Expert tells university union to go on the offensive
By LARRY SILLANPA
Editor, Duluth Labor World
DULUTH, Minn. (PAI) —“Ob-
streperous” isn’t a word often associ-
ated with a teacher, much less a college
professor. It more often would be used
to describe a teacher’s nightmare — a
noisy student who’s difficult to control.
But it was a word Benjamin Gins-
berg of John Hopkins University used a
number of times at his Sept. 26 presen-
tation to University of Minnesota-Du-
luth faculty, members of the University
Education Association/Education Min-
nesota, the joint American Federation
of Teachers-NEA affiliate in Minnesota.
Ginsberg urges all university faculty
to become “obstreperous” in dealing
with their administration. Author of 24
books on a wide range of subjects,
Ginsberg’s book, “The Fall of the Fac-
ulty: The Rise of the All-Administrative
University and Why it Matters,” led
UEA to invite him to campus. His book
explains a phenomenon they know too
well.
“It’s been with us for 40 years,” said
Steven Matthews, who leads the univer-
sity’s History Department and led the
forum. “This is what we need to do —
bring in speakers to talk about impor-
tant issues. We need a free exchange of
ideas or there is no university.”
Ginsberg said universities were orig-
NOVEMBER 1, 2013
inally run by their faculties, who would
take part-time or temporary jobs in ad-
ministering their schools.
“Deans planned to go back to being
faculty,” he said. The joke was “don’t
do a good job or they’ll promote you.”
Today only a few universities are
faculty driven, he said. Harvard and the
University of Chicago are among them
and are among the best institutions in
America. So what happened?
A class of professional administra-
tors started growing. Some were fac-
ulty who failed to gain tenure. Most
had little faculty experience, Ginsberg
said he found out in researching his
book. “Now we have many administra-
tors who never taught a student.”
And the ratio of administration to
faculty is exploding. Ginsberg found
that nationally in 1965 there were
446,000 professors to 269,000 admin-
istrators and staff. By 2005 the number
of professors had risen to 675,000, but
administration numbers had leaped to
800,000. During that time the amount
of money to pay professors had risen
128 percent, but administration costs
rose 148 percent.
Tuition costs were forced to increase
to fund administration, he said — and
not to pay for the people who were ac-
tually teaching and doing the research
that makes a university a university.
Ginsberg cited a 2012 research pa-
per by Carter Hill and Robert Martin
that found rising administration spend-
ing drove two-thirds of the increase in
higher education costs in the past 20
years. Hill and Martin found that in
terms of costs only, there should be one
administrator for every three faculty
members, but in actuality it was two ad-
ministrators to three faculty.
The recent recession produced some
decline in administration numbers,
Ginsberg said, but tight money has
more often led to program and across-
the-board cuts, harming the schools and
their students.
Now faculty is seldom consulted on
university matters, he adds.
“Senior administration is relatively
autonomous,” he said. “We find out (de-
cisions) in the paper.”
While numbers can point to the eco-
nomic effects of administrative growth,
the effect it has on the character and ac-
ademic excellence of universities is
even worse, Ginsberg stated.
Teaching and research is what a uni-
versity should be about, he explained.
All else, including buildings and ex-
tracurricular activities, is ancillary. But
that is what administration uses to
“bring customers to the store. They
think they have to be customer-friendly
and not scare prospective students and
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
their families with such dreaded topics
as calculus.”
“Administration doesn’t know what
we do,” Ginsberg said. “They think one
visit to a class will inform them.” He
added the army of administrators some-
times does no harm “but they can be
weapons of academic destruction.”
Professional administrators learn
from and mimic one another. That’s
why there is a concerted effort nation-
ally to end the tenure system for uni-
versity professors. As a result only 25
percent to 30 percent of faculty are
tenure-tracked.
“Tenured faculty are the trouble
makers. We don’t do as we’re told. We
hold meetings like this one,” Ginsberg
dead-panned.
By contrast, non-tenured adjunct
professors, who often must hold two or
three such posts to earn enough income,
need to work from administration’s play
book in order to keep their jobs. Gins-
berg drew applause when he asked, “If
part-time is so good, why don’t we have
part-time administration? Full-time fac-
ulty and adjunct administration ...With-
out tenure there is no academic freedom
...We’re about not agreeing with every-
one. We need to try ideas out.”
Ginsberg said it is too late for the
faculties at many universities that have
been co-opted by administration, but
not for the University of Minnesota-Du-
luth’s UEA. He urged them to develop
a consciousness about their importance
to UMD and not buy into administra-
tion’s appeals to their “moral sensibili-
ties” — appeals often heard elsewhere.
Post-lecture questions implied that
such skepticism may already be occur-
ring at the Minnesota institution. The
university’s administration has sug-
gested a faculty governance council,
which sounds good, but nominees will
be chosen by the deans without a real
election. “The technical term is suck-
ups,” Ginsberg said.
Prioritization is another buzzword in
administrators’ echo chamber. Based on
a book by Robert Dickeson, the univer-
sity administration wants the faculty to
buy into cutting their own throats, Gins-
berg said. “I don’t want to sound like a
fascist but you should hold a book burn-
ing party. Burn that damn book! It’s
turgid prose!”
“Be obstreperous,” he told the fac-
ulty, “you’ll prevail.” That’s because ad-
ministrators have a short time horizon
on a campus, and faculty unrest is a ca-
reer killer for the corporate headhunters
hired for administrative searches.
“If they can’t keep the peace, they
can’t keep a job, so have faculty turmoil
— be obstreperous,” Ginsberg urged.
“Oppose everything ... be suspicious
even if you agree.”
He recommended the faculty estab-
lish their own committees to investigate
and evaluate administration, to review
budgets and conduct audits, and form
their own personnel committees.
“Do your own opposition research,”
he said. “Dirt digging seems terrible ...
but it’s important ... one-third of admin-
istration tells fibs on their resumes.”
In a lengthy Q-&-A, Ginsberg said
universities would be better run if the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is aimed at
financial accountability, were applied to
rules for university governing boards
and regents to make sure there are no
conflicts of interest.
“There are two kinds of trustees,”
Ginsberg said. “Those concerned with
the business of the university and those
who want to do business with the uni-
versity.”
The last questioner said it sounds
like faculty has to act like administra-
tion if they are to be “obstreperous.”
“Yes, it’s terrible,” Ginsberg replied.
“But we have to do these things if we
don’t want to give up governance of our
universities.”
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