Admin! Speak up!

[Wahoo Redux]

Let's hear from the administrators. 

They sure take a lot of shots directly and indirectly, so maybe they could say something about what it means to have a budget to balance and hiring decisions to make.  We all know things such as the declining H.S. graduation rate and diminishing tuition revenues and state support----so maybe try and give some nuance to issues such as these?

The admins I have occasionally interacted with have genuinely been good folks----they remind me of the old H.R. admin and floor managers I used to work with in the corporate world, always smiling and politicking and trying to rally the troops-----and one was very instrumental in moving me from a PT staff to a FT staff member once.  But I always wonder a bit at the general inability of our academic leadership to come up with any innovation regarding the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic.

On the other hand, I have witnessed a couple of pure-bred dumba**s make a pig's lunch of the job (one actually got fired!).

Probably we should be nice to people who post here (as long as the posts are sane...you know who you are).

Hope we have enough actual posters in admin to honestly post.

Plus there is a college administrator in the "Tournament of Champions" on Jeopardy.   That's something.

[polly_mer]

Matt Reed at Inside Higher Ed writes multiple times per week on administrative issues and often has a pretty good comment section: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean

John Warner at Inside Higher Ed writes from an adjunct perspective and tends to get a lot of administrators commenting on where he's missed the boat by not understanding the big picture.  A good recent example is https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/when-you-can-hire-within that discusses recent suggestions on how to support adjuncts and what those suggestions miss about realities in many areas.

I'm happy to write at length for a specific question, but I'm not seeing one in the initial post.

[mahagonny]

But I always wonder a bit at the general inability of our academic leadership to come up with any innovation regarding the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic.

This is the question, but I know the answer already. Administrators have their solution already. People are pointing the finger of blame in every direction and it's just a cacaphonic discussion which enables them to keep doing what they've been doing.
If you see the status quo as a solution, there's nothing you need to do but sigh and say 'gee I just wish there were funding.' It makes you sound like a nice guy, but what it really amounts to is 'if money grew on trees, I'd let you have some, probably, even though I'm taller and I run faster.'
Colleges and universities never don't need money. Someone just left a quarter of a million to MIT and it's considered philanthropy.
If they wanted something like what Wahoo envisions as a solution they, administration, would be saying  "Restaffing of the National Labor Relations Board with labor friendly attorneys or other qualified experts. Real penalties for illicit meddling in union drive efforts and recruitment. Adjunct unions everywhere they are legal. As populous and noisy as they can be. Because our job is to oppose them, and nothing will change until opposing them becomes more difficult and expensive than working with them. And those among us who actually despise adjuncts driven out of the workforce.'

[Aster]

I left admin when it was apparent that it was making me a very angry, very upset person.

Best decision I ever made at Big Urban College.

Regarding budgets, our campus president micromanaged and compartmentalized that, so no one below her really ever knew exactly what our money situation actually was.

We seemed to have enough money to hold regular parties and renovate classrooms into computer labs (that always went obsolete in 3 years), but there wasn't money for student workers or replacing broken-down photocopier machines.

Hiring? Hiring is all over the place. Some of us hired carefully and thoughtfully. We were the new administrators who hadn't been beat down by crushing morale and overwork. The "experienced" administrators hired a lot more indiscriminately. I can't tell you how many problems those "indiscriminate" hires have created for everybody else. Not being qualified for their jobs. Not understanding their jobs. Making constant messes for the rest of us to clean up after. Being an "Idea Guy" instead of a worker.  My low opinion of people who call themselves "Idea Guys" was forever tainted. I will never hire an "Idea Guy" again. Ideas are like butts, everyone has them and they're mostly full of poop.

[polly_mer]

But I always wonder a bit at the general inability of our academic leadership to come up with any innovation regarding the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic.

This is the question, but I know the answer already.

This is not the question.  This is at best one illustration of being focused on one piece of the academic puzzle at the expense of the bigger picture.

For example, "the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic" is written from a humanities and/or underresourced general education perspective.  This is very much akin to a student saying, "and everyone else thinks so, too".  It's certainly a problem for those who are part of the army or see part-time jobs that could be consolidated into full-time jobs, but it's very far from universal as being high on the priority list.

Physicists and mathematicians may take teaching jobs that pay much less than they could make in industry or at government labs, but generally they aren't death marching through lack of other options.  Biologists may end up as part of a general education army, but again, they often chose a trade-off between teaching and having some other sort of job that pays better, but is less personally satisfying. Many biologists aren't doing the work for which their graduate education prepared them, but they don't tend to be quoted in the adjunct plight narratives in droves.

