
1. If you can't speak the language, you can't even ask the question.
2. Native speakers do not the best translators make. This is a common error made by government agencies, which hire people who grew up speaking a language but are incapable of comprehending the concepts they need to translate from one language into another. Only those scoring in the top 5% of reading comprehension have the capacity to become competent translators.
3. Machine translation is and will remain an inadequate and highly flawed tool. My wife, herself a very skilled translator, takes longer to correct a machine-translated document than to translate it from scratch herself.
4. You need to do both. My daughter has been to Russia four times, now, and is presently in Kazan on a U.S. Strategic Language Scholarship. Mostly what you get from living abroad is an understanding of culture and enhanced conversational skills.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 1:50PM
Overall, right now the United States has about a million pages of Russian documents collected by our intelligence agencies that are waiting to be translated and analyzed (the problem with Arabic, Farsi, Pushtun and assorted Central Asian languages is even worse). If it's so effing easy to learn languages and become a translator, tell me why it is impossible to find decent ones?
In addition, despite the best efforts of the Armed Forces and the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, the number of U.S. military personnel capable of speaking strategically important languages (you know, that gibberish they speak in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, as well as Russian and Chinese) is painfully limited, which puts our troops at the mercy of locally hired interpreters (and if you don't know the difference between a translator and an interpreter, it's further evidence you have not right to an opinion on this subject). It's gotten our guys killed, caused us to miss some important opportunities, and on occasion soured our relations with friendly locals.
But hey, waste of money, right?
You remind me of an old aphorism: If you speak many languages, you are a polyglot; if you speak two languages, you are bi-lingual; if you speak just one language, you are American.
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 12:44PM
The excellent mastery of German and Russian that George Kennan had contributed much to his success as a diplomat in WW II.
He was born in Wisconsin and learned German early after visiting there as a child but he learned and mastered Russian after he became a member of the Diplomatic Corps.
An excellent biographical study of Kennan was recently written by Professor John Lukacs in 2007 and published by Yale University Press. I have just finished reading it. It is entitled "George Kennan -- A Study of Character." There is much in it about his time spent in Russia up through 1953 and his later writings that concerned our relations with Russia. He was impressively knowledgeable about Russia and he left a very large amount of writings about it, both published and in his diaries in which he wrote every day.
Your daughter might be interested in reading it.
Fast and Curious| 6.13.12 @ 12:44PM
"balance between teaching and research..."
Research what exactly? 95% of "research" is total crap, and does nothing to advance learning or anything else for that matter. Waste of money. Intellectual masterbation.
Seek| 6.13.12 @ 12:50PM
Well, I'd put the figure at about 25%. As a former professor, I'm a bit less cynical.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 1:53PM
In the U.S., most basic research occurs in universities, mostly with private funding. In Europe, government funds government operated research establishments. If you think that's a better use of money, I have some waterfront property in Florida.
Recently, universities have been moving into applied research and forming private entities to bring university-developed technology to market. Most of the patents on which future economic activity depend originate in university research.
Fast and Curious| 6.13.12 @ 2:44PM
Well, I'm not a professor, and I admit there are some great things going on in science and technology. But in other disciplines the game is usually not "how would this research benefit someone?" but this: "what do I need to do to continue the flow of grant money?"......
These guys have phd students doing almost all of the work and they (the professors) benefit. Much of it is a BS money game.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 6:04PM
As I noted, the university needs to prune its course catalogue, eliminating many of the pseudo-disciplines that have popped up since the 1960s. In addition, someone has to rescue the humanities from post-modernism.
CJW| 6.13.12 @ 6:05PM
Stuart,
Congratulations on your daughter's achievements. There are many Russian immigrants that settled in Pgh since the 1980's. Most of the men I met have skills such as plumbing, electricians, carpentry, and served in the military, but the women are college grads with degrees in pharmacy, therapists, nursing, and health fields.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 11:26PM
Russian women tend to have it more together right now, for a variety of reasons.
Brooksifier | 6.13.12 @ 6:52PM
A degree in French Lesbian Tapdancing wont get a grad much of a career.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 11:26PM
No, it won't. Which is why the university must demand more rigor from its departments and reform its disciplines and programs.
Quartermaster| 6.13.12 @ 6:39AM
STEM degrees are not a 4 year sleepover. That group is the only hold out to the regime you will see in the so called Liberal Arts. STEM requires a deep attachment to reality. The rest are amenable to be molded to some moron's political philosophy rather than reality.
We're in the first stages of reaping this political crop of shame. Europe is further along, but we are at the point that momentum will carry us to where they are unless we deal with the nonsense on stilts in Academe, and the sorry grads they have produced, very soon and very forcefully.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 6:55AM
You could add to that the "hard" humanities, such as foreign languages and linguistics. You can't BS your way to a BA in those. Either you know a language, or you don't. Jargon-slinging won't cut the mustard.
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 7:24AM
With the combination of Affirmative Action and the uncontrolled immigration from our hispanic neighbors to the south it appears that Spanish will become the language one will need in our forthcoming bilingual republic!
