Back in 2009 Richard Evans pointed out that "
soon every faculty member will have a personal senior manager," as the number of senior management FTE was fast approaching that of ladder rank faculty. Fast forward two years and, well, it happened: there are now 8,822 senior management FTE's at UC compared to 8,669 ladder-rank faculty FTE's. As
Keep California's Promise puts it, "
UC's administrators crossed the line:"
That's because thanks to budget cuts and hiring freezes, and according to
UCOP's own data, the faculty decreased by 2.3% since 2009, but the number of senior management FTE's
increased by 4.2% in the same period (student enrollment also increased by 3.6% in the same period, and while the increased student-faculty ratio is problematic, the fact that more students are attending UC is, in itself, is a good thing).
Dear Calif Prof,
ReplyDeleteWe have all had a lot of fun pointing out that every prof should by now have their own MSP. Well in reality the reason the MSP ranks are so bloated is only partially due to admin bloat. The other reason is that UC has a strange definition of what constitutes a MSP (which BTW is different than a Senior Manager, the SMG numbers are much smaller). The MSP ranks you refer to are swollen by adding in programmers, accountants, nurses, doctors, engineers, and various other sorts of job titles that don't administer or manage anything.
For UC Davis you can tale a look here:
http://www.hr.ucdavis.edu/Salaryscales/MSP_Title_Codes
to see all the jobs that get labeled "MSP".
For example in my department we used to have a Programmer IV. He spent all day working on our networks and servers but had no staff or management responsibilities. We got rid of him due to budget cuts, but that doesn't mean UC has one less manager because he was never really one to begin with. Why this position type was ever labeled a MSP I have no way of knowing.
As I write this UC is working hard to switch people like programmers, engineers, and financial analysts out of the MSP tiltes into titles with the same pay but without the MSP classification. Thus in a year you may see UC triumphantly declare it has reduced the MSP ranks by 20% or 40% or something... Well restrain your rejoicing because they will have just moved around people who were never "managers" to begin with.
Lastly, although its sporting to denounce the ranks of admins and managers please realize many of the highest paid managers are your fellow faculty. The Dean of my college (an MSP title) makes over $300K/yr. We have four (yes 4) faculty Associate Deans, all MSP titles, all collecting huge salaries for doing very little work. And though I don't know the statistics, I have heard many med school faculty get MSP titles to get more $$.
So in conclusion the MPS picture just isn't as simple and fun as the graph you show.
Dear Anon – point taken. Just as we shouldn't despair at the number of MSP fte's we shouldn't rejoice at any future dramatic decrease.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, I am well aware that Deans, Associate Deans etc draw sizable salaries for their admin duties, which often are mostly "outreach and development" (i.e., doing lunch with potential donors).
How do you reconcile the definition of MSP proposed in the comment above with this one, which, furthermore, is actually a definition:
ReplyDelete"Management/Senior Professionals (MSP). This group is composed of managers and senior professionals who provide leadership and professional expertise at the highest levels to major University units, programs, or fields of work, and are accountable for their areas of responsibility. Positions at this level are responsible for identifying objectives, formulating strategy, directing programs, managing resources, and functioning effectively with a high degree of autonomy." (http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/glossary/2017)
How do you reconcile anon's definition of MSP with the UC's actual definition of MSP?
ReplyDelete"Management/Senior Professionals (MSP). This group is composed of managers and senior professionals who provide leadership and professional expertise at the highest levels to major University units, programs, or fields of work, and are accountable for their areas of responsibility. Positions at this level are responsible for identifying objectives, formulating strategy, directing programs, managing resources, and functioning effectively with a high degree of autonomy." (http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/glossary/2017).
That doesn't sound like low-level administrators.
I think there is a good chance that a fair number of mid-level employees might have been misclassified as MSP's (I don't know that there is hard data on this). But it's also true that bureaucracies tend to feed on themselves, and a Senior Manager's station in life is perceived as depending on the number of people under him/her. (Here I am using Senior Manager according to UC's classification -- Chancellors, big wigs at UCOP, etc). This cascades alla the way down, with the ranks of MSP's swelling, whether their functions actually conform to UC's official classification or not.
ReplyDeleteCalif Prof I think you have it exactly right - there has been "grade inflation" swelling the MSP ranks with people who aren't managers. Like I said above UC is now acting to fix this. There should be fewer MSPs in the future....but there may not be any fewer managers in reality.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the inflation happened to make Senior Managers happy. I think it was an attempt to reward employees with better titles. Sort of like calling the lead staff member for your department a "Chief Administrative Office" or some such nonsense. In this case the thinking seemed to be "Joe has been here 17 years and done a good job, let's make him an MSP". Multiply that a 1000 times over and you get lots of MSPs.
This thread dovetails really nicely with Benjamin Ginsberg's piece on the "rise of the all-administrative university." From our perspective (as student protesters and organizers), there's something problematic about the way he overemphasizes the role of faculty in contesting administrative bloat and overreach -- it reads a little bit like a whiny old professor who's had his privileges taken away. But that being said, it's the best structural take on administration that we've come across.
ReplyDelete"Every year, hosts of administrators and staffers are added to college and university payrolls, even as schools claim to be battling budget crises that are forcing them to reduce the size of their full-time faculties. As a result, universities are now filled with armies of functionaries—vice presidents, associate vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, provosts, associate provosts, vice provosts, assistant provosts, deans, deanlets, and deanlings, all of whom command staffers and assistants—who, more and more, direct the operations of every school. If there is any hope of getting higher education costs in line, and improving its quality—and I think there is, though the hour is late—it begins with taking a pair of shears to the overgrown administrative bureaucracy."
Hey folks I don’t disagree with people’s negative reactions to this horrible growth of administrators, but I see the worst offences being committed by FACULTY. Our Chancellors come from the faculty ranks. So do our Provosts. And our Vice-Chancellors for Research. And some of the other Vice-Chancellors. And all the Deans. Plus the Associate Deans. And various Directors of this and that. The people who contribute to these blogs seem to be faculty in many cases, but I see no admission on your part that your fellow faculty, who are the actual administrators running this expensive carnival, are to blame for any of this.
ReplyDeleteOn my new campus our new (faculty) Vice-Chancellor Research is surrounding himself with Assistant and Associate Vice-Chancellors, some of whom are staff and some fellow faculty. I don’t think campus policy mandates all these high paid subordinates; it’s his decision to pad the upper salary payrolls. Same for the Dean with the four useless drone Associate Deans mentioned in an earlier post. Why do faculty appointed to admin posts lose their minds this way?
I think its time for the faculty to take back campus administration! Now wait a minute…the faculty already do control campus administration. Maybe its time for the non-admin faculty to corner the admin faculty and ask them to explain the growth in upper management.