By Professor
Doom
It’s so funny watching higher education in
the UK slide into the pit, embracing the same failed structures that did so
much harm to higher education in the US. Wasn’t anyone paying attention?
It seems every time I read an article
about the failure of higher education in the UK, it’s familiar to me: it’s
always something I saw with my own eyes in the US, a decade ago if not earlier.
A recent article talks about how workers
in higher ed would love to be able to communicate to the administrators ruling
the place:
Secretly?
This is one of the problems with higher ed: you cannot talk to your boss, you
cannot prevent your boss from making a huge mistake, you cannot prevent your
school from doing terrible things to the students…the best you can do is make
random, secret, comments. If you go public, you’ll be fired and your career
destroyed. So, let’s see what faculty would like to tell the Poo Bah in the UK
today (and by extension, what faculty in the US would have liked to have told
their Poo Bah’s ten years ago). They will say these things anonymously, of
course:
Lecturer:
“Universities are the playthings of people who think they’re businessmen”
I remember when the first boatload of
self-proclaimed “titans of industry” first waddled on campus in their fancy
suits to force the student-as-customer foolishness
down our throats. They uttered their pronouncements about how things were to be
done “going forward,” how resources were to be “utilized,” about “metrics” and
“dashboards” in their diabolical corporate-speak.
They honestly acted like the growth of
the universities was their doing, that bringing a school from 1,000 students to
10,000 students required every bit as much talent as creating a successful
business from scratch.
I sure would have loved to explain to
these fatheads that all the growth in higher education’s student base was due
to a student loan scam that gave money to anyone willing to ask for it…no
talent required at all, and certainly no need for all the corporate pabulum.
But, in my experience, senior management are usually
looking to their own careers, rather than to their institution. There’s a cycle
of innovation and hype every couple of years as a new batch of managers come in
and decide how to leave their mark.
This is the key change to higher
education. In years past, the administrators actually were promoted from the
school’s faculty (and often returned to that status after a few years). They
were invested in the school and weren’t there to sell out as much of the
school’s reputation as possible before moving on to bigger acts of plunder at
other schools.
And, that’s what faculty in the UK are
seeing now. I imagine soon someone there will figure out that the Vision for
Excellence plans that each school slaps together anew every few years are
rubbish…but yeah, I’ve been there, done that.
Yeah, no kidding. How many times have I
pointed out the breathtaking incompetence of our rulers in higher ed? I suspect
in a few years there’ll start to be an outcry over how these buffoons’ careers
skyrocket no matter badly they screw up. But, yeah,
been there, done that.
They’ll increase student recruitment as far as
possible, and then cut services and sack staff. In my university, when
academics tried to call a halt to student recruitment, we were overridden by
management. They do not listen to us. They have completely different priorities
and don’t have to live with the consequences.
Poor guy, he just doesn’t get it: admin
are there to increase student enrollment, nothing else. They move up by
stepping on your face, so, yeah, they’re going to step on your face. Every
time. “Don’t have to live with the consequences” is key, because this is why
admin do such horrible things. They’ll just be moving on to another school
soon, so cares if the place becomes a joke? Only the people left behind will
feel the shame. Again, if we drew, and kept, administrators from, and on,
campus, this wouldn’t be such a problem.
Trouble is, there’s an end game: soon
most all campuses are jokes. Granted, at this point administrators will have
golden parachutes, but for the people with integrity working at the schools,
this isn’t a fun end game. It might well be a decade or two, but the ridiculous
student behavior and bizarre riots that are everyday occurrences on American
campuses will make their way to the UK at some point, I guarantee it.
“…by virtue of
your position, you’re entitled to boss people around. But you have to govern by
consent – you don’t get far by shouting at people.”
While I lean Libertarian, one of my
issues with it is the lack of empirical success, and more importantly, the
empirical success of non-Libertarian activities. “You don’t get far by shouting
at people” is basically a Libertarian theory—sounds good, but the reality is
everyone in the US’ higher education has been victimized by an entitled boss
who, yes, rules through fear and intimidation.
So, empirically, you do go far in higher
ed by shouting at people. That quote above doesn’t appear in a vacuum, after
all. I again point out these complaints and observations are being made
anonymously.
I think there can be some short-sightedness because
they’re not here on the ground, talking to students and engaging.
So much confusion and misery by workers on
campus could be avoided if we’d just be honest about what the administration is
there to do: sucker people into coming on campus by any means possible. No,
it’s not their job to talk to students and engage, so stop wasting time
thinking things will be better if admin does it. Short-sightedness is a
feature, not a bug, in an administrator. It’s always about looting the school
as quickly as possible, as many tales in this blog have demonstrated.
There’s been an ongoing insane building
spree on US campuses for decades now, building and building and building and
building, palace after palace for those highly paid senior staff. I know I’ve
pointed out a fiefdom or two with a dozen or so Vice Presidents of Something Or
Other And Diversity, making quadruple or more what any actual academics make…absolutely,
ten or twenty years ago every faculty on a US campus would have loved to be
able to tell the Poo Bahs to stop building palaces and stop creating so many
Vice President positions.
And in a few years when tuition in the UK
skyrockets and total student debt soars to ridiculous levels…nobody who works
on campus in the US will be the least bit surprised.
In the old days, people rose to the top of the pile.
Being a vice-chancellor would be your last job at the end of your career. But
now people are vice-chancellor for a bit and then they change institutions,
It’s the same complaint, but from a
different person. We know there’s something wrong with this system of hiring
pirates to come in and plunder and move on, we all saw it years ago in the US,
and they’re all seeing it in the UK.
Is there truly no way to stop this cycle
from happening again?
I’m sure the gentle reader is wondering how
the serfs know about all the administrators coming in and going out…I mean,
these guys have nothing to do with education, or students, and there being so
many of them, faculty couldn’t possibly keep track of it all, right?
I wish. A commenter explains why faculty
know about all these rulers whom they never see or talk to:
It really is weird how every week I
receive another notice about another admin leaving, another notice about a new
admin arriving. They actually think the serfs care! We don’t, but we’re smart
enough to understand the constant stream of shuffling means nobody in the
administrative caste cares even a little about the institution.
One of the many dirty secrets about higher
ed in the US is how professors don’t really exist. Instead, most college courses are taught by minimally
paid adjuncts. This, too, is now
becoming part of higher education in the UK, even as there’s plenty of money
for more palaces and vice presidents:
Student numbers going
through the roof. But hourly-paid lecturing staff outnumber permanent lecturing
staff by about 4:1. Stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap...
The pattern here is impossible to miss.
Assuming there’s anyone who can change things, I wish the folks running higher
ed in the UK who care about human beings could take a peek or two at my blog.
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