Higher Education Administration: One Sociologist's View

Abstract

I'll be honest. The principal reason I became an administrator is because I grew increasingly frustrated spending endless hours, days, weeks, and months of my life on committees that were supposed to recommend choices, solutions, and directions to other people who either didn't listen to what the committee had to say, in some cases never intended to listen to what the committee had to say, or did listen to the committee but made a different decision. Most readers don't have to imagine the frustration of a young assistant professor investing his or her life in all this wasted effort; we've all been there. I suppose, too, that I've always had a lot of social worker in me; the opportunity to serve has always had appeal. I developed an idea early on that I could make a contribution, that some of my ideas might work out better than what some other folks might be proposing, and that there was a lot of bad management around-lots of people wasting lots of other people's time. This is the kind of thinking that draws attention and often results in yet further invitations to get involved. I had no idea whatsoever, though, that I would at some juncture, after some intermediate steps, find myself in the position of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. Within four years after my initial faculty appointment at Penn State I was asked to serve in two administrative positions simultaneously, as Professorin-charge of a 700-student undergraduate program in Individual and Family Studies, and as Divisional Professor-in-charge of this large interdisciplinary academic unit of 40 faculty members and 100 graduate students within the College of Human Development at Penn State. I still considered myself very much a faculty member in these roles. Unlike the orderly progression that typically characterizes one's career in the professorial ranks, there is often nothing predictable or rational about progression in administration. Witness my case. Penn State hired a new dean for my college against the advice of the search committee and the faculty. Disaster struck. The dean was fired nine months later, after doing some serious damage. During those nine months, many of the top scholars