The concern in many areas is getting enough people who want to teach.  For example, CS departments are worried about finding enough instructors at all, even at well-heeled places. 

A recent study in Computing Research News found that 18 percent of computer science faculty searches in 2017 failed entirely. Survey respondents at 155 institutions reported looking for 323 tenure-track positions and filling just 241.

Even Stanford -- a computing research epicenter where computer science in the No. 1 major -- isn't immune from some of the factors plaguing the tenure-track faculty market. Roberts said in a recent interview that the department has lost twice as many faculty members to other opportunities in the last decade as it has in the previous 40 years.

Reference: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/09/no-clear-solution-nationwide-shortage-computer-science-professors

Most Ph.D.s in the natural sciences and engineering leave academe because of the difficult job market, not because they want to, right? Wrong, according to a new study in PLOS ONE.
...
The study, "The Declining Interest in an Academic Career," is based on a longitudinal survey of a cohort of graduate students from 39 U.S. research universities over the course of their training. The central idea was to document changes in those students' career preferences and what might be fueling them.

The first major finding is that although the vast majority of students start their Ph.D. training interested in an academic career, that share falls to 55 percent of students over time -- and 25 percent of students lose all interest in academe.

Fifteen percent, meanwhile, were never interested in an academic career. Just 5 percent became more interested in a faculty career during their training.

...
Roach and Sauermann followed 854 students over their training in the life sciences (36 percent of the sample), chemistry (12 percent), physics (18 percent), engineering (24 percent) and computer science (10 percent). The 39 universities in the sample were considered tier one and accounted for 40 percent of all graduating Ph.D.s in the natural sciences and engineering.

...
In another significant demographic finding, some 27 percent of U.S. citizens lost interest in an academic career compared to only 16 percent of foreign Ph.D. students. Some 51 percent of U.S. citizens remained interested in an academic career three years on, compared to 68 percent of foreign students.

Reference: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/29/study-challenges-common-belief-most-science-and-engineering-phds-leave-academe

That foreign national distinction is important because many engineering and physical science departments are quite worried about changes in international student populations and what that means for our future. 

The [National Foundation for American Policy] report found 81 percent of full-time graduate students in electrical and petroleum engineering programs at U.S. universities are international students, and 79 percent in computer science are. The report, which updates a previous version published in 2013, argues that at many U.S. universities "both majors and graduate programs could not be maintained without international students." It further argues that "the increase in both the size and number of graduate programs in science and engineering at U.S. universities indicates U.S. student enrollment has not been held down by the lack of available slots at U.S. graduate schools."

Reference: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign-students-and-graduate-stem-enrollment

Meanwhile, it's true that STEM grads are increasing as a percentage of American university and college grads. But a dwindling number of those students are Americans themselves. Even though the number of foreign students matriculating at American universities dipped slightly in the fall of 2017 by seven percent, the proportion of foreign students studying STEM subjects in the U.S. has doubled in the last thirty years. The Kauffman Foundation estimates that given current trends international students will make up full half of all STEM Ph.D's by 2020. Indeed, without international students, graduate programs in STEM subjects in many schools couldn't survive.
...
So what's the answer? Clearly it isn't removing foreign nationals from these programs—although the State Department has started limiting visas for Chinese students in key areas like aerospace, robotics, and additive manufacturing. It's really about getting more Americans into the STEM game, starting with scholarships in areas that are critical to our national and economic security, and much more.

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/arthurherman/2018/09/10/americas-high-tech-stem-crisis/#35f8bf0cf0a2

Even if we are successful in recruiting US citizens to college programs in STEM outside of biology (biology has different problems, but enrollment is not one of them), the students are often underprepared.

A 2015 Pew Research Center report found that only 29 percent of Americans rated their country's K–12 education in STEM as above average or the best in the world. Scientists were even more critical. A companion survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that just 16 percent called U.S. K–12 STEM education the best or above average; 46 percent, by contrast, said K–12 STEM education in the United States was below average.10

In summing up the state of STEM in America, the Trump administration's "Charting a Course for Success" report puts the best spin it can on the STEM issue. It asserts that "Americans' basic STEM skills have modestly improved over the past two decades" but also admits that we "continue to lag behind many other countries" and that "recent data from a test commonly taken by college-bound high school students found that only 20% are ready for courses typically required for a STEM major."11 On the other hand, the report said, "in the past 15 years, India and China have outpaced the United States in the number of science and engineering (S&E) bachelor's degrees conferred." Indeed, "these two countries have produced almost half of the total degrees, with India at 25% and China at 22% of the global total." Meanwhile, "American S&E bachelor's degrees comprised only 10% of the global total."12

Reference: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/02/americas-stem-crisis-threatens-our-national-security/

In short, we lack sufficient permanent residents and citizens to do the jobs we need doing, to educate more people to do those jobs, or even to be in the pipeline to be assets to the US.  Even just limiting the focus to academia, we're looking at an enrollment crisis as immigration issues become more pressing and the crackdowns on foreign funding of research and research funding to foreign nationals employed at US institutions continue.

