Administrative bloat 

I was hired as an assistant professor by Cal Poly in the late '70s. I did not know then how fortunate I was to be an academic in a period when we still took for granted that universities were institutions of learning, with the number of faculty significantly greater than the number of administrators. The annual Cal Poly progress report from 1978 signed by then Cal Poly President Robert Kennedy underlines the relative simplicity of a university organization at that time:

"A new member of the top administrative team of the university, Dr. Russell H. Brown, was appointed as dean of students. He joined Dr. Dale W. Andrews, executive vice president, and Dr. Hazel J. Jones, vice president for academic affairs, as the executive group administering the university under the direct supervision of Dr. Robert E. Kennedy, who completed his 11th year as Cal Poly president."

Four persons functioned as the executive group, and these persons received the help of associate vice presidents and associate deans. Today, the Cal Poly website describes the Office of the President headed by Jeffrey Armstrong, has having a provost/executive vice president, a senior vice president, five vice presidents (personnel, technology, communication, strategic enrollment, student affairs), an interim vice president (diversity), a chief of staff, an acting vice president (development), and a counsel. The same multiplication of positions applies to the Office of the Provost: a senior vice provost, a special advisor to the provost, an assistant vice president (finance), an associate vice president (academic resources), an assistant to the special advisor, an administrative associate to the Office of the Provost, an executive assistant to the provost, and an administrative operation person.

I could go on like this for every level and every office because today there are more administrators than teachers. The last general figures I found online for Cal Poly date from 2016: 1,387 positions for faculty, and 1,667 for administration (1,405 staff plus 262 management), and it is probably much worse today. Just as scary is the rise of the titles of administrators: a dean has become a provost; an associate dean, a dean, or another provost; etc., and all receive higher salaries.

This is not just happening at Cal Poly; it is happening all over the country. Administration is devouring whatever money has been earmarked for education, and we wonder why tuition is rising and why students can't afford to go to college anymore or need five years to graduate. In almost every college and university, there are now more administrators than teachers. In some of them, like Harvard and Yale, there are even more administrators than students! Ironically, all these administrators often impede learning instead of helping it because they have to find ways to make it look like they are useful.

The problem is not simply a matter of numbers, it is also a matter of salaries. Administrators are generally better paid than teachers, but they don't want to make cuts to themselves or to their friends, so they look for other cost-saving measures. A popular but infamous one is the generalization of hiring "adjunct instructors." In the '70s when I first started teaching, I had never heard the term "adjunct," and I had to look it up: an instructor who teaches on a limited term contract, often part-time, receives no security and no benefits, and sometimes must turn to food stamps to make ends meet. Today, adjunct instructors are everywhere. According to College Factual, the U.S. average use of adjuncts is 51.4 percent. Fortunately, at 27 percent, Cal Poly is well below this number but, according to the same source, the student-to-faculty ratio at Cal Poly is 21 students per instructor while the national average is 15:1.

The solution is clear: Universities must severely cut down on administration. The big problem is who or what is going to force them to do it. I believe it is time for the government to step in if we don't want to make a habit of rescuing young people from their student loans. Δ

Odile Ayral is a Cal Poly professor emeritus who writes from San Luis Obispo. Send a response to this commentary by emailing [email protected].