How to avoid being sucked into the black hole of administration

Of course there will always be administrative tasks and most of us are very thankful to the administrators who help us so much with their support. It is not their fault. Administration that is directly related to academic tasks, such as Board of Studies or Teaching Committee, are certainly reasonable. However, I have to agree that "software and web-driven admin systems that are meant to save us effort but are actually built for the benefit of the organisation" are a big problem. Academics should not spend days or weeks fiddling with timetabling trying to find appropriate rooms and times; they should not spend hours entering marks and double-checking them for accuracy; they should not be finding venues and ordering catering for conferences; they should not be having to figure out all the obscure ins-and-outs of creating budgets for different funding calls; they should not be sitting on hold on the phone for an hour trying to get a visa to go give a keynote talk. All of these things used to be done by skilled administrators who, because they did them all the time, were far more efficient. Then universities slashed support staff to "save money" meaning that expensive academic staff now waste their time doing these tasks as well as all the others they are still expected to do. No wonder average work-weeks for academics are now well over the Working Time Directive. The T&C at my institutions say explicitly: "You are expected to work such hours and days, including evenings, weekends and bank holidays and/or closure days, as are required for the proper discharge of your duties. Salary payments will be based on an expected working week of 37 hours. You are required to work such additional hours, within reason, as may be necessary for the proper performance of your duties. You will not be entitled to any overtime pay." No one will say what "within reason" is, but it is certainly well over 37 hours/week! I am not saying that academics shouldn't do administrative tasks, but they should be 1) tasks that they are best placed to do (e.g. chairing committees, designing programmes, overseeing strategies) and 2) of real benefit to the institution. Things like the pointless hours of agonising over "action plans" prompted by a statistically insignificant 4-point drop in a unreliable and non-evidence-based National Student Survey or going through three rounds of "mock REFs" which at the best will marginally affect any funding results is a brutal and draining waste of time. Never mind getting expense reports knocked back because tips were included in a dinner or having online travel forms crash because you don't know your exact times of travel since the tickets haven't been booked because THAT IS WHY YOU ARE FILLING OUT THE FORM. If universities actually used TRAC to look at workloads and reduce them to under 60 hours/week, that would be great - but since all they report is percentages, once again it is completely unclear who is benefiting from the exercise. And about emails - that is something people can control. Be clear to students and colleagues that you don't answer on weekends or evenings. Set aside time at the beginning and end of the day to read emails and don't look at them in-between. Of course there are urgent items, but if people picked up the phone or walked down the hall more, things would be resolved more quickly and with less stress. Sorry for the rant, but after 25 years of UK academia and seeing things getting continually worse, I have actually come to the point of thinking that change will only happen if the entire system collapses, which would be horrible, but at least then perhaps those who hold the reins might listen if it were their jobs on the line.

Sometimes what seems to be administrivia is actually quite core to teaching. I run final year projects in my department and there's a lot of admin work involved. Getting students set up with the right project and supervisor for them. Organising assessments - and sending calendar invites to everyone involved so that you get a student and 2 assessors in the same place at the right time (the one fail was a plaintive phone call at 4pm "The lab is dark and there's nobody here" - fortunately that student had got the day wrong, his assessment was 4pm the next day!). Chasing marking so that it's all ready for the exam board. Dealing with students, there's a steady stream of them knocking on my door. Today I actually managed to read 2 papers... but it's rare not to be interrupted! But to see students enthusiastic about a project that really excites them from September to May, watch them showing off their work - and crossing the stage in cap and gown come graduation - makes it all worthwhile.

"Academics shall teach and research; administrators shall do the administration", maybe not the exact words but the gist of what the Principal said in my first all-staff meeting in my first HEI. Words of wisdom I never forget. He did add "it's cheaper that way...."

To contain the bureaucratization of academia, academics must remain steadfast in their academic vision, mission and priorities when they are in their administrative roles. Not easy, but must be done. Needs building solid alliances both inside and outside the academia.

I think the problem with university administrators is aptly summarized in this, from the only administrator represented in the article, the registrar of the University of Nottingham: "academics can play a part in reducing the burden themselves, too. There are frequent complaints about the sheer scale of the demands around marking essays and examinations, particularly at peak times, but at least some of this is within the power of departments and individual academics to change. The size and frequency of assessments can be managed downwards by those who have responsibility for setting them, and this would surely have some impact on workload." In other words: the demands of administration impinge on the demands of teaching? What's your problem? Just teach less. Oh, and love your administrators. After all, we are what universities are really about.