MOOAs: Another Massive Idea

Massive Online Open Administrations!  From The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Study after study has shown that the people at the top—the deans and vice-presidents and other Grand Poobahs of bureaucratic reproduction—have grown far faster than faculty in the past couple of decades. And their salaries are far higher, over all, than those of professors. As a study from the conservative Goldwater Institute pointed out:

Between 1993 and 2007, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students at America’s leading universities grew by 39 percent, while the number of employees engaged in teaching, research, or service only grew by 18 percent. Inflation-adjusted spending on administration per student grew by 61 percent during the same period, while instructional spending per student rose 39 percent.

So if we could find a way to put administration online, to create Massive Online Open Administrations or MOOAs, we could really cut some fat and reap some serious rewards.

And this:

It’s possible that administrators won’t immediately see how revolutionary MOOAs would be, but faculty and students must help them understand that MOOAs would be good for all of us. Really. The first colleges to start MOOAs can sell their superior administrators to institutions with more B Team administrators. B-Team-admin sorts will be let go. All the colleges can reap the benefit of cut administrative salaries and share the costs of MOOAs, thereby allowing them to cut tuition. So it is that MOOAs will make higher ed more democratic and accessible to all.

Administrators of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your salaries.

The link.