Something Akron-AAUP Has Been Pointing Out For Years–The Cost of Administrative Bloat.

 “The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio”  by  John Hechinger  from Bloomberg Businessweek, Politics and Policy, online.
“The number of Purdue administrators has jumped 54 percent in the past decade—almost eight times the growth rate of tenured and tenure-track faculty. “We’re here to deliver a high-quality education at as low a price as possible,” says Robinson. “Why is it that we can’t find any money for more faculty, but there seems to be an almost unlimited budget for administrators?…”
“…“Administrative bloat is clearly contributing to the overall cost of higher education,” says Jay Greene, an education professor at the University of Arkansas.”
Read the entire article on the Bloomberg Businessweek Website HERE.
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How does the University of Akron respond to budgetary pitfalls? Last year the administration manufactured three NEW administrative vice-presidential positions at a salary cost of 500,000 dollars.  This year, teaching loads on productive faculty are being increased arbitrarily — which WILL decrease research productivity, which will in turn reduce success in securing research grant money, which will in turn reduce income for the university as well as reduce the quality of education for our students, already beleaguered by continually rising tuition costs. And now the administration is severely limiting the teaching hours available to the large population of part-time faculty who already work, and work hard, for lousy pay, no benefits, and no job security of any kind…just to keep dedicated employees who actually contribute to student education from securing health care.
We’ll ask again: what evidence is there that the administration is imposing limits on its own spectacular growth and accepting cuts and making the sacrifices it demands of all others? What have the athletics programs been forced to give up?
We see no evidence whatsoever of anything but continued and profligate spending on administrative pet-projects and growth.