Blog
Is Our Mission to Support Administrators?
Today’s newsflash from Inside Higher Ed is an article titled “Dollars and Sense” (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/25/budgeting). This article makes a virtue out of a mantra of “no margin, no mission.”
This piece of news comes less than a week after the Goldwater Institute published its study that laid the burden of rising university budgets at the feet of expanding administration (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/08/17/20100817collegeadministration0817.html). read more…
Where are we going and Why is Bill Gates driving?
Those of you who read the Chronicle frequently might have seen the front page article in the Aug. 13 edition. Here it is for those of you who haven’t seen it: http://chronicle.com/article/Can-Gates-Foundations-Mill/123824 .
What is revealed in the article is that the Gates Foundation, along with several others, have become involved in higher education recently (the Gates involvement is dated in the article ALL THE WAY BACK to 2008!). The thrust of their concern is to have more people gain a degree. This, as the article indicates, dovetails with the Obama Administration’s goal to again be the world leader in percentage of population with degrees. read more…
Will Your Provost’s Head Explode? Are Draconian Cuts on the Way?
Even before yesterday’s Meet & Discuss meeting, word had trickled out that PASSHE University’s were being asked by the OOC (Office of the Chancellor) to prepare for budget scenarios that could include cuts in state appropriations as deep as 15% for the fiscal year 2011-2012. Yesterday’s meeting confirmed this. In fact, the budget cuts would be even worse. The OOC is asking Universities to prepare as if there will be a loss of federal stimulus money (38.2 million), which is due to run out after this year. read more…
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Who Guards the Guardians?
Today’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story on the spending habits of IUP’s former President raises important questions about who exactly monitors the University Presidents and the upper echelons of their administrations. Clearly, it is not the BOG, whose members saw fit to pass a resolution honoring Dr. Atwater’s service and who saw fit to give him a standing ovation at the last BOG meeting (having raised tuition only moments before).
Efficiency v. capacity
I am just back from a week in California, ostensibly to attend AAUP’s annual Summer Institute. While in California, one can’t help but hearing about the shifts going on in higher ed there (especially with rooms full of California faculty), and begin to see trends with what we hear back home in the Commonwealth.
There, one of the calls from both the legislature and the administration is for “efficiency.” What this means, exactly, is unclear, but the movement of a term from industry shouldn’t surprise any of us since we know that every public university system, and some privates, now claim to be working on a “business model.” Efficiency is another piece of that model. read more…