Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Friday, March 3, 2017
Big HUGE Hungry
If you removed the worst 20% of the faculty and the worst 20% of the administrators and the worst 20% of the students at your school, would you finally be happy?
Of course not! We'd still have abundant misery caused by well-meaning people trying to follow proliferating and inconsistent rules inflicted by well-meaning regents and maybe not-so-well-meaning legislators. Also, if we lost faculty members we wouldn't get the lines replaced, and if we lost students that would be a fatal blow to our revenue stream. Even horrible, inhumane administrative decisions--like keeping lecturers under three courses so we don't have to pay for their health insurance, even when that means not running classes students need--are an attempt to deal with an intractable financial situation.
So I suppose I'm blaming the System, which includes the weird neoliberal narrative of 1) Colleges are wasteful sinecures for selfish, overpaid professors and therefore must be subjected to punitive and instrusive accountability measures! 2) But everyone should go to college so they can get good jobs! 3) Now that we have more college graduates than at any time in our history, graduates are mysteriously having trouble finding the kinds of jobs we have spent the last three decades automating and outsourcing out of existence. This is the fault of colleges! 4) Return to Step 1.
My thinking is more or less along the same lines as Frankie's, so I think I'd like to start with (at least) 20% of the state legislators, and the 20% of the lobbyists and 20% of the big donors who have had the most influence in the decline of state support of state schools over the last few decades.
I'm honestly not sure exactly how it happened, and there may be no identifiable villains (i.e. no one who did it deliberately, or at least for its own sake), but I do think, more and more, that a significant part of the problem is the perverse incentives that are shaping the behavior of administrators (who would admittedly be more useful if they had both a backbone and a real vision for and dedication to education, but they'd probably respond to better incentives, too). I'm not sure any of the faculty (even the tenured faculty) have enough remaining power to be a significant part of the problem (though I can think of a few people I wouldn't be unhappy to see take jobs elsewhere), and since I'm lucky enough to work at a school that does not interfere with professors holding students to account (when, of course, there's something to hold them to account for), the students really aren't a major problem (though in any given semester there are a few I'll be glad to be done with, but they tend not to be bad students per se; in fact, they're more than occasionally over-anxious/over-conscientious and probably on some spectrum/diagnosable with at least one learning disability, and genuinely doing the best they can, but perhaps a bit more imprinted on helpful adults that the average 20-something).
OK, my first thought is, if the worst 20% of the faculty and the worst 20% of the administrators and the worst 20% of the students were removed from my school, I'd quite possibly be happier because that wouldn't be there anymore.
My next thought is similar to, but not identical to, that of others above vis a vis the Pareto Principle. 80% of the good at my joint is consistently accomplished by 20% of the people. So that leaves 80% to fuck things up.
Teaching would be a bit easier, but otherwise, nothing would change. The worst twenty percent of admins are awful, but not much more awful than the next twenty percent, or for that matter, the next twenty percent. I'd say 80%, actually, of our administrators are incompetent, mentally ill (seriously -- we sit around and diagnose our university president for fun), or even corrupt. The students are rarely my headache anymore: I can deal with mere ignorant fecklessness. And my fellow colleagues -- most are fine, even the ones I wouldn't want to have over for dinner.
Of course not! We'd still have abundant misery caused by well-meaning people trying to follow proliferating and inconsistent rules inflicted by well-meaning regents and maybe not-so-well-meaning legislators. Also, if we lost faculty members we wouldn't get the lines replaced, and if we lost students that would be a fatal blow to our revenue stream. Even horrible, inhumane administrative decisions--like keeping lecturers under three courses so we don't have to pay for their health insurance, even when that means not running classes students need--are an attempt to deal with an intractable financial situation.
ReplyDeleteSo I suppose I'm blaming the System, which includes the weird neoliberal narrative of
1) Colleges are wasteful sinecures for selfish, overpaid professors and therefore must be subjected to punitive and instrusive accountability measures!
2) But everyone should go to college so they can get good jobs!
3) Now that we have more college graduates than at any time in our history, graduates are mysteriously having trouble finding the kinds of jobs we have spent the last three decades automating and outsourcing out of existence. This is the fault of colleges!
4) Return to Step 1.
This is spot on, Frankie.
DeleteOf course not, because 90% of our administrators are our worst administrators.
ReplyDeleteMy thinking is more or less along the same lines as Frankie's, so I think I'd like to start with (at least) 20% of the state legislators, and the 20% of the lobbyists and 20% of the big donors who have had the most influence in the decline of state support of state schools over the last few decades.
ReplyDeleteI'm honestly not sure exactly how it happened, and there may be no identifiable villains (i.e. no one who did it deliberately, or at least for its own sake), but I do think, more and more, that a significant part of the problem is the perverse incentives that are shaping the behavior of administrators (who would admittedly be more useful if they had both a backbone and a real vision for and dedication to education, but they'd probably respond to better incentives, too). I'm not sure any of the faculty (even the tenured faculty) have enough remaining power to be a significant part of the problem (though I can think of a few people I wouldn't be unhappy to see take jobs elsewhere), and since I'm lucky enough to work at a school that does not interfere with professors holding students to account (when, of course, there's something to hold them to account for), the students really aren't a major problem (though in any given semester there are a few I'll be glad to be done with, but they tend not to be bad students per se; in fact, they're more than occasionally over-anxious/over-conscientious and probably on some spectrum/diagnosable with at least one learning disability, and genuinely doing the best they can, but perhaps a bit more imprinted on helpful adults that the average 20-something).
The Pareto principle as it applies to Batshit U is that under 20% of our president does more than 80% of the damage.
ReplyDeleteIf we're talking about removing things, I'd like to nominate his brain.
OK, my first thought is, if the worst 20% of the faculty and the worst 20% of the administrators and the worst 20% of the students were removed from my school, I'd quite possibly be happier because that wouldn't be there anymore.
ReplyDeleteMy next thought is similar to, but not identical to, that of others above vis a vis the Pareto Principle. 80% of the good at my joint is consistently accomplished by 20% of the people. So that leaves 80% to fuck things up.
...I'd quite possibly be happier because *I wouldn't be there anymore.
DeleteTeaching would be a bit easier, but otherwise, nothing would change. The worst twenty percent of admins are awful, but not much more awful than the next twenty percent, or for that matter, the next twenty percent. I'd say 80%, actually, of our administrators are incompetent, mentally ill (seriously -- we sit around and diagnose our university president for fun), or even corrupt. The students are rarely my headache anymore: I can deal with mere ignorant fecklessness. And my fellow colleagues -- most are fine, even the ones I wouldn't want to have over for dinner.
ReplyDelete