STAFF EDIT: Too much leadership?

In an editorial published in yesterday’s edition of The Boston Globe, Johns Hopkins University Professor Benjamin Ginsberg railed against the culture of bureaucracy within American universities, blaming the falling in rankings and educational quality of many schools on the unnecessarily large nature of university administration.

Ginsberg criticized institutions for hiring hosts of new administrators every year and creating positions that seem superfluous to the processes of a functioning university. He said that the increase was detracting from the focus of the professors and actual educators as the prevalent segment of the university staff and expressed his belief that those with experience and expertise within the world of academia should be entrusted with more administrative power because they would focus on improving college from an academic perspective as opposed to a managerial one.

When one thinks of the Boston University administration, one of the words that comes to mind is probably “bureaucracy.” However, this does not mean that our education is any worse off for it. Despite BU’s extensive administrative staff, the university still ensures that classes are taught by professors, not teaching fellows. They don’t attempt to skimp out by hiring adjuncts and TFs to replace professors, and all of the professors here are extremely capable and knowledgeable in their respective fields. For example, Introduction to International Relations, one of the largest courses offered at BU, is still taught by Professor Ivan Arrequin-Toft, who is extremely well-known and respected in the IR world.

Moreover, every university needs to make a profit, and if students are given a lower-quality education and consequently cannot find or maintain a job after graduation, the university’s reputation will suffer and as a result, fewer students will apply. It works in a university’s managerial interests to provide a solid base of quality professors and academic standards for students and prospective applicants. More bureaucracy doesn’t necessarily have to equal a lower-caliber education.

There is always the problem of professors who are not invested in teaching so much as they are publishing and self-promoting, but this issue remains largely unaffected by, if not entirely separate from the size of a university’s administrative staff.

Yes, universities need to make a profit, and yes, it is generally perceived as an institution’s number one priority. However, delivering the best education possible falls within a university’s aim to be profitable. BU, along with many other large universities nationwide, may wield a large number of managerial staffers, but it doesn’t negate the effort they put into the educational experience.