There are also other concerns.  For example, engineering is notorious for having low levels of women and under-represented US minorities.  Foreign women prop up some of the numbers and then they go home after their education is complete.  Having high grades seems to be a negative for bachelor-educated women in some areas of STEM.

Of the applications she submitted from equally high-achieving male and female personas, men received calls for further discussion twice as often as did women with equal grades. In science and technology fields, the ratio favored men by three to one.

Reference: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/21/study-finds-female-college-graduates-newly-job-market-are-punished-having-good

and even women with degrees tend to leave the field or never enter it. 

While all of the efforts channeled towards getting girls to study science, technology, engineering and math have certainly increased graduation rates in these programs, they haven't seemed to counter one particular setback for women in engineering: Once they make it into the field, they often leave.

Research presented at the American Psychological Association's 122nd Annual Convention this week showed that nearly 40 percent of women who earn engineering degrees quit the profession or never enter the field at all.

Reference: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/female-engineers_n_5668504

So, yes, the adjunct army is certainly one problem in academia, but it's far from the biggest problem facing academia and may not even make the top 10 if people other than humanities fields are making the list.

[spork]

I don't think I really qualify, but I have been in a partial administrative appointment for the last few years, so I'll comment. This is a small institution and there is a distinct lack of redundancy/resiliency. Incompetence by one senior leader quickly throws the organization off the rails. Unfortunately we've had a sequence of very senior people who have demonstrated a distinct lack of managerial ability.

The other thing I've noticed is that admins are just as prone to confirmation bias as anyone else, if not more so.

[apl68]

I left admin when it was apparent that it was making me a very angry, very upset person.

Best decision I ever made at Big Urban College.

Regarding budgets, our campus president micromanaged and compartmentalized that, so no one below her really ever knew exactly what our money situation actually was.

We seemed to have enough money to hold regular parties and renovate classrooms into computer labs (that always went obsolete in 3 years), but there wasn't money for student workers or replacing broken-down photocopier machines.

Hiring? Hiring is all over the place. Some of us hired carefully and thoughtfully. We were the new administrators who hadn't been beat down by crushing morale and overwork. The "experienced" administrators hired a lot more indiscriminately. I can't tell you how many problems those "indiscriminate" hires have created for everybody else. Not being qualified for their jobs. Not understanding their jobs. Making constant messes for the rest of us to clean up after. Being an "Idea Guy" instead of a worker.  My low opinion of people who call themselves "Idea Guys" was forever tainted. I will never hire an "Idea Guy" again. Ideas are like butts, everyone has them and they're mostly full of poop.

Though I was never an admin in the academic world, I am where I work now, and I've found that hiring is one of the toughest administrative jobs there is.  You can try your level best to hire the best person on offer for the job, and still end up with a dud.  And then have a lot trouble replacing that dud.

[marshwiggle]

Though I was never an admin in the academic world, I am where I work now, and I've found that hiring is one of the toughest administrative jobs there is.  You can try your level best to hire the best person on offer for the job, and still end up with a dud.  And then have a lot trouble replacing that dud.

What I like about hiring TAs is that their contracts only run for a term at a time. If someone turns out to be a dud, I simply don't rehire them. I don't have to fire them or justify anything.

[FishProf]

If you have a union (as we do) you sometimes have duds that were allowed to persist log enough to get status/seniority and now are difficult to get rid of, or impossible.  The casual/convenient hire often ends up anything but.

[ciao_yall]

I am now an administrator at a college where I was faculty.

On the one hand it was an easy transition, as I had a business background and so I had plenty of experience to draw from.

We have a lot of administrators who came from faculty and don't understand how to manage an organization or advocate for resources for their programs. It's all about signing things. Department chairs tend to make most of the day-to-day decisions.

We also have administrators where it's hard to tell which ones are doing a good job or not, because they don't have a budget or targets to hit. It's just making sure that they sign all the things... and sometimes they don't even do that, but they have been around so long they don't really get flogged for it. 

