Splurgles23 wrote:nixy wrote:Those positions existed in academia 20 years ago. And the existence of those two positions isn't a great argument for bloat (in that adding one assistant dean to an institution =/= bloat).
The one I listed at CW is from a website that literally says, "[name of person] has been named as the school’s
inaugural Associate Dean of Institutional Diversity and Inclusiveness."
The website is here:
https://thedaily.case.edu/school-of-law ... diversity/
The address itself includes the phrase "
first dean of diversity,."
Now I assume you'll say others
like that position existed. The argument will become pointless because for every specific fact I cite, with back up, you gesture at some vague personal experience from way back when.
I also never said the creation of one or two positions result in the increased costs. Obviously it's a systemic phenomenon.
TBF, I was thinking more broadly than law schools, so it’s possible that law schools are late to this particular administrative party. My experience has been the same as nealric’s, that schools (writ large) were concerned about these issues 20 years ago and had those positions in place then.
When I talk about administrative bloat, I’m talking about positions like the following (from U Michigan’s directory, picked as a random choice):
- Assistant Dean for Student Engagement and Practice (school of public health)
- Special Counsel to the Chancellor for Inclusion [goes to your point but also] and Strategic Projects
- Associate Dean for Academic Initiatives (graduate school)
- Associate Dean for Academic Programs (med school)
- Associate Dean for Full Time and Global MBA
- Associate Dean for Faculty and Faculty Development (med school)
- Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives (law school)
- Assistant Dean for Administration and Operations (social work)
- Deputy Assistant Dean (student academic affairs)
- Assistant Dean for Advancement
- Associate Dean for Faculty and Research (law school)
- Assistant Dean for Field Instruction (social work)
- Assistant Dean for continuing medical education and life-long learning
- Associate VP and Associate Dean for Health Equity and Inclusion (med school)
- Associate Dean for Academic Programming
- Manager Associate Deans’ Initiative
- Vice Provost for Academic Innovation
Dean’s Special Projects Manager
- Assistant Dean for Research Development and Strategic Initiatives (college of engineering)
- Associate Dean for Strategic Affairs (nursing school)
- a million executive and/or senior and/or deputy assistants to all the deans
...and I gave up before even getting through their list (225 people had “Dean” in their title).
There are 52 people whose titles include “strategic.”
There are 43 people whose titles include “initiatives.”
There are 18 people whose titles include “advancement.”
There are 60 people whose titles include “giving.”
There are 99 people whose titles include “grants.”
There’s probably some overlap in some of the above, but not complete overlap.
For comparison, there are 39 people whose titles include “inclusion” (I didn’t search for diversity separately because those titles all seem to be “diversity and inclusion.”)
So yes, there is a lot of administrative bloat, but it’s not centered on the diversity initiatives. I’d even probably agree that some is driven by a response to student concerns/interests, but I’d also say that student concerns/interests is not at all the same as politically-based/safe spaces, which is how you originally characterized it.