The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All-Administrative University and Why it Matters

261 Pages·2011·0.71 MB·English

by  Benjamin Ginsberg

THE FALL OF THE FACULTY
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The Fall of
the Faculty
The Rise of the
All-Administrative University
and Why It Matters
Benjamin Ginsberg

1
3
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Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ginsberg, Benjamin.
The fall of the faculty : the rise of the all-administrative university
and why it matters / Benjamin Ginsberg.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-978244-4 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Universities and colleges—United States—Administration.
2. Organizational behavior—United States. 3. Education, Higher—Aims and
objectives—United States. 4. Education, Higher—Social aspects—United States.
5. Academic freedom—United States. I. Title.
LB2341.G496 2011
378.1′010973—dc22 2010049033
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Sandy
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Contents
Preface i x
1 T he Growth of Administration 1
2 W hat Administrators Do 4 1
3 M anagerial Pathologies 6 5
4 T he Realpolitik of Race and Gender 9 7
5 T here Is No Such Thing as Academic Freedom
(For Professors): The Rise and Fall of the
Tenure System 1 31
6 R esearch and Teaching at the All-Administrative
University 1 67
7 W hat Is to Be Done 2 01
Notes 2 21
Index 2 39
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Preface
I BEGAN MY ACADEMIC career in 1968 as a graduate student at the
University of Chicago, joined the Cornell faculty in 1973 as an
assistant professor of government, and moved in 1992 to Johns
Hopkins, where I was appointed and remain the David Bernstein
Professor in the Department of Political Science. I have always
felt fortunate to be associated with great universities where I have
been surrounded by excellent colleagues and interesting students.
Hence, I was saddened to learn from a recently published study
that my own university ranks fourth in the nation in terms of the
expansion of administrative and support personnel between 1997
and 2007. 1 This (cid:2) nding, unfortunately, coincides with the per-
sonal observations that were among the factors prompting me to
write this book.
My book sounds a warning and offers a prescription designed to
slow if not halt the spread of administrative blight. The prescribed
medication will come too late for some victims, but others may yet
recover. That, at least, is my hope.
In writing this book I pro(cid:2) ted greatly from conversations with a
number of my Hopkins colleagues, particularly Matthew A. Cren-
son and Robert Kargon. I am very grateful to my colleague Steve
Teles for recommending the book to Oxford University Press and