[tuxthepenguin]

I have a part time admin appointment. That doesn't make me the ideal person to comment on administration, but I deal with them all the time. Two things they shouldn't do:

Express strong opinions outside their area.

Make decisions based on what they know to be true.

As a faculty member, you can get away with making the occasional ignorant statement. As an admin, you represent the university, and your ignorant statement probably has a negative effect on faculty, staff, or students. If you're going to say something that makes people want to respond "F*** you!" you'll want to first be sure you know what you're talking about.

The second problem I've dealt with is (primarily budgeting) decisions that are carried out inconsistently. If they had looked at the data, or asked, or believed the data they were given, they'd have known that they were making a bad decision in time to change course.

Both of these can be blamed on lack of time. As a rule, if you're lacking time, postpone or just don't make the decision. I've had cases where I've been way behind schedule on making decisions because of a lack of time. I'm okay with that. Disclaimer: My decisions are on a much smaller scale than, say, a dean would make.

[mahagonny]

But I always wonder a bit at the general inability of our academic leadership to come up with any innovation regarding the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic.

This is the question, but I know the answer already.

This is not the question.  This is at best one illustration of being focused on one piece of the academic puzzle at the expense of the bigger picture.

Of course it's a question. You may not like it or it may cause your keypad to burn up from friction, but it's a question. And you've even answered it. You don't think it's that big of a problem. I said it's not a problem to people in administration if, to them it's more solution than problem. Pretty similar. We just about agree.

[Wahoo Redux]

For example, "the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic" is written from a humanities and/or underresourced general education perspective.  This is very much akin to a student saying, "and everyone else thinks so, too".  It's certainly a problem for those who are part of the army or see part-time jobs that could be consolidated into full-time jobs, but it's very far from universal as being high on the priority list.

So, yes, the adjunct army is certainly one problem in academia, but it's far from the biggest problem facing academia and may not even make the top 10 if people other than humanities fields are making the list.

Oh geeze, Polly.  OF COURSE we are not talking about the professionals who teach on the side!!!!  Do we always need to post that?!   Get off that please.

And I gotta say, given the heat this subject generates here and in the media, the overall effect it is having on our colleges, and the sheer number of classes taught and the people involved, both students and PT faculty, it is one of the 10 biggest problems facing academia. 

It may seem like no big deal for those narrow people who do not see the value in the humanities. 

[Wahoo Redux]

But I always wonder a bit at the general inability of our academic leadership to come up with any innovation regarding the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic.

This is the question, but I know the answer already.

This is not the question.  This is at best one illustration of being focused on one piece of the academic puzzle at the expense of the bigger picture.

Of course it's a question. You may not like it or it may cause your keypad to burn up from friction, but it's a question. And you've even answered it. You don't think it's that big of a problem. I said it's not a problem to people in administration if, to them it's more solution than problem. Pretty similar. We just about agree.

I think Polly's point above is, essentially, 'this is your problem, not our cool STEMy types' problem, so why should we care?' If you look at her points, they generally fall in two categories: 1) students are terrible, unready, and society is screwed, and 2) the humanities, ffffft!!

[mahagonny]

But I always wonder a bit at the general inability of our academic leadership to come up with any innovation regarding the adjunct army which virtually everyone finds problematic.

This is the question, but I know the answer already.

This is not the question.  This is at best one illustration of being focused on one piece of the academic puzzle at the expense of the bigger picture.

Of course it's a question. You may not like it or it may cause your keypad to burn up from friction, but it's a question. And you've even answered it. You don't think it's that big of a problem. I said it's not a problem to people in administration if, to them it's more solution than problem. Pretty similar. We just about agree.

I think Polly's point above is, essentially, 'this is your problem, not our cool STEMy types' problem, so why should we care?' If you look at her points, they generally fall in two categories: 1) students are terrible, unready, and society is screwed, and 2) the humanities, ffffft!!

The first point is a new phase in Pollyanalysis of higher Ed. Although anyone's positions can evolve, I am skeptical. I think it's a red herring. Polly's real problem with adjunctification is only the controversy. If no one said anything about it it would be fine; the other effects of it are considered manageable. I've run into many administrators who stir the same Kool-Aid. They're just not as verbose. They justify their use of dead-end job temp worker faculty with two points, the second one undermining the first:
1. there's nothing wrong with using this type of employment since it's OK with the people who accept it, and
2. Anyhow we use fewer adjuncts than that college across town that is run by a bunch of unscrupulous fools; I could never stand to use so many temporary faculty.

So the thinking is the blame for the controversy rightfully belongs to those whose proportion of adjunct faculty is 'anything higher than mine.'