Transcending the faculty-administration divide

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/10/07/estwood

It’s a long article, but the gist is this. Higher education (especially in Research I institutions) is increasingly sclerotic because faculty’s goals are disciplinary, personal, and very high stakes (up or out) while administrator’s goals are campus-wide and impersonal. These two worlds are drifting further and further apart, making higher education more and more unwieldy. Faculty who become administrators are particularly conflicted as try to bridge this gap.

The answers these authors propose are five. Emphasize teaching and service more (and scholarship less), have the budget process be more transparent, do a better job with faculty development, organize into smaller groups, and allow faculty (individually or in groups) to “own” some of the tough decisions. In short, public, research I schools should become more like us.