Administrators Are Not the Enemy
Preview:
It appears at times as if the condescension of some faculty members toward the administrative staff of a college or university — a group that by definition includes everyone from the president to the most newly hired admissions officer — is nearly limitless. In a recent article in Inside Higher Ed, administrators are characterized as both autocrats and “widget makers.” The authors of another recent piece, in The Chronicle, opine that “the authority of academic administrators is only solid to the extent that they themselves are credible practitioners of the scholarly life”: that is, unless one is or has been a faculty member, one has no right to tell faculty members what they should or should not do.
Originally published: October 27, 2021
Author: Brian Rosenberg
Position: President Emeritus
Institution: Macalester College
Published by: The Chronicle of Higher Ed