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.13.12 @ 8:35AM
Ich denke vielleicht dass Sie recht sprechen.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.13.12 @ 8:55AM
Oder ist es richtig?
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 1:34PM
I think it is recht but don't bet on it.
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 1:35PM
My german teacher used to say das ist richtig if the answer was "correct."
Albert Constantine Jr.| 6.13.12 @ 8:46PM
In my recollection, richtig is correct ( or should I say is right for "right"), but recht can also be, as well as used for the direction (links, recht, links, recht usw.)
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 1:20PM
I took 2 years of German in college years ago and most of it is forgotten from lack of use. It might have been different though if I was Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) as they continued to speak it and many still do.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 9:17AM
Not at all true. By the second generation, most Hispanics are no longer fluent in Spanish. Quite a lot of them actually flunk Spanish classes. Not that they are proficient in English--Spanglish, a "creole" dialect is the emerging patois of the Barrio. But by the third or fourth generation, Hispanic kids will all speak English at least as well as the kids with whom I grew up in Brooklyn (which is, of course, damning with faint praise).
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 1:12PM
I wish it would be that easy but it is not necessarily so as one phone call to a business which has on line sales will show. You have the option of speaking in English of Spanish. There are other pressures working against it.
In our southwest, there are nationalist movements like La Raza that are gaining adherents throughout southern California particularly and along the Texas border.
To illustrate how hard it can be, as recently as the latter part of the 19th century there was concern about whether our country would speak predominately English or German. Even in the great American game, Baseball, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig used to talk to each other in German in the dugout and that was in the 1920s and 30s.
Puerto Rico is America but Spanish is the dominant language there. 90% of the people there speak it all the time unless they have no choice.
It is not clear at all, at this time, whether we have the political will to give these immigrants "no choice" in the matter.
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 1:54PM
You don't listen very well, do you?
Stuart Koehl| 6.13.12 @ 1:55PM
And you got the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig story from me, so at least be forthright in your attributions.
Bob K| 6.14.12 @ 12:12AM
Stuart,
You give yourself way too much credit. The story is old. I've forgotten how many years ago I heard it. I've read it in a number of places.
I did listen to you. Sorry to puncture your balloon, but you are far to sanguine about our political leadership and it's ability to deal with the uncontrolled immigration of a different nationality and culture from south of our border.
Stuart Koehl| 6.14.12 @ 6:37AM
Ah, but you are so 2007: we've actually seen negative migration as tens of thousands of illegals returned home because (a) there is no work here; and (b) Mexico became--in spite of itself--a middle class country.
The fastest way to end illegal immigration from the south was to make the south rich. Same thing happened in Ireland: one day the Orangemen were worried the Paddies from the Republic would be swarming into Belfast, stealing their jobs and corrupting their souls with Popery, and the next, the Orangemen were streaming into the Republic looking for work.
Bob K| 6.13.12 @ 7:42AM
This article has been long needed!
As far as fund raising goes unless the costs related to getting a college education are brought under control colleges which are not members of the elite group like the Ivy League are going to see a drying up of donations. We were getting letters asking for donations even before our 2 sons graduated and at nearly the same time we were making tuition payments! Hardly judicious timing!
Like everything else that depends on Government for growth the bureaucracy needed to comply with the governmental regulations will grow bigger and faster than the rest of the entity will and the people who run the bureaucracy will make more money than the people who are needed to make it work as it was originally intended. The bureaucrats pay themselves first and parsimoniously dole out the rest of the funds to the people who do the real work.
MikeBee| 6.13.12 @ 11:06AM
Some thoughts:
1) I absolutely refuse to hire someone from the very liberal University of Michigan (Michigan's ivy league college), not because it is very liberal, but because half of their training comes from grad students, not from college professors. (I once met a U of MI accounting grad who didn't know the difference between deferrals and accruals. This would be like a Master chef not knowing the difference between frying and broiling.)
2) Universities should be required by their states to use 60% of their endowments to reduce the costs of education for their students. The remainder 40% would be mandated to be held for emergency spending, like capital improvements (new roof needed, etc.) You will then see these endowments disappear overnight, and the lavish spending along with them.
3) It's past time to require that university professors' primary job be that of teaching. Too many high-profile professors spend all their time raising money for the university in research. Pass a law which states that grad students are NOT qualified to teach in colleges, and that classes taught by them will not qualify for state approval for completion of studies.
John II| 6.13.12 @ 11:47AM
"Tenured and Pointless" might perhaps be a better title for Mr. Freire's review.
Among the other books mentioned in this review, some readers may be interested in Robert Alter's "Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age" (1989). The introduction (and note the date: 23 years ago) explains what happened. And it's much, much worse today.
Back now to "Bedtime for Bonzo" (1951), in which Ronald Reagan plays a liberal college professor awash in the buzzwords of a smug naturalism and thus inadvertently anticipating the demise of higher learning in the American Republic.
Petronius| 6.13.12 @ 11:48AM
University-n. a support group of and for its graduates who want to live there.