Administrators ‘help relieve stress burden’ on academics

Jag tycker om att alla människor som ojämlikhet av varandra tillsammans livet

All I can say is that the US must differ from the UK! Often, central administrators are appointed who then offload work onto departments for no purpose that can be perceived by academics. The amount of bureaucracy has increased substantially over my near 30-year academic career.

It is no exagerration to say that front line adminstrative colleagues both staff and student facing are the life blood of the university. The problem of managerial bloat that people have is to do with proliferation of "managers", partocularly middle level managerial positions. Many of these positions are not created as a result of any deep analysis of the needs of the instituion but simply to give the illusion that there is a career path. In many cases these places are filled by people who have no HE experience. With ill defined jobs and lack of experience arises the problem of people having to make up their own responsibilites to justify their positions and problems of interacting with academics or students . Hardly their fault, rather it is faulty HR planning. As far as front line staff are concerned, in many places front line positions are under staffed, under paid, under appreciated resulting in high staff turnover and staff shortages and exacerbates the problem. Sadly front line staff and are often blamed for issues not of their making.