The new Chancellor
has, on schedule, announced he will run the university as a business and that
the university will focus its efforts on promoting the degrees that will most
benefit the state.
The fact that the
Board of Regents has just split the old job of chancellor into two
positions—chancellor and president, with each position's being paid more
than the salary of the previous chancellor, alone—seemed to be an irony lost on
the new guy. (Yeah, that’s the way
businesses do it!)
Every new
university head starts his administration by announcing that he will run the
university as a business—which, of course, is what all of the previous
heads of Bedlam Hall have also proclaimed.
You would be forgiven for believing that these statements are made in
jest—or primarily to annoy the faculty in the Sociology Department—but at least
when our new leaders say it….They think they mean it.
I’ve lost track of
how many different presidents and chancellors have been hired over the
years. For whatever reason, the Board of
Regents prefers to use large, out-of-state head-hunting companies to find the
latest temporary leaders. Recently,
these have come in two flavors: the ones
who were so clearly incompetent that they were fired and they left for greener
pastures, to live happily on their golden parachutes, and those who immediately
began ambitious programs to build unwanted and unnecessary buildings, so they
would be hired away by larger universities—usually through the assistance of
the same high-dollar head-hunting firms that had brought them here.
Actually, there
was one temporary, acting president whom no one in administration wants to talk
about. She was a young Puerto-Rican
woman who had the temerity to do a great job, to be popular with both students
and faculty—a near impossibility—and to stand up to the absurd political
demands of an idiotic governor. (His
initials were Bill Richardson.) So, of
course, she was let go and she immediately went to a Western state university
where she has increased enrollment 27% and she has just announced
the addition of ninety academic lines. Thank God we got rid of her! (Or as one of the Board of
Racists...er...Regents remarked, “She was the wrong kind of Hispanic.”)
But, what of the
business experience of other administration leaders?
The previous
Chancellor was an advisor in animal husbandry...until he was caught at it. Then he opened a pet cemetery called Gone
But Not Fur-Gotten that might have been successful had it not been
for the popularity of a local veterinarian whose hobby was taxidermy. People found it so comforting to know that,
no matter what happened, they were gonna get their beloved companion animals
back (And looking so lifelike, too!).
Then there was the
provost who had inherited so much money that he couldn’t comprehend the salary
needs of the faculty because his family had made its money by franchising a
chain of tattoo removal shops called Rethink The Ink. And we once had a Dean of the Business
College who had lost a small family fortune by opening a drive through sushi
restaurant called Jap In The Box.
A similar fate befell a former Athletic Director who had invested the
lump sum check he had received in lieu of finishing his contract, investing it
in a London athletic club called Downtown Flabbey.
None of
the presidents—past or present—has had any idea how to run a business (at least, not a successful one!). This is actually, probably for the best,
since if we were to literally change the university so that it runs like a
successful business, a lot of things would change.
For example, this
state runs a medical school, out of which the vast majority of each year's
graduates promptly leave the state. It
wouldn’t take much of a businessman to realize that the state could save
millions of dollars by simply selecting the top four pre-med students in the
state and paying for them to attend an Ivy League medical school in exchange
for a contract to stay and practice in the state for a minimum of ten
years.
We could do the
same thing for the state law school, but the contract would stipulate that the
graduates would promise to permanently stay out of the state.
Real businessmen
don’t believe that a work day consists of half a day of email mixed liberally
with half a day of meetings with other lightweights who couldn’t land a real
job more important than being the Assistant Towel Boy in a Turkish
bathhouse. No real businessman would
continue to back an Athletic program that couldn’t make money if every seat in
the football stadium contained two ticket-holding fans, so... (If you don’t believe me, do the math.)
Every incoming
Chancellor promises to focus on STEM classes (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Math) as those degrees represent the industries the state currently
lacks. But, the plan has a few
flaws. First, any businessman worth his
salt would recognize that there are no jobs for such graduates within the
state—New Mexico being the most business un-friendly state in the union. Graduating more STEM students in the belief
they would somehow create careers in an industrial wasteland would be as
ludicrous as Walmart's building a megastore at the bottom of Death Valley and
expecting a community to spring up around it.
Second, the
Chancellor is forgetting just what pays for those STEM classes. Besides the poor taxpayer, actual funding for
those expensive labs comes from the Humanities.
The state has a rather complicated formula for reimbursing a university
for each student attending a class. My
history classes, for example, annually generated close to a million dollars in
formula funding. In return, the state
gave me a rather meager paycheck and a greasy blackboard.
To put it more
succinctly, it takes a large auditorium full of students learning about the
French Revolution to pay for an electron microscope.
This is why major
television networks continue to schedule day-time soap operas. You may not like them, but it is the profit
from those low-budget shows that pays for the news departments that put on the
shows you claim to watch but never actually do.
Movie theaters make their profit on overpriced salty popcorn that forces
you to buy the overpriced sugary drink, while they lose money on the movie.
If a university
chancellor really understood business, he would shut down most of
the athletic department since (at best) it devalues the product he is selling
(education). He would also quit
demoralizing the faculty whose work provides for his huge salary, his housing
allowance, and his luxury "company" car.
Or to put this in
words even a chancellor might understand:
it takes a lecture hall full of students studying German Baroque Poetry
to support a basketball team of illiterates.
Well said, as learning goes the way of the health clinic and there are no more enemas for those who need them the most . . .
ReplyDeleteI blame Kevin Costner. Ever since that wildly unrealistic fantasy, "Field of Dreams" I can't tell you how many ostensibly not for profit organization board meetings have featured a board member standing up and intoning that deliciously ignorant mantra, "If you build it they will come!" And tens of thousands of schools, universities and organizations offering services to people "falling between the cracks" of the government's social services system have built expensive buildings that ultimately cost more than they are worth in maintenance, but boy howdy to do board members, regents and/or executive directors and chancellors have very nice offices and jacuzzis.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing more likely to make miserable decisions than the board of an organization that is working for the "greater good". I know. I've helped start five such institutions and seen boards kill them. And if they weren't state supported, nobody is there to pick them up when they fall and bulldoze those ballparks in corn fields they leave behind.
Tom King
Just so you know...I read this blog while waiting for my tires to be replaced at Discount Tires.
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